Apparently, on RDNA3 RX 7900XTX, this INT8 version of FSR4 uses 1.9ms per frame vs 0.6ms for FSR3. Not sure at what quality settings, I'm assuming Performance. What I've found is that FSR4 at same settings on RDNA4 RX 9070XT uses ~0.5ms per frame, with FSR3 ~0.2ms.

So, while there is significant hit per frame, the thing with upscaling is the higher your initial frame rate is, the less of the impact for final frame rate it has. 

Found this (don't know how to embed Reddit videos):

https://packaged-media.redd.it/xpayip7dtgpf1/pb/m2-res_1080p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1758186000&s=c5422bd532a2ed6f4964f44a10812ab7bb50a4ee#t=0.019850758643462925

Of course, RX 7900XTX is top of the line RDNA3, which is why Steam Deck with it's low end RDNA2 GPU is having up to 20-25% hit on fps, but I'm thinking now that the cat is out of the bag, all other AMD based handhelds will see this feature implemented, possibly even officially.

While the lack of a first party showcase disappointingly persists, the recent Direct did at least give us some interesting titles to watch from a technological perspective in the modern RE titles, Requiem being a current gen title with RT lighting, and RE7/Village being games that were on last gen, but also received current gen graphical upgrades such as RT.

Well, so far, if it's not UE5 game that relies on Lumen, it's fair to assume that RT titles will run on Switch 2 decently, with some necessary cutbacks of course.

I think that, as per usual, Luigi's Mansion will eventually be THE showcase for Switch 2, given that it's art style and setting offers Nintendo opportunity to go wild on RT and lighting.

I hope so but one concern at the moment is that Nintendo maybe slow to adopt new rendering/graphical techniques. And they'll work with their existing toolset but with more scale/density and essentially we'll have games that don't really look like modern experiences but just early PS4 games/pretty Switch titles at 1080p/1440p 60fps.

Kirby, MK World and DK are examples of this.

Yeah Luigi's Mansion 4 is the main title I'd look to to really show what the hardware can do, 3 looked insane on Switch 1 already. Hopefully it's not far off, Next Level's last game was in 2022 and they're usually pretty productive.

The last two Luigi's Mansion game haven't been handled by Nintendo's internal teams, but by Next Level Games in Canada who typically push graphics technology harder than EPD does.

Yeah, Luigi's Mansion 3 is, arguably, best looking Switch game, that has sort of that "playable animated movie" look to it - I'd say folks at NLG really know what they're doing. Admittedly, fixed camera and small spaces really helps them to finely tune every aspect of it, but with higher res and RT thrown in I'm expecting next Luigi's Mansion to end up as best looking on Switch 2, again.

So impressively what the Steamdeck is achieving with all these optimisations and upscaling. The current price for the LCD version of 279 pounds puts its pricing close to full price Switch 1 OLED pricing yet in many ways far superior to Switch 2. The CPU performance is 8000-9000 passmark compared to around 2000 passmark on Switch 2 (only 600 on Switch 1). Portable gflops is around 1.6Tf on Steamdeck but 1.3Tf on Switch 2 portable mode according to the Geekerwan analysis. Memory bandwidth is about 88GB/s compared to 68GB/s on Switch 2. Faster again on Steamdeck OLED. Just seems a brilliant package and super impressive now. Also from the sound it no Steamdeck 2 model until probably 2028. I don't have one myself but hats off to Steam for the Steamdeck a truly brilliant device.

Yep. FSR4 is breathing some life back into it and staving off some of the concerns of there not being any decent new PC handheld hardware. 

Having said that, a lot of 9th Generation feature heavy titles run poorer on it than Switch 2. Star Wars Outlaws (and probably Indiana Jones too when it releases) being examples. 

I bought my LCD Steam Deck when it launched, and gave it to my partner to get into PC gaming once I got a Rog Ally Z1e (about a year later.) Definitely a great device with great design decisions. 

Which is to be expected - the best feature of consoles (and old home computers), at least form my POV, was fixed hardware, so games can be fine tuned for that specific platform.

Take Outlaws - it's running with a lot of cut down geometry on Switch 2 and there's no such preset for PCs. Unfortunately, as much as PC handhelds are nice, I don't think any developer will go extra mile (at least for foreseeable future) to make fine tuned ports just for them, instead of just treating them as low power PCs. Maybe that will change with XBOX ROG Ally, but I kinda doubt it.

I think you will always get fixed platform optimisations for consoles like Switch 2 where they approach a problem by scaling down the game engine to work well on weaker hardware. There are so many variations of PC hardware that will never happen. You do get many low spec gamer or potato gamer patches for pc games. I remember playing Fallout 4 on my Celeron laptop with only 4GB. I used the low texture patches, a low display resolution and potato options and got it running more for a laugh than anything and managed to get about 22 fps at best with 12 fps being the average. I remember playing many ports on Xbox 360 and PS3 but the full experience of those games was on PC. Maybe I've got the wrong impression but it does seem the Steamdeck is delivering a game experience as good if not better than Switch 2 for multi-platform games. Maybe I have watched too many youtube videos with a pro steamdeck bias.