Big multiplat 8-9 Gen games on Switch 1 (in general):

- Dynamic 720-540p docked, dynamic 540-360p handheld.
- 30fps with constant drops up to the low 20s and frame pacing issues. 60fps were rare and often came at the cost of even worse image quality (MK11).
- Incredibly blurry image due to the heavy use of antialiasing.
- Big cuts in pretty much every technical aspect imaginable (lightning, particles, shadows, textures, crowds, more popin...), resulting in a very compromised presentation compared to other versions.

Big multiplat Gen 8-9 games on Switch 2 (in general):

- 1080-1440p docked and 720-1080p handheld thanks to DLSS (internal resolutions are lower, but what matters is the end result).
- Solid 30fps and even 60fps in certain games.
- No scandalously blurry image quality anymore. Games look much sharper than on S1.
- There are technical cuts, but these usually affect only certain areas and also tend to be less impactful than on S1. General presentation on S2 is usually much more comparable to PS5/XSX than S1 was to PS4/XOne.

So sure, S2 is weaker than current gen consoles. But all in all the gap is close enough that we are getting much better ports than the S1 ever did to the point were in certain cases you have to put both versions side by side to spot the differences. S1 ports were often very compromised experiences, but so far S2 ports seem like just another version of the game.

Pretty much this, yeah.

I'm one of those who actually played stuff like Doom 2016/Eternal and Witcher 3 on Switch 1, (didn't have a PS4/5 or Xbox One/Series at the time) and enjoyed them well enough as the core gameplay was still fun, but the visual cutbacks were pretty major.

By contrast, something like Star Wars Outlaws or Assassin's Creed Shadows on Switch 2 feels far, far more intact.

Helps a lot that a lot of the power boost this gen for PS/XB went towards higher resolutions and 60fps.

When you have a game that ran at 1080p30 on PS4 then you didn't have a lot of wiggle room when porting to Switch before it became unacceptable performance.

With most games still having 60fps modes on PS5 and resolutions above 1080p there's a lot more room to scale back with it still being a decent experience.

Yeah, also helps that with Switch 2 you can "cheat" a lot by going for a relatively low resolution and using DLSS to salvage image quality so you don't get the blurriness that'd you'd see on Switch 1 when games dropped below 720p with nothing but TAA to soften the blow.

This.  I'm shocked it is being debated.  I find that to be a flat-out fact.

I think people are confusing processing power with graphics hitting the "good enough" ceiling.  The reason the gap seems smaller between S2 and ps5 (versus S1 and ps4) has more to do with the good enough aspect. 

Best example is a 4090 vs 5090, yeah the latter is 30% higher performance, but I haven't upgraded, because my 4090 has hit a ceiling with the extra hp doesn't have the same impact as a 3090 to a 4090.  

100% spot on.  I have RT on low with a 4090, because the performance hit isn't worth it.

Dimishing returns. Especially in these more linear "corridor" based games. Hard to judge from off screen footage, but the downgrade looks notable to my eye (jagged edges, soft Image quality, flatter lighting in Pragmata) but its still very clearly the same broad target. Equally if someone told you either game was running a on PS4, that wouldn't sound crazy either considering what PS4's best looking games look like and how it's RE games also target 60fps.

I'm sure a 4k60 feed would make the difference more evident but still largely the same experience. 

Diminishing returns is working in favour of Switch 2 here. There's simply a limit to how much better a PS5 game can look, especially to the untrained eye.

The thing is, you can have a big gap in actual power, but the perceptual difference can be less extreme than the numbers would suggest if you make careful cuts in the right places.

Obviously PS5 is several times stronger than Switch 2, but you can mitigate a lot of the difference via various tricks.

Yes, diminishing returns mean the perceived gap between SW2 and PS5 is a lot less than SW1 to PS4. Just as the perceived gap between PS5 and PS4 is less than PS4 and PS3.

Visuals aren't going to be the main obstacle for SW2 ports, it will be its weak CPU. But as it stands games like Pragmata and RE9 are evidently basic enough on the CPU side to run at 60fps even on its heavily underclocked mobile cpu and openworlds like outlaws are hitting 30 fine too right now.

I think the cyberpunk dlc is probably the only example we have so far of a game being unable to hit 30fps (which I'm pretty sure is cpu limited as the ROG Ally can).