Nintendo Switch 2: Nvidia DLSS and raytracing support confirmed

Nintendo has revealed quite a bit about the Switch 2 since its launch. For starters, its Joy-Cons will stick with potentiometer-based sticks, and not the more robust Hall Effect-based ones. And now, thanks to an IGN interview, we know a wee bit more about its innards. The company has confirmed the Nintendo Switch 2's Nvidia GPU supports DLSS and raytracing via the following statement:

We use DLSS upscaling technology and that's something that we need to use as we develop games. And when it comes to the hardware, it is able to output to a TV at a max of 4K. Whether the software developer is going to use that as a native resolution or get it to upscale is something that the software developer can choose. I think it opens up a lot of options for the software developer to choose from.

Unfortunately, it doesn't mention the version of DLSS, but one can reasonably assume it to be DLSS 2.0 (or a custom variant) based on the speculation that the Switch 2's SoC is based on Nvidia's Ampere architecture. Then again, it could be a custom DLSS variant that Nintendo developed with Nvidia, similar to what Sony and AMD did with PSSR on the PlayStation 5 Pro.

Either way, this is ultimately good news for potential Nintendo Switch 2 owners because the somewhat anaemic Nvidia chip will need all the help it can get to hit the coveted 4K 60/1080p 120 FPS figures. Now, the only missing piece of the puzzle is frame generation. There's no way to know if the feature is enabled because Nintendo is being intentionally vague with specifics, but says Nvidia might talk more about the Switch 2's hardware later.