Donkey Kong Bananza was just released (on July 17th) and has enjoyed rave reviews; the game arrives over a month after the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2. Just before it came out, some gamers may have worried about choppiness after Nintendo admitted ‘slight’ performance drops as a result of destructive voxel graphics. The lack of DLSS would be one reason why DK Bananza can’t uphold a constant 60 FPS, even if it isn’t a problem for the most part.

According to a detailed review from Digital Foundry, there is no sign of DLSS upscaling in Donkey Kong Bananza. This upscaling technology is generally being utilized on the Switch 2, which uses a custom Nvidia processor that CEO Jensen Huang called “Unlike anything we’ve built before“, but it seems that DK misses out.

Donkey Kong Bananza shows frame drops in tests

A frame rate analysis of the game reveals that noticeably choppy performance can – and does – happen. While it is generally a small blip when gameplay gets a little bit too hectic, Digital Foundry notes that some areas suffer from sustained frame drops, such as a particular boss that halves the framerate from 60 to 30 FPS “for most of the fight”. This is a result of a double buffer V-Sync system that immediately drops the FPS down to 30 until a steady 60 FPS can be achieved again.

The interesting thing about DK Bananza is the lack of DLSS, despite the newfound support for it on Switch 2. Reviewers have noticed that DLSS usage seems quite widespread across Switch 2 titles, but Bananza instead sticks to a combination of older AMD FSR 1.0 and SMAA post-processing. The typical resolution falls between 1080p and 1200p using dynamic resolution scaling, which is, of course, suitable for handheld mode. Visuals will naturally look worse if you move that over to a 4K TV in docked mode.

It should be noted that DK Bananza has been in development for a number of years – starting on the original Switch – so the lack of DLSS implementation may be a result of this. However, given the visible performance drops and sometimes jarring visuals (we recommend you check out the full review above), the lack of upscaling better than FSR 1.0 is disappointing. In better news, FSR 4 recently came to Cyberpunk 2077, but you’ll need a gaming PC to use that.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.