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Forums - Nintendo - Nintendo Switch 2 Tech Performance Discussion

 

Switch 2 is out! How you classify?

Terribly outdated! 4 5.41%
 
Outdated 2 2.70%
 
Slightly outdated 18 24.32%
 
On point 40 54.05%
 
High tech! 8 10.81%
 
A mixed bag 2 2.70%
 
Total:74
sc94597 on 06 May 2026
Chrkeller said:

Certainly depends on the game.  Based on videos RE9 drops from 60 fps to low 30s, and no vrr in docked mode, that would drive me crazy.  Rebirth, based on demo, hits low 20s, which would drive me nuts.  I would take the Series S in those cases.  Not sure on the others, I don't follow too closely, because I go PC.  

On PC i often sacrifice resolution for fps.  1440p/120fps > 4k/60fps.   

I also thought Prime 4 at 1080p/120fps was vastly superior to 4k/60fps.  

I could be the outlier but I find resolution overrated while fps is fantastic.

I think native 1080p vs. 1440p are close enough on most PC sized displays, but 1080p balanced/quality DLSS vs. 540p to 648p TAA is a pretty enormous difference when it comes to image quality, and I would take the prior if the drops are mostly small few second drops in scene transitions (which seems to be the case for SW2.) >99% of the time the game seems to be hitting a 29-30fps target, just not 100% of the time like Series S graphics mode. And who knows this might be cleaned up a bit before release. The Series S performance mode also has stutters/jitters, so if the goal is consistent performance the locked 30fps graphics mode probably would be the better option there. If I were playing the game on Series S, I would probably just do the graphics mode, to be honest. Seems much better from an image quality & performance stability perspective. 



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ConciousMan on 06 May 2026

New Star Fox looks great guys 🤩 So happy to be a Nintendo supporter. I can't wait for Zelda with RT global illumination, hopefully coming this year 🤤
Star Fox direct: https://www.youtube.com/live/ePZeyh5q9R8?si=pYH-U9EhKm6AWAdm



curl-6 on 06 May 2026

Yeah Starfox is the first Nintendo game that really looks like a Switch 2 game rather than a Switch 1.5 game.

Mario Kart World, DK Bananza, etc were nice enough to look at but you could tell they started development as Switch 1 titles, this one looks noticeably more advanced.



HoloDust on 07 May 2026
Chrkeller said:
sc94597 said:
With so many games having trade-offs between Series S and Switch 2, I think I am a bit vindicated with my perspective when I bet a now perma-banned user three years ago. 

Personal opinion, I think the Series S has superior ports, because of better fps.  Switch 2, often, has cleaner image.  But for Pragmata, RE9, Rebirth, etc...  I would take the superior framerate.  

But the gap is closer than most, including myself, thought it would be, which is more your point.

I wouldn't exactly call XSS ports superior, since that console pretty much gets neglected all the time, unlike SW2 ports that get extra care, but yeah, for most part, performance on XSS is much better than on SW2.



Otter on 07 May 2026

I think it's worth considering that Series S is getting worse and worse ports. The trade offs are getting bigger and I think it's just because developers don't see it being worth the effort. Fair ultimately.

I think it'd best treated as a 30/40fps machine for third parties who don't have the time. Otherwise a lot of these games are looking worse that Xbox One titles. I doubt a series S owner is going to be super sensitive about a 30fps frame cap but some of these recent 60fps modes are just unacceptable in terms of image quality and graphical settings, the games look unrecognisable (Crimson Desert for example)... all the meanwhile resources are split in testing the 2 modes but one of them honestly shouldn't exist lol.

Last edited by Otter - on 07 May 2026

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LipeJJ on 07 May 2026
ConciousMan said:

New Star Fox looks great guys 🤩 So happy to be a Nintendo supporter. I can't wait for Zelda with RT global illumination, hopefully coming this year 🤤
Star Fox direct: https://www.youtube.com/live/ePZeyh5q9R8?si=pYH-U9EhKm6AWAdm

Yeah. I believe this is the first real next gen game from Nintendo and I'm quite pleased with the results.



Bet with Teeqoz for 2 weeks of avatar and sig control that Super Mario Odyssey would ship more than 7m on its first 2 months. The game shipped 9.07m, so I won

Chrkeller on 07 May 2026
HoloDust said:
Chrkeller said:

Personal opinion, I think the Series S has superior ports, because of better fps.  Switch 2, often, has cleaner image.  But for Pragmata, RE9, Rebirth, etc...  I would take the superior framerate.  

But the gap is closer than most, including myself, thought it would be, which is more your point.

I wouldn't exactly call XSS ports superior, since that console pretty much gets neglected all the time, unlike SW2 ports that get extra care, but yeah, for most part, performance on XSS is much better than on SW2.

No doubt the S2 has optimization while the Series S ports are just lazy.  But your last line was more my point, if I had both I would go with Series S for the framerate, especially for something like RE9.  

The biggest limitation for the S2 doesnt seem to be image quality but framerate.  



rtx 4090, 32 gb ram, i7-13700k

Switch 2

HoloDust on 07 May 2026
Otter said:

I think it's worth considering that Series S is getting worse and worse ports. The trade offs are getting bigger and I think it's just because developers don't see it being worth the effort. Fair ultimately.

I think it'd best treated as a 30/40fps machine for third parties who don't have the time. Otherwise a lot of these games are looking worse that Xbox One titles. I doubt a series S owner is going to be super sensitive about a 30fps frame cap but some of these recent 60fps modes are just unacceptable in terms of image quality and graphical settings, the games look unrecognisable (Crimson Desert for example)... all the meanwhile resources are split in testing the 2 modes but one of them honestly shouldn't exist lol.

Yeah, XSS is getting really shafted progressively more...makes me wonder what will Sony do to ensure that it's not happening with PS6 ecosystem, when there is PS6, PS6P docked and PS6P handheld, plus quality/balanced/performance profiles for future games.



Chrkeller on 07 May 2026
sc94597 said:
Chrkeller said:

Certainly depends on the game.  Based on videos RE9 drops from 60 fps to low 30s, and no vrr in docked mode, that would drive me crazy.  Rebirth, based on demo, hits low 20s, which would drive me nuts.  I would take the Series S in those cases.  Not sure on the others, I don't follow too closely, because I go PC.  

On PC i often sacrifice resolution for fps.  1440p/120fps > 4k/60fps.   

I also thought Prime 4 at 1080p/120fps was vastly superior to 4k/60fps.  

I could be the outlier but I find resolution overrated while fps is fantastic.

I think native 1080p vs. 1440p are close enough on most PC sized displays, but 1080p balanced/quality DLSS vs. 540p to 648p TAA is a pretty enormous difference when it comes to image quality, and I would take the prior if the drops are mostly small few second drops in scene transitions (which seems to be the case for SW2.) >99% of the time the game seems to be hitting a 29-30fps target, just not 100% of the time like Series S graphics mode. And who knows this might be cleaned up a bit before release. The Series S performance mode also has stutters/jitters, so if the goal is consistent performance the locked 30fps graphics mode probably would be the better option there. If I were playing the game on Series S, I would probably just do the graphics mode, to be honest. Seems much better from an image quality & performance stability perspective. 

I only watched a video, I think CVG (or something close to that).  It hit as low as 19 and seemed common to be low 20s, but so was Outlaws demo, so until the real game releases I haven't given it much thought.  The big question for the Series S, not that I have one, is the lighting/shadows/volumetrics/foliage.  All those were cut significantly from the S2.  If (and I honestly don't know) the Series S doesn't have those cutbacks and maintains 30 fps, the win should go to the Series S.

But if I am 100% honest, we are getting into weeds.  The fact there is a discussion of the better version (S2 vs Series S) is nothing short of a massive compliment to the S2 hardware.  It shouldn't be a discussion, but thanks to Nvidia it is.  

Nobody questioned what was the better version 3DS or ps3/ps4.  I mean handhelds are incredible these days.



rtx 4090, 32 gb ram, i7-13700k

Switch 2

curl-6 on 07 May 2026
Chrkeller said:
sc94597 said:

I think native 1080p vs. 1440p are close enough on most PC sized displays, but 1080p balanced/quality DLSS vs. 540p to 648p TAA is a pretty enormous difference when it comes to image quality, and I would take the prior if the drops are mostly small few second drops in scene transitions (which seems to be the case for SW2.) >99% of the time the game seems to be hitting a 29-30fps target, just not 100% of the time like Series S graphics mode. And who knows this might be cleaned up a bit before release. The Series S performance mode also has stutters/jitters, so if the goal is consistent performance the locked 30fps graphics mode probably would be the better option there. If I were playing the game on Series S, I would probably just do the graphics mode, to be honest. Seems much better from an image quality & performance stability perspective. 

I only watched a video, I think CVG (or something close to that).  It hit as low as 19 and seemed common to be low 20s, but so was Outlaws demo, so until the real game releases I haven't given it much thought.  The big question for the Series S, not that I have one, is the lighting/shadows/volumetrics/foliage.  All those were cut significantly from the S2.  If (and I honestly don't know) the Series S doesn't have those cutbacks and maintains 30 fps, the win should go to the Series S.

But if I am 100% honest, we are getting into weeds.  The fact there is a discussion of the better version (S2 vs Series S) is nothing short of a massive compliment to the S2 hardware.  It shouldn't be a discussion, but thanks to Nvidia it is.  

Nobody questioned what was the better version 3DS or ps3/ps4.  I mean handhelds are incredible these days.

Digital Foundry's video pegs lighting, foliage, shadows, volumetrics, textures etc as basically a match between Switch 2 and Series S. Xbox's advantages come down to a tighter lock on 30fps, better hair, and animations running at full rate in the distance. (these run a reduced rate on Switch 2 at long range) Series S also has the performance mode, but it's very poor looking at around 540p-648p and has performance stutters.

And yeah when I was a kid the difference between consoles and handhelds was like 2 generations, it's crazy how far we've come.