You must not have seen a lot of handhelds then. The Switch is the most powerful portable console ever… And honestly the first party games look and run pretty great for the price.
Yea because no one besides nintendo makes any portable consoles anymore. That’s like Apple saying “It’s the best iPhone we ever made”, every time they introduce a new one…
And it’s not even necessarily true, if you count the steamdeck as a console, which one might.
And still, the hardware of the switch was already obsolete when it launched. The Tegra X1‘s only redeeming quality is a comparatively high graphics performance compared to most off the shelf mobile SoC, but even it is slow compared to an iPhone 11 or heck a 250€ tablet with a Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 blows the switch out of the water, performance wise. You’ll even get more memory, more storage, etc.
That isn’t to say, the switch is bad. The performance is adequate for the typical Nintendo games but you can’t tell me the recent pokemon games or Zelda TodK run great, barely hitting 30fps. Which is not surprising, considering most midrange mobile phones are quicker by now and the switch is stuck with a graphics chip that most closely compares to a GTX 830M. A 5 generations and 10 years old graphics chip that wasn’t even fast when it was new.
And back to the steamdeck again: while it is a bit more expensive than a switch, it’s still a damn good deal, especially on the used market and even able to emulate switch games with better performance than the switch itself. And, unlike the switch, it is actually able to play modern games fairly well, while the switch either runs them at subpar quality or only via streaming.
Two things: While I’d agree, that most PC-Based gaming handhelds are not consoles, I would disagree in case of the steam deck. Its software and especially user interface are purpose built for its controls and it works just like any other console, unless you don’t want it to.
Secondly, the commenter before did state that the switch had the worst graphics of any handheld. They did not specify handheld consoles. Steam Deck, Ayaneo, ROG Ally and co might or might not be consoles, depending on who you ask, but they most definitely are handheld gaming devices. And handheld gaming devices with better performance than the switch at that.
The performance is adequate for the typical Nintendo games but you can’t tell me the recent pokemon games or Zelda TodK run great, barely hitting 30fps.
I think you might know this, but a hacked Switch can be overclocked (to both safe and unsafe values) and you can pretty much fix most of the bad performing games (you can’t fix ass broken games such as Batman Arkham Knight though).
So yeah, still many games will look and behave better somewhere else, but OC the Switch can lead you to good results, if you have any over there and wanna give it a try (newer models require hardmod, which sucks, but once this annoyance is sorted out, a new true era will begin for the Switch lol).
Oh yeah, since Nintendo fucked us over so much with the hardware (especially on the Oled version), just hack it to run much hotter than usual, great idea!!
That does bring up the question of if the Steam Deck counts as a handheld console or not. Going off the wikipedia descriptions of game consoles and handheld consoles, I think it probably counts.
You must not have seen a lot of handhelds then. The Switch is the most powerful portable console ever… And honestly the first party games look and run pretty great for the price.
Yea because no one besides nintendo makes any portable consoles anymore. That’s like Apple saying “It’s the best iPhone we ever made”, every time they introduce a new one…
And it’s not even necessarily true, if you count the steamdeck as a console, which one might.
And still, the hardware of the switch was already obsolete when it launched. The Tegra X1‘s only redeeming quality is a comparatively high graphics performance compared to most off the shelf mobile SoC, but even it is slow compared to an iPhone 11 or heck a 250€ tablet with a Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 blows the switch out of the water, performance wise. You’ll even get more memory, more storage, etc.
That isn’t to say, the switch is bad. The performance is adequate for the typical Nintendo games but you can’t tell me the recent pokemon games or Zelda TodK run great, barely hitting 30fps. Which is not surprising, considering most midrange mobile phones are quicker by now and the switch is stuck with a graphics chip that most closely compares to a GTX 830M. A 5 generations and 10 years old graphics chip that wasn’t even fast when it was new.
And back to the steamdeck again: while it is a bit more expensive than a switch, it’s still a damn good deal, especially on the used market and even able to emulate switch games with better performance than the switch itself. And, unlike the switch, it is actually able to play modern games fairly well, while the switch either runs them at subpar quality or only via streaming.
I was responding to the claim that the switch “has the worst graphics on a handheld”, which is obviously wrong.
It does however have the worst graphics of a mainstream handheld console that is currently produced/sold.
Yeah if you consider the steam deck and co to be consoles, which I don’t.
Two things: While I’d agree, that most PC-Based gaming handhelds are not consoles, I would disagree in case of the steam deck. Its software and especially user interface are purpose built for its controls and it works just like any other console, unless you don’t want it to.
Secondly, the commenter before did state that the switch had the worst graphics of any handheld. They did not specify handheld consoles. Steam Deck, Ayaneo, ROG Ally and co might or might not be consoles, depending on who you ask, but they most definitely are handheld gaming devices. And handheld gaming devices with better performance than the switch at that.
I think you might know this, but a hacked Switch can be overclocked (to both safe and unsafe values) and you can pretty much fix most of the bad performing games (you can’t fix ass broken games such as Batman Arkham Knight though).
So yeah, still many games will look and behave better somewhere else, but OC the Switch can lead you to good results, if you have any over there and wanna give it a try (newer models require hardmod, which sucks, but once this annoyance is sorted out, a new true era will begin for the Switch lol).
Oh yeah, since Nintendo fucked us over so much with the hardware (especially on the Oled version), just hack it to run much hotter than usual, great idea!!
That does bring up the question of if the Steam Deck counts as a handheld console or not. Going off the wikipedia descriptions of game consoles and handheld consoles, I think it probably counts.