Digital Foundry Direct Weekly DF Direct Weekly #230: Switch 2 Ray Tracing - Finally! Hollow Knight: Silksong, 007 First Light!
8 snips
Sep 8, 2025 The podcast dives into the exciting potential of the Switch 2's ray tracing capabilities showcased by Star Wars Outlaws. However, concerns arise over the performance limitations of its game cartridges compared to internal storage. Meanwhile, news about a storage downgrade for the PlayStation 5 raises eyebrows. The hosts also showcase the thrilling gameplay of 007 First Light and discuss the highly anticipated Hollow Knight: Silksong, sparking enthusiasm among gamers.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Switch 2 Handles Ray Tracing Surprisingly Well
- Star Wars Outlaws on Switch 2 demonstrates credible hardware ray tracing and DLSS upscaling for a current-gen open-world title.
- The port achieves impressive image quality by trading geometry/detail for temporal stability and smart engine scaling.
Storage Speed Is A Major Switch 2 Bottleneck
- Switch 2 internal NVMe performance (
2.1 GB/s) matches current-gen consoles while game cards use much slower eMMC (400 MB/s). - That speed gap forces some ports to be digital-only or require installs to meet streaming targets.
Use Cards As Offline Data Stores
- Consider hybrid distribution: ship a data-only game card and let the console install from the cartridge to internal storage to avoid slow eMMC streaming.
- This reduces download dependency while ensuring the game meets streaming performance needs.
