An indie game developer with extensive experience creating Switch titles has offered compelling evidence suggesting the Switch 2 boasts significantly enhanced processing power. This conclusion stems from a close analysis of the recently unveiled Mario Kart 9 trailer.
Nintendo's official Switch 2 reveal, while exciting, remained notably vague regarding the console's technical capabilities. While upgrades like new Joy-Cons and a redesigned form factor are evident, the true power of the system remains undisclosed.
Jerrel Dulay of Sungrand Studios, a developer with a history of working on Wii U and 3DS titles, provides insightful commentary in a new YouTube video. His analysis centers on the Mario Kart 9 footage, highlighting several key graphical features indicative of a substantial power increase.
Mario Kart 9 - A Closer Look
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Dulay points to the use of physically-based shaders, impacting reflections and lighting effects on in-game objects. This, coupled with the high-resolution ground textures, places significant demands on system resources. The original Switch's Tegra X1 chip, with only 256 CUDA cores, would struggle with such intensive rendering. Reports suggest the Switch 2 utilizes an Nvidia T239 chip with approximately 1536 CUDA cores – a substantial increase.
Furthermore, the rumored 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM in the Switch 2 (compared to the original's 4GB) and potentially higher RAM speeds significantly impact texture loading times and overall performance. The trailer also showcases volumetric lighting and far-distance shadows, both computationally expensive features. The ability to render these effects smoothly at 60fps strongly suggests a significant power upgrade.
The high polygon count of characters, coupled with real-time cloth physics on the flagpoles, further reinforces the notion of a substantial leap in processing power. Dulay emphasizes the sheer number of unique high-resolution textures used, which would be impossible to achieve on the original Switch's hardware.
While awaiting official specifications, Dulay's analysis, based on the Mario Kart 9 trailer, strongly suggests the Switch 2 represents a major advancement in graphical capabilities. Nintendo's upcoming April Direct is expected to provide further details.
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