With diminishing returns, will the gap between static and portable/mobile hardware increase, diminish or stay the same?

[Marano]

When discussing the switch, switch pro and switch 2 this is a fascinating discussion, one where both hardware and software have to be taken into account but this is also relevant for phones with their "console quality games" from a generation ago and laptops too.

Engines are more scalable than ever now, UE5 will offer great visuals and also support mobile hardware so this should bode well for scalability.

With nintendo, being honest we all want them to do their own thing, keep inovating and keep portability too while getting as much support as possible, I dont think pubs and devs that do not support the switch have anything against nintendo like I have seen some say, no one is looking at the massive nintendo userbase and walking away from that wilingly, it is because in 99% of the cases the switch cant run these games (even then there have been some cloud versions).

Realistically, I dont think the solution is all games should target the switch and be upported to everything else like I have seen some say, but I wonder if with the switch 2 things could be different where the majority of games targeting the series s could run on the switch 2 with some effort which right now for the og switch it is not a matter of effort alone (cpu, storage, ram, gpu limitations).

I dont know how close to the series s nintendo can get, especially their portable storage solution, but I still keep thinking how diminishing returns could affect the dynamics going forward.

Thoughts?

 

[Marano]

Lets get the folks from the "how powerful could a switch model in 20xx be" thread here and also from the nintendo general discussion thread.

 

[sir_crocodile]

The gap won't diminish, but the perceptible gap for users will.

 

[TeenageFBI]

Depends on whether or not Switch 2/Pro gets RTSS, haha.

 

[nsilvias]

it will stay the same. mobile hardware is very powerful these days but wthout proper cooling and power delivery it wont be able to sustain that performance longterm.

 

[Human Resources]

everyone seems to be focusing on streaming and even phones are getting high refresh rate screens, so if they can solve the latency issues, every system could technically have portability through smartphone streaming, letting console makers focus on maximizing performance without concerning themselves with developing portable hardware. in this scenario, i say the gap increases

 

[Marano]

everyone seems to be focusing on streaming and even phones are getting high refresh rate screens, so if they can solve the latency issues, every system could technically have portability through smartphone streaming, letting console makers focus on maximizing performance without concerning themselves with developing portable hardware. in this scenario, i say the gap increases

Click to shrink...

But nintendo...

 

[Starlatine]

as streaming solutions get better and better the limitations for portable gaming soon will be just battery life/connection

which are still significant, but not on the way op is asking

 

[TripleBee]

Short term the gap will increase, as cooling and battery will hold it back imo

Unless we count streaming - but I don't think that will be replacing the feeling of playing natively for a while.

 

[tzare]

It think models and poly count differences will not be great, but lighting and post processing effects will be very noticeable. There's another thing here i barely see people talking about: file size and loading times. Portable means limited storage , and fast storage is not only expensive, but consumes a lot of power, so battery life will be s when bigger concern due to that and not as much due to apu

 

[Marano]

as streaming solutions get better and better the limitations for portable gaming soon will be just battery life/connection

which are still significant, but not on the way op is asking

Click to shrink...

Yeah, because streaming is a different beast and then the hardware you need is just limited by battery life and your internet speed/reliability/data caps.

 

[Marano]

It think models and poly count differences will not be great, but lighting and post processing effects will be very noticeable. There's another thing here i barely see people talking about: file size and loading times. Portable means limited storage , and fast storage is not only expensive, but consumes a lot of power, so battery life will be s when bigger concern due to that and not as much due to apu

Click to shrink...

That is the last paragraph of the OP and my biggest question mark, how will nintendo deal with the storage situation with the switch 2?

 

[Deleted member 8752]

It think models and poly count differences will not be great, but lighting and post processing effects will be very noticeable. There's another thing here i barely see people talking about: file size and loading times. Portable means limited storage , and fast storage is not only expensive, but consumes a lot of power, so battery life will be s when bigger concern due to that and not as much due to apu

Click to shrink...

Yea, I think GPU-wise, differences are probably decreasing in terms of what the average user will care about, especially when comparing still screen shots. But in terms of sheer speed of loading, higher-end frame rates, draw distances, etc, the gap may actually be widening between portable or console. Or at the very least, it's staying the same.

There's only so much you can do to speed up the experience on a portable. Consoles and PC's are going to be significantly faster in all respects for at least another generation until storage and battery solutions can be improved for portable devices.

Now, games are finally appearing above 60fps on consoles fairly commonly, and you're probably still going to be looking at 30-60fps at best on Switch's successor.

 

[MP!]

I constantly go back and forth on this
Sometimes I think that Static hardware will always be more powerful because they never have limitations on power consumption and things like that.
As long as devices have to run off a battery they'll never match the current "plugged" in power

But then again... there have been incredible strides in mobile technology... more efficient chips and newer architectures continue to close the gap.
Things like DLSS make hardware 1/4 the power seem to perform the same as much more powerful hardware... (not in mobile hardware yet... but once it does that gap will close even more.)
One day we can maybe assume battery technology will advance and when it does we'll see even more of a jump and the gap will close a bit more.

I'm optimistic but It's unknown if mobile tech will actually overtake plugged in tech.
I do think the gap will continue to close year after year though.

 

[Onix555]

The CPU gap between mobile and desktop has already shrunk dramatically over the past 5 years, to the point where new designs have reach Haswell type performance. This will continue for the foreseeable future.

GPU wise the rasterization gap will remain, due to the architecture scaling over the last few years has been based on getting larger and consuming more power.
However unconventional new technology such as DLSS and other types will bridge the gap.

RAM wise mobile devices have effectively caught up, and many 12GB models can be found as well as 16GB.

 

[Deleted member 2752]

I think the combined effects of mobile hardware improving very quickly, 5G being much more useful and the advancements in game streaming lessening the need for local computing power will certainly make things very interesting in the near future.
Maybe it'll just make the most financial sense to build a game console based on mobile tech anyway.

 

[tzare]

That is the last paragraph of the OP and my biggest question mark, how will nintendo deal with the storage situation with the switch 2?

Click to shrink...

Yeah, i was talking in general, people talk visuals a lot, and just like some ps5/XsX games look better, but not leaps better, a new portable may see improved but not a huge jump in quality for the 'average' user.
However storage which is the true next gen leap, that is a very critical point for a portable device: price and power consumption are very high for something that relies on a tiny battery

 

[smileyforall220]

I think the combined effects of mobile hardware improving very quickly, 5G being much more useful and the advancements in game streaming lessening the need for local computing power will certainly make things very interesting in the near future.
Maybe it'll just make the most financial sense to build a game console based on mobile tech anyway.

Click to shrink...

I mean, that local computing power still exists, just somewhere in a data center farm. Therefore the hardware will still be miles away from each other specs wise

 

[Deleted member 2752]

I mean, that local computing power still exists, just somewhere in a data center farm. Therefore the hardware will still be miles away from each other specs wise

Click to shrink...

Yeah, so not local lol

 

[lexony]

everyone seems to be focusing on streaming and even phones are getting high refresh rate screens, so if they can solve the latency issues, every system could technically have portability through smartphone streaming, letting console makers focus on maximizing performance without concerning themselves with developing portable hardware. in this scenario, i say the gap increases

Click to shrink...

Solving latency issues is impossible. With how the internet works, there will always be at least a bit latency.

 

[nekomix]

Mobile compute units are getting closer or at least we start to hit diminishing returns but the power delivery gap, size constraint, storage and the data transferring problem (bandwidth, bus width) are problems hampering mobile computing. Let's see if I'm wrong on that in the following years.

 

[DealWithIt]

The gap won't diminish, but the perceptible gap for users will.

Click to shrink...

A good response.

 

[Le Dude]

I didn't vote on the poll because I'm not particularly sure.

I do think the gap will matter less and less though. Companies will make their games more scaleable and consumers won't be as wowed by the push for the most powerful graphics. As it is, Minecraft, Fortnite, and GTAV have been three of the most popular games of this generation and not a single one requires PS4/Xbox One power to run.

EDIT: Even for personal PCs if they can achieve some sort of easy docking system like the Switch has, I can see phones taking over as people's computers and then if they need to type up a paper or whatever people will just dock their phone at a keyboard/mouse/monitor setup.

 

[Deleted member 2752]

Solving latency issues is impossible. With how the internet works, there will always be at least a bit latency.

Click to shrink...

It's true, but there's predictive technology and stuff like that. You can mitigate its impact.
And, hopefully, more users will be on low latency connections in the future.

 

[Deleted member 5596]

Raytracing and other is what will keep the difference but for most people it won't matter.

 

[Dakhil]

That is the last paragraph of the OP and my biggest question mark, how will nintendo deal with the storage situation with the switch 2?

Click to shrink...

I don't know about external storage, but I imagine Nintendo's going to go with UFS for the internal flash storage. UFS 3.1's sequential speeds are relatively close to the Xbox Series X|S's NVMe SSD's sequential speeds, whilst probably consuming significantly less power.

 

[thatapplesauce]

I'm staring to think that my iPad Air has the potential to be a much greater portable gaming device than my switch.

 

[Dekuman]

DLSS is a game changer.
Traditional static home consoles will compensate by focusing on other aspects that play to their strengths.

But hybrid gaming with console quality games on the go is here to stay IMHO.

 

[Dyle]

The gap is definitely narrowing for most users. Five-ish years ago you couldn't imagine playing entire genres on mobile/portable devices at all. For hardcore enthusiasts with the best tech the gap will stray about the same but for everyone else it will steadily narrow

 

[RennanNT]

I believe it will diminish, mainly because I assume the R&D invested on portable devices is far higher than stationary devices, and thus the technology should progress faster there unless they meet a wall (like battery technology did).

In terms of perception, it definitely will though. Even if portable stays 1~1.5 generation behind, it will look closer and closer to consoles.

 

[Deleted member 87246]

The on paper percentage difference stays the same. The on screen difference vastly diminishes just like the visual leap between PS4-PS5 isn't anything like the leap from PS3-PS4. DLSS will narrow the on screen gap even more in Nintendo's favour at least until PS6 when AMD has similar tech in a console.

I feel this gen will be more about 60fps as standard and loading times than a massive visual leap.

 

[Mivey]

Short of some amazing revolution in battery tech, it will stay the same. The only way to diminish it would be to run closer to the TDP of a stationary device, which just isn't realistic for many reasons. Even if battery was a non-issue, there's the actual heat that the device would need to deal with.

It's just basic physics, OP. This difference isn't going away.

At least if we are talking about the real computational power here. Computer graphics still has a long way to go to reach true photorealism, so it's unrealistic that higher computational power wouldn't translate into better looking games. Of course, if Gen 7 has shown me anything, then it's the fact that people can easily convince themselves that graphical differences matter or don't matter even if they clearly exist or don't. A lot of this stuff just exists in people's head. Remember "grass gate" anyone?

 

[lexony]

It's true, but there's predictive technology and stuff like that. You can mitigate its impact.
And, hopefully, more users will be on low latency connections in the future.

Click to shrink...

Yes. But I think that in the near future powerful mobile hardware (notebooks, tablets, phones or possible future switch revisions) will still play an important role for gaming. There always will be (or at least for a long time) a situation or a place where people have no acess to low latency highspeed connections.

 

[Pokemaniac]

In an absolute sense, the actual numerical gap probably isn't going to get significantly smaller, but the practical gap is likely to shrink significantly as things move forward.

 

[werezompire]

The practical difference between a Switch in portable mode and a PS5 is already a lot slimmer than say the difference between a GBA and a PS2. And there's probably a Switch successor that will come out within a couple years that will narrow the gap further.

 

[Deleted member 37917]

The gap has already diminished. You wouldn't have had a psp port of morrowind, or a psvita port of Skyrim. But we now have competent ports of Witcher 3, Fenyx, Doom Eternal, and we'd probably have others if third parties had been able to predict the switch success. This year's model, if it includes dlss, will be even closer to the new gen consoles.

 

[dgrdsv]

Perceptually the gap will diminish of course because the graphics is already in a state where some people genuinely can't see the difference between PS4 and PS5.

But there's a sound reason from a technical perspective as well: there is no point in a 7-9" 4K handheld.
The display itself may eventually get there and even higher but actually rendering in such native resolution on a small screen would be a total waste.
So portables will be if not already out of resolution race which means that they will be able to spend less power on rendering the same graphics which will lead to the gap getting smaller even in technical terms.

 

[Marano]

Perceptually the gap will diminish of course because the graphics is already in a state where some people genuinely can't see the difference between PS4 and PS5.

But there's a sound reason from a technical perspective as well: there is no point in a 7-9" 4K handheld.
The display itself may eventually get there and even higher but actually rendering in such native resolution on a small screen would be a total waste.
So portables will be if not already out of resolution race which means that they will be able to spend less power on rendering the same graphics which will lead to the gap getting smaller even in technical terms.

Click to shrink...

If nintendo gets dlss on their next hybrid console then I dont know where you reconstruct from to get to 1080p handheld and 4k docked, that is a massive gap because as you say no point going above 1080p in a small screen.

 

[LostCauseUnite!]

The perceptual gap of diminishing returns yes

The actual gap will stay roughly the same

I voted in the case of the former

As time goes on, there will be people who have met their threshold and would not be able to tell much of a difference anymore between a PS7 game, and XB6 game or a Nintendo 11th gen console unless they are shown the difference in a scrutinized manner but carefully. Even then if it is perceived as small to them that they need to pause and zoom to really tell a difference, they won't notice the difference that much to matter for them when actually playing. So they'll think "All 3 look really good! Hardly any difference now!"


There are those that can tell the difference between PS4 and PS5 and there are those that can't tell the difference anymore like they could with PS3 and PS4. Despite the fact that there is a difference, they wont be able to really tell if it is a noticeable difference when playing to matter.

To some it becomes "oh for sure on this system" to "well, i get the added benefit of portable and I can't really tell a major difference so... portable is fine with me"

Of course, to those that actually like portability

 

[Lord Azrael]

There's still a battery bottleneck, but it will obviously diminish over time (and has been)

 

[Sapo84]

It will probably diminish.

• ARM architecture is simply improving at a rate x86 is not, and for the foreseeable future this should favor portable hardware, in general mobile tech is catching up faster and faster, just look at what Apple did with the M1.
• Switch is the first portable console going near 10W of power usage, without using bleeding edge hardware or processing node. A new portable console using the latest and greatest hardware should shrink the gap even more (and you could already port pretty much all Ps4/One library already). The new form factor of mobile devices (getting bigger each year) will always help portable devices. On the other hand I don't see home console going above 200/250W, which is already a lot.
• We're still missing a 1080p portable console, this would be already a huge upgrade t(I don't see home console going above 4K, and it would be almost pointless anyway). The difference between 720 to 1080 compared to better lightning or ray-tracing effect should be easier to see. Diminishing returns are still far away for portable hardware.