Rumor: Nintendo Switch 2’s DLSS Support Could Be Limited

gameranx.com:

There’s a new rumor about the Nintendo Switch 2 that may be cause for concern about the platform’s potential power.

As reported by GameRant, this information comes from the people at Digital Foundry. We will note that Digital Foundry is well known and well regarded when it comes to testing performance of video games across different platforms. But they aren’t particularly known for video game leaks, and this is certainly them stretching their wheelhouse, and putting their credibility on the line.

This rumor is hinged on Digital Foundry’s assumption that the most likely chip that Nintendo will be using is the T239. This is a known Nvidia chip that’s already used for self-driving cars.

Richard Leadbetter, who is Eurogamer’s technology editor as well as a contributor at Digital Foundry, claims he has sources that have told him that the T239 that will be in the Switch 2 won’t have DLA. But what’s DLA?
That’s an acronym for deep learning accelerator. To put it simply, DLA is an architecture found in chips like the T239 that enables and speeds up its ability to execute on deep learning tasks. In plain English, DLA is what’s needed for this self-driving car chip to use self-driving AI.

If DLA is not found in the Nintendo Switch’s version of the T239, that means it won’t be efficient at executing AI tasks. So it can still use AI, for the popular task of upscaling video games, but it’s more likely that in most games and apps that it won’t.

Does that hamper the Switch 2 completely? Not exactly. No, such a T239 chip can still use AI, and it will definitely be compatible with DLSS. But Leadbetter is setting expectations that it will be able to upscale games up to 1080p, or 1440p at most.

That’s certainly not the end of the world.