The Verdict:
"By sheer measure of the hardware alone, the Nvidia Shield is a commendable first effort. It's expertly crafted with high-end components and a comfortable, responsive control scheme — albeit with a bulky, uninspired design. The Shield's biggest challenges, however, are content and cost. There are simply too few compelling gameplay experiences on Android to justify a $300 dedicated handheld, and while the PC streaming feature shows promise, it's in dire need of performance and stability enhancements."
NVIDIA’s RTX 50 “Blackwell” architecture has been a bit of a bore for us gamers. Apart from Multi Frame Generation, which has limited use-case scenarios, there isn’t much to be excited about. It is achieved using GPU-side Flip Metering. The optical field data is generated using AI models in the Tensor cores.
Between the price, performance and power draw, with the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, NVIDIA nailed the mainstream formula.
Nvidia writes:
The Nintendo Switch 2 takes performance to the next level, powered by a custom NVIDIA processor featuring an NVIDIA GPU with dedicated RT Cores and Tensor Cores for stunning visuals and AI-driven enhancements.
The raytracing probably doesn't even equal a low end PC GPU, even if it did it would probably be mostly useless. They'll probably force it in some game now that will run like shit maybe 30fps at best, just because "it can do it"
A lot of gamers don’t realize that ray tracing isn’t really about making games look better. It’s mainly there to make development easier and cheaper, since it lets devs skip a bunch of old-school tricks to fake reflections and lighting. The visual upgrade is just a nice bonus, but that’s not the main reason the tech exists.
So you can be 100% sure that developers will try to implement it every chance they get.
Agree with Vits .... but also to add, if devs and designers just implement RT to a game world then it won't always work as expected. RT is not just reflections but also lighting and illumination as well. For example, If you just create a room with minimal windows, then it will look dark af, if RTGI is enabled. Devs and designers needs to sort out the game world design accordingly as well.
DF's Metro Exodus RT upgrade is an amazing reference video to go through, if anybody's interested.
Some PS5 and SX games run at 30fps with RT...just like those systems, if you don't like it, turn it off.
I only say this to say, you make it seem like a problem exclusive to the Switch 2.
sour grapes much?
"It probably doesn't do it well because it's Nintendo and they suck". That's how your comment reads. Why don't you just wait and see before making these ridiculous statements?
Please. I'd like to play my switch games on my 4k tv without it looking all doodoo.
Nvidia could have said this months ago and cut the bullshit. Anyway the rumors were true.
TBH I don't think Nvidia would have cared if they broke the NDA. A little fine they pay, and they go back to their AI shit. They don't even care about GPU's anymore. I myself would like them to leave the PC and console market.
This story was written half a decade ago when the world knew Nvidia would provide the chip for Switch 2 and DLSS was taking off.
Yeah but similar thing happened a long time ago when 3dfx announced they were working with Sega when they took the company public Sega pulled out of the contract for the Dreamcast GPU.
In response Sega terminated the contract and went to a ultimately weaker chipset.
So there's a precedent but that Nintendo would have much Of an option its AMD, NVIDIA or Intel
I'm not expecting of anything from ray tracing but dlss will be the thing that sees the unit get some impossible ports.
Correct. All I'm seeing online is it'll never run FF7 Rebirth. If it can run cyberpunk it'll run it. The DLSS will help. Obviously only 30 fps but a lot don't care
Exactly right when I buy a game on switch I know what I'm getting into I'm buying a game for its portability and I'm willing to sacrifice fidelity and performance to play on a train or comfortably from a hotel room when I travel for work.
Replies(1)
Huge :/
I was excited for this, a lot actually, until I saw that google announced its Nexus 7(2) with the snapdragon S4 cheap, which eats up the Tegra 4.
The only thing that really left me interested in the Shield was the fact it already had a controller, and that its SD card support goes up to a "hypothetical" 2TB storage with the new hardware they have in it.
Still purchasing one, myself. As someone who almost never leaves the house with any portable gaming device, this thing is providing me exactly what I want - a means to game at home when I can't, or simply don't want to, be at my desk.
The fact that it gives me a chance to try out some of these android releases that I would never bother with on a phone is just a plus.
So this device was supposedly going to "kill the vita" according to all the vita haters.
The shield has great potential, I just don't know if can reach that potential if no decent devs make games for it. To be honest I'm interested but if there are no games to make use of the hardware then it's just gonna be another android device with a built in controller. I may buy one if it hits the bargain bin.