Hardware Switch rumoured to have 4GB of ram

[LightyKD]

I'm not THAT worried about RAM. My phone has one gig of RAM and runs Android 7.0 fairly smoothly with some noticeable (but not Wii U noticeable) slowdown in multitasking. The thing is, will Nintendo be SMART about this lack of RAM? The reason why the Wii U felt slow and featureless was because the damn OS was cumbersome. There was no flow to using the Wii U at all. Prime example is having a damn Friends list but being forced to go into the Miiverse to message a friend and then NOT having any decent notification system for instant messaging. It was just plain stupid. Nintendo will have to learn to rely on cloud technologies, make parts of their features glorified websites with proper notifications back to the user. Google Chrome on Android proves that this is more than feasible. In short "Web app the shit outta that console". If done right, nobody will notice a thing. The illusion is getting your web apps to look as if they are a part of the OS. That shouldn't be hard to do. The OS should really need no more than 512 MB - 1GB of RAM leaving 3 or 3.5 GB for gaming. This thing wont be running Windows so that should be easy to accomplish.

 

[Futurdreamz]

Something to take into account is that raw processing/capacity isn't everything. Technological advances can help in such situations. For instance, ASTC (invented by ARM) and various other texture compression formats are support by the Tegra line, meant to reduce loading times and memory footprints, not to mention improving performance, battery life, and reduces heat of the device, requiring less bandwidth while consuming less energy. Because the Switch doesn't have to worry about compatibility with other devices (like all these various Android devices and whatnot), optimizations can be made specifically for its own benefit and none other.

I mean, when people heard that the Switch may only support 32GB carts, they had second thoughts because many games on PS4/XB1 certainly extend past that. What doesn't seem to be acknowledged is what is taking up all that space and what can be done about that. We've already looked at textures. Let's look at FMVs now. On PS4/XB1, they support AVC/h264, so videos will be in that format, but what is understood for Tegra X1 and later, they support HEVC/h265, which grants AVC quality at roughly half the bitrate. 30GB of video in a PS4/XB1 game? Effectively becomes about 15GB for Switch.

Maybe even less. x264 and x265 boast even better compression, so a 30GB video can be 10GB or even 5GB with the same resolution and fidelity. Nintendo has full design access and has much better control over the hardware.

 

[Iamapirate]

Wasn't Emily Rogers the one that leaked the 3DS Miiverse news the day of the actual update or something?

 

[chartube12]

To those who was hoping a 8GB unit, majority of higher end SoH like snapdragon 820 cannot hit that range.

Not true. Snapdragon 820 caps at 6. Snapdragons 825 and 830 cap at 8gb.

 

[Yil]

Not true. Snapdragon 820 caps at 6. Snapdragons 825 and 830 cap at 8gb.

Exactly my point. Has 825 came out yet?

 

[chartube12]

Exactly my point. Has 825 came out yet?

Far as i know Qcom was talking about Samsung skipping the 825 version for the 830 and smaller companies using it. Supposedly they offered Samsung a deal if they waited for the 830 and that's why the s7 note used the 820. But the batteries they had already ordered were better optimized for the newer models.

 

[Yil]

Far as i know Qcom was talking about Samsung skipping the 825 version for the 830 and smaller companies using it. Supposedly they offered Samsung a deal if they waited for the 830 and that's why the s7 note used the 820. But the batteries they had already ordered were better optimized for the newer models.

You means they won't explode?

 

[chartube12]

You means they won't explode?

They wouldn't have. The batteries they used couldn't handle the heat of the 820. If Qcom is right, samsaung was trying to have there cake and eat it too.

 

[Yil]

They wouldn't have. The batteries they used couldn't handle the heat of the 820. If Qcom is right, samsaung was trying to have there cake and eat it too.

So they pushed the capacity too high? Well Nintendo is in a really bad spot.

 

[osaka35]

the Wii U OS uses 1GB and 1GB is for games. PS4 games have access to 5GB for games. So, if the Switch has 4, and they can keep the OS to 1GB or less, that's not quite half the RAM PS4 games have access to. And that's assuming the same type and speed related specs as the PS4 ram.

So....we'll see. It may not be a huge deal, but it may matter in certain scenarios.

 

[Yil]

the Wii U OS uses 1GB and 1GB is for games. PS4 games have access to 5GB for games. So, if the Switch has 4, and they can keep the OS to 1GB or less, that's not quite half the RAM PS4 games have access to. And that's assuming the same type and speed related specs as the PS4 ram.

So....we'll see. It may not be a huge deal, but it may matter in certain scenarios.

Actually lpddr4 is much more responsive and the ram is faster than xbox one anyway.

 

[Toni456]

Don't you mean vram and not the basic ram?

 

[Yil]

Don't you mean vram and not the basic ram?

Ps4 has no basic ram and xbox one has no vram. Switch has fast ram and presumably no vram despite being made by Nvidia.

 

[chartube12]

So they pushed the capacity too high? Well Nintendo is in a really bad spot.

Nah. As long as they stay away from samsung's batteries they are looking alright. Last heard samsung is still storting out the bad batteries from the good.

 

[Noctosphere]

maybe since switch uses cartridge, maybe there will be some exclusively physical games(not downloadable) where extra ram would be implemented in the cartridge. or maybe a special cartridge with empty rom, containing only ram, used for downloaded games requiring more ram, what do you think?

 

[Futurdreamz]

Sounds plausible but complicated. The download only games wouldn't have the added ram, and you would have to buy the ramcart separate.

 

[Noctosphere]

Sounds plausible but complicated. The download only games wouldn't have the added ram, and you would have to buy the ramcart separate.

or it could come freely in the deluxe edition of the switch.
also, remember that they once did that with few games on the N64

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

ofc, it should be clearly mentionned in the game description on eshop if you need or not the ram cartridge, so you may be aware you might not be able to play if you dont have it

 

[Luckkill4u]

They wouldn't have. The batteries they used couldn't handle the heat of the 820. If Qcom is right, samsaung was trying to have there cake and eat it too.

It wasn't the Snapdragon's 820 at fault... Both Exynos and Snapdragon models had battery overheating problems. The larger battery in the Note 7 was the problem, they cheaped out on it and the battery manufacturer really fucked up all the batteries. A Galaxy S7 has no problems with a Snapdragon 820 or Exynos 8890 chip, and all the latest Samsung flagship use a better heat spreading configuration with heat pipes moving heat away from vital components such as camera, battery ect.

Back on topic.

I've experienced how well LPDDR4 Ram works well in multi-core devices. It's kind of funny how differently devices work if its 4 cores with LPDDR4 ram vs 8 cores with LPDDR4 ram. Multitasking is insane, yes single core performance drops but you can plow through multiple tasks and apps. LPDDR4 especially at higher ram densities like 4GB can be efficient if used properly in mobile situations.

 

[Yil]

Something to take into account is that raw processing/capacity isn't everything. Technological advances can help in such situations. For instance, ASTC (invented by ARM) and various other texture compression formats are support by the Tegra line, meant to reduce loading times and memory footprints, not to mention improving performance, battery life, and reduces heat of the device, requiring less bandwidth while consuming less energy. Because the Switch doesn't have to worry about compatibility with other devices (like all these various Android devices and whatnot), optimizations can be made specifically for its own benefit and none other.

I mean, when people heard that the Switch may only support 32GB carts, they had second thoughts because many games on PS4/XB1 certainly extend past that. What doesn't seem to be acknowledged is what is taking up all that space and what can be done about that. We've already looked at textures. Let's look at FMVs now. On PS4/XB1, they support AVC/h264, so videos will be in that format, but what is understood for Tegra X1 and later, they support HEVC/h265, which grants AVC quality at roughly half the bitrate. 30GB of video in a PS4/XB1 game? Effectively becomes about 15GB for Switch.

But AMD gives better visual and less lag when Nvidia uses them in gtx.

 

[nmkd]

Something to take into account is that raw processing/capacity isn't everything. Technological advances can help in such situations. For instance, ASTC (invented by ARM) and various other texture compression formats are support by the Tegra line, meant to reduce loading times and memory footprints, not to mention improving performance, battery life, and reduces heat of the device, requiring less bandwidth while consuming less energy. Because the Switch doesn't have to worry about compatibility with other devices (like all these various Android devices and whatnot), optimizations can be made specifically for its own benefit and none other.

I mean, when people heard that the Switch may only support 32GB carts, they had second thoughts because many games on PS4/XB1 certainly extend past that. What doesn't seem to be acknowledged is what is taking up all that space and what can be done about that. We've already looked at textures. Let's look at FMVs now. On PS4/XB1, they support AVC/h264, so videos will be in that format, but what is understood for Tegra X1 and later, they support HEVC/h265, which grants AVC quality at roughly half the bitrate. 30GB of video in a PS4/XB1 game? Effectively becomes about 15GB for Switch.

Also, there are 2 things that bring the Switch closer to the XB1/PS4 real-life-performance.

1st: Nvidia's GFLOPS are almost always better than AMD's. AMD has a card with 4.8 TFLOPS (RX 480), but Nvidia's 4.8 TFLOPS card (GTX 1070) is 50-70% faster.

2nd: The OS is more optimized for gaming.
Xbox has parts of Windows and PS4 is FreeBSD based, while Nintendo's OS is purely made for their own hardware.

//Sent from my glorious OnePlus X