The gap between Switch 2 and PS5 looks smaller than Switch to Steam Deck, lol. Steam Deck really looks really poor in comparison.

Although I don't think Switch 2 is bleeding edge, it's clearly not crap hardware either. It's a good medium of price and performance I think, and probably well worth the $450. This is not a budget device but it doesn't perform like one either. 

I'd say it's performance might be in some way ahead of a ROG Ally or about on par in a lot of end results, and that is a $600+ piece of kit. Raw specs only tell a part of the story, it looks like Nvidia really made a very custom chip for Nintendo and a lot of people underestimated how much of a difference system specific optimization does for performance. 

Sure some ports will be worse than others, but that's nothing new. Some devs will get better results and put more effort in. 

I think we will get a much more realistic perspective when launched when we see retail hardware which may not be quite as powerful as development Switch 2's plus the Switch 2 is on a elderly Samsung mainly 10Nm fabrication process and only a 20Wh battery. Some of the newer PC based portables are on 4Nm process and battery packs up to 90Wh. The Steam deck can only use FSR 3.1 or is it 3.2 which is rubbish upscaling so that isn't really an option for gaming on that platform. I guess you could try rendering at 360p on it and upscaling to a much higher resolution but we know it would look rubbish due to FSR not getting good until FSR 4.0 and that requires a higher level of AMD graphics hardware. However the Switch 2 is excellent hardware for gaming its just I think expectations are a little higher than reality for portable performance. As ever its very interesting to see what level of performance a console offers and how it compares to other platforms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WokFlPz6n4g

The results for the Switch 2 will get better post-launch, not worse. Which system maxed out performance on day 1?

There will be better ports and more impressive ones than Cyberpunk 2077 as time goes on, it's inevitable. 

Yes the system is on a more cost effective node, but it also looks like the chip is significantly tailor made to still provide good performance even at that node and isn't just a simple cut down T234 from the die shots. It's really just too bad that COVID delayed this system most likely be at least a year, so we're getting it a year+ late most likely because of that but there's not a whole lot that could be done about that. System was never going to release until Mario Kart World and a software slate to back it up was ready, certainly not after the debacles of the 3DS and Wii U launches. 

I also do think we will get a Switch 2 Pro this time around. Nintendo, contrary to some opinions, actually does come around on a lot of things that ultimately make them more money. DLC? Nintendo initially said no, then caved. Optical discs? Same thing. Paid online? Also once upon a time was a no for Nintendo. Now it's paid. Movies and theme parks? Miyamoto has said initially they resisted but now had come around. $400+ hardware? Welp, there were people who swore up and down it would never happen from Nintendo, certainly not this gen. Wrong again. 

This is definitely not the Wii/DS era anymore, people still acting like that Nintendo that makes bottom of the barrel dirt cheap hardware and tries to sell it entirely on the back of a hardware gimmick is basically gone. Their chief hardware designers now are completely different from 15 years ago, these newer guys all grew up in the 90s basically, same with the new president, whereas Takeda (the former head of Nintendo hardware for years) grew up in like the 60s and 70s, lol. 

I think there's a fair bet there will be a $600 Switch 2 model one day. 

Yeah, the Switch 2 version of Cyberpunk 2077 already looks and plays much better than my Rog Ally, unless I use FSR FG to boost performance (which I do because I don't notice too many artifacts on the small screen.) 

The Switch 2 docked is probably on par with the Rog Ally in raw performance (with disadvantages and advantages trading off between the two), but DLSS is just a much better up-scalar. 

Here is the Steam Deck preset on my Rog Ally (which is basically just console-level settings minus a few toggles.)

I have to run it at 720p to get a stable 40FPS without FG. 

Here is 1080p & FSR 2.1 Balanced (with 30fps target but averaging 35fps.) Looks a lot more like the Switch 2 version, but still softer in my opinion. 

vs. 

Switch 2 

Edit: Part of this is probably Windows bloat. When you compare Windows vs. Steam OS in comparable handhelds (like the Legion Go S, for example) they get like a +15% performance uplift in Steam OS.

Steam Deck FSR 2.1 vs Switch 2 DLSS (4?). FSR is lost reconstructing these neon lines on the ad. 

Dave says it looks closer to DLSS4 than DLSS3.

I thought I saw somewhere that Steamdeck supports FSR 3.2 somewhere, still not amazing compared to DLSS to be honest but I would of thought a fair comparison would use the best upscaling technology available on the hardware.

It's quite amazing really that if the Switch 2 Tegra T239 chipset dates back to 2020/2021 and is just launching now and still offers better upscaling and technology overall (admittedly with perhaps better optimisation and software etc) that it is offering such competitive performance. You wonder if Nintendo had got it to market earlier what a dramatic shock to the market it would have been.

I may have got this completely wrong but I seem to remember FSR can't upscale from very low resolutions its more like a 720p to 1080p or maybe 1080p to 4K type upscaling technology. So it simply cannot do the more extreme upscaling of the Nintendo Switch 2 and also DLSS also gives better results too it seems. So even though the Steam Deck looks more powerful overall its rubbish upscaling puts it at a big disadvantage to Switch 2.

However we need to wait until Switch 2 retail units are in the hands of consumers and reviewers to get the full picture of the hardware. Not much longer to wait now. So far Nintendo have only given Switch 2 access in a very controlled way to keep it all positive. We will gets the warts and all information soon.

I'm not so sure about this. Cyberpunk 2077 has been THE showcase game for Nvidia GPUs, and the various different flavours of DLSS that have come along.

I'd say there's a decent argument for CDPR knowing more about Nvidias hardware & software than anyone else (including Nintendo). This game had already been highly optimised on Nvidia hardware before the special treatment they're lavishing upon the S2 version.

I'm sure S2 will give us some wow moments but I can't help but think that if it were Sony or MS given the same brief on Nvidia hardware we'd have gotten lovelace on 5nm & 16gb ram.

That in combination with DLSS & dev optimisation would have been awesome & increased the systems longevity.

Who wouldn't have paid an extra 50 bucks for that?

I personally don't think that Nintendo's demo is that different from PS or Xbox (mostly young adults and older) and that there is demand for pushing the boat out re. specs.

At release, the on-paper specs of PS5 & Series X/S surely exceeded those of a PC at the same price range (and a bit above), so would have been good to see the same from S2 vs handheld PCs.

There are better looking games on PS5/Series X than Cyberpunk so inevitably there are more ambitious ports due throughout the generation. Games that never scaled down to PS4 for a starters. Cyberpunk scales up amazingly with pathtraycing etc but that doesn't apply to console versions.

You can inject XeSS on the ROG Ally and Steam Deck too, which should yield a noticeably better image quality than FSR2.