 Well folks, today we're gonna be talking about the Nintendo Switch 2 because you know what? It's looking more promising than it's ever looked before. Today we have a little bit of an update on a theory out there about Switch 2 based on actual in-game evidence, including games that are coming out, games that are already out and games coming out in the future. But we also have, well, really for, I would argue the first time, a general idea of initial, actual real world game performance for Nintendo Switch 2, thanks to the hard work of our dear friends over at Digital Foundry. We have a lot of information to share here. It's pretty in-depth and obviously we'll always suggest you go watch the original content on this stuff by our partners because they are, well, let's just say, very detail-oriented and also come with heavy doses of a lot of caveats that we're gonna go over. But folks, in this video, you're gonna see and get an idea of what to expect for the performance of the Nintendo Switch 2. But before we dive in, I wanna remind you, we're on a road to 150,000 subscribers. I would really appreciate if you would drop a like, subscribe to the channel if you're enjoying this content and go ahead and hit that bell icon to be notified of all future uploads. All right, the first thing we're gonna dive into though isn't about the performance. It's actually the colored button theory. It's something we've covered before. What a number of games recently seem to be adding in-game button prompt colors for ABXY. Buttons that correspond to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System colored button theme from Japan. So I guess you could say technically the Super Famicon. Nintendo's own games announced are using this button color scheme, such as Super Mario RPG that releases this month and yes, 1,000 year door next year. Although we have no real reason for these button colors to exist. At least on Switch, Switch does not use this color combo. Then Fashion Dreamer by Marvelous slash XC Games that just released also has this color scheme for the buttons, though that's not it. YizzX Nordics also has them and now it's been discovered that the legend of heroes trails through daybreak has them as well. Which has a February 2024 release date. Add on that Necrophili Palima, the owner and founder of Nintendo Universal has stated that this is partially being mandated by Nintendo. But for what reason would they just out of the blue start requiring those button color options? And obviously every game announced isn't using them. So what's the stipulation? Well, the theory is obviously that it's games that are gonna also be on Switch too. So just throwing out there that basically people are expecting Switch to do have colored ABXY buttons similar to the original Super Famicom. Now that's really cool and may have color buttons or not. I know we're always trying to figure out little minute details on Switch too. So this might have been a detail that we've been able to summarize based on games and mandates and all that. But what I really wanna focus on for the bruxes of this video is the possible performance of Switch too. And we need to give a ton of credit out to Digital Foundry. Digital Foundry just dropped a half hour long video. I highly encourage you to go watch it if you want the deeper ideas. But we're gonna break down a lot of the stuff right here in this video. So you can have a general idea of what the Nintendo Switch too is capable of. So what are we talking about? Well, Digital Foundry did an in-depth analysis for the Nintendo Switch 2 performance getting really close to what the specs likely are for the system and then doing some technical analysis and testing giving us potential real world results to look forward to. And as we've discussed before we've actually known for some time the chip inside the Switch 2 will be a fully customized chip from Nvidia known as the T239. And this was first leaked by Copight 7 and later confirmed to various Nvidia leaks that occurred last year. Thanks to current Informer staff, Linux leaks, LinkedIn profiles, all this stuff and a bunch of information in between. We now know the specs of the T239 or at least most of them. Clock speeds are one thing we don't know but we have a general idea of the specs. The T239 could have and we have to say could because we don't have the chip out there to finalize this. 8 arm a7-8C cores, a ampere or 3000 series GPU. A memory interface that's 128 bits and it's probably using DDR5 memory based on what we can tell. The memory bandwidth should hit the max or come close to the 102.4 gigabyte per second throughput. There is enough bandwidth to support full HDMI 2.1 that's where you can get your 4K 60 FPS support. Again, that's assuming that Nintendo uses it for that. There is a full NVic media block on the chip which has an 8-0 Love Lace Backport and this is one of those things where you're getting into the fact that this is a fully customized chip. There's no other chip that has the exact feature set of this one, ampere based, but with 8-0 Love Lace features. Again, we've seen this talked about and this is the first time that we're seeing hey, you know what, here's a potential feature set that's actually from the newer tech but being back ported to this one, very fascinating. There's improved clock gating, which again comes from back porting from Love Lace and it uses an optical flow accelerator but it's actually the ampere version of it which is deemed by NVIDIA to not be good enough to do frame generation. So the rumors out there on oh, it can't support frame generation, that's pretty much I guess confirmed based on the information we currently have on the T239 that it just doesn't have the ability for frame generation, which is, it's fine. It's not a make or break deal but it would have been nice to have. Anyways, the chip also supposedly has a file decompression engine, which is entirely new for an NVIDIA GPU but is something that the PlayStation 5 uses. This just helps you move data really fast from the hard drive to the memory. This is where you can get some of that stuff where they talked about the instant loading in the Breath of the Wild demo at Gamescom. This would be one of those features that would allow that and the GPU supposedly has 1,536 ampere CUDA cores. Now, this does make it truly a one of a kind chip and a fully customized chip and has been stated the entire time. So, a few things to note about what they're about to do here. They did a test using a Dell laptop computer, the 5630, which has tech specs of an i7-1360p and RTX 2050, four gigabytes, 15 gigabytes of memory, I'm sorry, 16 gigabytes of RAM and 512 gigabyte NVMe SSD and a 1920 by 1200 LCD display, although the display itself isn't really super relevant to the testing because you could set any resolution on it. But anyways, despite being called a 2050, it's actually using the same technology as the 3050 and 3050 Ti and the one main difference in the comparison will be the CUDA cores. This GPU has 2048 and unfortunately, that's the lowest anyone can find in a consumer ampere GPU. Another difference that works for the Switch 2's benefit is this GPU technically only has four gigabytes of RAM while Switch 2 is expected to have eight to 12 gigabytes available. However, they chose to downclock the GPU to something that seems much more in range with a handheld gaming chip. And again, none of this is ever going to be one to one because Switch 2 is literally using a completely customized chip. The point of the experiment here that Digital Foundry does is to get an idea of what the Switch 2 is actually capable of given the wide range of debate that it's either too weak or not powerful enough. They did get the 2050 to downclock to 750 megahertz, which he said would probably be similar to dot performance, but again, this is all presumptions because we don't know any of the clocks for the T239. But they can already tell you a major weakness of this comparison. Despite their best efforts, they could not get the Matrix Awakens demo to really run properly on the system, even with DLSS. This is because that four gigabyte memory limitation, it's something Switch 2 isn't going to have, like they're not limited to four. So it's just to remind people that in some ways the Switch 2's GPU is going to be even more capable than the current results they can get here. So yeah, they're not saying the Matrix Awakens demo did not run on Switch 2. They're just saying that this graphics card doesn't have the same available video memory. So it's just not really able to run it in any way that people would even consider possible. Anyways, they ran desk stranding at 1440p using DLSS and default settings, which gives us a little bit of a similar visual vibe to a PS4 or a PS4 Pro. And look, the performance was acceptable. They were obviously throughout most of their tests today targeting 30 FPS and then sort of dipping their toes in the 60 FPS train. But one thing you're going to see throughout their testing here is that they don't touch 4K, but there's a reason they don't and we'll get to it towards the end. But I just want to show you guys examples of actual gameplay to give you an idea of the sort of games and the visual fidelity we can expect. They also went ahead and touched Cyberpunk 2077. And remember Cyberpunk 2077 made the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One absolutely crumble. They still to this day don't run those games very well. At medium preset at 1080p with different DLSS modes like quality, balance, performance, and just that 720 native, which might be a useful comparison for handheld mode depends. And now it not only looks really good, it actually was able to run right around 30 FPS. And this can be promising since 30 FPS is considered playable by many gamers on consoles. There were some dips below 30 FPS, but remember they are targeting PlayStation 5 graphic settings here. They're not tweaking these graphic settings at all for what would be a lower performance hardware. So obviously with custom tweaking, I mean, you could see a locked 30, maybe even up to a 60 FPS, depending it's all gonna be about, they were just trying to push the visual quality as far as the chip could probably handle while maintaining playable frame rates just to give you an idea that if designed properly you could see these kind of visuals on Switch too. One big takeaway is the Tensor Cores and DLSS alone, DLSS alone are not good enough to have a Switch to 4K narrative. So here's the thing, you actually lose frame rates taking a 720p image and using DLSS to take it to 4K. It doesn't give you that boost in frame rates you want because a lot of the DLSS stuff is being used for the upscaling and there's not enough leftover to give you those extra frames. However, there is a feature in a related chip called the T234 and that feature is called Deep Learning Accelerator and it works in tandem. It's not within the GPU, it's on the outside of it but it works in tandem with the GPU as a machine learning tool that significantly boosts the performance of the GPU in automotive vehicles and that the T239 has this feature, it's a tech that's outside of the GPU itself. It would make the 4K output possibly and likely viable on Switch 2. So this 4K narrative we've heard from behind the scenes seems like we would have to have this particular feature and the thing is with this feature is it's not commercially available on any other GPU out there. So it's only theoretical right now and we can't actually run a game with it and see what difference it makes. So it is possible for there to be a 4K thing, it's just going to need this custom feature set that was originally introduced in the T234 and the T239 is supposedly based a little bit on the T234 so there is the possibility at least to drag that feature over here. We just don't know. Again, this is where we're getting a nice idea of what games could look like on Switch 2 but it's not truly a one to one and anything 4K wise is almost impossible to really test without knowing for sure if it has that feature because without that feature there probably isn't enough performance on the table to be able to pull off a 4K narrative. Doesn't mean we can't get really impressive looking games at 1080p or even 1440p at really good frame rates but and this has nothing to do with Nintendo's games of course, they could design their games to work this way. Again, this is just a lot of people want Switch 2 to be a 4K system while docked and for that to be possible it just needs this feature set that's impossible to test. That being said, what do we learn? Basically, yes, Switch 2 should be very capable of running modern AAA games at fairly decent visual settings anywhere from up to 30 FPS to 60 FPS at 1080p, even 1440p outputs and this would be after you apply DLSS and if it does have 4K output, which is possible it's thanks to a feature set we simply don't have any way to test gaming-wise but we do know and have seen makes a big difference in performance and automotives so it's all gonna be about what does Nintendo wanna do and if I had to guess if they do have this deep learning accelerator it would be something that only is usable in docked one. There's no reason to worry about 4K output and handouts so it would be something that maybe is only enabled when they're able to get additional power draw from the wall. You always have to wonder too how much power draw is going to be there. Look, obviously when you're in handheld mode you're gonna be pretty limited with your battery power and that's why something like a deep learning accelerator probably wouldn't be active just to save battery life but when you're drawing power from the wall in theory when they're docked they can draw as much power as they want and or need so long as they have enough cooling available to run the components so in theory they could be like hey let's just draw 75 watts from the wall and give you a much higher clock and much fully feature ready component but again this is gonna come down to the cooling system and how many watts that cooling system is able to dissipate that's really gonna be the limitation with Switch 2. It's not going to be how many watts they can draw from the wall or what they put on it's gonna be the cooling design. I sincerely hope they go with a combination of a small fin stack with vapor cooling and not just a heat pipe. If they go with vapor chamber cooling with a small fin stack towards the end I really really think that's the best solution that would enable them to have some headroom there to draw more watts and dock mode to enable things that would give you a 4k output but again that's just my opinion of course we don't really know anything exact here if we could argue this might have been a fruitless effort from Digital Foundry because again none of this is gonna be one to one to what Switch 2 is actually capable of it's gonna be more capable in some certain areas maybe extremely more capable in other scenarios like they did some Unreal Engine 5 testing and it was sort of a mixed bag but then they're also noting that like yeah but there's gonna be way more video memory and hey what if there's got this and what if there's just what if it's clocked higher than 750 megahertz in die mode what if it's at 1000 megahertz in dock mode because they do have the cooling available what if there's somehow additional cooling in the dock it's what if they designed this thing to have more cooling and how would it have more cooling in the dock I don't know I mean just slapping a fan in there is not really gonna give you more cooling because the heatsink can only dissipate so much heat so again there's just a lot of unknown factors at this time but it is nice to see that like on the lowest end that is reasonably expected of Switch 2 dude it can run cyberpunk 2077 that brings PlayStation 4 to his knees it can run it at very playable frame rates at better graphics settings than the PS4 like it can run PS5 level graphics at 30 FPS in cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p that is a win I'm sorry it's just a win what I would have liked to see them do is maybe compare this to some of the more like a steam deck it would have been cool to see them do an apples to apples comparison with steam deck but I think they're gonna wait for those sort of comparisons until Switch 2 actually comes out anyways guys thank you so much for tuning in I am Nathan O'Reilly from Nathan O'Prime and I'll catch you in the next video