Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nintendo Switch 2 Dock USB-C Compatibility

lttlabs.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 197 posts

Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Dock USB-C Compatibility

#141

Post by kevincox »

ChrisGreenHeur wrote: post #91
whatevaa wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had to tip toe around this to avoid lawsuits. In practice, they made it quite clear they think this is on purpose.

I'm not so sure nintendo would sue someone over wrong details on specifics of usb-c implementations.

You can sue someone for anything, and Nintendo is infamous for doing so. They will put an army of lawyers on a case that has no merit (or just enough merit not to be thrown out early) to cost the defendant lots of money or just create sufficient risk that the defendant will settle to avoid the slim chance that they lose.

Yes, our legal system has major flaws.

Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Dock USB-C Compatibility

#142

Post by kevincox »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #42
alex_f_k wrote: post #18

From lttlabs: > The inability for most docks to support the Switch 2 may not be malicious from Nintendo. It might just be a poor or lazy implementation of the USB-C specification From the verge [0], 2 months ago: > When I analyze the conversation between the Nintendo Switch 2 and its dock, I can see the two devices begin speaking in Nintendo’s own flavor of “vendor defined” language early in the conversation, before…

Seems Nintendo has good reasons not to support it with 3rd party devices: Their own dock has active cooling, so with generic dongles the switch wouldn't be able to enter the docked performance mode (or have to throttle down pretty soon) and would have to output a blurry mess to 4k screens. Not a great user experience.

It seems like this should be based on the observed situation rather than what the dock says? What if the fans of the official dock are stuck, dead or just pushed up against something? What if they ambient conditions are just so hot that the cooling isn't effective. What if a third party dock has better cooling?

Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Dock USB-C Compatibility

#143

Post by jokoon »

I guess hardware vendors are allowed to make USBC devices that goes outside the USBC specs? Although this seems to be within the USBC spec?

Would be interesting if future hardware standards would not allow to be licensed as "within standard" if they break a few rules.

I could see some hardware vendors using their own implementation of a standard just to fool customers into believing it supports a standard while there are exceptions.

Isn't that what happened to bluetooth?

I am not an apple user, but isn't apple also abusing hardware standards to encourage clients to buy its products?

Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Dock USB-C Compatibility

#144

Post by nintendohater »

notrealyme123 wrote: post #23
alex_f_k wrote: post #18

From lttlabs: > The inability for most docks to support the Switch 2 may not be malicious from Nintendo. It might just be a poor or lazy implementation of the USB-C specification From the verge [0], 2 months ago: > When I analyze the conversation between the Nintendo Switch 2 and its dock, I can see the two devices begin speaking in Nintendo’s own flavor of “vendor defined” language early in the conversation, before…

At least on the video they made it quite clear that they assumed thant Nintendo did it on purpose, but they did not have enough proof to actually say it. So instead they sad "Nintendo stopped early with developing compatibility"

It's called plausible deniability, i.e. Nintendo can claim they were just ignorant, and there's no proof of the contrary. That is, until EU rightfully fines them.

Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Dock USB-C Compatibility

#145

Post by ziml77 »

Interestingly, there don't seem to be limitations the other way around. I saw a video of someone running a USB-C extension cable into the dock and using that to hook up a Steam Deck to it. It seemed to be fully capable and interestingly even exposed VRR, something that the Switch 2 itself gives you no option for when docked.

Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Dock USB-C Compatibility

#146

Post by tzs »

Eater_of_food wrote: post #80
SifJar wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doing it their way gets rid of all of the ambiguity involved with USB C At that point, why use USB-C for the dock connection at all? Just use a proprietary connector if you're not going to follow the standards. Having a separate USB-C port for charging should satisfy e.g. the EU regulations requiring that, I think. (Assuming that is the reason they used USB-C in the first place)

Presumably, sticking with USB lowers costs. Just buy mass-produced ports rather than invest in tooling to build a bespoke port.

The choices aren’t limited to USB or bespoke. There are thousands of mass produced non-USB connectors available at any major electronics parts distributor.

Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Dock USB-C Compatibility

#147

Post by prism56 »

martini333 wrote: post #118

The LTT video was painful to watch. I don’t know much about USB or USB-PD, but it was clear they didn’t either. It felt like they were just rambling with some vaguely technical jargon, with no actual understanding.

It seemed more like the technical guy wrote the post and 'they' made it into a video format without really explaining it.

I think they did a bad job. They struck a poor balance between not explaining it and trying to explain it. They should have gone full technical or not at all and stayed very high level regarding the issue of bespoke protocols.

Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Dock USB-C Compatibility

#148

Post by aejtaetj »

For consoles, it was actually the original Xbox that started this trend, using a proprietary physical connector, but with a mostly standard usb protocol, for no other purpose than to be consumer hostile. Physical hacks was of course rapidly found in this case to adapt it to be standard compliant.

Then again, with xbox360/kinect, the camera was using the usb procotol, but microsoft prevented it from working with pcs in windows. Instead you had to buy a several times more expensive "pc" version, that had the same specs, except for having the malicious compliance tech was removed.

I guess nintendo learned from this.

Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Dock USB-C Compatibility

#149

Post by bubblebeard »

bzzzt wrote: post #60
bubblebeard wrote: post #27

Just one more reason not to buy a Switch 2. Seriously, Nintendo has become worse than Apple when it comes to treating their customers. I own hundreds of Nintendo games and every console they ever made, sometimes in multiples. But when I saw of all the shit they were trying to pull with the Switch 2 I decided I was done with that company for good.

Nintendo was and is primarily a toy company. The deal is if you buy their stuff you get entertainment. You're pretending it's a general purpose computer to make a point about interoperability, but it's neither. What kind of 'shit' do they pull with Switch 2 they already didn't with Switch 1? Both are expensive DRM locked game devices, Switch 2 is just a bit faster.

For example, they retain the right now to brick your console remotely if you go against their usage policies. Which they retain the right to change at will. So, effectively you really do not own that console in any way shape or form. Shame really, used to like Nintendo once.

Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Dock USB-C Compatibility

#150

Post by arghwhat »

grishka wrote: post #137
arghwhat wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of misunderstandings about USB PD communication, in particular Vendor Defined Messages. The LTT video kept making this mistake, and mixing in misunderstandings around messages to the eMarker chip itself (SOP'). It was a painful watch. Vendor Defined Messages have is part of any normal PD exchange, as they're simply anything that isn't defined by the PD spec itself. You'll see VDMs when connecting any de…

Why reject switch 1 accessories though? Sure the video resolution will have to be limited to 1080p, but that's kinda expected and I'm sure switch 2 can do that anyway

Switch currently runs in one of two modes: Docked and handheld. Games are written to expect those two modes, with rendering adjusted to those specifically and nothing else. Think of all the render settings in a PC game (in reality there are way more things the developer can adjust, but just for the sake of illustration), and assume there are instead two hardcoded presets which are selected based on whether or not the device is "docked".

For Switch 1 games, docked means "we're running as fast as the internal cooling can handle and outputting 1080p, assume the user can't use the touch screen and such". A dongle is fine here as long as you don't block the air inlets or exhausts, or place the Switch on something heat sensitive.

For Switch 2 games, docked means "we're running as fast as the externally boosted cooling can handle and cranking out 4k, and assume you can't use the touch screen and such". Assuming the fan does useful work here, then with a dongle you'll be thermal throttling and have a bad gaming experience - on a PC you'd turn down the settings, here those are hardcoded.

So, what about using the switch 2 handheld mode on a switch 1 dock, seeing it's the same resolution? Well, if you tell it to run in handheld mode it might assume you have access to the touchscreen, always-on VRR and HDR, is using internal speakers, etc.

It's totally doable, but to do this right the stack needs to be prepared for it. As such, I understand why they did it.

Heck, this was the same issue for the Switch 1, and it took a while for third-party docks to pop up. It'll take all but a moment for third party docks to support this.

Post reply on HN