How the Nintendo Switch 2 can achieve 4K

The starting gun for 2025 also marked the march towards fatherhood Nintendo Switch 2entered the final lap sprint. Key leakage 2‘s motherboard, along with a recently discovered patent, offer a hint at the handset’s power and finally show how it can reach 4K image qualities without taking up space on your hard drive.

The Nintendo Switch 2 has long been slated for a new, custom Nvidia chip. It was supposedly the T234 (though modified to fit the smaller Nintendo chassis) and renamed the T239. Based on these rumors, chip enthusiasts thought it would be on par with PlayStation 4 generation consoles in terms of power.

Pictures are posted at Reddit Wednesday may reveal what the motherboard for Nintendo’s upcoming console could be, including the CPU socket. The chip does not list any name for the T239, but the SOC may use a different serial number or code name.

The original Switch was based on the Nvidia Tegra X1 SOC. Even for its time in 2017, the console was outdated in terms of graphical performance. Due to its versatility and portability, it has become one of the most popular gaming devices. Still, when docked and connected to a TV, the console would only output 720p in handheld mode and a maximum of 1080p. To achieve 4K, the Switch sequel must be able to output four times the resolution of the original Switch.

If you remember your console history, the original PlayStation 4 did not support 4K. It wasn’t until the PS4 Pro arrived in 2016 that we saw support for higher resolutions. We don’t know enough about the Switch 2’s chip to know how well it performs at higher resolutions. However, a patent It offers a solution in the form of an AI upgrade introduced by Nintendo last year.

Nintendo filed a patent for “Systems and methods for machine learning image conversion” in July 2023, although the US Patent and Trademark Office published the document on December 31, 2024. The article describes an AI image transformation system for image enhancement. higher resolution. The upgrade is now Prolific among PC gamesWith companies like Nvidia DLSS (company Discover DLSS 4 this month), AMD and Intel offer different types of upgrade technologies.

The AI ​​upgrade is heading to consoles. The PS5 Pro offers own mix of upliftingIt’s called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution or PSRR. The technology converts each frame played at a lower resolution to a higher resolution, allowing you to maintain the performance of the original image.

Game journalist Laura Keith pointed it out In Bluesky. The patent allows them to host games on “smaller capacity physical media”. If you can get 4K from your portable console without increasing your limited disk space, Nintendo – and I, for that matter – will call that a win. Kate noted that the patent mentions upscaling from 520p to 1080p and from 1080p to 4K.

Nintendo’s first 8-inch handheld might actually be more powerful than the 2017 version, but Nintendo has confirmed that it will be too. to be backward compatible to some extent. This means he will have to work with bosses. A leaked motherboard for the Switch 2 shows that it has a USB-C port and a slot for Nintendo’s slim physical media. This creates a problem when the data on the cartridge is limited. Therefore, even if you buy a disc for a game these days, you have to download dozens or hundreds of gigabytes of data that is not included on the disc.

Old Japanese console manufacturer said befored plans to launch the Switch 2 by the end of its fiscal year, which ends in March. Fingers crossed for a January reveal, but if all these leaks are real, it means Nintendo is already in full-scale production.