While Nintendo isn’t intending to market the Switch 2 as high-performance hardware, the upcoming console still has quite a few new tricks up its sleeve, including Nvidia-powered DLSS upscaling and hardware ray tracing.
Nintendo confirmed the Switch 2’s support for DLSS upscaling in a Q&A session following the Switch 2 direct. Takuhiro Dohta from Nintendo’s Entertainment Planning and Development Department said the Switch 2 will use Nvidia’s upscaling tech, and that it is “something that we will continue to use as we develop games.”
“When it comes to the hardware, [the Switch 2] is able to output to a TV at a max of 4K,” Dohta explained. “Whether or not the software developer is going to use that as a native resolution or get it to a smaller res and then upscale is something that the software developer can choose. I think it opens up a lot of options for the software developer.”
In the same session, Dohta confirmed that the Switch 2’s GPU will support ray tracing, which “provides another option for software developers to use.”
More details about the tech upgrades were revealed in a Nvidia blog post, which provided a deep dive on the Switch 2’s custom Nvidia processor. The console’s GPU boasts dedicated RT Cores to power real-time ray tracing, while Tensor Cores are used for AI-powered boosts like DLSS upscaling. The Switch 2’s AI processing also comes into play with the console’s new video-chat feature, with AI-powered features including face tracking and automatic background removal.
Overall, Nvidia said the Switch 2 has 10 times the graphical performance of the Nintendo Switch, giving developers more to work with when developing games for the new console. Nintendo also announced during the Switch 2 Direct that the new console will support HDR, 4K, and 120fps.
Nintendo Switch 2 will launch on June 5 for $450, with preorders beginning on April 9.
