You need your video games to play the smoothest they presumably can — however typically, display screen know-how will get in the way in which. That’s why a few of the newest TVs and handhelds characteristic variable refresh fee (VRR) screens that may compensate when your graphics can’t ship a constant 60 or 120 frames per second.
The Nintendo Change 2 has a VRR display screen — and initially, Nintendo marketed that the Change 2 would additionally work along with your VRR-capable TV. However Nintendo quickly scrubbed mentions of docked VRR from its web site, and on Might sixteenth, it apologized. “Nintendo Change 2 helps VRR in handheld mode solely,” the corporate advised Nintendo Life, apologizing for “the inaccurate info.”
However I’ve simply confirmed that the official Nintendo Change 2 dock does help VRR — by plugging the Steam Deck into it.
In actual fact, we discovered a number of rival handhelds can output 4K at 120Hz with each HDR and VRR should you plug them into the Nintendo Change 2 dock. I noticed the identical with the Lenovo Legion Go S with SteamOS, and an Asus ROG Ally X with Bazzite. We acquired the concept from Reddit, the place u/DynaMach and others have reported VRR working this manner.
It’s not significantly sensible to play a PC handheld by way of Nintendo’s dock, since you’ll want a female-to-male USB-C extension cable and also you’ll want to repeatedly maintain it in opposition to Nintendo’s spring-loaded platform to maintain it from getting ejected — however I simply so occurred to have a type of cables mendacity round.
And earlier than you ask, sure, I did truly check that 4K VRR truly works at as much as 120 frames per second — I didn’t simply belief SteamOS’s flag that it was supported. I downloaded the open-source VRRTest device and messed with varied settings, simply to examine that intermediate framerates between 48fps and 60fps and 90fps all stayed easy on my TV.
So if the Change 2 helps VRR, and the dock helps VRR, why does Nintendo not supply VRR show output from the Nintendo Change 2?
It could be a boon in lots of video games, whether or not we’re speaking about video games like Cyberpunk 2077 that don’t run at 60fps on Change to start with, and even video games that solely often dip under that threshold (say, 55fps) the place that dip presently manifests as an enormous stutter in your gameplay.
Personally, I feel it’s doable Nintendo simply doesn’t suppose the Change 2 is able to put it on the massive display screen.
Final month, Digital Foundry discovered “clear issues” even within the Change 2’s handheld VRR mode, together with judder in Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man’s Sky’s 40fps “efficiency” modes, and even in Hitman: World of Assassination’s unlocked-but-capped 60fps mode — regardless that Nintendo’s personal Welcome Tour confirmed correct VRR help.
“Clearly the characteristic is in there and dealing, as a result of the Welcome Tour proves it, however the precise implementation in different video games to this point is disappointing,” Digital Foundry’s Wealthy Leadbetter defined on a podcast.
However should you’re searching for technical explanation why Nintendo won’t move alongside VRR to the official dock, Leadbetter tells me he hasn’t but heard principle. He does imagine, nevertheless, that Nintendo in all probability made an trustworthy mistake when it wrote, then apologized for writing, that the Change 2 would help VRR in TV mode. He doubts that Nintendo axed the characteristic on the final minute.
That is simply the most recent technological weirdness across the Change 2’s launch, like we noticed when testing the Change 2’s semi-locked-down USB-C video output and why the perfect webcams didn’t work.
However as earlier than, Nintendo is staying silent: it didn’t have a remark for our story.
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