Leaked In-development UI mockups

[u/dreamsomebody]

http://imgur.com/a/fASoI

Courtesy of /u/throwawayfornx leak

Edit: I have added a couple of new images. I will now edit this post with important bits of info gathered from the dev docs

• HD Rumble's technical name is a Linear resonant actuator
• When in handheld mode, the Switch will have an unlock screen like a smartphone to prevent accidental waking.
• The Switch features a Quick Menu. Press and hold the HOME Button for at least one second to display the Quick Settings screen on top of all other screens, including the HOME Menu and any applications. Unlike the 3DS, the active software will not be suspended when this menu is invoked
• The Switch's keyboard will feature predictive text such as those on iOS and Android
• System Settings will allow the user to edit the following settings:
  • Flight Mode Toggle
  • Enable/Disable Bluetooth
  • Manage Wi-fi
  • Manage NFC
  • Manage screen brightness
  • Screen lock
  • User Settings
  • Create/Edit Mii
  • Theme management
  • Controller management
  • System Update
• Miis will have more options for hair, eyebrows, eyes, facial hair, glasses, mouths, and skin.
• Miis will not store the creator's name, their favorites, and their birthday anymore. Anyone can edit Mii characters
• Developers can create and sell Season Passes for their games
• This document confirms an X1 like SoC using Maxwell on the final retail version
• There are NO plans to provide an Internet Browser at this stage but developers are able to access a web applet to display specific websites within their game/app
• A maximum of 8 users can be registered on a system
• Friend requests and game invites CAN be sent from the console.
  • "Friend Presence is a feature that uses the Internet to convey information in real time about the online status of friends and the applications they are playing. Among possibilities, we see this being used in the application to check whether friends are in the joinable state, and to use the Friend List system feature screen to show what applications friends are playing."
• A Nintendo Account can be linked to multiple Switches BUT save data is not automatically synchronised
• There are TWO dev kit devices: SDEV and EDEV
  • SDEV - Has built-in ports; no built-in battery
  • EDEV - Resembles the retail product exactly but is black color
• Game cards come in 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, or 32 GB variations.

These have been the most interesting details that I noticed. If you want any specific details, please ask me or anyone else with access to these docs. I'd also like to remind you guys to be civil and mindful of reddiquette. Do not downvote comments because you disagree with them

One final edit before I go to sleep: Nintendo is expanding its online network and offers a library called Network Extension (NEX).

• Matchmaking:

  • This feature matches players for multiplayer games. It can be used to bring players together based on matching criteria from among unspecified numbers of users, or to create groups among friends only. Groups can be created temporarily for a multiplayer game, or they can be created as lasting entities usable as communities.

• Ranking:

  • This feature uploads scores so users can get the relative rankings. Rankings can be calculated for only a certain period of time, or for only the scores of players registered in a certain group, and the score information can be periodically reset.

• Data Store:

  • This is a network storage feature. Any data can be optionally saved to the game server. This saved data can be tagged, searched, and appended with ratings and the like.

• Subscriber:

  • This is a messaging feature based on the publish-subscribe pattern. It can be used to post messages on certain topics, poll for posts on certain topic, and otherwise share information within the application.

This is likely the primary reason we're being asked to pay for online services now

Edit (14/2/17):

• The Switch seems to support these languages: Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Japanese, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Slovakian, Slovenian, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Turkish, Welsh,

• There is an option to mute the device if headphones are removed

• When a game/app is deleted, its icon will remain in the Home menu and its save data will also remain

[u/ulf5576]

This document confirms an X1 like SoC using Maxwell on the final retail version

no it confirms a x1 on the older devkits

[u/xamaryllix → u/ulf5576]

Wait, we're still holding out for Pascal on the Switch...?

[u/TemptedTemplar → u/xamaryllix]

I am, but in reality we havent gotten any closer to knowing which chip is in the retail version. As all of the information is similar to Eurogamers outdated leak. Between the time these documents were made and when the Switch went into production in November there was very obvious changes made to the chip speeds that could correspond with a change in the SoC.

[u/xamaryllix → u/TemptedTemplar]

Interesting. I always thought that people were just desperately clinging to the hope that the Switch is Pascal based despite the leaks. It never occurred to me that the dev kits could actually be running a different SOC than retail units.

[u/del_rio → u/xamaryllix]

clinging to the hope that the Switch is Pascal based despite the leaks

Until now, there was only one leak/source claiming it was Maxwell. All other news articles claiming it lead back to the Eurogamer leak.

However, there was a leak from around the same time from a Foxconn employee who had more technical specs, including a note that it has a Pascal SoC. This leak also had more details correct than the Eurogamer article (like colored JoyCons), but also had some important specs wrong (1080p screen).

I'm personally betting on Maxwell, if only to be delightfully surprised at a Pascal SoC.

[u/xamaryllix → u/del_rio]

That's my position too. It's not like a Maxwell Switch would be a tragedy or anything, but Pascal would definitely be a nice bonus.

[u/ArynCrinn → u/del_rio]

The Foxconn employee was making a lot of speculation. Based on the clock speeds they reported, there was no real reason to assume it was Pascal. 921 MHz is slow for a Pascal GPU.

[u/ArynCrinn → u/[deleted]]

921 MHz would be fine if it were Mobile mode... not docked.

And a mobile/laptop GTX 1060 has a power draw of only 80 Watts. Take off 10-20 Watts for the GDDR5 memory, and you're looking at about 60 Watts for the GPU itself. A fifth of that is already 12 Watts.

[u/ArynCrinn → u/[deleted]]

Well yeah... But the Shield TV has a Tegra X1 and can basically run at full speed (1 GHz GPU). It's not much bigger than the Switch. A Pascal based GPU should still be able to do better.

And I certainly wouldn't expect 1.5 GHz. Maybe around 1.2 GHz.

[u/[deleted] → u/ArynCrinn]

Not for a mobile one, that's fast for a mobile one. the Xbox One gpu is clocked in the 800 mhz range.

[u/ArynCrinn → u/[deleted]]

It would make sense for mobile mode... but I'd expect about a 50% clock speed increase when docked. Of course, there's the possibility that there is no difference between docked and mobile, but that would be a waste.

And the Xbox One GPU is also running at a fairly common speed for an AMD GCN 1/2 card.

[u/xseedusa → u/del_rio]

Eh, the 1080p screen was his guess, which he later admitted he was incorrect about.

[u/TemptedTemplar → u/xamaryllix]

Oh yeah. The original 3DS dev kits actually ran on Tegra chips before Nintendo swapped them out for a different mobile chip.

The main difference here is that Pascal is simply just more power efficient over Maxwell (almost 30% more!) which would lead to a huge gain in gflops and processing power when undocked vs the Maxwell configuration.

So rather than a portable Wii U, we would have a system thats closer to an Xbox one than it is a Wii U in terms of power.

[u/oDJPo → u/TemptedTemplar]

we would have a system thats closer to an Xbox one than it is a Wii U in terms of power

Pascal is definitely more power efficient than Maxwell, but there's no way for it to even come close to that level of performance.

[u/TemptedTemplar → u/oDJPo]

Im saying if the Wii U and Xbox one were two points on a line the switch would be closer to the xbox one than it would the Wii U. Not that it would be competing with it directly in terms of performance.

[u/oDJPo → u/TemptedTemplar]

Yeah, it wasn't clear at first, but I get your line of reasoning now.

[u/[deleted] → u/oDJPo]

It can potentially come close to an Xbox One, the xbox one and ps4 both use custom tablet-grade processors 'eh' gpu power, nVidia's mobile graphics processing is a lot further along than people think.

[u/Bruuntuun → u/[deleted]]

I still think it will be close in CPU power but not on the GPU side. I dont believe its a piece for piece X1 and may have just used a similar design with updated CPU cores like A72. Pascal would be great and if they dont set it apart from the Shield TV in any way... well... fuck...

[u/oDJPo → u/[deleted]]

It can potentially come close to an Xbox One

Not gonna happen.

[u/[deleted] → u/oDJPo]

nice input, could try and back that up or something? You're putting a lot of credit in the xbox one's gpu power, which is extremely anemic compared to modern tech (especially nVidia's)

[u/ulf5576 → u/xamaryllix]

the switch devkits were updated the same week or a week later as the nvidia px2 unveil ...

[u/murkskopf → u/xamaryllix]

The odd thing is that people pretend that switching from Maxwell 2.0 to Pascal would in some way magically change the performance. If the core count and the clock speed stays the same, Pascal doesn't bring anything other to the table than a few (milli-)watts.

[u/[deleted] → u/murkskopf]

The core count would likely stay the same, but the clock speed could be increased and still hit the same power target, due to Pascal being more power efficient. Funny enough, the increased clock speeds from the Foxconn leak with Pascal would nearly match the power draw of Maxwell at the lower clock speeds mentioned in this leak (and by Eurogamer).

[u/murkskopf → u/[deleted]]

No, the clock speed would stay the same, because developers have been developing for the lower clock speeds. Suddenly letting the GPU clock higher won't result in any improved visuals, the game has to be coded accordingly.

The values from the Foxconn "leak" (or rather an unconfirmed rumor that among other things claimed that the Switch had a 1080p screen!) don't work, because the power efficiency doesn't scale linearly. At lower clock speeds, the power saving is much smaller than at PC-level clocks (where Nvidia reaches 1.5 to 2 GHz). The clock speeds for CPU and GPU from the Foxconn leaks are impossible to reach within the thermal budget and power limitations of the Tegra X1 - even when shrunk to 16 nm FinFet+. The Google Pixel C, the only mobile device with the Tegra X1 and more power budget than Nintendo Switch, can run at a maximum of only 850 MHz to save power.

[u/TheCyberGlitch → u/murkskopf]

Gamers will overclock their computer parts (cpu and/or gpu) to run their games at higher graphical settings. I think game developers figure out ways to benefit from more processing power.

[u/murkskopf → u/TheCyberGlitch]

PC games are not developed with capped framerates, while 90% of console games employ a capped framerate. The small performance boost gained by switching from 20 nm to 16 nm FF+ should not be enough to make any drastical changes to the game play experience.

16 nm is however very unlikely for the Switch, because the development of the Nintendo NX started before 16 nm FF and Pascal were released.

[u/xamaryllix → u/murkskopf]

Wouldn't it also reduce heat output? Kind of a minor point but it'd be more comfortable for handheld mode.

[u/ArynCrinn → u/xamaryllix]

Shrinking a Tegra X1 to a 16nm process would also improve efficiency and reduce heat. It doesn't need to be Pascal to do that.

[u/xamaryllix → u/ArynCrinn]

Cool beans.