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Does anyone really find the Switch 2 to be underpowered? Is the Steam Deck really that much more powerful, and is it worth the extra 100 grams of weight? Metro

by nsxwolf 5mo ago

Does anyone really find the Switch 2 to be underpowered? Is the Steam Deck really that much more powerful, and is it worth the extra 100 grams of weight? Metroid Prime 4 looks amazing, and you can choose 4K@60 or 1080p@120. I don't really care about generated frames or whatever AI magic the console is doing to pull it off, it looks great.

someguyiguess 5mo ago
The steam deck is 4 year old hardware. The Switch 2 came out last summer. So if they're about on-par performance-wise, doesn't that prove OP's point?
- semiquaver 5mo ago
  Holy goalposts-moving, Batman!
FunHearing3443 5mo ago
The switch 2 is definitively more powerful than the steam deck and also supports DLSS.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
chocochunks 5mo ago
It's not really. The CPU in the Switch 2 isn't the most amazing and the Steam Deck has 4GB extra RAM (but it's also got a lighter OS), but the GPU is worse on Deck. Switch 2 offers pretty comparable performance in handheld mode, better in docked and devs are more likely to tailor games for Switch 2. FF7 Rebirth looks like trash on Deck, even on my faster 780M handheld it was pretty ugly, I had to hack in FSR3/4 support for it to look remotely decent. Switch 2 by comparison looks better. Star Wars Outlaws is another example.
InsideOutSanta 5mo ago
It's an odd criticism to begin with. The Switch is a toy, it's not a PC. Apart from a few shitty PC ports, it runs its games just fine, so in what sense is it really "underpowered"? Would Super Mario Bros. Wonder be a better game if the Switch 2 could push twice as many polygons?
- maccard 5mo ago
  Compared to Xbox and PlayStation it’s vastly underpowered. They’re not “shitty PC ports”, they’re ports that people tried, likely managed to one platform and then when they tried on switch 2 realised just how far behind it is.
  - 9x39 5mo ago
    How well do Pokopia and Mario Galaxy play on PS and Xbox? Performance is orthogonal to the Switch aims, which are about those tightly curated Nintendo titles.
    - maccard 5mo ago
      > Performance is orthogonal to the Switch aims, which are about those tightly curated Nintendo titles. I disagree. https://opencritic.com/browse/switch%202 https://opencritic.com/browse/switch%202 Half of the top rated games on Switch 2 are multiplatform titles
  - Fricken 5mo ago
    Yeah, but does having twice the polygons make the game twice as fun? It does not. The Switch is only behind on metrics that don't matter.
    - maccard 5mo ago
      No, but that's like asking does having half the polygons make it half as fun.
  - johnnyanmac 5mo ago
dragontamer 5mo ago
> 4K@60 Parts of Samus's gun and some parts of the UI are 4k. I'm a Nintendo fan but this 4k@60 claim from Nintendo is incredibly laughable. The vast majority of the screen is upscaled. I think there were a bunch of 4k Hatsune Miku games that came out. It turns out that 2D renderings at 4k can be accomplished with very low end hardware. The game looks good because Nintendo has excellent artists. So I guess it's worth the money. But the technical specs are completely baloney.
- nsxwolf 5mo ago
  4K mode looks better to me than 1080p on my TV, I'm not Digital Foundry so I don't know how to count pixels or whatever. I would imagine most people don't care much and can't see the difference from where they are sitting in the room anyway. It more than gets the job done, the job I hired it to do is make the games impress me visually and allow me to experience the thrill of technological progress, and it does that very well.
  - dragontamer 5mo ago
    4k is a technical spec. It's the same as lying about the horsepower of your car. Nintendo (and NVidia) are playing games with specs. And it's incredibly off-putting to me. Lying about small things means the company will lie about large things. This sort of thing erodes trust, especially because 4k is so easy to test and figure out. ------- There are other words for better than 1080p. Such as 1440p or 2k. Which is closer to what the new Metroid game actually does.
- scblock 5mo ago
  "The vast majority of the screen is upscaled." I have bad news for you, friend. You just described AAA gaming on anything less than a 5090 (and not even then, at all times). Without DLSS or FSR many modern games won't run smoothly at 4k on typical hardware (such as a 5070, which costs more than a Switch 2, or a 5060, which costs about the same).
  - dragontamer 5mo ago

by nsxwolf 5mo ago

someguyiguess 5mo ago

The steam deck is 4 year old hardware. The Switch 2 came out last summer. So if they're about on-par performance-wise, doesn't that prove OP's point?

semiquaver 5mo ago
Holy goalposts-moving, Batman!

FunHearing3443 5mo ago

The switch 2 is definitively more powerful than the steam deck and also supports DLSS.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

chocochunks 5mo ago

It's not really. The CPU in the Switch 2 isn't the most amazing and the Steam Deck has 4GB extra RAM (but it's also got a lighter OS), but the GPU is worse on Deck. Switch 2 offers pretty comparable performance in handheld mode, better in docked and devs are more likely to tailor games for Switch 2. FF7 Rebirth looks like trash on Deck, even on my faster 780M handheld it was pretty ugly, I had to hack in FSR3/4 support for it to look remotely decent. Switch 2 by comparison looks better. Star Wars Outlaws is another example.

InsideOutSanta 5mo ago

It's an odd criticism to begin with. The Switch is a toy, it's not a PC. Apart from a few shitty PC ports, it runs its games just fine, so in what sense is it really "underpowered"? Would Super Mario Bros. Wonder be a better game if the Switch 2 could push twice as many polygons?

maccard 5mo ago
Compared to Xbox and PlayStation it’s vastly underpowered. They’re not “shitty PC ports”, they’re ports that people tried, likely managed to one platform and then when they tried on switch 2 realised just how far behind it is.
- 9x39 5mo ago
  How well do Pokopia and Mario Galaxy play on PS and Xbox? Performance is orthogonal to the Switch aims, which are about those tightly curated Nintendo titles.
  - maccard 5mo ago
    > Performance is orthogonal to the Switch aims, which are about those tightly curated Nintendo titles. I disagree. https://opencritic.com/browse/switch%202 https://opencritic.com/browse/switch%202 Half of the top rated games on Switch 2 are multiplatform titles
- Fricken 5mo ago
  Yeah, but does having twice the polygons make the game twice as fun? It does not. The Switch is only behind on metrics that don't matter.
  - maccard 5mo ago
    No, but that's like asking does having half the polygons make it half as fun.
- johnnyanmac 5mo ago

dragontamer 5mo ago

> 4K@60 Parts of Samus's gun and some parts of the UI are 4k. I'm a Nintendo fan but this 4k@60 claim from Nintendo is incredibly laughable. The vast majority of the screen is upscaled. I think there were a bunch of 4k Hatsune Miku games that came out. It turns out that 2D renderings at 4k can be accomplished with very low end hardware. The game looks good because Nintendo has excellent artists. So I guess it's worth the money. But the technical specs are completely baloney.

nsxwolf 5mo ago
4K mode looks better to me than 1080p on my TV, I'm not Digital Foundry so I don't know how to count pixels or whatever. I would imagine most people don't care much and can't see the difference from where they are sitting in the room anyway. It more than gets the job done, the job I hired it to do is make the games impress me visually and allow me to experience the thrill of technological progress, and it does that very well.
- dragontamer 5mo ago
  4k is a technical spec. It's the same as lying about the horsepower of your car. Nintendo (and NVidia) are playing games with specs. And it's incredibly off-putting to me. Lying about small things means the company will lie about large things. This sort of thing erodes trust, especially because 4k is so easy to test and figure out. ------- There are other words for better than 1080p. Such as 1440p or 2k. Which is closer to what the new Metroid game actually does.
scblock 5mo ago
"The vast majority of the screen is upscaled." I have bad news for you, friend. You just described AAA gaming on anything less than a 5090 (and not even then, at all times). Without DLSS or FSR many modern games won't run smoothly at 4k on typical hardware (such as a 5070, which costs more than a Switch 2, or a 5060, which costs about the same).
- dragontamer 5mo ago