Topic: Nintendo Switch 2

@MarioVillager92 Awesome you’ll love it!! I got mine on Sunday

@FishyS @mike3 Thanks you two! It's still downloading as of now so I may have to wait until tomorrow to play it. This suspense is a little ridiculous, lol. I did make it so that MKW would download first.

I am very satisfied with the Switch 2 Pro Controller. Like the Switch 2 itself, it is a nice improvement from its predecessor. It just feels very nice to move the sticks around and to press the buttons. The rumble in Bananza is also good.

The A78c CPU cores can run A57 code directly and the graphics go through a API that now works with the Switch 2 graphic hardware rather than Swich 1. It was surely designed from the outset to have good compatibility and to be honest I'm amazed how good the compatibility is but they have had a long time to perfect this. However it still only needs 3 CPU cores and low performance levels from the GPU. I honestly don't see why it is that surprising that you get good battery life out of the Switch 2 when running Switch 1 games. If the Switch 2 had to emulate the wii u which is a completely different architecture without the ability to run code natively then I guess if it could do it we would be down to 2 hours approx as that would really push the system as its powerpc based with a completely different graphic architecture. On a PC emulating Switch 1 and wii u seems to need similar resources in performance to get full speed etc. I suspect the Switch 1 is easier to emulate but being slightly more powerful they work out the same overall.

There are good technical reasons why the Switch 2 can run Switch 1 games with decent battery runtime.

I'm curious how the Switch 2's battery holds up playing Gamecube games like Windwaker or F Zero as that is actually a proper emulation test. Yes the Gamecube isn't very demanding being only a 8 gflop GPU etc and even my crappy Celeron laptop can emulate Gamecube at full speed and run for 4-6 hours but it would be interesting to know what the runtime is for that on Switch 2 as it must be full software emulation so you could make a comparison with other devices running Gamecube emulators. As far as I know there is no hardware in Switch 2 that would help with regard Gamecube emulation.

@BonzoBanana
As far as the Switch 2's SoC is concerned Switch games are the same as Switch 2 games. There's no such thing here as a lower GPU clock or less CPU cores being used. These games only use less power because that's the amount of power a less demanding game consumes on Switch 2. If you altered a Switch game to target a 4K output, for example, I'd imagine the power consumption would be very Switch 2 like

The GameCube emulator is just an emulator. I don't see how it's particularly interesting how much power it uses for running those at all. Probably not a whole lot

@JaxonH
Not quite the same but I have a 22Wh battery I always carry in my bag. So 2.5 hours of battery life on Switch 2 in a demanding game, goes to 5 hours comfortably with that battery pack. My Deck OLED is about 3 hours in demanding games, probably goes to something around 4.5 hours with that battery pack

I think people don't quite realise the significant difference in power draw here and how it impacts actual use. Doesn't take much at all to get the Switch 2 into "that's plenty of battery" territory

@skywake
Ya, I just like it being attached to the back of the system when I play so I don't have to have cables running out and somewhere to set the battery... I like to keep it clean, simple and slick. Your battery sounds small enough these rings should be able to hold the weight. They're only $10 and the perfect length cable is only $8 (assuming you have USB-C out). You could just stick one on your battery and magnetically adhere the second ring to it without peeling off the paper to adhere it to the system yet. Get that cable for $8, plug it in and move it around on the back until you find the ideal spot centered between the hinges of the kickstand, and as low as possible while still allowing the bottom of the kickstand to swing over it with clearance. Then peel off and stick it on. $18 and you'll transform your battery into a slick, joycon-like snap-on solution.

@BonzoBanana
I’m surprised because I’m talking about Switch 1 games that received some nice resolution and/or fps upgrades getting such good battery life.

Ive got a question on the game key cards. so u transfer games from the switch to switch 2 got it. but what if hypothetically something happens to my switch? r all those digital games lost and Id have to repurchase them? I think redownloading from the eshop would make more sense. Id like to keep most of my collection on switch to save space on switch 2 but this concerns me.

@rallydefault
Yeah, I would say @BonzoBanana doesn't really understand what they're talking about here. Switch games almost by definition are going to be less complex workloads than the most taxing Switch 2 games. Because they had to exist and run on Switch

The free updates can force a higher resolution output, maybe do some asset swaps, set different performance targets etc. Which will increase the workload. But the gap in performance available to Switch 2 vs Switch is so vast that you're unlikely to move the needle much

Effectively, max power draw happens when you are missing your performance targets. If you're maxing out the GPU you are either missing your framerate target, don't have one set or are scaling your resolution down. If you're not doing these things and are getting a locked framerate? You're using less power

And it's hard to find any Switch game on Switch 2 that isn't comfortably hitting it's targets. Even amongst the free updates

@BASEDSAKRI as long as you have the cartridge, you can just redownload the game once more by sticking the cartridge in.

https://www.nintendo.com/au/hardware/nintendo-switch-2/game-k...

the site explains it in pretty succint way imo

@darkfenrir my question is mainly pertaining to digital games tho. if something happens to my switch and I didnt transfer digital games to switch 2 will I lose them?

@BASEDSAKRI Then that's not game key cards, but anyway, you can just redownload them after logging into your nintendo account, but you'll have to like, deregister your account from the past switch first. (This is what I do so I don't have to link my old Switch since I don't want to update the old one for a certain reason)

https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Nintendo-Switch/FAQ/Ho... (how to deregister it)

https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Nintendo-Switch/How-to... (then how to change primary console)

I wish nintendo will just make it easy to do this kind of thing from account overview... :/

@darkfenrir ah gotcha. thanks for the help.

I found this thing that is concerning. This will probably become a big conversation topic on the internet over the next few days.

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/super-mario/this-is-another-...

@ShieldHero We knew about this since the launch of the system. Backwards compatibility doesn't really work on this console unless the console is connected to the internet and updates for the first time. It's because when the Switch 2 launched, not all games were done with testing for compatibility until after it hit shelves.

you know one of my only disappointments about the switch 2 controllers is theres still no way to turn on the console with the controller like playstation 5 ones. sometimes you just wanna relax and play for a but on your tv yknow?

@VoidofLight, I already knew about the Switch 2 needing a system update for Switch 1 games, and that was already bad enough. This new situation is about the game itself needing an update as well, when the update was optional before. It's just slightly concerning, that's all.

@OctolingKing13 Why not just always be in sleep mode? That's what I do. The controllers turn it on fine then. I'm pretty sure that's what Nintendo intended.