Handheld Mode Boost will let you play last-gen games in 1080p on your undocked console
Switch on your Switch 2 this morning and it’ll ask you to install the latest upgrade (thank you Eurogamer). A fairly normal experience, even a faintly irritating one, except that today’s is going to improve your console significantly. Along with all the usual tweaks, fixes and a controller update, is something called Handheld Mode Boost, just nonchalantly mentioned in the long list of changes, that will allow you to run most Switch 1 games in their improved TV mode on your Switch 2 while using the console as a handheld device.
In a separate section of Nintendo’s site there’s a more specific guide to this new feature that still so modestly underplays what a big change this is for the console. As the page puts it, “When enabled, Handheld Mode Boost causes the performance of Nintendo Switch software while undocked to run as if it were being played in TV mode.”
You may well have, at some point, thought to yourself: Hang on a flipping minute—why doesn’t my Switch offer me the same improved quality as TV mode when I’m playing it handheld with the AC cable plugged in? It’s been a good question for the last eight years, and seemingly one Nintendo is now answering with: “Oh yeah!” Albeit just for games made for the original console being played on its successor.
The Switch and the Switch 2 have always worked such that when docked and wired up to your TV, it offers improved resolutions, higher FPS, and improve graphics, all thanks to a combination of the ability to run more juice through the machine via mains power, and the better cooling options this affords. But now, through some sort of technical majicks, and with a bunch of caveats, Nintendo has unlocked the option to beef things up to TV quality without being docked.
So if you head to the system settings, scroll to the bottom and pick System, there’s a new option midway down called Nintendo Switch Software Handling. Click on that and you get a screenful of text and a toggle to switch on the mode. “If this option is enabled,” it tells you, “Nintendo Switch software being played in handheld or tabletop mode will run with similar performance to the same software being played in TV mode.” Is that too good to be true? Well, yes, a bit. “This may result in improved visuals, but may also increase the console’s power consumption during gameplay.”
And there’s the rub. The main reason the embettered versions of the games were reserved for the dock was because providing the same in handheld would wipe out your battery. It seems Nintendo is now just willing to let you live with that given the extra oomph of the Switch 2, or recognized that there are lots of people (hello!) who like to play in handheld while the device is plugged in. The blurb also makes clear that results may vary, and given it’s the unnuanced equivalent of pulling a giant, creaking lever on the wall, it’ll also delude your Switch 2 into thinking it’s in the dock all the time, so games will offer bespoke instructions for that mode.
Oh, and the other big catch: It’ll switch off the touchscreen in the process. Because, remember, it thinks it’s in the dock, and touching the screen in that mode is impossible. There are also a few games that aren’t compatible, which Eurogamer lists as Super Mario Maker 2, Pokemon Lets Go Pikachu/Eevee, Super Mario 3D All-Stars, Skyward Sword HD, Clubhouse Games, Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum ‘n’ Fun!, and Pikmin 1+2.
So yeah, it’s a bit of a bodge, really, but it’s a really welcome one. The much nicer screen on the Switch 2 can now be far better taken advantage of with your library of games, played in 1080p instead of the previous 720p, with better details and improved framerates. That’s a pretty big deal.
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