thanks for the link, that's interesting — but i meant the claim: "they didn't have to rewrite the render engine from TEV units to unified programmable shader models. They could just run the Gamecube code with higher rendering output.".
nintendoeverything.com
The Gamecube and Wii support in the hacking scene around Wii U, happens automatically, which suggests the GPU understands TEV code, even though Hollywood as a whole has never been found in the detailed die shots that we disected.
He does specify what he is talking about here:But Wii U hardware couldn't be ready on time for 2010. launch, I mean how much problems they had just with Wii U OS.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, the Wii U remake of the GameCube game, was developed in just about six months, Aonuma shared. "Development was still difficult," he added. "You had to consider the difference in hardware at the time."
So Around 6 months and I dont think they count hole game development, because game was annouced in January with screen shots of game (so its safe to assume that game was in development for some time already in that time) and released in September of same year.
For comparison, for Zelda TP HD took 18 months by time of around 40 people.
Tantalus on Zelda: Twilight Princess HD - landing the job, Nintendo's involvement, amiibo, dev length, much more
On the latest episode of Fragments of Silicon, Tantalus CEO Tom Crago stopped by for a chat. A majority of the conversation centered around The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD, of which the studio was largely responsible for. Crago went in-depth about developing Twilight Princess HD. That...
none of that was rewriting code from TEV instructions to programmable shaders.
Well it is deductive reasoning, no tev units found in the xray professional die shots for Wii U we got and analyzed, and we know that the Wii U can just run Gamecube and Wii games via the hacking scene. Nintendo did state that they didn't put Hollywood inside the Wii U's GPU, but modified the Wii U's GPU to be usable for the Wii, which does suggest that the Wii U's GPU is compatible with Wii and by extension Gamecube games.
Uh no. I'm suggesting that they used an interpreter. The Wii U was fully compatible with Wii games, had the entire Wii shop in the vWii app. The best solution for something like this would have been to translate TEV code on the fly to the much larger modern GPU with programmable shaders, and maybe some acceleration in the Texture units for executing some fixed function TEV code that was too fast to handle via the shaders. We do know that block J1 in the Wii U's GPU was a texture block bigger and different than the others, not big enough to hold hollywood, and Nintendo said they didn't put Hollywood's logic in the GPU die, that they just modified the GPU to be used by the Wii.
I'm not a GPU engineer, but this particular GPU was designed to run Wii games by modifying R700 architecture in a way that allowed TEV instructions to run fast enough to out perform the Wii a great deal. I'm simply suggesting it is probably enough to run Wii games at 1080p, as it had no problem running Wind Waker at 1080p, and a 6 month development cycle with in game improvements, new Cel Shading done "by hand" and editing scenes, all while BotW had already started full development, and ALBW was also finishing up, taking away people from the Wind Waker project during that time.
Didn't the T1SRAM offer absolutely ridiculous transfer speeds anyways?
We could argue back and forth on this one, but I'm pretty sure that the bulk of Flipper is in one of the Wii U GPU's logic blocks. There is one suspicious looking block in particular I recall that sat next to the eDRAM and it had lots of dual-channel SRAM, which at the time, led me to believe it was related to Flipper. Can't remember why I thought that now, but I'm sure I had my reasons lol. But yeah, I think Iwata's comment was more in reference to things like the 3 MB of SRAM on the Wii U GPU, video output blocks, and things like that. The TEV stuff and Wii graphics rendering was seemingly done natively with at least a portion of the original Flipper logic.
It stemmed from the Wii and Switch being in the same position currently and how the wii if it had the HD sku released in 2010 it could have done more as a platform and not collapsed the way it did, the switch being in the position where it is ripe to do 4k. Then others commented how it is possible and how it isn't.
If Nintendo wants HDR for the next Switch, then a mini-LED screen makes a lot of sense to accomplish that. The number of dimming zones would almost certainly be heavily limited by screen size, but it would give them a way to have that feature in handheld mode without burn-in concerns.
maybe you and Thraktor can, I never spent time analyzing the die shots like that, when I made my post earlier it was based on his OP years ago at the old site where the blocks were highlighted and iirc now, he said something about J1 texture unit being very different from the others, but that Wii's GPU wasn't found.
VRR seems like a pretty obvious inclusion if they can make it work with the dock. That seems like the only real obstacle.
A revision this year is happening. How much of an upgrade it is, is unknown.
The problem that is the exact same for Wii in 2010 and Switch in 2021, is there are only so many people to sell to, they need to change the value of the device to get people to buy a second Switch, to upgrade, that is exactly what an upgraded model is suppose to achieve.
It might support 4K60, but I don't think switch will be fast enough to output 4K DLSS at 60fps, would need to do the work in ~5ms to have a hope, which only leaves ~11ms for the render, of course to do that with Ampere's tensor core setup, it would need to be faster than we are thinking.
There is a thick layer of smoke all around a Switch Pro, but we can't know that for certain.
I actually think it benefits the handheld mode more, because everyone will be using the same VRR screen, while docked, everyone has a different TV, so might not be able to enjoy the feature docked anyways, while 100% of users can enjoy it portably.
It's looking more likely than ever that new Switch hardware with increased specs will launch this year, but it's still just at the rumor stage.
What would be the point of a hdmi 2,1 converter if it lacks major features of hdmi 2,1?
You know what they say, "Where there's smoke, there's a fire"
kopite7kimi recently mentioned that Orin might use a Lovelace based GPU. So assuming that the next Nintendo Switch model's SoC's going to be based on Orin, but with heavy modifications, who knows?
You're going to have to walk me through what he just said. I understand everything in the first sentence, but the 2nd one i'm lost on the terminology?
While true as it does what PlayStation has been able to do consistently for decades, and that is offer a favorable platform that ensures a consistent player base at the start, it still is not like the Wii. Those discussing what could and what could not be done with the Wii to get it to HD or not in 2010 is not relevant at all for the switch or the switch pro. The software is more agnostic with what it is based on, where the switch has a very competent partner for mobile that can provide the necessities to reach a higher position. That is, higher resolution and framerate or a more capable device. This in conjunction with the active playerbase, a single platform to put all focus to, a unique feature compared to the other platforms in portability and increasing third party support as the years go on do not really put the Switch and the Wii in the same place despite the same time.
It's not a guarantee that they go all the way to 2.1. 2.0 is enough for 4k60 without compromises. I'm also not sure how easily VRR translates between DP and HDMI, but that's purely out of ignorance for how (or if) the two differ, so that could easily be a non-issue.
It could be "Ampere" the same way that TX1 is "Maxwell" but is actually kind of an in between version of the architecture.
Ada Lovelace
that's if you assume that a new chip the same size as Mariko is substantially more expensive. I don't it would be that much more expensive to put an additional MiniLED screen out of cost for consumers
Or they really move to a 3 tier system:
I believe that the mini-LED and other fancy features (e.g., larger storage and bluetooth audio) will be found on a premium model. If Nintendo is going with the smartphone model of iterative revisions, the mainstream model will be updated alongside the premium sans these fancy features—think of them as the regular iPhone vs. the iPhone Pro. They will share the same SoC to create a large enough install base for the developers to target the performance profile.
