According to a new report, Switch games can use 3 out of 4 CPU cores and 3 out of 4 GB of RAM. Which means that 25% of the system resources (1 core + 1 GB of RAM) is reserved for the operating system and background tasks.
Over the weekend we spoke to a Switch indie developer, who confirmed the recent Switch hardware specs, and revealed to us who much of the system resources games can actually use. We’ll have the full interview up later this week.
The Wii U had 2 GB of DDR3 RAM, but half of that was reserved for the OS — the same amount that the Switch OS uses.
By comparison, the Xbox One has 8 GB of RAM, where 3 GB is reserved for the operating system. The PS4 reserves about 2 GB for the OS.
Both the Xbox One and PS4 are reported to use 2 cores for the OS as well (an update last year made the 7th core available for PS4 games, but only under certain circumstances).
Comparing the three systems and their RAM use, it would looks like this:
- Switch: 4 GB RAM – 3GB for games
- Xbox One: 8 GB RAM – 5 GB for games
- PS4: 8 GB RAM – 6 GB for games (see correct data below)
Overall, it seems that the Switch is roughly on on par with the other consoles in this regard, as all three use about 25% of the system resources for the OS (the Xbox One a bit more).
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See the updated list from VGC's community!
| Console | RAM | Type | Extra | Used in games | Comments |
| 3DS | 128MB | FCRAM | 6MB VRAM | ? | 32MB reserved for OS |
| New 3DS | 256MB | FCRAM | 10MB VRAM | ? | 64MB reserved for OS |
| PS Vita | 512MB | LPDDR2 | 128MB SDRAM | ? | - |
| WiiU | 2GB | DDR3 | 38MB eDRAM | 1GB | source |
| Switch | 4GB | LPDDR4 | - | 3GB | - |
| Xbox One | 8GB | DDR3 | 36MB ESRAM | 5GB (future +.5GB) | source |
| Xbox One S | 8GB | DDR3 | 36MB ESRAM | 5GB (future +.5GB) | udpate from malistix1985 |
| PS4 | 8GB | GDDR5 | - | 5GB | udpate from Pemalite |
| PS4 Pro | 8GB | GDDR5 | 1GB DRAM | 5.5GB | update from Pemalite |
| Xbox Scorpio | 12GB | GDDR5X | - | ? | update from malistix1985 |
| Console | RAM speed | Extra |
| 3DS | ? | ? |
| New 3DS | ? | ? |
| PS Vita | 3.2GB/s? | 12.8GB/s? |
| WiiU | 12.8GB/s | 32 GB/s eDRAM |
| Switch | 21.2GB/s (undocked) 25GB/s (docked) |
- |
| Xbox One | 68.26GB/s | 109 GB/s eSRAM (204 GB/s ideal max) |
| Xbox One S | 68.26GB/s | 219GB/s eSRAM |
| PS4 | 176GB/s | - |
| PS4 Pro | 218GB/s | - |
| Xbox Scorpio | 320GB/s | - |
As many would have guessed! But after the X1 news, it seems like Switch OS is using similar resources (1CPU+1GB) as the WiiU. And doing it in a more efficient way, the system is snappy as hell (nothing like the WiiU).
