Why That Brief Look at Mario Kart 9 Suggests Nintendo Switch 2 Is 'Significantly More Powerful' Than the Original — According to a Developer

An indie developer with extensive experience creating games for the original Nintendo Switch has offered compelling reasons why the brief glimpse of Mario Kart 9 strongly suggests the Switch 2 boasts significantly enhanced processing power.

Last week's unveiling of the Nintendo Switch 2 generated considerable excitement. However, Nintendo has remained notably tight-lipped regarding the console's technical capabilities. While upgrades like new Joy-Cons, a redesigned kickstand, and a larger form factor are evident, the Switch 2's raw power remains officially undisclosed.

But could the fleeting Mario Kart 9 footage in the reveal video offer clues? In a recent YouTube video (via GamesRadar), indie developer Jerrel Dulay of Sungrand Studios, a veteran credited with working on late-stage Wii U and 3DS titles, shared his insights, predicting a substantial power increase for the Switch 2 based on his intimate knowledge of Nintendo hardware.

Mario Kart 9 - A First Look

25 Images

Dulay argues that the Mario Kart 9 trailer showcases the Switch 2's potential. He highlights the use of "physically-based shaders" on vehicles and textures, enabling realistic interactions with lighting and reflections.

Late in 2023, Digital Foundry published a detailed report (link) on the Switch 2's purported hardware, including the Nvidia T239 ARM mobile chip. This chip is projected to have 1536 CUDA cores—approximately 40% fewer than the desktop RTX 3050 GPU, but sharing the same 8nm Nvidia Ampere architecture. This aligns with Switch 2 motherboard leaks suggesting an 8nm chip. The original Switch's Tegra X1 chip had only 256 CUDA cores, representing a potential 500% increase.

Dulay emphasizes that the extensive use of complex shaders in the Mario Kart 9 footage, combined with material reflections and high-resolution ground textures, would have severely taxed the original Switch's capabilities, potentially causing significant frame rate drops. High-resolution textures demand substantial RAM, and the Switch 2's rumored 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM (supported by motherboard leaks showing two 6GB SK Hynix modules) offers a significant upgrade over the original Switch's 4GB. The potential for significantly faster RAM speeds (up to 7500MHz compared to the original Switch's 1600MHz) further enhances performance.

This increased RAM and potential speed improvements would drastically accelerate texture loading, enabling the use of high-resolution textures and a greater number of unique textures, as seen in the Mario Kart 9 footage.

Dulay also points to the implementation of "true volumetric lighting"—a computationally intensive process considering distance, height, and density of light—and far-distance shadows (also computationally expensive) as further evidence of the Switch 2's enhanced power. These features would have presented considerable challenges on the original Switch.

The combination of high-resolution textures, numerous polygons in character models, real-time cloth physics, volumetric lighting, and far-distance shadows, all running smoothly, strongly indicates a substantial leap in processing power compared to the original Switch.

While awaiting further details and footage, Dulay's analysis offers valuable insight into the Switch 2's graphical capabilities. Nintendo's April Direct promises more information.