Wednesday, January 15th 2025

Nintendo Switch 2 Docked and Handheld Performance Revealed By Tipster

It is a known fact that the Switch 2 is by no means planning on being a performance beast. Nintendo's focus has always been on their ecosystem, and not on raw performance, which will continue being the case. As such, the Switch 2 is widely expected to sport an NVIDIA Tegra SoC paired with 12 GB of LPDDR5 system memory and an Ampere-based GPU. Now, a fresh leak has detailed the docked and handheld mode performance that can be expected from the widely anticipated Switch successor, and the numbers seem to fall right around what was initially expected.

The leak, sourced from a Nintendo forum, reveals that in docked mode, the Nintendo Switch 2's GPU will be clocked at 1000 MHz, up from 768 MHz for the soon-to-be previous generation Switch, allowing for 3.1 TFLOPS of performance. In handheld mode, unsurprisingly, the GPU clock will be limited to 561 MHz, allowing for 1.71 TFLOPS of raw performance. These numbers are far from impressive for 2025, although Nintendo will likely make up for the lack of raw horsepower using upscaling technologies similar to DLSS, allowing for a vastly improved experience than what its otherwise unimpressive hardware could have afforded.
Source: Notebookcheck
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43 Comments on Nintendo Switch 2 Docked and Handheld Performance Revealed By Tipster

#26
TheinsanegamerN
AirisomEmulators to the rescue...again. It's a shame that their games are playable on emulators so soon, but that's what happens when you use weak hardware.
Or you could just....buy the games?
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#27
Airisom
Or you could just...stop assuming that everyone that uses emulators are pirates?
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#28
TheinsanegamerN
AirisomOr you could just...stop assuming that everyone that uses emulators are pirates?
Oh, so you own a switch and have purchased all the games you emulate?
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#30
TheinsanegamerN
Airisom
Wow. You're the one in a million. We'll just take your word that there's absolutely NO roms on your PC you dont own ; )

Now how many people who download ROMS do you think fall into that category? Six? Let's be honest here, the VAST majority of people who download ROMs for games and systems currently sold are not doing it because they just gotta get the zelda 4k texture mod.
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#31
Airisom
Take the L and move on. It doesn't matter. There will always be piracy, and they don't care. I buy the games I want to play. Once the emulators mature, I play the ones I want to replay with upscaled graphics and mods. For the older games, I'll find a romhack or something. I literally don't care about other games, otherwise I would have bought them.
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#32
wolf
Better Than Native
Airisom
Laughed out load when I saw this one hahahahahha. I much enjoy my emulated and owned switch games too.

Big difference in the experience hey.

Portable mode (don't get me wrong, awesome that's its portable) - ≤720p 30/60fps
Docked mode ≤1080p30/60fps
Emulated on my PC - 4320p down sampled to 2160p, with either mods or LSFG for 60-120fps

No question which I'd rather do. Game cartridge for portable, emulated when at home.
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#33
Airisom
The thing is that Nintendo is fully capable of producing more powerful consoles. The Gamecube was handily competing with the Xbox and PS2 back in the day, and while sales paled in comparison, they had some very respectable titles that people highly regard. If the Switch 2 is backwards compatible with the Switch and uses a Tegra chip, then it won't be long before we get a usable emulator, and that's going to really dig into their sales. We won't see a stable PS5 emulator until PC hardware catches up which will be years. We're just now getting PS3 somewhat playable now. Hate to say it, but it's an effective form of anti-piracy.

The market is now saturated with Chinese console emulators, some of which can play switch games no problem and come preloaded with thousands of games. Nintendo is competing with piracy...and the steam deck. Not a good place to be.
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#34
TheinsanegamerN
AirisomTake the L and move on. It doesn't matter. There will always be piracy, and they don't care. I buy the games I want to play. Once the emulators mature, I play the ones I want to replay with upscaled graphics and mods. For the older games, I'll find a romhack or something. I literally don't care about other games, otherwise I would have bought them.
Wow, took 1 whole comment to start justifying piracy. Totally beating the allegations right there : )

Nintendo actually DOES care, quite a bit. That's why theyve been going after switch emulators
AirisomThe thing is that Nintendo is fully capable of producing more powerful consoles. The Gamecube was handily competing with the Xbox and PS2 back in the day, and while sales paled in comparison, they had some very respectable titles that people highly regard. If the Switch 2 is backwards compatible with the Switch and uses a Tegra chip, then it won't be long before we get a usable emulator, and that's going to really dig into their sales. We won't see a stable PS5 emulator until PC hardware catches up which will be years. We're just now getting PS3 somewhat playable now. Hate to say it, but it's an effective form of anti-piracy.

The market is now saturated with Chinese console emulators, some of which can play switch games no problem and come preloaded with thousands of games. Nintendo is competing with piracy...and the steam deck. Not a good place to be.
People's inability to just wait for a console to be out of production before emulating it is going to be what gets nintendo to drag emulation out of the legal gray area and straight into being illegal, punishable by law, via court cases. Or they'll start requiring always online connectivity and permabann anyone with an emulator.

That's a much more effective form of anti piracy, and people just cant stop poking the bear....
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#35
iameatingjam
Yeah I'm not so happy that nintendo broke up ALL the emulation groups capable of emulating the system ( or even maintaining the existing emulators) and the rest are going to be terrified out of it by the fear of lawsuits. I get that they don't want their new system emulated... but the fact that citra got caught up in this mess makes me really sad. They made an example out of Yuzu, then strong-armed github and discord to remove all pages/channels related to Yuzu forks, as well as other hosting sites. Even though the case was never seen to conclusion, so Yuzu's not illegal and no new precedent has been set, this is all through fear. There must have been a way to stop switch 2 emulation without such extreme measures, but I suppose thats not really Nintendo's concern, not nearly enough people care about this for it to negatively affect income so why would they care? But I wish a strongly worded letter could have been sent so that development of switch 1 emulators could have continued at least.

Achive.org is pretty much the only ones standing up to Nintendo. And they've taken a few blows too lately. Not necessarily good for game preservation.
AirisomEmulators to the rescue...again. It's a shame that their games are playable on emulators so soon, but that's what happens when you use weak hardware.
I think it might be different this time. Nintendo has struck a lot of fear into a lot of developers and now they don't even have a platform to develop on (github). Who knows, maybe I'm wrong, I hope I am. But Nintendo put a lot of effort into this, not just Yuzu, but every fork(save for one that operates off the darkweb, torzu) and ryujinx ( well we dont really know what happened to that but it was probably nintendo I mean the timing is just too convenient).
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#36
kondamin
I wonder what the big opening game will be, it hasn’t been that long since a new Mario was released
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#37
JustBenching
TheinsanegamerNOh, so you own a switch and have purchased all the games you emulate?
YES! And I have a cracked switch too :D

Switch is great, but docked mode is bad on a reasonably sized TV. The resolution is just bad. You need to emulate it on a PC sadly.
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#38
TheDeeGee
SteevoIt’s proof that you don’t need all the RT and eye candy if you make good games
It's proof that if you stagnate your hardware you can't advance in graphics.
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#39
iameatingjam
TheDeeGeeIt's proof that if you stagnate your hardware you can't advance in graphics.
I mean yeah but its hard to deny its a sound business strategy, putting aside for a second that I really don't like Nintendo. You make money on the games and hardware, I mean think about it, the deck doesn't cost much more than the switch yet the deck can emulate the switch ( not perfectly but many games are playable) that really goes to show the gulf in performance, as I'm sure you know, you need a lot more than the power of the system you aim to emulate.

Only problem is weak hardware = easily emulated hardware. However, I think Nintendo might have that one covered this time, with its recent display of force.
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#40
windwhirl
iameatingjamryujinx ( well we dont really know what happened to that but it was probably nintendo I mean the timing is just too convenient).
It was Nintendo. From what I heard, it seems the lawyers showed up at the home of one of the main developers in Brazil. If that's not a very clear "we know who you are and where you live, you can't hide", I don't know what is.

Plus Nintendo is now the owner of the Ryujinx domain.
TheinsanegamerNPeople's inability to just wait for a console to be out of production before emulating it is going to be what gets nintendo to drag emulation out of the legal gray area and straight into being illegal, punishable by law, via court cases
Pretty much. Heck, I'd say even if they couldn't wait for it, it would be a lot better if people could just fucking shut up about it instead of going on Twitter or Youtube and post about "I played X Switch game two weeks early in 4K thanks to this emulator"

But no. They need to brag about it and on top of that fucking ruin the games for everyone else by spoiling everything...
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#41
alawadhi3000
phints1.71 TFLOPs on a handheld, with what like 6-10W TDP? Sounds very impressive to me. No doubt this is an Nvidia SoC, T239 rumors seem true. Eventually perf/watt will improve when they do a mid gen refresh on TSMC 3nm or 2nm or whatever at the time.

@windwhirl UE5 has gotten much more performant in 5.4 and 5.5, but still a lot of issues from what I hear. Wish they would just spend the entire rest of the 5.x generation on performance and leave any new features for an eventual UE6.
Probably more like 10-15W but still impressive.

A die shrink to 3nm or 2nm probably won't happen, price will go up a lot, At 5nm (if true) a shrink to 4nm is as good as we'll get at a reasonable price.
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#42
Chaitanya
Teaser trailer already posted on youtube:
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#43
Gooigi's Ex
HakkerWhich is also more and more a problem at Nintendo. It rehash upon rehash and less new games. I mean beyond Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Sun and Mario Odessey it's been mostly the same games a generation ago.
You'll get Sash Bros Switch 2, Mario Kart 9, Mario Party 28 and all but they are just the same as the one before it with one or 2 new things in it. Nintendo is becoming EA Sports slow mode update.
And this is the main problem that I had with Nintendo for about 7 years now. They are releasing Nintendo Wii and Wii U titles and barely have ANY new games but “GAMERS” for some reason, wanna say PlayStation does it worse and that’s a flat out lie.
TheinsanegamerNWow. You're the one in a million. We'll just take your word that there's absolutely NO roms on your PC you dont own ; )

Now how many people who download ROMS do you think fall into that category? Six? Let's be honest here, the VAST majority of people who download ROMs for games and systems currently sold are not doing it because they just gotta get the zelda 4k texture mod.
You mean 1 out of every 100. Million is not true at all lol
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