[News] NVIDIA Back to the Game Console Business: Nintendo Switch Powered by NVIDIA Te

[StyM]

https://www.techpowerup.com/227021/n...itch-announced

After months of speculation, the lid is off Nintendo's "NX" project, with the company finally announcing today its much-awaited games console, the Nintendo Switch. With an expected release slated for March 2017, the console blurs the line between a games console and a handheld device, by making use of a docking station which will allow it to connect to a television, much like a traditional games console, while instantly entering a so called "portable mode" when it is undocked. As both a console and a portable device, the Nintendo Switch will use cartridges known as Game Cards, displaying games in a "high definition display" embedded on the console while on the go, with two detachable Joy-Con controllers stepping in as input devices.

For PC hardware enthusiasts, that may not be all too interesting. What is arguably more interesting is that this games console will make use of NVIDIA hardware: most notably, a custom Tegra processor is the one pulling out all of the console's processing needs, with the graphics being served by what the company calls "the same architecture as the world's top-performing GeForce gaming graphics cards."

According to an NVIDIA blog post, the Nintendo Switch's gaming experience is supported not only by custom hardware design with its Tegra chip, but also by leveraging "fully custom software", including "a revamped physics engine, new libraries, advanced game tools and libraries." According to NVIDIA, new gaming APIs were created so as to fully harness the Tegra processor's performance, with their newest API, NVN, being built specifically to bring lightweight, fast gaming to the masses. The console also features hardware-accelerated video playback, as well as custom software for audio effects and rendering. All of this is delivered through a custom operating system, devised for full system integration with the GPU in a bid to increase both performance and efficiency.

[Levish]

hopefully something very similar to what is available on Android / iOS to allow stuff be easily ported to / from.

[xlink]

"Let's switch to a different GPU vendor from our competition... this'll definitely help us get ports."

Yeah, Nintendo will mainly be a first party company henceforth. This is foolishness.

[zalbard]

"Let's switch to a different GPU vendor from our competition... this'll definitely help us get ports."

Yeah, Nintendo will mainly be a first party company henceforth. This is foolishness.

Nvidia has far more capable tablet-class hardware than AMD.

[kromosto]

Nvidia has far more capable tablet-class hardware than AMD.

Someone have more capable hardware than AMD in every product they supply .

[Mechanical Man]

AMD could have made custom arm + gpu soc too. Its not like its absolutely better. There was some rumours earlier about nVidia wanting to get back to consoles, so i expect them just have given so sweet deal to nintendo that it was pretty much nobrainer. AMD cant afford to do deals on loss or with too big of a risk to turn the project to loss.

[AliG]

Nvidia has far more capable tablet-class hardware than AMD.

Depends on how you define tablet-class. Maybe in the ARM world, but I would take a Carrizo APU over just about anything else on the market right now.

[zalbard]

Depends on how you define tablet-class. Maybe in the ARM world, but I would take a Carrizo APU over just about anything else on the market right now.

It's not sufficiently power-efficient for a small, passively-cooled tablet.

[drmrlordx]

Nintendo has been on proprietary hardware since the N64, so it's no surprise that they chose to differentiate themselves from the x86 + GCN paradigm of current consoles. Also it is true that even Carrizo requires a lot of throttling to fit within a 15W TDP.

The downside to the custom Tegra SoC in the Switch is that it seems to be rather poor in the graphics department. Maybe that's just inevitable considering the form factor favored by Nintendo.

Regardless, it looks like some substantial 3rd-party devs are lining up to support the Switch, so . . .we'll see how that goes. Nvidia is supplying many of the development tools for use with the hardware. It looks like any dev that is accustomed to working with Nvidia's development stack will be able to approach the Switch.