Nintendo Switch Teardown • Hacker News Board

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#11

Post by ndesaulniers » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:41 AM UTC

samtoday wrote: post #6

Wow, the Nintendo Switch has a fan? It is amazing how thermals are such a limiting factor in today's devices. I remember that a browser dev increased the Nexus 5's benchmark score drastically by placing it on a bag of ice.

> I remember that a browser dev increased the Nexus 5's benchmark score drastically by placing it on a bag of ice.

If the browser was stressing the system to the limits of the thermal envelope, then by being able to dissapate heat faster, you can schedule more work to be done delaying any kind of frequency governing.

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#12

Post by pikzen » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:44 AM UTC

overcast wrote: post #3

The dock is pretty underwhelming from what I've seen. There is no protection for the screen, sliding in between two pieces of plastic. Pretty cheap, for a premium priced, and well engineered hybrid device, that will be taken in and out. Semi-relevant. Breath of Wild looks like such a fantastic game, but it's completely ridiculous that the performance is often times WORSE in the docked mode. I'm hoping this is just cr…

Going from 720p to 900p is a ~50% increase in pixel count, but the bandwidth increase from docking is only 20%. And since it already chokes at times in tablet mode, this doesn't bode well for a fix that isn't lowering graphical quality.

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#13

Post by overcast » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:47 AM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #8

overcast wrote: post #3

The dock is pretty underwhelming from what I've seen. There is no protection for the screen, sliding in between two pieces of plastic. Pretty cheap, for a premium priced, and well engineered hybrid device, that will be taken in and out. Semi-relevant. Breath of Wild looks like such a fantastic game, but it's completely ridiculous that the performance is often times WORSE in the docked mode. I'm hoping this is just cr…

Yes, the docked mode is grating at times. You've got these great mechanics and beautiful world but constant input lag. Very frustrating. I'd prefer to be able to sit down and play on a TV at a higher resolution, but it's a worse experience. It effectively makes it a mobile game. It's 2017! 1080p or 60fps should be the minimum. To be fair that's not doable at $300 on a mobile gpu, but as a console that's rough. re: sc…

Depressing. I was going to wait till much later to even consider purchasing this. But I definitely won't be until that's addressed.

Why isn't the screen glass?!

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#14

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:49 AM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #7

I showed up at Target at 4 am and was second in line. Some other poor soul had been there since 11 and out of the 50 units available there were probably 10 people at opening. Not sure if that suggests demand isn't that great or what. It's hard to figure out. Check out the unit next to the Wii U tablet and the latter looks very much like a clunky cheap toy. Everything here seems well-designed (don't scratch your scree…

[deleted]

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#15

Post by funkedelic_bob » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:58 AM UTC

ndesaulniers wrote: post #11

samtoday wrote: post #6

Wow, the Nintendo Switch has a fan? It is amazing how thermals are such a limiting factor in today's devices. I remember that a browser dev increased the Nexus 5's benchmark score drastically by placing it on a bag of ice.

> I remember that a browser dev increased the Nexus 5's benchmark score drastically by placing it on a bag of ice. If the browser was stressing the system to the limits of the thermal envelope, then by being able to dissapate heat faster, you can schedule more work to be done delaying any kind of frequency governing.

That's crazy. I wonder if I can increase my output from my laptop working in front of an open freezer :P

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#16

Post by kbumsik » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 5:02 AM UTC

It's a bit shame that there is no chip part information. I am particularly wondering which microcontroller they use for the remote controllers. I will wait for iFixit's teardown review.

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#17

Post by creativetaboo » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 5:04 AM UTC

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #4

This might be slightly off-topic, but if you like this type of teardown content, I highly recommend checking out AVE's channel on Youtube [1]. He does plenty of tool teardown's, things like drills, all types of heavy industrial gear, and some electronics thrown in. I find is fascinating, because you start to learn about the manufacturing process, why mechanical engineers choose specific materials, how they cut corner…

Love AVE's channel. Fictiv also has more of these, it looks like: https://www.fictiv.com/blog/topics/teardowns

+ they've done the other Nintendo controllers:

https://www.fictiv.com/blog/posts/nintendo-controller-teardo...

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#18

Post by creativetaboo » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 5:05 AM UTC

kbumsik wrote: post #16

It's a bit shame that there is no chip part information. I am particularly wondering which microcontroller they use for the remote controllers. I will wait for iFixit's teardown review.

They referenced the China leak which has all that information already: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/02/nintendo_switch_tea...

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#19

Post by MBCook » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 5:11 AM UTC

overcast wrote: post #3

The dock is pretty underwhelming from what I've seen. There is no protection for the screen, sliding in between two pieces of plastic. Pretty cheap, for a premium priced, and well engineered hybrid device, that will be taken in and out. Semi-relevant. Breath of Wild looks like such a fantastic game, but it's completely ridiculous that the performance is often times WORSE in the docked mode. I'm hoping this is just cr…

I really do wonder how optimized the game is. From what I've heard (I'm waiting for a good digital foundry comparison video) it sounds like the game plays identically on the WiiU and the Switch in docked mode. The only difference is that the WiiU version runs at 720p instead of 900p.

We know this started as a WiiU game, i'm wondering if this is another twilight princess where they did very little except up the resolution for the new console and we're not really seeing what the machine is capable of.

Re: Nintendo Switch Teardown

#20

Post by cmrdporcupine » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 5:15 AM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #8

overcast wrote: post #3

The dock is pretty underwhelming from what I've seen. There is no protection for the screen, sliding in between two pieces of plastic. Pretty cheap, for a premium priced, and well engineered hybrid device, that will be taken in and out. Semi-relevant. Breath of Wild looks like such a fantastic game, but it's completely ridiculous that the performance is often times WORSE in the docked mode. I'm hoping this is just cr…

Yes, the docked mode is grating at times. You've got these great mechanics and beautiful world but constant input lag. Very frustrating. I'd prefer to be able to sit down and play on a TV at a higher resolution, but it's a worse experience. It effectively makes it a mobile game. It's 2017! 1080p or 60fps should be the minimum. To be fair that's not doable at $300 on a mobile gpu, but as a console that's rough. re: sc…

I bought the Wii U version instead of a Switch because of the complaints I heard about the docked game.

Played it tonight. Very very nice, my kids love it.

I'll buy a Switch in a year once there's more games and they have the kinks worked out. If I feel like playing Breath again, I'll get it second hand.