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Soundwave on 06 August 2023
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Ray tracing can help the Switch 2 a lot ... just not in the way you would think. 

Lets say you're a Japanese developer like Capcom making lets say ... Monster Hunter 6 for Playstation 5 + XBox Series X. Now you deep down want a Switch 2 version too because you know it'll add several million in sales, but you can't build the game for the lower speced Switch 2 and not take advantage of the PS5/XBSX can you? 

Well ray-tracing is your perfect solution. Instead of pushing the PS5/XBSX versions to their theoretical limit and also ballooning your budget to get there, what you can do is simply turn on the ray tracing for the PS5/XBSX until the point where it maxes out the system's performance (which shouldn't take a lot as full blown ray tracing will cripple any PS5/XSX).

And then you just turn that off for the Switch 2, maybe focus a little bit more of getting the pre-baked lighting to match the ray traced version more closely ... and voila. You've got yourself a game that maxes out the PS5/XSX but is still playable and enjoyable (well assuming your game is enjoyable, ain't no lighting effects helping a game that isn't) on the Switch 2 also.

A PS5 is going to choke running even PS4 era games like Red Dead Redemption 2 when you crank ray tracing effects at 4K resolution native especially. Doesn't take a lot to bring the hardware to its knees. Ray tracing is also not just a one size fits all thing, like you can increase the fidelity and complexity of the ray tracing to the point where it kills your hardware basically. Like ray tracing on a higher end GPU (like a Nvidia 3090) looks better than a PS5/XSX on a game like Control, as one would expect. A lot of PC gaming enthusiasts laugh at PS5/XSX level ray tracing because it really can't do full blown ray tracing even on PS4 era games the way a good PC card can (it can do reflections ... but reflections, shadows, GI, etc. and the PC card starts to blow away the PS5). 

It's not even a "slash the frame rate in half!" thing ... it's worse than that. PS5/XSX can't even run last gen games (PS4 titles) at 4K resolution + 60 fps. The resolution has to be brought down to like 1440p on top of the frame rate being slashed to 30 fps. It's honestly great for Switch 2 ports, lol, because you effectively can just flip a switch and max out your PS5 performance even with old PS4 tier titles. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 06 August 2023