Unveiling the Future: Insights on Next-Gen Innovations and Their Potential

DF Hiss Weekly arrives earlier than usual – but with a specific purpose. With Nintendo finally unveiling the Switch 2, the Digital Foundry team devotes a full hour discussing what we have learned from the two-minute preview and, equally, what remains to be unveiled. The primary question that has captivated my interest is this: did we observe a significant generational upgrade from the Mario Kart demonstration when compared to the current Switch’s Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? Certainly, did we witness any indication of the improved Nvidia technologies that have dominated the Switch 2 conversation? I would argue not.

The preview mainly served to confirm the numerous hardware-related leaks we have encountered over the past few months. Yes, the Switch 2 will undoubtedly be considerably larger than its forerunner. The Joy-Cons do seem to attach magnetically to the primary unit. There are solid indications that while the IR capabilities from Switch 1 are gone, some form of sensor will enable its successor to use its controllers like mice. Top and bottom USB-C ports have also been confirmed, allowing for a range of external devices that could be connected to the top of the system. Along with the larger design, ventilation appears to have been enhanced to manage the heat generated by the T239 processor.

Backward compatibility for both physical and digital Switch titles has also been confirmed – albeit with caveats indicating that not all games might function. My gut feeling is that aside from a few exceptions, backward compatibility will not be a major issue – it is more likely to be games utilizing Switch 1’s unique hardware components that may face challenges. Will games naturally perform better on Switch 2 compared to the older model? I would suggest that achieving flawless emulation of the previous console would be more complex than merely running them seamlessly on the new hardware, similar to how PS5 and Xbox Series handle compatibility features.

• 0:00:00 Introduction
• 0:01:12 Switch 2 hardware
• 0:16:42 New Mario Kart analysis
• 0:28:32 Only partial backward compatibility?
• 0:36:44 Rumored Switch 2 clock speeds
• 0:47:52 Viewer Q1: Can Switch 2 use transformer model DLSS?
• 0:50:32 Viewer Q2: Can DLSS improve Switch 2’s output on 4K displays?
• 0:52:19 Viewer Q3: Will Nintendo issue performance patches for Switch 1 games on Switch 2?
• 0:58:21 Final Switch 2 thoughts and impressions

For those monitoring the hardware leaks and overall discussions, nothing I have mentioned thus far will likely be ‘new’ in that sense – however, the mention of what we can anticipate to be a new Mario Kart game is notable. There are clear improvements compared to what we observed in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – yet with the significant caveat that all we can genuinely discuss is a very brief video clip that may or may not reflect the broader game. Nonetheless, the nature of the observation itself was intriguing: we see more expansive terrain with a relatively detailed shot pulling back to reveal a notably extensive draw distance – which may imply a different approach for the game itself.

Character rendering and environments share a similar style to Mario Kart 8, yet there are several interesting developments. There are adjustments to the character models, likely to align more closely with their movie counterparts. The drivers – and the karts themselves – appear more expressive, including cartoon-inspired squashing and stretching animations. Notably, there is a shift to shadow maps. In Mario Kart 8, baked-in shadows were combined with minimal use of shadow maps, but here, all geometry seems to feature real-time shadow mapping – a substantial improvement over Switch 1, albeit clearly more demanding on GPU resources.

Is this a generational upgrade over the current hardware? It’s challenging to conclude that to the extent that there are strong arguments suggesting this new Mario Kart was intended as a cross-generation title, akin to Forza Horizon 5: visually appealing on both systems, designed with balance in mind for an optimal experience across generations. Although Switch 2 does possess ray tracing capabilities, it may be a bit ambitious to expect them to appear in a 60fps game, yet it is still disheartening to see so few of Nvidia’s technologies in action.

For instance, DLSS has been praised as a potential game-changer for the new console, yet there is absolutely no evidence that it exists in this upcoming Mario Kart game. Indeed, similar to many other Nintendo titles, the nature of the visuals suggests that there is no anti-aliasing whatsoever, not to mention ML-driven upscaling. It feels like a far cry from last year’s experiences of Breath of the Wild running at 4K 60fps using DLSS! In summary, all we truly possess is a teaser for an undoubtedly crowd-pleasing game, but
“`

Rarely does a forthcoming technology event for Nintendo’s upcoming hardware occur.

No longer merely linked to the topic, however for the Switch 2-related speculation became evident earlier this week with the alleged clock speeds for the T239 processor in both handheld and docked modes. Think of this as the ‘next generation’ version of our 2016 analysis of how Nintendo reduced the speeds of the Tegra X1 from its default settings. The discussed specifications have intrigued some observers, yet they are largely consistent with my expectations – albeit with a few caveats present.

The table below presents the essentials. Much like the Switch 1 clock speeds I reported on just over eight years ago, we now have details on CPU, GPU, and memory clock frequencies. When docked, we anticipate a memory bandwidth of 102.4GB/s, shared between a GPU operating at 1007MHz and a CPU clocked at a perplexingly low 998.4MHz. In the power-constrained environment where battery life reigns supreme, conditions shift – the GPU decreases to 561MHz, while memory bandwidth diminishes to 68.3GB/s. Oddly, however, the CPU clock increases from 998.4MHz to 1100.8MHz. The exact reasoning behind this is not clear from the leaked documents, and it certainly raises questions about the accuracy of the claims.

* Switch 2 specifications remain unverified at this time.

With that said, the precision of these frequencies – down to the decimal point – is indeed similar to the developer documentation that suggested our previous Switch 1 report, while the figures for GPU and memory speeds are quite plausible considering the limited information gathered about the T239 processor. Just like its predecessor, the clock rates are lower than many anticipated – yet still align with some of the limitations imposed by a chip that hasn’t been manufactured on a cutting-edge process node.

Why does handheld mode require higher clock speeds than docked mode? This remains uncertain at this time; nonetheless, strangely and intriguingly, this actually supports the idea that the reality may lean in the favor of the latter.