Nintendo’s Swap 2 launch is going on tomorrow night, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, a key provider for the hybrid console, sang the praises of the machine and its essential processor right now.
“For all of us at Nvidia, we’ve labored with Nintendo for greater than a decade, drawn collectively by shared that expertise ought to serve creativity and that pleasure is value engineering for,” mentioned Huang. “I nonetheless bear in mind the day Iwata san shared his dream with us.”
It’s touching that Huang, whose firm has moved on to nice heights with the AI revolution, remembers Nvidia’s roots in gaming.
Huang mentioned Satoru Iwata, the previous CEO of Nintendo who handed away from most cancers, needed to create one thing nobody had seen earlier than, a console highly effective sufficient for large, cinematic video games, however sufficiently small to take anyplace.
“It sounded not possible, however that imaginative and prescient grew to become the unique Nintendo Swap. We misplaced Iwata San earlier than the launch, however his readability, his goal — it nonetheless evokes our work,” Huang mentioned. “Daily collectively, we poured all the things into that system. The Nintendo Swap took over 500 engineer years at Nvidia. We rethought the whole stack, chip structure, OS, APIs, sport engines, so the magic may journey with you.”
Huang mentioned the outcomes communicate for themselves. Over 150 million consoles bought. It was a worldwide platform that introduced households collectively, empowered indie creators and redefined what a console could possibly be.
“And now a daring new chapter begins the mission construct a brand new console that takes the unique imaginative and prescient additional to make it so we needed to reinvent all the things,” Huang mentioned of the Swap 2. “The chip inside Nintendo Swap 2 is not like something we’ve constructed earlier than.”
The Nintendo Swap 2 has a customized Nvidia processor, the T239, with an Ampere-based GPU. It options 1,536 CUDA cores, runs at 1GHz (docked), and 561MHz (cell), with a reminiscence interface of 128-bit LPDDR5. The GPU can ship 3.07 TeraFLOPS in docked mode and 1.71 TeraFLOPS in moveable use.
The system’s CPU has eight ARM Cortex-A78C cores, 12GB LPDDR5X (128-bit interface), reminiscence bandwidth of 102 GB/s (docked), 68 GB/s (cell) and storage of 256 GB UFS 3.1. It has RT Cores, Tensor Cores for AI-driven enhancements, DLSS assist and 4K gaming in TV mode.
He mentioned it brings collectively a number of breakthroughs: probably the most superior graphics ever in a cell machine, full {hardware} ray tracing, excessive dynamic vary for brighter highlights and deeper shadows, and an structure that helps backward compatibility, devoted AI processors to sharpen animations and improve gameplay in actual time, and extremely low energy.
“We optimize the semiconductor course of expertise for top efficiency in a handheld machine so we are able to go wherever you go,” he mentioned. “This chip is a technical marvel. It delivers efficiency, intelligence and wonder within the palm of your Swap 2 is greater than a brand new console. It’s a brand new chapter worthy of Iwata san’s imaginative and prescient.”
He added, “To our associates at Nintendo, congratulations, we’re honored to be on this journey with you. And to everybody who loves video games, let the enjoyable start. It is a proud second for all of us at Nvidia too.”
