Game developers expect Nintendo Switch 2's faster SoC and 3x RAM increase to make ports easier

The Nintendo Switch has become something of a meme for its slow, outdated hardware, especially when compared to other consoles and the slew of other handheld gaming devices that have flooded the market in recent years. As it turns out, it's not just gamers who have been begging for a Switch 2 with updated hardware. In a recent interview with Automaton, a handful of game developers who specialise in porting games to the Nintendo Switch detailed their frustrations with the slow hardware. 

The biggest issues related to porting games to the first-gen Switch hardware came from limited hardware on essentially all fronts. According to the developers, limited RAM — half the amount that more powerful contemporaries could count on — meant that game files and in-game textures had to be compressed "to the limit" to save memory. Likewise with the low-spec CPU, developers either spent a lot of time optimising their games to pre-load textures and game environments, introducing loading screens in the process, or simply allowed the already-occupied CPU to take on the extra burden of background processing, which would result in performance degradation.

"We had to compress textures to the absolute limit to save memory, but the trade-off was that the more memory we freed up, the better the game would look, making the process feel like solving a puzzle. When I think about it that way, it was actually fun." - an unnamed developer who spoke to Automaton

The relatively low-power GPU in the Nintendo Switch also meant developers had to drop their target resolutions from 1440p and 4K in the more recent console generation to around 540p to 720p for Switch ports. In many cases, the target resolution for game ports was as little as 25% of the Switch's own native 720p display. 

What to expect from the Switch 2

When asked what they were excited about for the Switch 2, the port developers expressed excitement about being able to bring more games to the gaming handheld, specifically referring to those developed for more recent consoles, like the Xbox Series X (curr. $499.99 on Amazon) and PlayStation 5 (curr. $499.99 on Amazon). Nintendo has yet to reveal exact specifications for the Switch 2, but leaks indicate that the new console will pack in the neighbourhood of 12 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and an 8 nm SoC that should serve up significantly higher CPU and GPU performance, which should make both native Switch games and game ports easier to run and develop.