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The story
A thread on 5ch’s hardware/industry board asked, “Hasn’t graphics basically maxed out around the Switch 2?” The poster rates the Switch 2 as roughly equivalent to a PS4 Pro, and praises the fact that it delivers that performance in a handheld running on just 19W. Replies noted that visual expression plateaued with programmable shaders back in the PS4 era, and that the industry has since shifted toward broadening visuals through ray tracing and neural rendering techniques like DLSS — while others pushed back that current hardware still isn’t powerful enough to run GTA6- or Witcher 4-caliber titles without a struggle, turning the thread into a bit of a standoff between Nintendo-hardware loyalists and everyone else.
What people said
And that's on a handheld running on just 19W.
At this point, isn't the Switch 2 really all you need in a game console?
Name one game that actually bothers to build out areas beyond the map boundary.
Normally you don't build out the area beyond the boundary — instead, you "build it" so players can't easily get out there in the first place.
Especially when you've sunk 40 billion yen into it (lol)
If you can get there easily during normal play, that's not really "outside the area," is it.
Well, things will probably plateau once you hit 4K, so that's part of it.
I get wanting a bit more power right now, since ports are tanking the frame rate.
But if the power's there, developers will just make things needlessly heavy to use it up.
That's exactly what happened with the PC version of Wilds.
Realistically, a game like that would've been fine on the Switch 2.
This. Honestly, the Switch 2 still isn't enough.
Until it can run PS5-exclusive titles without issue, third-party AAA ports and multiplatform releases are going to be a struggle.
In fact, the Switch 2 version of Monster Hunter Wilds reportedly needed a lot of optimization work just to run.
What we really need is enough power to release true endpoint-of-graphics titles like GTA6 or Witcher 4 without a fight.
If the Switch 3 ends up pricier, I'd bet more people stick with the Switch 2 than the number who stuck with the original Switch this time around 🥺
Nintendo games use simplified, kid-friendly art styles, so they don't benefit much from better specs anyway.
> Going forward, I bet they'll start pushing AI rendering hard.
Enough with the made-up buzzwords.
That's because the PS4 generation was where programmable-shader-based visuals hit their ceiling.
Since then, even as GPU power has increased, it's mostly gone toward resolution, frame rate, and pushing more objects and textures on screen — the actual look of games has been stuck in a plateau.
The past few years have seen attempts to widen the range of visual expression through other approaches instead, like ray tracing and, more recently, neural rendering along the lines of DLSS5.
Even so, it'd be rough if the baseline requirement became something like an RTX 4070.
Not every PC user owns a high-end rig, you know.
DLSS5 seems to be trained on real-world footage, so going for pure realism was never going to beat reality itself.
No, reality itself isn't actually that beautiful — that's exactly why people retouch photos in Photoshop.
I'd guess DLSS5's training data is closer to films than to raw reality.
I don't think so. Not until we're at DLSS4-equivalent levels.
Why DLSS4? If we're talking DLSS, it should be 5.
If it goes that far, it'll start eating into Nvidia's own market.
But DLSS5-level neural rendering is basically a lost cause for next-gen consoles like the PS6, since they're built on AMD hardware.
At this rate, it's already looking like console gaming could be locked out of this tech for a full decade — a brutal outcome that already seems more or less decided.
No way, PS4 specs are way too low — PS4-level in this day and age is a non-starter.
Where does a game console even go from here?
Smartphones and handhelds still have room to grow specs-wise, so a Switch 3 seems feasible.
Home consoles, though, are pretty much done.
The Switch 2 is basically a PS4 arriving over a decade late — it still doesn't have enough power.
We need something more like PS5-level.
Though maybe not all the way up to PS6.
The fact that graphics and load times are no longer noticeably worse is huge.
There are titles I'd never have bought on the original Switch that are actually an option now.
Oh, is that right. I already thought it was a huge leap that Monster Hunter Wilds could be ported over without noticeable load-time lag — glad to hear it.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
It’s worth noting that discussion of the Switch 2’s performance is based largely on user speculation, since Nintendo has never officially published its specs. The “PS4 Pro-equivalent” comparison that comes up repeatedly in the thread is likewise an unofficial estimate inferred from how supported titles perform, not a confirmed figure. DLSS is an upscaling technology built into NVIDIA GPUs, and the Switch 2 is believed to include a compatible chip, though how far it will be developed in future hardware generations remains an open question. Several replies in the thread converged on the view that graphical expression reached a natural stopping point with PS4-era programmable shaders, and that the industry has since shifted toward differentiating visuals through ray tracing and AI-driven upscaling or generative rendering. On the question of how much power is actually needed, though, opinions ranged widely — from “PS4-level is plenty” to “it has to exceed the PS5” — and no consensus was reached.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Console Wars)) thread “Hasn’t graphics basically maxed out around the Switch 2?“
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