Gaming
The latest Nintendo Switch update added something to help speed up load times
Why wasn’t this mentioned in the changelog?
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The Nintendo Switch 8.0.0 update features some solid additions, including the ability to sort games, but that’s apparently not all that Nintendo stuffed into the update. Not mentioned in the changelog, Nintendo also added an overclocking feature of sorts to boost game loading times.
First brought to light in a Discord group for homebrewers, this boost mode overclocks the Nintendo Switch GPU from 1 GHz to 1.75GHz under certain situations. For now, those situations pertain to the loading times of specific games, including Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey.
While no times have been testing on Odyssey, BotW save files loaded 38% faster, taking load times from 31 seconds to 21. Fast travel had 8 seconds knocked off its time and entering shrines happened in 7 seconds instead of 10. Definitely a welcome and noticeable difference.
There’s been no official word from Nintendo on this boost mode or what other games should be expected to benefit from it, but it is odd that it was not mentioned in the changelogs along with the rest of the 8.0.0 update.
What do you think? What games would you like to see benefit from this boost mode? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
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