New Nintendo Switch 2 leak explores load time eradication and ray tracing at PS5 levels

A video uploaded by respected games industry commenter Nate the Hate has offered up some considerably juicy details about the Nintendo Switch 2. Understandably, it seems much of the information has come from Gamescom, which appears to have been the source for many recent Switch 2 leaks.

The clip starts with the discussion about the tech demo involving an optimized version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which allegedly ran at 4K 60 fps on the hardware that was used to match the targeted Switch 2 specs. However, while some outlets have focused on that impressive visual output, apparently a very important factor had been overlooked.

It seems that Nintendo really wanted to show off how loading times had been eradicated between generations. Something akin to this happened with a Spider-Man demo that Sony carried out showing how load times had been reduced between the PS4 Pro and hardware representing the PS5. Nate the Hate talks about how it would take around 30 seconds for Breath of the Wild to go from menu to save on the OG Switch, whereas the Switch 2 load time for the title was practically instant. Such a rapid transition indicates a big upgrade in terms of storage, which would hardly be a surprise as the current Switch relies on 32 or 64 GB of eMMC storage.

Sony offered a massive leap in storage performance between the PS4 and PS5 generations, and this leak suggests Nintendo is planning something similar with the Switch successor. Another potential huge leap for the Switch 2 would be its RTX and DLSS support. This has already been discussed, but the video goes a bit further, stating that perhaps a custom DLSS 3.5 tech was being used but without the full “feature set”, thus causing some confusion about which version of DLSS was onboard.

Regardless of the version, this Nvidia technology apparently helped the Switch 2 tech demo involving The Matrix Awakens produce resolutions and ray-tracing effects that could keep up in terms of quality with those produced via the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X. It is made clear that in no way is the Nintendo Switch 2 expected to meet the raw performance of the PS5 or XSX, but it might not look too much out of place in regard to visual output comparisons.

Pre-order Super Mario Bros. Wonder on Amazon