The Steam Deck’s FSR vividly shows why a Nintendo Switch Pro would rule

Image: Nintendo

Five years have passed since the Nintendo Switch was first released, but no one has addressed the fact that some of its biggest games don't look great on a big screen TV.

I am here to tell you that Nintendo has a solution for that, and that Valve's rival Steam Deck would work phenomenally.

The rumored Switch Pro makes even more sense now

Let's catch you up fast. A new Switch would finally throw power hungry players a bone, according to a report last March. It would come with a new chip from Nvidia and a deep learning temporal upscaling technology for 4K-quality gaming when docked to your big screen TV. While it never materialized, it got a bunch of brains in gear, and we wrote about how artificial intelligence could make the new Nintendo Switch a powerhouse.

Today, we don't need to theorize or guess because Valve's Steam Deck handheld includes the answer to the question, "What if?", right out of the box, letting you enable it globally across any game. I have found it to be an immediate, must-use feature for graphical upgrades whenever I plug the Deck's 3D games into a monitor or TV.

You may want to take a closer look at the images.

This is what Elden Ring looks like on a monitor.

The scene is the same as with the FidelityFX Super Resolution ( ) turned on, which takes low-resolution frames of your game, runs them through an edge-enhancement spacial upscaling algorithm.

If you're reading this on a phone, you should crop in and do an image sliders.

I don't like to use FSR and DLSS. It is far inferior to native 4K or 1440p resolution, and I would never use it to boost a game's performance if it is already running smoothly. This could be the difference between looking blurry on a big screen and being able to play on a portable console.

You will want to see more examples. Let's get into it. This is Cyberpunk 2077 with and without the FSR.

The benefits are not limited to 1440p. I have some 4K images for you, including the original Portal, and more Cyberpunk 2077.

I caution you that the gains aren't as obvious at 4K as they are at 1440p, partly because the images are higher resolution and you need to see more. These still images show what I saw when I was playing.

I am excited about this kind of tech, but I wonder if it will be even more useful on a Nintendo Switch. I expect more from it because it is vastly superior to the FSR of the other companies.

I don't expect Nintendo to buck tradition and compete on performance, and this tech is most useful to find some extra resolution in the couch cushions when you don't.

One of the ways that developers have chosen to port challenging games to the platform is to run them at even lower resolution than the Nintendo Switch's 720p screen.

The last time Cyberpunk was played, it was on the Steam Deck, with its own 800 screen instead of a monitor or TV. Is it not the worst?

It is upscaled to the Deck's screen with the help of the FSR, and it looks more defined. The bars on the left and right are ugly.

This might be the more attractive use case for some game developers since I saw a slight performance hit with FSR at 4K. It is1-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-6556

It is possible that Nintendo will forgo a Switch Pro entirely, never release a more powerful chip or upscaling technique until it is ready to announce an entirely new console.

Nintendo's decision to announce an OLED Switch instead of a Switch Pro was an incredibly easy decision for the company, one that let it rake in profits instead of fighting for chips in the middle. It's a no-brainer for Nintendo to add the tech. Why don't you let Valve have fun?