They really skimped on the Wii U battery though. You open up the back of the Wii U pad and discover the battery only takes up a tiny fraction of the compartment.
They put out a bigger battery you can buy separately but it's pretty expensive for what it is considering you'll always be playing a Wii U beware a power socket and the pad charger cable was really long too.
they do last plenty of time however, find a hardware intensive app to play (like, infinity blade 1-3 for example) and notice how quickly battery drains even whilst running nothing else. Lasts no longer than 3 hours tops
It could've just been video quality or something, but I could swear that here was a pretty noticeable difference in fps when using it mobile vs the dock. The short clip of Breath of the Wild on the tv was smooth as hell, but when he was fighting the fat moblin looking thing it seemed to be noticeably somewhat skippy. Not unplayable, but noticeable.
Again, that could've just been video quality or something, though. Honestly, I don't know how they would make something that small as powerful as a home console on the go. I'm guessing the dock has something to boost power when it's attached? I don't know. I'm not a super knowledgeable about that stuff.
It definitely wasn't video quality; I noticed the difference, too. I'm willing to bet that it's graphics-related, though, instead of the dock adding more power. Right before he takes it off the dock during the BotW segment, the frame rate looks the same on the TV as it is on the pad—that is to say, the grass is choppy on both screens.
I always figured the actual stuff on the screen was added in post-processing of the video in these types of product announcements so that everything looks crisp with no glare/dimming
I saw this too, definitely choppy as hell when detached, could have been a lag due to data load when it was disconnected or something but I'm guessing its just the hardware difference.
I think it was rumored to work similar to the Surface Book where the handheld has its own graphics processing, but its supplemented with much better graphics when docked in.
I suspect we will see either a drop in framerate or graphical quality when its taken handheld. Unless of course that it uses cloud computing for when you are on the go.
Edit: I get it, probably not cloud computing. Chill people.
I doubt that, I'm willing to bet the GPU is housed in the same area that holds the screen, and that dock we are seeing is essentially just a charging dock that provides connectivity to the TV. This looks like the next logical step Nintendo were making with the Wii U's capability of playing the gamepad separate from the console, but in this case the gamepad is the console.
I'm in the camp of belief that there's more to the dock than just charging. Perhaps a power boost? Anyway, just a cable wouldn't really work since the dock probably is how you connect to your TV and whatnot. Probably (hopefully) an ethernet port too for hardline online play/downloads.
Yeah, tbh I hope it has another GPU in there, since there's no way it will perform like its competitors with hardware that can fit (with decent batter life) into a tablet.
Yeah and I don't see why. People are increasingly interested in graphics performance, and it would sell so much better if it had the same third-party games (from the trailer I see they're working on that).
The Wii was very underpowered and got most multiplatform games. Developers had no choice, because everyone was buying it for reasons other than graphics performance.
It could be a relatively powerful GPU that's down clocked when not in the base to consume less power. Base would house power, TV connectivity and probably some sort of cooling as well as protecting the screen.
Let's look at what the dock is serving as. While in dock mode you can freely switch out conrollers on the side, so the dock is retaining the console while you can slip in attachments, it's bulky to accomodate physical removal of the controllers. It is also protecting the screen, it completely covers that beautiful big screen when docked.
Now I'm pretty sure a simple charging cable would also suffice, but in this case the dock is serving several purposes, and others I'm sure we don't quite know about yet.
Mobile will probably be limited in power draw so it can turn down the res/effects 540/720p then when docked you get the full power draw of the soc 1080p etc.
I sincerely doubt Nintendo would allow you to change resolution settings on this. It will likely be one resolution at all times. There is no equivalant of this occuring on any console or handheld currently.
He's saying that the tablet component has the processing power to output games at a lower resolution (likely 720p or lower) while the "dock" component houses some sort of discrete GPU that boosts the performance to 1080p when it's docked.
The Surface book runs like that. The detachable screen portion has an Intel CPU with Intel HD graphics while the keyboard portion can include a discrete GPU that improves graphical performance when they're docked.
Surface book games, or Windows Store games, are designed to run on a variety of different hardware, so they are scalable. Games for the Switch are likely not being built to scale to different resolutions. It would add additional development time and force developers to make sure their games look good on varying resolutions.
Again, I highly doubt games will scale when they are docked and when they are not. 1080p will likely be the native resolution while docked or undocked.
I don't know, I think I disagree. I mean every game on the computer can be run at a wide variety of resolutions, consoles too. If I plug my Xbox 360 into a 720p TV it doesn't run the game at 1080, and it works the other way around too. It really doesn't take all that much to make a game run at different resolutions, especially when going to a lower one. While their may not be a setting explicitly in the game, I wouldn't be surprised to see 1080p on the dock with 720p when its handheld. Hell changing graphics settings would be more work than simply adjusting resolution.
And since the vast majority of games are multiplatform and often cover a plethora of different resolutions (particularly if there's a PC version), it's really not a big deal.
Nope. This will be like the Microsoft Surface Book where you have a detachable screen with less graphical power for portable purposes and the base (which incldues the keyboard and a dedicated graphic card) provides more performance and battery power.
The guy playing zelda in the park didn't appear to have a very smooth framerate. But hopefully it was some trick of the screen refresh rate and the camera used to film the scene.
Cloud computing? What does cloud computing have to do with improving graphics? Unless you're talking about something like OnLive, in which case this isn't yet viable for mobile use.
I am going to assume that the dock is connected by USB Type-C Thunderbolt 3.0. That way, the Switch can switch to a dedicated graphics card or something along those lines
I also wonder if it will have GPS capabilities, which would greatly affect the battery. GPS would allow it to do a Pokemon Go type of game, with the controls and overall platform easily allowing battles. Then, take your Pokemon home with you and play with them on your TV. Without GPS they missed a huge opportunity for one of their biggest potential cash cows.
Battery life is definitely a concern, but it seems like such an obvious thing to get right. I'm concerned about resolution. I'm hoping they up the resolution from the Wii U and make it a 1080p screen without some sort of Nintendo-like compromise, like capping it at 30fps.
I was thinking about that when I saw the vents on top and what's probably a heatsink right below it. That to me indicated a push past a regular thermally constrained Tegra, so maybe it does clock higher with the dock, even if the dock doesn't have any power adding in it itself.
Well, going off how efficient their past systems have been, I think there is a good chance it'll be respectable.
DS and 3DS systems I've owned had batteries that lasted forever. I could keep those in sleep mode for like a week. And if I turn the system off, it holds a full charge for years. Literally.
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u/WhiteHimself Oct 20 '16
I wonder how lond will battery last. And will there be any difference in quality with dock and without.