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Nintendo Switch Pro to Support 720p 120 FPS in Portable Mode 1440p 30 FPS in Docked Mode


"According to the latest rumors coming out of Taiwan, the Nintendo Switch Pro will run at a resolution of 720p 120 FPS in portable mode, with docked mode optimized for 1440p 30 FPS. The GPU will be based on NVIDIA’s latest graphics architecture (Ampere or the upcoming Lovelace?), fabbed on TSMC’s 7nm class node with the chipset potentially leveraging a Samsung node.

The GPU core will supposedly run at around 1 GHz (base clock) while the vanilla Switch runs at 768 MHz. Quite frankly, this sounds a bit underwhelming as the latter is based on a fairly dated process. TSMC’s 7nm/6nm nodes should be capable of much higher frequencies.

It’s unclear whether the SKU will come with NVIDIA’s RTCores for ray-tracing but support for DLSS is almost confirmed which means we’ll see Tensor cores on-die. Third-party developers have reportedly already received dev-kits for the new console."
 
What Switch Pro fans want:

super saiyan GIF


What they will get:

ixSmbTA.gif
 
720p 120fps = 110.592.000 pixels per second
1440p 30fps = 110.592.000 pixels per second

That means there is no difference in terms of power/performance between Portable and Docked.

Something is wrong here.

The reason why the OG switch was more powerful in docked was because of battery life. That my no longer be the case with the switch Pro.
 
I won't believe anything until I hear it from Nintendo, hopefully in the upcoming direct.

120fps? Don't games struggle to hit 30? Maybe aim for a nice solid 60fps first.

Up to 120fps, not mandatory 120fps. Obviously just like the PS5 and XSX/S not every game will be 120. It doesn't hurt to have the capability.

The Switch is a great indie platform, and a lot of them could have run at 120fps even on the current version of the Switch. Now they'll be able to do so if the new screen supports it.
 
120 FPS in portable is an absolute gamechanger.

Hardly anyone has 120 FPS capable TVs. This would be the ultimate system for indies.
 
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Fbh

Member
As with everything.
Supports feature =/= will have much content that actually uses this feature.


The Ps3 supported 60hz....the vast majority of games ran at 30fps with drops.
 

assurdum

Banned
As with everything.
Supports feature =/= will have much content that actually uses this feature.


The Ps3 supported 60hz....the vast majority of games ran at 30fps with drops.
Anyway the source linked said Switch will run at 720p 120 FPS in portable mode. That's why it's laughable.
 
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McHuj

Member
A 1 GHz sounds reasonable. Nintendo needs to balance performance, cost, and battery life.

Also, it wouldn't surprise me if the actual OLED screen has a 120Hz spec. Plenty of phones with OLED screens have high frequency displays. I wouldn't expect many games to push 120 FPS though. The CPU would have to be also very capable of pushing that.

My guess is that someone thinks that they're "smart" and are doing some "math" with pixel counts.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
calling bs, Nintendo dont care about frame rate

This is definitely not true, almost all internally developed Nintendo games are either 60fps or 30 with very few dips (for more ambitious titles).

But yeah, this still sounds like bs. Even if the pixel math checks out, that's not the only thing that matters. How is the CPU gonna perform 4x better in handheld mode? It won't, so that would mean that the CPU is being severely underutilized in docked mode. Would just make no sense. It's gonna perform the same in both modes, just like on the original Switch.

I would generally expect the same frame rates in both modes, with higher resolution and some other visual extras in docked mode.
 
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ZywyPL

Banned
1080p60 should be the sweet-spot for both handheld and docked mode. In docked use DLSS Performance mode to scale it up to 4K and there you go.
 

GuinGuin

Banned
A 1 GHz sounds reasonable. Nintendo needs to balance performance, cost, and battery life.

Also, it wouldn't surprise me if the actual OLED screen has a 120Hz spec. Plenty of phones with OLED screens have high frequency displays. I wouldn't expect many games to push 120 FPS though. The CPU would have to be also very capable of pushing that.

My guess is that someone thinks that they're "smart" and are doing some "math" with pixel counts.

These are the people that still used a resistive screen on the Wii U like 8 years ago.
 

recursive

Member
I will be happy if majority games can handle 720p 30fps in hand held. So many are much lower and struggle with the frames as it is. 120fps seems unlikely unless we are talking pong or NES tetris.
 

Zannegan

Member
This honestly sounds like someone misunderstood or mistrandlated something they were told (and not necessarily by an "insider" either).

Why on earth would a power profile that should have 4x the available resources be optimized for exactly the same number of pixels? And who optimizes all of the games on a system for any one number anyway? Why would Nintendo suddenly decide to prioritize 120 fps in their games, and why just for handheld mode? Why target 1440p of all things when most people woll have either a 4K or a full HD TV?

Of course, I won't really be surprised if the Switch Pro turns out to be weaker than even my modest hopes, but this rumor makes zero sense. Then again, I've been wrong before. lol
 
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