Resident Switch hacking scene member SciresM, known for his work on Atmosphere CFW, has made a curious discovery via datamining. A Nintendo Switch Pro model might actually be on the way, if you believe what he's uncovered from an update on the Switch. It should be noted that while interesting, this information does not confirm anything, and much is speculation on SciresM's part after having dug around some firmware files.

Existing under the codename of Aula, this hardware uses a Mariko SoC. It also would support both handheld and docked mode, and features "substantially" better cooling and battery life. While there's nothing concrete to fully determine, SciresM thinks that the revision would support 4K when docked, with an OLED tablet screen, as it features a Realtek chip branded as having "4K UHD multimedia SoC". If it's to be believed, then Nintendo has been working on a "Switch Pro" for over a year, which would line up with many reputable outlets repeatedly claiming that Nintendo is indeed working on a more powerful Nintendo Switch system.

Nintendo actually is working on a new model with upgraded display stuff and has been for ~1.5-2 years. I personally believe it's 4K given the signs I'm seeing in the firmware, but that's not confirmed yet and could be wrong.

Aula has firmware support some Realtek chip that advertises itself as a "4K UHD multimedia SoC", too, hence my belief it's 4K. That chip might be inside a new dock and not inside the tablet, though, there's no way to tell from the firmware code yet.

Aula explicitly supports handheld mode. It is not docked only; that's calcio, which seems like it's for internal only/never releasing since Calcio has no gamecard slot and no battery.

Checked my previous discussions with hexkyz, the upgraded tablet display is an OLED screen. Probably not higher resolution on tablet itself, so I guess the 4k realtek chip is more likely to be new dock than I thought it was.

Source

 

[Deleted member 546892]

Nintendo just needs to use a 1080p screen and 16gbs of ram.
Please...

 

[Deleted User]

heaven forbid developers improve a games performance on newer hardware with a free patch

You obviously missed my point or did it on purpose. It's good that they fix their shit, but when these games are no longer supported, those patches or DLC can't be downloaded.

I hated DOOM on the Switch due to having to download extra content when I only wanted to play it. Great game, though.

 

[OctuplePrecision]

A more powerful dock is an interesting idea. I wonder if they would make the docking system backwards compatible. USB-C on the switch does offer the ability for a lot of bandwidth, I do wonder if they are going to fit a gen 3.2 port to it, and that might lock out the older switches. Perhaps the bandwidth increase of 3.2 is necessary, also I just wonder to as well about the protocols, as far as I know all external GPU's utilize thunderbolt which is now an open standard but I think limited to USB 4?

I'm probably talking nonsense tbh, but there are ways to possibly have it talk to the new GPU in the dock without changing the hardware up too much. Maybe the hardware in the dock is just doing a form of upscaling? It reminded me a bit of the voodoo 3D graphics cards where you'd plug your 2D card's output into the Voodoo's VGA input, and then the Voodoo would have another VGA out for your monitor.

 

[NeroAngelo]

according to some news, it isn't even real 4k, just upscaling to 4k.

 

[Kazzie]

I don't care about potability, just want a more powerful console.

I don't think anyone wants to drink their Switch.

 

[ILuvGames]

I don't think anyone wants to drink their Switch.

I think you are getting confused with potency but maybe that's the point .

 

[Kazzie]

I think you are getting confused with potency but maybe that's the point .

Nah, just worried about talk of "potability".

 

[Ottoclav]

I think you are getting confused with potency but maybe that's the point .

potability isn't a real word, but the poster is inferring that a switch isn't safe to drink.

 

[ILuvGames]

potability isn't a real word, but the poster is inferring that a switch isn't safe to drink.

Nah, just worried about talk of "potability".

I already understood that when I made the post but thanks .

 

[smf]

The first version of most nintendo consoles are always the least desirable ones to have as time goes on.

The original gamecube with the digital output is quite desirable (if you can get hold of a cable).
The original wii with bootmii as boot2 is quite desirable.
The original switch has fusee gelee

ds/ds lite & 3ds/new 3ds is probably where I would agree with you.

 

[grey72]

there are ways to possibly have it talk to the new GPU in the dock without changing the hardware up too much.

IMO slim chance of it being anything other than simple 4k upscaling. There's no straightforward way for the mariko chip to interface with a discrete GPU (thunderbolt/USB4). Maybe a second, propriety connection with the dock carrying PCIe or some off-the-wall custom solution would do it, but I doubt ninty will try something like that.

 

[ZachyCatGames]

I'm going to guess that this is referencing RTD1395 (since those words are exactly the subtitle on the product page). Interestingly, this is somewhat similar to the Tegra X1 SOC (T210/T214) used in the Switch today. The Tegra X1 has a quad-core ARM Cortex-A57 at 1.9 GHz (and 4 unused Cortex-A53 that we can just ignore), and a 1000 MHz / 1267 MHz (for T210 and T214 respectively) Maxwell GPU. The RTD1395 has a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 at 1.6 GHz and an ARM Mali-470 MP4 GPU which should clock in at around 2600 MHz (650 MHz per fragment processor). It's worth pointing out that this clearly isn't a replacement for Tegra X1 as the GPUs are different architectures, and the CPUs are slightly different (though both ARMv8.0).

It seems like this will either be a co-processor in the main unit, or a co-processor in the dock. Either way, I doubt games not designed to take advantage of this extension would be able to get significant benefits from it; potentially NVN could be reworked to take advantage of the extra graphics hardware, but this would be tricky. Much like the situation on 3DS / New3DS, I'm guessing only games specifically built for this architecture could take advantage of the extra CPU cores as they would have to know that they can utilize additional concurrent threads, and something would need to decide which threads to run where. My guess is the plan is to have certain higher end games that will be playable natively with the co-processor, and via the cloud without it (e.g. Control or Hitman 3). Could also be used by future games with optional "Switch Pro" enhancements.

Edit: Also, just wanted to throw in my 2 cents that this likely means absolutely nothing for 4K. The reason the chip is marketed as 4K multimedia is because it supports hardware accelerated 4K video decoding (H.265 and VP9 at 60 fps), and one of the target uses is things like Android TV. Rendering a game in 4K is a VERY different beast from decoding 4K video; considering this chipset can't even decode 4K H.264 at 60 fps, there's no way it can render 4K graphics.

`RTD2172N`, it's just a DisplayPort to HDMI converter, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Supercool330]

`RTD2172N`, it's just a DisplayPort to HDMI converter, nothing more, nothing less.

Source on it being an RTD2172N? I can't find any spec sheets on that chip. There is an RTD2173 which is a DP 1.4 to HDMI 2.1. That would still be interesting as it may actually support things like HDR10.

 

[ZachyCatGames]

Source on it being an RTD2172N? I can't find any spec sheets on that chip. There is an RTD2173 which is a DP 1.4 to HDMI 2.1. That would still be interesting as it may actually support things like HDR10.

No comment.

yeah idk, I couldn’t find much on it either, just a big list of random parts with no descriptions.
I’d guess it’s the same/very similar to RTD2173 though.

 

[ucupetuks]

Nintendo just needs to use a 1080p screen and 16gbs of ram.
Please...

16 gb wont happen, 8gb more likely

 

[Deleted member 546892]

16 gb wont happen, 8gb more likely

Fair, but if 4k is a thing that will happen, the switch (in docked) will have 16GB’s of RAM

 

[ucupetuks]

Fair, but if 4k is a thing that will happen, the switch (in docked) will have 16GB’s of RAM

no capable mobile soc rendering game at 4k, and it wont happen nintendo put 16gb vram, 8gb already overkill, so i think 6-8gb at the best, and no feasible for docked hardware accelerated like, because the price will be crazy, ppl will buy pc/ps5/xsx instead