Switch RTX Nvidia confirms the Switch 2 supports DLSS, G-Sync, and ray-tracing Nvidia says the Switch 2's GPU is 10 times faster than the original Switch. Andrew Cunningham Apr 3, 2025 3:32 pm | 27 The Nintendo Switch 2. Credit: Nintendo The Nintendo Switch 2. Credit: Nintendo Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreIn the wake of the Switch 2 reveal, neither Nintendo nor Nvidia has gone into any detail at all about the exact chip inside the upcoming handheldtechnically, we are still not sure what Arm CPU architecture or what GPU architecture it uses, how much RAM we can expect it to have, how fast that memory will be, or exactly how many graphics cores we're looking at.But interviews with Nintendo executives and a blog post from Nvidia did at least confirm several of the new chip's capabilities. The "custom Nvidia processor" has a GPU "with dedicated [Ray-Tracing] Cores and Tensor Cores for stunning visuals and AI-driven enhancements," writes Nvidia Software Engineering VP Muni Anda.This means that, as rumored, the Switch 2 will support Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) upscaling technology, which helps to upscale a lower-resolution image into a higher-resolution image with less of a performance impact than native rendering and less loss of quality than traditional upscaling methods. For the Switch games that can render at 4K or at 120 FPS 1080p, DLSS will likely be responsible for making it possible.The other major Nvidia technology supported by the new Switch is G-Sync, which prevents screen tearing when games are running at variable frame rates. Nvidia notes that G-Sync is only supported in handheld mode and not in docked mode, which could be a limitation of the Switch dock's HDMI port.The current Switch hardware is mostly too old to take advantage of these technologies. A handful of late Switch games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, did make some use of AMD's hardware-agnostic (and lower quality) FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaling to squeeze out more performance, but at a certain point the base hardware is just too old and slow to achieve acceptable results.For the Switch 2, a good deal of circumstantial evidence points to the Nvidia T239a slightly cut-down version of the Nvidia Orin T234 it sells for automotive, industrial, and robotics applicationspowering the handheld. (In Nvidia's branding scheme, smaller/lower numbers denote a higher-end chip). The T239, or whatever Switch-specific variant of the chip ends up being inside the Switch 2, uses Nvidia's Ampere graphics architecture, the same as 2020 and 2021's GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs for PCs.Ampere doesn't support DLSS Frame Generation, a new feature Nvidia has marketed for the GeForce 40- and 50-series GPUs that generates entirely new frames using the tensor cores rather than touching up existing frames. But it does support all of Nvidia's DLSS upscaling models and hardware-accelerated ray-tracing, making it a good candidate for the Switch 2's GPU architecture.Andrew CunninghamSenior Technology ReporterAndrew CunninghamSenior Technology Reporter Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue. 27 Comments