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There is a surprising new claim about the Nintendo Switch 2’s capabilities.
Content creator Xiphos Gaming shared this claim on his social media. A company called Lynxbyte Games claims that the Switch 2 supports DLSS 3.1. Lynxbyte shared an article with this image on both LinkedIn and Medium.
What Is DLSS?
Deep Learning Super Sampling, is Nvidia’s proprietary upscaling technology. Nvidia has been upgrading DLSS so that other image enhancement technologies are also incorporated in. For example, DLSS also comes with its own anti-aliasing solution.
The Nintendo Switch 2 is notable as the first dedicated games console to have DLSS support. While the Switch 2 is not as powerful as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, DLSS could make it possible for the Switch 2 to run the latest console generation games.
Nvidia talked about the Switch 2 shortly after the big Switch 2 Nintendo Direct last April. They also boasted about how DLSS could enable so many features like 4K and ray tracing on the console. Interestingly enough, they never specified what version of DLSS is in it.
OK, Well What’s A DLSS 3.1?
The Wikipedia page for DLSS says there’s a DLSS 3 and DLSS 3.5, but not a DLSS 3.1. Does this mean LynxBytes is lying? Not necessarily.
There is, in fact, a DLSS 3.1 SDK. DLSS 3.1 is not a new complete version of DLSS, but an update specifically for developers. When it released in February 2023, it added two features that could still be useful for the Switch 2 today.
First, Nvidia graphics cards that could only go up to DLSS 2 could still update to DLSS 3.1. The 3.1 update did not enable frame generation on these cards. However, they still received updates in terms of efficiency and improved code.
Second, it came with over-the-air (OTA) updates. This allows Nvidia graphics cards to update to the latest DLSS library automatically.
What Could This Mean For The Switch 2?
Let’s get this out of the way now: This does not mean the Switch 2 could suddenly be running The Last Of Us 2 at 4K 120FPS overnight. We should calibrate our expectations on what Nintendo wants out of their consoles. They don’t push for industry leading performance on their games at all.
It does look like Nintendo wants the Switch 2 to be constantly up to date. The Switch 2’s hardware may not be capable of updating to DLSS 4.0. But, it could keep getting continuous improvements from Nvidia with each Switch 2 system update. And those improvements could include improvements that are also on DLSS 4.0. And it could get updates after DLSS 4.0 too…
This Also Raises A Strange Question…
When the Switch 2 was first revealed, many speculated that it was running DLSS 2.0 at most. If it can run the DLSS 3.1 SDK, it is possible that it can go as high up as DLSS 3.0.
DLSS 3.0 introduced the controversial feature called frame generation. Frame generation can help video games look smoother, even on less powerful hardware. However, it can also add visual inaccuracies, micro-stuttering, and worse of all, input lag.
So far, no Switch 2 games have shown any signs it uses frame generation. If the technology is present in the Switch 2’s hardware, no developer may be interested to even try it.
This is at least speculation. It’s possible that Switch 2’s hardware will just get 3.1 updates and above, without being capable of frame generation, ray reconstruction, and other more advanced technologies.
We don’t know if Nintendo and/or Nvidia will ever admit if the Switch 2 has DLSS 3.1 support. But it will be really interesting if we see evidence of this in the Switch 2 games themselves.
