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z0m3le

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Oct 25, 2017
5,418
Doesn't FFXV use the older form of DLSS (the one that requires prior training)? Isn't the new "DLSS 2.0" as Hardware Unboxed mentioned much better utilized and actually uses much more of the Tensor cores than previous itterations?
yeah like I mentioned this is an early version of DLSS upscaling, not the newer and better implementations like we see in more recent releases. What we would likely see from Nintendo's use if that ever happens, is something really focused on getting the best results from the hardware as possible. One big benefit Nintendo has to work with here is lower resolutions, with the 1:4 scaling, I assume 360p, 540p and 720p will become standard render targets, for 720p, 1080p and 1440p upscaling. That should mean less DLSS processing than something like this 4K imagine, which would have to be done via a 1080p render target, this makes sense as I wouldn't expect Nintendo to use more than 768 Cuda Cores, which current architecture would mean 96 Tensor cores, a lot less than you'd find in even a RTX 2060, so smaller resolutions should be more effective here.

It's also worth noting that this ability might allow 480p generation games to get auto HD renders, basically you'd be able to get a 960p widescreen image, or if the game is 3:4, you'd get the bars on the sides, but still a 1280x960 image. It's interesting to think about Nintendo's retro titles with such a technology behind it, it's also really good with prerendered backgrounds so stuff like donkey kong country could have a pretty nice upgraded look via DLSS. Sadly it's perfect for PS1 games, but Sony isn't using DLSS yet, though they could offer these upgraded games as cheap remastered classics... It's an interesting technology for low resolution consoles of the past and might be a great fit for 3DS titles as well.
 

ILikeFeet

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Oct 25, 2017
61,987
Forget about hardware, I trust Nvidia more to develop a better software solution for AI upscaling, regardless of how they compare hardware wise.
That was what Control was, "DLSS 1.9". It ran on the shader cores rather than the tensor cores. Nvidia said there wasn't much room for improvement, hence why they're back on tensor cores for DLSS 2.0. Seems to have worked out much better going by Wolfenstein and Deliver Us the Moon. Nvidia will talk more about ai upscaling at GDC next month
 

Hermii

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,685
That was what Control was, "DLSS 1.9". It ran on the shader cores rather than the tensor cores. Nvidia said there wasn't much room for improvement, hence why they're back on tensor cores for DLSS 2.0. Seems to have worked out much better going by Wolfenstein and Deliver Us the Moon. Nvidia will talk more about ai upscaling at GDC next month
Even when running on Tensor cores, AI upscaling requires drivers, middleware and quality software to take well advantage of . Nvidia is much better at this, compared to other mobile chip manufacturers.
 

ILikeFeet

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Oct 25, 2017
61,987
Even when running on Tensor cores, AI upscaling requires drivers, middleware and quality software to take well advantage of . Nvidia is much better at this, compared to other mobile chip manufacturers.
Well that's a given, mobile chips are just now starting to use them, but for non-gaming stuff. Even then, there aren't many game makers who would need to leverage upscaling for a phone game. I don't see ML upscaling really being a thing on phones
 

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
61,987
It's not known if those "tensor" cores (obviously Tensor is a Nvidia branding, but they serve a similar function) is capable of DLSS type upscaling, Volta Tensor cores are not. Basically they need NGX:
tensor isn't a nvida thing. Qualcomm outright calls them tensor accelerators

2019-snapdragon-865-5g-deep-dives_37.png


also a mathematical thing, where I guess the whole idea is based around
en.wikipedia.org

Tensor - Wikipedia

 

z0m3le

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,418
tensor isn't a nvida thing. Qualcomm outright calls them tensor accelerators

2019-snapdragon-865-5g-deep-dives_37.png


also a mathematical thing, where I guess the whole idea is based around
en.wikipedia.org

Tensor - Wikipedia

I thought it was a branding by Nvidia, interesting that they didn't trademark that.

I think the important part is that Volta can't do DLSS, it doesn't have the ability to do so, even though it does have Tensor cores, it's interesting that a Snapdragon GPU has Tensor cores, but at least these GPUs probably can't perform a similar function. Though maybe a combination of the ALU cores and Tensor cores could work together to create something very similar to DLSS via gpgpu programming.
 

ShadowFox08

Banned
Nov 25, 2017
3,524
One of the first implementations of it, but FFXV doesn't show a noticeable difference in memory usage between DLSS target resolution and rendering at that resolution, I assume memory bandwidth would also be similar, so I'd just look to fill the needs of the system's memory bandwidth, something like 128bit LPDDR5 offering as much as 176GB/s portable and 200GB/s when docked would give plenty of bandwidth for say a 1.2TFLOPs and 2TFLOPs system when portable and docked for 1080p and 1440p resolutions.
How in the the world are we gonna 200GB/s bandwidth from LPDDR5? At the max i see us at 100GB/s on 128 bit. Maybe 256 bit, if that ever happens on mobile RAM and if it could physically fit on the switch.
 

z0m3le

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,418
How in the the world are we gonna 200GB/s bandwidth from LPDDR5? At the max i see us at 100GB/s on 128 bit. Maybe 256 bit, if that ever happens on mobile RAM and if it could physically fit on the switch.
You're right, for some reason I was just thinking of 4x the bandwidth and not thinking of the actual number. What the performance number needs is about 4x the current Switch's bandwidth, so 100GB/s should do it.

I will note that it isn't impossible to get 200GB/s, Xavier did achieve it, but if they used stack RAM and went with 4 modules, it is not something they would do, but technically doable. My mistake.
 

ShadowFox08

Banned
Nov 25, 2017
3,524
You're right, for some reason I was just thinking of 4x the bandwidth and not thinking of the actual number. What the performance number needs is about 4x the current Switch's bandwidth, so 100GB/s should do it.

I will note that it isn't impossible to get 200GB/s, Xavier did achieve it, but if they used stack RAM and went with 4 modules, it is not something they would do, but technically doable. My mistake.
No worries. I see 136.5GB/s on Tegra Xavier on the Wikipedia page with LPDDR4x released on March 2019 with 16GB Ram on 256 bit buswidth, which checks out with 34 GB/s X 4 (256 bus width is 4X 64 bit) equaling to 136 GB/s. Orion supposedly will support 200GB/s on LPDDR5, but that's with incomplete info.. and Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Tegra - Wikipedia

 

SiG

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,485
How in the the world are we gonna 200GB/s bandwidth from LPDDR5? At the max i see us at 100GB/s on 128 bit. Maybe 256 bit, if that ever happens on mobile RAM and if it could physically fit on the switch.
As I mentioned before, using FFXV as a test case might not be accurate, as it uses the older implementation of DLSS. The newer implementation utilizes the tensor cores more thoroughly from what I understand, but I do wonder if there are any separate bandwidth requirements for it (between tensor and cuda) to make DLSS effective on something like a mobile chip.

I guess we'll know once Nvidia announces something about tensors and Tegra at GDC.
 

ILikeFeet

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Oct 25, 2017
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SiG

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Oct 25, 2017
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A bit of an update on the ram talk, but Samsung has started shipping 16GB LPDDR5 running at 5500 Mb/s with future versions hitting 6400 Mb/s. All while using less power than LPDDR4X

news.samsung.com

Samsung Begins Mass Production of Industry’s First 16GB LPDDR5 DRAM for Next-Generation Premium Smartphones

Based on Samsung’s 2nd-generation 10nm-class process technology, the 16GB LPDDR5 mobile DRAM package delivers industry’s highest performance and largest capacity
Will it be cheaper to use this in the long run though?
 

lupinko

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,154
I'd rather have 720p/60fps consistently in handheld with some checkerboard rendering tech in docked to be honest.
 

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
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Oct 25, 2017
61,987
Will it be cheaper to use this in the long run though?
LPDDR5 or one 16GB chip? I doubt there will be only ram chip in a hypothetical switch 2. Smaller chips are less expensive and more chips add to the bandwidth.

I'd rather have 720p/60fps consistently in handheld with some checkerboard rendering tech in docked to be honest.
It looks like machine learned upsampling will be more common next Gen, so getting it for docked and handheld sounds very likely
 

Dakhil

Member
Mar 26, 2019
4,459
Orange County, CA
So Samsung announced it has begun mass production of the 512GB (128GB and 256GB options are also available) eUFS 3.1 storage with a theoretical sequential read speed of 2100 MB/s and a theoretical sequential write speed of 1200 MB/s.

I'm curious what type of storage Nintendo will choose for the "Nintendo Switch Pro" or the "Nintendo Switch 2", considering the XBOX Series X (and likely the PlayStation 5) will utilise NVMe SSDs (as well as [presumably?] proprietary NVMe-based expansion cards for removable storage).
 
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ShadowFox08

Banned
Nov 25, 2017
3,524
I'd be very surprised and not expect a 512GB flash storage on the next switch. Doesn't seem like a Nintendo thing to do to cut costs. We could very well get a NVMe SSD. Just at that storage size, would be expensive
 

ShadowFox08

Banned
Nov 25, 2017
3,524
I mean Nintendo could simply choose 128GB instead of 512GB (which I forgot to mention in my previous post).
Yeah they could. How much do they cost?

Slightly ot, I mentioned this before but amd laptops can reach PS4 in GPU flop numbers at 15 watts TDP on 7nm. Going to be exciting to see what ampere has to offer. It's a shame the digital Nvidia conference got delayed

wccftech.com

AMD Launches Ryzen 4900H "Renoir" Flagship APU With 25% IPC Improvement And 7nm Vega GPU

Another day and another leak by Videocardz, this time its the AMD Renoir APU, which is launching today apparently. The AMD Ryzen 4900H will be an absolute beast of a processor that is going to turn on the heat massively for Intel. Featuring 8 cores and 16 threads, the Renoir APU will be equipped...
 

Onix555

Member
Apr 23, 2019
3,380
UK
By the way ILikeFeet, continuing on from yesterday I looked into the power consumption of higher CUDA counts.
I calculated that if you took a 1024 core Maxwell GPU and ported it to the 5nm process, you could run it at 1127mhz (2.3Tflops) for merely 9.1 watts.

🤔

EDIT: note thats best case, using the information provided by TSMC, could be more.
 

Asbsand

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
9,901
Denmark
It all depends on Nintendo. It could be a portable PS5 if they were willing to go that far. But I think we could assume something slightly weaker than Xbox One X.
 

Onix555

Member
Apr 23, 2019
3,380
UK
It all depends on Nintendo. It could be a portable PS5 if they were willing to go that far. But I think we could assume something slightly weaker than Xbox One X.
Not exactly, from a pure tech standpoint a portable PS5 is over 10-15 years away; if ever.
The X is also too much, the GPU will most likely sit between the PS4 and PS4P in docked mode.
 

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
61,987
By the way ILikeFeet, continuing on from yesterday I looked into the power consumption of higher CUDA counts.
I calculated that if you took a 1024 core Maxwell GPU and ported it to the 5nm process, you could run it at 1127mhz (2.3Tflops) for merely 9.1 watts.

🤔

EDIT: note thats best case, using the information provided by TSMC, could be more.
Best case usually means there's no more room to go higher. I don't think any GPU has ever hit those peaks (I guess RDNA1 did hit that 50% perf/watt though).

It all depends on Nintendo. It could be a portable PS5 if they were willing to go that far. But I think we could assume something slightly weaker than Xbox One X.
I draw numbers, no. But raw numbers is mattering less and less towards perception
 

Onix555

Member
Apr 23, 2019
3,380
UK
Best case usually means there's no more room to go higher. I don't think any GPU has ever hit those peaks (I guess RDNA1 did hit that 50% perf/watt though).


I draw numbers, no. But raw numbers is mattering less and less towards perception
When I said best case, im talking about the power reduction on each node. For ecample they might say "30% reduction" but in reality its more like 27, etc.

Still, its not outlandish. At this point those are very low core counts and clocks. RTX cards are like 1.8Ghz. 1.1Ghz would be good for mobile.
 

dom

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Oct 25, 2017
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ILikeFeet

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Oct 25, 2017
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if we're talking embedded memory, then this is always an option, and from someone who's already a nintendo partner. 12GB of LPDDR5 and 256GB of UFS-based storage


Well, looks like most agree that GPU could be between PS4 and PS4 Pro, but what about CPU and RAM / Bandwidth?
8 of ARM's next generation cpu (hercules) and at least 8GB of LPDDR5

(old-ass graph from 2018)

3.png
 

ShadowFox08

Banned
Nov 25, 2017
3,524
I'm curious whe
By the way ILikeFeet, continuing on from yesterday I looked into the power consumption of higher CUDA counts.
I calculated that if you took a 1024 core Maxwell GPU and ported it to the 5nm process, you could run it at 1127mhz (2.3Tflops) for merely 9.1 watts.

🤔

EDIT: note thats best case, using the information provided by TSMC, could be more.
I'm curious where/how you got this. This is pretty significant if true. Ampere 5nm would be a bigger boost. Closer to 4 maybe. 🤔
 

Onix555

Member
Apr 23, 2019
3,380
UK
I'm curious whe

I'm curious where/how you got this. This is pretty significant if true. Ampere 5nm would be a bigger boost. Closer to 4 maybe. 🤔
Well I started with the GTX 960 at its base clock (1127Mhz) on its original node of 28nm; it used 120W.
Then I took the public figures of power reduction by TSMC on their nodes, basically [x node > y node = z% power reduction].
Then I just worked my way down from 28nm, to the latest 5nm figures. Quite rough but I think it'd end up somewhere around that ballpark.

Also with Ampere it'd have the same Flops number (as that's only Cores x Clocks x 2=), the main thing to look out for would be the IPC and other improvements to said cores. With Pascal the cores were pretty much just Maxwell again on a smaller node, they changed them with Turing and probably Ampere again. Not sure what it would end up like in the end. Probably get info later, heard Ampere cards were delayed to Q4.

.

Also i've been following the news with LPDDR5 for a while now, and surprisingly the 16GB ramp up has been really fast compared to 12GB.
Currently there are 3 phones with 16GB (S20U, ROG3, RM5G). Super exciting and it's sure to bring the price down; and the RM5G already costs $750 👀
I could see Nintendo using 2 8GB modules on a 4x16bit Bus.
Not sure about clockspeed though, they were kind of random with the OG Switch's but whatever I suppose.
 
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Onix555

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Apr 23, 2019
3,380
UK
Also i've found myself becoming increasingly Doomer with these new console specs.
Paint a bad picture for Nintendo in the future. Don't want to go back to the days of Devs laughing at the idea of making games for a Nintendo system.
 

SiG

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,485
Also i've found myself becoming increasingly Doomer with these new console specs.
Paint a bad picture for Nintendo in the future. Don't want to go back to the days of Devs laughing at the idea of making games for a Nintendo system.
So that's it then? "Nintendo is doomed? Sony 4 Eva ERA"? Does that mean an increase in negative-Nintendo threads yet again?

It's odd that having been paired with Nvidia has brought about a pretty fruitful relationship with 3rd parties. While I don't expect Nintendo to be using RT in their hardware, their baseline should definitely be current mobile phones and tablets...plus some unique way to play or two.

Edit: Perhaps you were talking about some other sort of Doomer?
 
Oct 27, 2017
42,700
I mean Nintendo could simply choose 128GB instead of 512GB (which I forgot to mention in my previous post).
Honestly with how rapidly SD storage costs have fallen in just the few years the Switch has been around, I don't really care too much what they go with. I know it's convenient having large on-board storage from the start (and included in the price), but is it still a huge plus for people?
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,296
Also i've found myself becoming increasingly Doomer with these new console specs.
Paint a bad picture for Nintendo in the future. Don't want to go back to the days of Devs laughing at the idea of making games for a Nintendo system.
How many third party multiplatform AAA games are on Switch to begin with, and how many of them were released concurrently on PS4, One and PC?

Nintendo will be fine, continuing doing their own thing. Switch mainstream success and appeal weren't due to multiplatform games.
 

Onix555

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Apr 23, 2019
3,380
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How many third party multiplatform AAA games are on Switch to begin with, and how many of them were released concurrently on PS4, One and PC?

Nintendo will be fine, continuing doing their own thing. Switch mainstream success and appeal weren't due to multiplatform games.
I mean a lot of big current gen games have come to Switch, even crazy ones like Hellblade, W3, etc.

And I would say that third party were part of the Switchs success, I know quite a few people that arn't hardcores gamers that went out and bought one because they went "wow I can play x on Switch, i'll pick it up there". Being able to play on the go is very attractive for all games, not just Nintendo ones.
 

Jorgie

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Mar 28, 2018
413
Philadelphia
Maybe a little weaker than base PS4/XB1. I don't see them touching PS4P/XB1X anytime soon but power isn't NIntendo's thing at all so doesn't really matter.
 

ShadowFox08

Banned
Nov 25, 2017
3,524
Well I started with the GTX 960 at its base clock (1127Mhz) on its original node of 28nm; it used 120W.
Then I took the public figures of power reduction by TSMC on their nodes, basically [x node > y node = z% power reduction].
Then I just worked my way down from 28nm, to the latest 5nm figures. Quite rough but I think it'd end up somewhere around that ballpark.

Also with Ampere it'd have the same Flops number (as that's only Cores x Clocks x 2=), the main thing to look out for would be the IPC and other improvements to said cores. With Pascal the cores were pretty much just Maxwell again on a smaller node, they changed them with Turing and probably Ampere again. Not sure what it would end up like in the end. Probably get info later, heard Ampere cards were delayed to Q4.

.

Also i've been following the news with LPDDR5 for a while now, and surprisingly the 16GB ramp up has been really fast compared to 12GB.
Currently there are 3 phones with 16GB (S20U, ROG3, RM5G). Super exciting and it's sure to bring the price down; and the RM5G already costs $750 👀
I could see Nintendo using 2 8GB modules on a 4x16bit Bus.
Not sure about clockspeed though, they were kind of random with the OG Switch's but whatever I suppose.
I see.

I think 16GB of Ram would be Overkill. 8 is the minimum requirement, and if they aim for PS4 pro power, 12GB LDDR5/x would be nice. But most importantly, they need bandwidth more if anything than simply 12 GB Ram. They could probably get fine with 64bit with 8GB Ram and 50GB/s for PS4 level games, but I28 or 256 bit bus width would be ideal for more
 

Onix555

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Apr 23, 2019
3,380
UK
I see.

I think 16GB of Ram would be Overkill. 8 is the minimum requirement, and if they aim for PS4 pro power, 12GB LDDR5/x would be nice. But most importantly, they need bandwidth more if anything than simply 12 GB Ram. They could probably get fine with 64bit with 8GB Ram and 50GB/s for PS4 level games, but I28 or 256 bit bus width would be ideal for more
Oh, I completely forgot the X1 already had a 64bit Bus; meant to say 128bit, my bad.
But yes, the 128bit would be infinitely more ideal while also being physically possible (256bit would be much more difficult due to the space needed on-die for the interconnects). With 128b and new improvements from LPDDR5's bandwidth, I feel it could go over 80GB/s (the SD865 with LPDDR5 and 64B Bus does 44GB/s at max speed) which would be an improvement over the OG's 25-ish GB/s.

Also there's always more need for more RAM, if they get the chance to use 16GB, they should absolutely go for it. Games are RAM-hogs 😓
Price will dictate obviously but i'm pretty confident in it dropping down enough for a $299 device.
 

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
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Oct 25, 2017
61,987
at the resolutions the Switch 2 would play at, 16GB would be overkill, and that's taking into account if ray tracing will be there. playing scaled down PS5 games at 900-1080p wouldn't need more than 12GB at most
 

Dakhil

Member
Mar 26, 2019
4,459
Orange County, CA
Honestly with how rapidly SD storage costs have fallen in just the few years the Switch has been around, I don't really care too much what they go with. I know it's convenient having large on-board storage from the start (and included in the price), but is it still a huge plus for people?

Well, if Nintendo decides to use customised memory, like with Microsoft and Sony with the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 respectively for future iterations of the Nintendo Switch ("Nintendo Switch 2", etc.), having a large internal storage will definitely be a huge plus for people.

Speaking of memory, is it possible that whatever customised Tegra Soc Nintendo decides to use for future iterations of the Nintendo Switch will have NVMe support? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that starting from 2015, iPhones and iPads have NVMe support. And I wouldn't be surprised if third party developers who plan on porting/developing games for future iterations of the Nintendo Switch ("Nintendo Switch 2", etc.) would request NVMe support. But of course, I could be wrong.
 

ShadowFox08

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Nov 25, 2017
3,524
I think there's a very good chance it will show up on switch 2. NVMe seems like the norm now.

Now if a switch pro still comes out in 2021, 7nm ampere is the best case scenario, and I could see it around PS4 levels for sure for a hybrid.

But if a switch pro isn't released next year and they decide on switch 2 5nm tech, we could see more gains. If nintendo could even match next gen xbox's lower spec model, we would be in great standing for ports. That's what I hope. Assuming that that Xbox model is 4 GFLOPs and we get something similar or around 3. A little hard to believe that could happen on a hybrid and still be affordable, though I'm sure this year's Apple iPhone easily surpasses ps4 in GPU and we could get PS4 or better on an iPhone in 2022.

But even 3 TFLOPs would be nice. It could be backwards compatible with switch and play most switch games at 4k.. and then it would aim for 1-2k resolution while x series x does 4k. Hopefully we get a CPU like arm Hercules and 12GB GDDR5(x) ram then that can help with bottlenecks
 
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