The current switch is showing its age. I purchased darksiders 3 when it was on offer and it ran very poorly on the switch, with load times taking a minute or more. I have no interest in investing in a PS5 or gaming PC, and a more powerful switch 2 should allow me to play existing games at way better performance as well.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The Nintendo Switch Console Thread
- Thread starter gkarris
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Mac also runs poorly on windows games. Switch does quite well on 1st party games and that is all needed given ancient hardware - LM3 is quite stunning along with Odyssey, which gets to show what optimization does.
However titles moved from Xbox and PS i believe are just quite there for people who can live with the downsides and prefer portable gimped editions or have no other consoles. But 4K RDR1 and 4K in Hogwarts should be experienced from a proper console.
But the proper console doesn't have that LM3 or Odyssey, Wonder, TTYD magic going on for it.
The switch has never been a great console for triple a titles. However Mario and Pokémon games run very well which are the ones that my kids and I play on it.
However I would love a powerful switch 2 for replaying tears of the kingdom in higher fidelity.
I have tons of games and very, very few have any real performance issues ... most of what I play is THIRD party, never really cared about 'trad 1st party Nintendo stuff' all that much. The latest full Zelda (Tears of the Kingdom) definitely pushes things ... but games like Skyrim, Witcher 3, all of the recent Legends of Heroes RPGs, and on and on ... play great.
Same. I never did get into their original titles, which understand is the main allure of owning a switch. Games like streets of rage 4 play fine, maybe darksiders 3 is one of the rare exceptions where the developer was not able to properly optimise it for the switch. It just got frustrating when I kept dying early on (due to mistimed jumps) and seemed to spend more time starting at loading screens than actually playing. 🥲
Probably ... and I failed to add my second thought which was about The Outer Worlds. When it first released, performance was abysmal, the graphic pop-in meant you could have enemies literally spawn all around you if you were sprinting around, and the game ran hot and drained the battery fast! It got better through the updates in all ways.
Something is strange about my OLED switch and my switch lite. Of late, they have been having trouble getting a wifi connection in my room (no issues with my apple devices) and I have to bring them to the living room (where my router is located) if I want to perform any updates or download games. I also recently dug out my switch lite (which I bought first) and there is something endearing about the form factor and lighter weight. Weird.
Santa brought us a Switch. Not bad so far, especially for my kids’ first gaming experience. Question about controllers…if I wanted to add more, am I better off buying dedicated wireless pro controllers, or two additional joy cons with a joy con grip to effectively create two pro-style controllers?
Pro controller is superior in all regards as long as your budget allows to supply one for each player. That is a little bit expensive.
Joycons come in handy because you only need half of it to play with other people, so essentially 1 joy con pair serve 2 people by splitting.
Also only joycons are used sport games where you have to hold one in each hand and do movements. Like if your family wants to play just dance, then you are better off with joycons for everyone.
Longevity of joycons is a little less than pro controller and it feels a little bit cheaper.
Besides above, they are equal.
After about 18 months I just picked up the Switch again and downloaded the booster pack for Mario Kart. I'd forgotten just how fantastic that game is, I wish all games came this polished.
Awesome. Thank you. I’m leaning toward a pair of joy cons with the grip.
Nvidia's CES keynote offers insights into the Switch 2. AI will play a big role in performance of the device. E.g it can run at 540p 20fps internally, and boost that to 720p or 4k 60fps using transformer upscaling. This way, the Switch 2 can acheive PS4 and Series S visuals but with just 25-30% of the raw power.
Series S power actually guarantees it gets the same major releases as Xbox and PlayStation. Series S for what it is, is fairly powerful and can do some impressive stuff. You also have to keep in mind that Nintendo is in the business of making money, not losing money. Sony and Microsoft can take huge hits, they cannot so on day one the console has to be turning a margin.
Also assuming it is at least as powerful as the Series S this is the first time since the GameCube that Nintendo actually was competing visually with the competition. Keep in mind that the GameCube and Wii were close in power and even the Wii U and Switch are close in power, so this is a massive jump for Nintendo and I'll definitely be buying one of these bad boys in May or whenever it comes out.
The Switch 2 looks great! Buy it for my daughter for her graduation present hen its released.
Correct. Series S or PS4 performance in console that weigh 300-350grams and has several hours of battery life will be a win. A Steam deck is twice the weight and much bulkier.
Furthermore there is nothing wrong with PS4 graphics. Some PS5 remasters or new titles are just PS4 grade titles running at higher frame rates. I recently played Assassins Creed Origins on my Series X and honestly it looks better than some 2023-2024 titles that I have played on my Xbox and gaming PC.
I look forward to the console, especially if many PS, PC and Xbox titles are ported to it. Xbox will likely be able to make more money from selling Switch games than Xbox hardware and software combined.
This is a genius move from Nintendo. I am going to presume there will be various benefits, including:
- Higher resolutions & Better framerates with less raw power (already mentioned)
- Upscaling in real-time, will reduce the game size (i.e. they can keep the file size smaller on the game cartridges)
- When in Handheld Mode, I bet they have an option to NOT upscale, in order to reduce power consumption and keep the battery going for longer
Ai has huge benefits.
-540p base textures. Upscale to 1080p in handheld mode. Upscale to 4k in desktop mode. All without having to have seperate 1080p and 4k textures. Nintendo will likely have developed 4k textures internally to train their DLSS algorithm on.
-The smaller the textures, the less VRAM and bandwidth that the console needs. Saves money, space and heat.
-As the dlss algorithm improves, so does the visuals without having to upgrade the hardware.
Didn't see this posted...
Pretty sure I am gonna get one.
Pretty sure I am gonna get one.
Probably same - though I'm less certain than in the past ... love the Switch but the Steam Deck almost completely dominates my gaming, so I would need games to sell me the system. (and as a PC-centric gamer, stuff like Mario has never sold me on anything)
Really hope they have more colorful options than red and blue accents at launch. And Switch 1 Pro controllers better work outta the box.
Zzzzz seems like a quick response to leaks rather than an announcement of details that we didn’t know.
Man this ENTIRE thing was leaked months ago. That first 3D printed mock up and the renders were totally correct. Kinda a shame but oh well.
Will take a look at it for sure, it does seem to be fairly compact for an 8" screen. Shame the speakers are on the bottom still sound a bit worst.
I think the mouse idea is a bit gimmicky though.
Will take a look at it for sure, it does seem to be fairly compact for an 8" screen. Shame the speakers are on the bottom still sound a bit worst.
I think the mouse idea is a bit gimmicky though.
Not really, it's bang on the money really, because they want battery life over our and our power.
The thing is that the AMD Jaguar core used in the PS4 and PS4 Pro straight up sucked balls.
The single-core performance of that core is really bad getting only around 400 points in Geekbench 6 clocked at 2.13GHz (what the PS4 Pro is clocked at).
The A78 used in the NVIDIA SoC is at least 3 times faster than the PS4 Pro processor.