Switch 2’s reveal: what did we learn about its future capabilities?

DF Direct Weekly arrived early – but with good reason. With Nintendo at the end Presenting Switch 2, the Digital Foundry team spent a good amount of time talking about what we learned from the two-minute teaser and, equally, what is still to come. The main question I’ve been thinking about is this: did we see any significant changes from the Mario Kart demo we saw compared to the existing changes Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? In fact, have we seen a hint of Nvidia technology that has prompted much of the Switch 2 to speak? I can’t argue.

What the teaser did was to confirm many of the hardware leaks we’ve seen over the past few months. Yes, Switch 2 will be bigger than its predecessor. The joycons seem to attach magnetically to the main unit. There are strong indications that when the IR center from Switch 1 is gone, some kind of sensor allows its successor to use its controllers such as a mouse. Top and bottom USB-C connectors are also recognized, opening the door to a variety of external devices that can be connected to the top of the machine. In addition to the larger form factor, the ventilation seems to have been improved to control the heat generated by the T239 processor.

Back compatibility between both physical and digital Switch titles is also guaranteed – presented with a warning indicating that not all games will work. My feeling here is that outside of a few inconsistencies, software compatibility won’t be an issue – it’s more likely that games using Switch 1 specific hardware will be problematic. Will games always run faster on the Switch 2 than they do on the original model? I would say that creating a true emulation of the old console will be more difficult than just running them straight-out from the old game from the new device, similar to the PS5 and Xbox Series back to work.

• 0:00:00 He Introduction
• 0:01:12 one Change 2 hardware
• 0:16:42 : me New Mario Kart analysis
• 0:28:32 : me Only partial backward compatibility?
• 0:36:44 Rumors change 2 hours fast
• 0:47:52 Supporter Q1: Can Switch 2 use transformer model DLSS?
• 0:50:32 : me Support Q2: Can DLSS save Switch 2 output on 4K screens?
• 0:52:19 : me Supporter Q3: Will Nintendo release performance for Switch 1 games on Switch 2?
• 0:58:21 Last Change 2 thoughts and feelings

For followers of electronics and general discourse, nothing I’ve said so far will be ‘new’ as such – but the exposure of what we can expect that is the new Mario Kart game. There are clear improvements here over what we saw in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – but with the big caveat that all we can really discuss is a short video clip that may or may not be real. body of the game. However, the scene of the road itself is interesting: we see a wide shot with a detail-rich shot panning back to show the distance – which can be recommended for the different to the game itself.

The character rendering and environment have a similar to Mario Kart 8 but with some interesting embellishments. There have been changes to character designs, possibly to be more consistent with the movie versions. The drivers – and indeed the karts themselves – look more expressive, including cartoon-inspired squashing and stretching animations. Also interesting is the change to shadow maps. In Mario Kart 8, baked-in shadows combined with sparing use of shadow maps but here, all the geometry looks like a real-time shadow sport – an improvement more important than Switch 1, but obviously requires more of the GPU resources.

Is this a previous generation of existing devices? It is difficult to go with the thought to the point where there is a good argument that the new Mario Kart can be created as a cross-gen game in the style of Forza Horizon 5: well-well of two systems, designed with equal consideration for a good experience across generations. While the Switch 2 is capable of tracking graphics, maybe it’s a bit much to ask them to appear in 60fps games, but it’s surprising to see some of Nvidia’s technology urine in the game.

For example, DLSS has been hailed as a potential game changer for the new console and yet there is no evidence of it being in place in the new Mario Kart game. In fact, together with many other Nintendo titles, the situation of the graphics shows that there is no attack at all, let alone ML-based upscaling. It’s all a far cry from last year’s reports of Breath of the Wild running at 4K 60fps using DLSS! In short, all we have is a demonstration for the crowd-pleaser game but not a next-generation showcase for Nintendo’s new hardware.

Not related to the presentation, but indeed the 2-side switch was leaked earlier this week on the clock speed for the T239 processor in both handheld and docked configurations. Think of this as the ‘next gen’ version of our 2016 story of how Nintendo downclocked the Tegra X1 from default specs. The mooted specs are of concern to some viewers but they are as broad as I would expect – with a few caveats in place.

The following table outlines the basics. Just like the Switch 1 clock I posted about eight years ago now, we get CPU, GPU and memory clock speeds. When docked, we get an estimated 102.4GB/s of memory bandwidth, shared between the GPU running at 1007MHz and the CPU clocked at a bafflingly low 998.4MHz. In a power-limited environment where battery life is king, things change – the GPU drops to 561MHz, while the memory bandwidth decreases to 68.3GB/s. Bizarrely, however , CPU clock up From 998.4MHz to 1100.8MHz. Quite why this is the case is not in the leaked information and it is enough to cast doubt on the authenticity of the report.

* Change 2 features are not confirmed at this time.

With that said, the accuracy of the frequency – down to the number of digits – is the main source of information that tells us the Switch 1 story, while the number of GPU and memory The clock is actually plausible bearing in mind the incredible information together. about the T239 processor. Like its predecessors, the clocks are lower than many expected – but all in line with some limitations put in place by the chip that is not made of layers standard today.

Why would handheld mode require higher clockspeeds than docked? That is not clear at this time, but weirdly and perversely, this has added to the idea that the information will be on the stage. Why create useful and reliable data for GPU and memory and then fumble the package with ‘obviously wrong’ CPU frequency? You have to balance that idea against the idea that Nintendo has some the reason for doing it has to do with the CPU clock. Alternatively, of course, the leak could just be wrong.

Based on what this new data means, let’s show off the CPU for a while and look at the GPU. A while back, I put together a video based on everything we know about the T239 chip in Switch 2. I tried to simulate the GPU by using a downclocked RTX 2050 laptop processor, based on the same Nvidia Ampere architecture and operating with similar memory. . This chip has 2048 CUDA cores – more than the 1536 in the T239 – so I ran it at only 750MHz. On this balance must is ballpark with a small GPU running at higher clocks, as described here. A general knowledge of Steam Deck-like appears but limited line of electricity is on the table, while DLSS is good for 1080p – and in some cases – 1440p upscaling.

All of this testing is still firmly in the realm of theoretical simulation – and it’s notable that we haven’t seen much of this potential in Mario Kart footage. It’s almost as if – for now, at least – Nintendo doesn’t want to tip its hand about what the machine is capable of. By showing only a few seconds of the new Mario Kart title, it seems that the platform holder has other ideas – maybe to remember the 64m people who bought Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at the time good that they have played and the event is on the way.

So, with a teaser out of the way, what happens next? All eyes are on the Switch 2 Nintendo Direct, coming up on April 4th. It is a long wait to know, as it is between the original Switch show in October 2016 and the events that took place in January 2017. In Meanwhile, it seems that it is weapon-free for developers and publishers to talk about the Switch. 2 games they are working on, but may not show pictures.

If I want to guess what we will see other than the surprises Nintendo might cook up from its first party studios, well, I would expect more PS4 ports and PS4 / PS5 cross-gen games will happen. There are rumors that the likes of Microsoft Flight Simulator may be coming, which will be a challenge for this device, but the 2020 version runs well enough on Steam Deck and if we can ignore CPU concerns for now, mostly I wonder what will happen. which runs on Deck to run on Switch 2 – and lower resolution aside, I managed to fly Sim close to the Series S down on the Valve handle. Perhaps the expectations should be kept in check, but as the best Switch port we have seen throughout its life, I am confident that we will still be surprised by Nintendo’s hybrid console when we switch to the concept of the second generation.