Over the last year or so, there’s been many rumors floating around about a new Switch revision. It’d be the second one for Nintendo’s hot system, with the first being the handheld-only based Switch Lite. Many have dubbed it the Switch Pro, and rumors and whispers say it could be going into production as early as June of this year and that it could even have games exclusive to it (ala the Nintendo DSi and New 3DS revisions in the past). Now there’s more to throw onto the pile about it having DLSS.
The most recent talk is the Switch Pro will have a bigger screen for handheld mode that’s still 720p as well as the ability to go 4K while docked. One would assume that means the dock itself would be doing the heavy lifting there, which may be the case, but according to known insider/leaker NateDrake on the ResetEra gaming forums, who has been someone at the forefront of these rumors, it may not be the only thing. They were asked about this and in response to a question relating to DLSS clarified that it would not just be the dock, saying, “Hardware based, so, yes, the SoC. It won’t be handled by the dock.”
If you’re unfamiliar, DLSS is short for deep learning super sampling and is a technique Nvidia has been using. In a nutshell, it uses AI to upscale lower scale images without sacrificing framerate. It’s hard to say what that could mean here until we get our hands on the Switch Pro, but for instance, a game that runs sub-720p in handheld mode like the recent Switch port of Apex Legends, could be upscaled without losing framerate in theory.
As always, take these rumors with a grain of salt, especially since a Switch Pro has not even been officially announced. If all this is accurate, it does look like the Switch Pro could be a decent step upward for the now 4 year old hardware. Time will tell, so keep the patience.