Although in many cases the frame rate of games on the hardware-modified Nintendo Switch did not improve significantly, in one case a game was able to run at a resolution not intended for the console.

On the Famiboards forum, YouTube user Naga demonstrated how he tuned up an OLED Nintendo Switch. Nintendo welded the memory modules to the motherboard, which he replaced with two 4GB modules, doubling the amount of RAM on the hybrid platform from the previous 4GB. While this may not seem like a big change at first, more memory can squeeze better performance out of some games!

There are a few games in the video embedded below where the +4GB of RAM didn’t make a difference because they were designed to have a hard limit, meaning they still only use four gigabytes. Other titles took advantage of the extra RAM. Mortal Kombat 1, Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Alien Isolation all run much better on the base hardware with the increased clock speed. The big surprise, however, is a first-party exclusive.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom can run at 4K resolution (starting at 8:27 in the video), although it should be said that the performance is not outstanding. But the big N didn’t intend for Link’s adventure to run at this resolution, so it’s understandable. However, this result could be a sign of things to come: perhaps Nintendo deliberately designed it to run on even more powerful hardware in the future (on the yet-to-be-announced Nintendo Switch successor) without any extra work.

The Nintendo Switch 2 (or whatever it will be called) will be announced in the fiscal year starting April 1, and is rumored to be released in early 2025 (i.e. the last fiscal quarter). It’s said to use Nvidia’s T239 chip, and its ray tracing performance won’t be bad either, thanks to Nvidia’s DLSS Ray Reconstruction.

Source: WCCFTech, Famiboards