According to a detailed analysis by Digital Foundry, Nintendo’s latest first-party release for the Switch 2 could have delivered much more on the technical front. While the visuals are decent, the game skips Nvidia’s DLSS technology, resulting in the loss of fine details and an overall softer look.

Digital Foundry confirmed that Donkey Kong Bananza does not utilize Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling tech, which has been used in multiple Switch 2 launch titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Street Fighter 6. Instead, the game employs AMD FSR 1 in combination with SMAA, a post-processing anti-aliasing solution. Given what Nvidia’s upscaler can achieve on Nintendo’s hardware, this choice is puzzling.

Even so, edge coverage is solid, but the tradeoff is that smaller details fade away, making the image appear noticeably softer. In docked mode, dynamic resolution scaling means you’ll see between 1080p and 1200p, while handheld mode targets 1080p—the native screen resolution—which results in slightly better image clarity on the go.

Performance, while improved over the early pre-release footage, is still not flawless. The use of double-buffered V-sync can cause frame rates to drop sharply whenever there’s a performance dip, only recovering once frame timing stabilizes. VRR helps somewhat in handheld mode, but not entirely—since frame rates can fall below VRR’s active window, causing drops to 30 FPS in certain scenarios. Digital Foundry points out this is largely because the game runs in a 60 Hz container, making VRR ineffective below 40 FPS.

Donkey Kong Bananza launched today, July 17, on Nintendo Switch 2, so you can now pick up the new adventure of Donkey Kong and Pauline on the Nintendo eShop or in stores.

Source: WCCFTech