The Nintendo Switch 2 could support more than regular NVIDIA DLSS, as a recently filed patent outlines some brand-new tech that has never been seen before.
The tech experts at Digital Foundry went through the 39 pages of the patent filed on December 31st, 2024, highlighting some interesting findings that go beyond the description of a standard NVIDIA DLSS-style upscaling. One of the most interesting findings is the confirmation that the upscaling method described in the patent, which is usually expensive in terms of compute power and bandwidth, is specifically targeted to be executed within the 120th or 160th of a second on a low-power chip, so it’s most definitely not the usual DLSS seen in the PC desktop space.
Another equally interesting finding discovered in the Nintendo Switch 2 AI-upscaling patent is the description of something that could be labeled as dynamic AI-upscaling. According to this description, the model based upon real-time data coming from the game engine can be switched out in real-time or prepared ahead of time programmatically to use lower quality upscaling
to fit within a certain frame time budget. Essentially, if the game is sending out an image that exceeds 16.6 milliseconds or 33.3 milliseconds, the device will use a lower-quality upscaling model to output the final 1080p image. This is obviously new tech that was never seen before in action and that may have been developed specifically for the Nintendo Switch 2, as something like this may not be needed in the PC desktop space unless for very low-power laptops, for example.
For the rest, the Nintendo Switch 2 patent is very broad, and describes all sorts of applications for AI-powered upscaling, such as neural decompression that could be used to bring file sizes down, and even cloud upscaling, going over various possibilities such as upscaling being done on the cloud and then sent via a stream to a local device, the upscaling getting done on the local device and more.
While AI-powered upscaling can do wonders, as shown over the past few years by NVIDIA DLSS, developers still need to get their games running decently on the Nintendo Switch 2, which could be a challenge considering the system won’t be as powerful as any of the other current generation systems. According to rumors circulating online, there is a “movement” to try and get scaled-down Xbox Series S versions of games on the system, although it is not yet known if this has been successful so far, and with leaks having focused only on the hardware side of things, we will likely have to wait for the official reveal to see how multiplatform games will run on the system.
Speaking about leaks, Nintendo has finally acknowledged them in some way. In a statement issued to Japanese newspaper The Sankei Shimbun, the company said that the images and videos making the rounds are “not official.” What’s interesting to note is that the company didn’t say they are not accurate, so there’s a solid chance we already got the first look at the system via all these leaks that have come in daily.
The Nintendo Switch 2 has yet to be officially revealed, but at this point, it should only be a matter of days until we finally see what the Japanese company has in store for the future.
Nintendo Switch 2 Could Support Some Sort of Dynamic AI-Upscaling; Ports May Be Scaled Down From Xbox Series S Versions
