Homebrew Question Is Overclocking To 1224mhz Safe (While Docked)

[HollowSuperHylianHedgehog]

Will it cause fan issues or/and shorten the Switch's lifespan? I want to slightly overclock the CPU when playing 2-3 games on Retroarch.

Edit:
After reading another thread (https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-safe-is-overclocking-the-nintendo-switch.528385/), here's what I got:

The worst that can happen is a message popping up indicating that Switch is over-heating, and will turn off to cool down.

You can change the thermal paste, as Nintendo's isn't the best. That is an easy way to get better performance


It isn't recommended to overclock the GPU while in handheld mode, but a charger helps.

Dock mode is better suited for GPU and CPU overclocking, but shouldn't go above 18W.

If you've overclocked your Switch while charging it, and realise that the battery is slowly draining, then you should lower the clock.


What I'll do: Since I don't want to open up my Switch, to change the thermal paste, of fear of messing something up, I'll only clock my CPU (only when docked), at 1224mhz. (Only in Retroarch for slightly more demanding games than the Switch can handle. I'll also play at 720p/1080p)

 

[bad361]

Will it cause fan issues or/and shorten the Switch's lifespan? I want to slightly overclock the CPU when playing 2-3 games on Retroarch.

Edit:
After reading another thread (https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-safe-is-overclocking-the-nintendo-switch.528385/), here's what I got:

The worst that can happen is a message popping up indicating that Switch is over-heating, and will turn off to cool down.

You can change the thermal paste, as Nintendo's isn't the best. That is an easy way to get better performance


It isn't recommended to overclock the GPU while in handheld mode, but a charger helps.

Dock mode is better suited for GPU and CPU overclocking, but shouldn't go above 18W.

If you've overclocked your Switch while charging it, and realise that the battery is slowly draining, then you should lower the clock.


What I'll do: Since I don't want to open up my Switch, to change the thermal paste, of fear of messing something up, I'll only clock my CPU (only when docked), at 1224mhz. (Only in Retroarch for slightly more demanding games than the Switch can handle. I'll also play at 720p/1080p)

You can use 1.2 as a regular frequency without any issues, switch cpu is underclocked for longer battery life, but it's designed to be used at 2.0 Ghz originally. So even 1.7 is absolutely safe tho not recommended for long use. I've been using my switch since almost day 1 and i mostly use emulation so i overclock a lot. That said i never had any problems with overheating, even my battery capacity after 3 years is still at like 93%. CPU overclocking doesn't produce that much heat compared to GPU oc'ing.

 

[pokeparadox]

Will it cause fan issues or/and shorten the Switch's lifespan? I want to slightly overclock the CPU when playing 2-3 games on Retroarch.

Edit:
After reading another thread (https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-safe-is-overclocking-the-nintendo-switch.528385/), here's what I got:

The worst that can happen is a message popping up indicating that Switch is over-heating, and will turn off to cool down.

You can change the thermal paste, as Nintendo's isn't the best. That is an easy way to get better performance


It isn't recommended to overclock the GPU while in handheld mode, but a charger helps.

Dock mode is better suited for GPU and CPU overclocking, but shouldn't go above 18W.

If you've overclocked your Switch while charging it, and realise that the battery is slowly draining, then you should lower the clock.


What I'll do: Since I don't want to open up my Switch, to change the thermal paste, of fear of messing something up, I'll only clock my CPU (only when docked), at 1224mhz. (Only in Retroarch for slightly more demanding games than the Switch can handle. I'll also play at 720p/1080p)

I don't think you have much to worry about with that small overclock. I think when you are considering overclocking the GPU + CPU to higher clocks then that's when you should be thinking about it a little more.
Which games/emulators are you thinking need the overclock? Where do you think the performance bottleneck is (graphics/logic)? etc...

 

[Deleted User]

heat is fine, power draw is a issue.
But with emulation there should be nothing to worry about, as most emulators only use 1 core or 2 cores max.
I personally would raise the cpu clock to 1.7ghz and lower the GPU clock to 614mhz. GPU is not really needed much in emulation.

 

[HollowSuperHylianHedgehog]

Which games/emulators are you thinking need the overclock? Where do you think the performance bottleneck is (graphics/logic)? etc...

SA and SA2 mostly (Maybe the Zeldas from N64 but I don't really think so). I don't know exactly if emulation needs to utilize a much better graphics card than the original's, but I doubt it. CPU is most likely to be in need of overclocking. SA and SA2 run fairly well. Overclocking while docked at 1581mhz would probably give it near-perfect emulation.

I just don't know if changing the settings to 1080P would affect the performance... Is the GPU struggling handling 3D games in Retroarch? I'd definetely rather not overclock the GPU. If it does affect performance, I'll just lower the resolution to 720P.

 

[Rahkeesh]

You can raise the internal resolution of flycast and still maintain fullspeed, but it seems like even this stresses the CPU more than the GPU. Lakka 3.0 has better flycast performance w/vulkan so I would take a look at that if you want to push 3D cores hard.

 

[Reploid]

Cool thread. How much I can OC GPU in portable/dock mode, without too much drain/heat problem?

 

[AdmiralBloo]

heat is fine, power draw is a issue.
But with emulation there should be nothing to worry about, as most emulators only use 1 core or 2 cores max.
I personally would raise the cpu clock to 1.7ghz and lower the GPU clock to 614mhz. GPU is not really needed much in emulation.

And it is okay to set the memory to Max? 1.6k?

 

[deathblade200]

It isn't recommended to overclock the GPU while in handheld mode, but a charger helps.

Dock mode is better suited for GPU and CPU overclocking, but shouldn't go above 18W.

sys clk won't let you overclock the GPU beyond 460MHz unless you are plugged in anyway. I clock my switch in handheld to 1581 MHz CPU , 768Mhz GPU and 1600Mhz Ram. I play handheld only and these are what I consider my max safe settings but i use Status Monitor Sysmodule to determine how much of each resource is actually being used and if its low usage ill lower the clock speed until its just low enough to not effect performance. I'd advise using sys clk to change the settings temporarily instead of using the retroarch settings. also just a fun fact outside of emulation you can fully underclock some games with them still running perfectly such as Devil May Cry 3

 

[Deleted User]

And it is okay to set the memory to Max? 1.6k?

yes, of course, 1600mhz is the stock frequency for docked mode. you can even use it in handheld, the power draw/battery life will be the same.

 

[pokeparadox]

SA and SA2 mostly (Maybe the Zeldas from N64 but I don't really think so). I don't know exactly if emulation needs to utilize a much better graphics card than the original's, but I doubt it. CPU is most likely to be in need of overclocking. SA and SA2 run fairly well. Overclocking while docked at 1581mhz would probably give it near-perfect emulation.

I just don't know if changing the settings to 1080P would affect the performance... Is the GPU struggling handling 3D games in Retroarch? I'd definetely rather not overclock the GPU. If it does affect performance, I'll just lower the resolution to 720P.

I think you should just experiment which makes the most difference/improvement performance first. For things like this I use the performance overlay in Tesla to see what is getting hit the most... I think turning on the FPS display within RetroArch is sensible too.

sys clk won't let you overclock the GPU beyond 460MHz unless you are plugged in anyway. I clock my switch in handheld to 1581 MHz CPU , 768Mhz GPU and 1600Mhz Ram. I play handheld only and these are what I consider my max safe settings but i use Status Monitor Sysmodule to determine how much of each resource is actually being used and if its low usage ill lower the clock speed until its just low enough to not effect performance. I'd advise using sys clk to change the settings temporarily instead of using the retroarch settings. also just a fun fact outside of emulation you can fully underclock some games with them still running perfectly such as Devil May Cry 3

This is my approach too. Use the monitors to see where usage is getting hammered and raise clocks to lower the usage percentage to improve performance. I also try to underclock some of the simpler games. In retroarch you can enable the FPS counter, so it should be easy enough to see if you are improving performance.

 

[HollowSuperHylianHedgehog]

I also try to underclock some of the simpler games.

Why is that? Does underclocking the CPU help extend its lifespan? If that's so, I better underclock when playing SNES & GBA games.

 

[deathblade200]

Why is that? Does underclocking the CPU help extend its lifespan? If that's so, I better underclock when playing SNES & GBA games.

mainly because of battery as well as less unnecessary stress on the system. you want to use the status monitor before you do that though because depending on the emulator accuracy they can be demanding such as if you use snes9x (current) for example

 

[Deleted User]

Depending on the game you can really extend your battery life by a lot, for graphically simpler games I'd always recommend lowering the GPU clock first, for some games you can even go as low as 153mhz (VIsual Novels and small 2D indies for example)
I'd think the same would apply to 2D emulators.

 

[pokeparadox]

Why is that? Does underclocking the CPU help extend its lifespan? If that's so, I better underclock when playing SNES & GBA games.

Mainly for battery life but also lowers the heat and therefore lowers the noise by not needing the fan as often. It's not going to make any significant impact on the overall lifespan of the cpu/gpu.

 

[falcorr]

heat is fine, power draw is a issue.
But with emulation there should be nothing to worry about, as most emulators only use 1 core or 2 cores max.
I personally would raise the cpu clock to 1.7ghz and lower the GPU clock to 614mhz. GPU is not really needed much in emulation.

Noise is also an issue. Above 614 gpu is a jet engine and painful in handheld.

 

[Deleted User]

Noise is also an issue. Above 614 gpu is a jet engine and painful in handheld.

yes of course, OP was asking about docked mode so 614 is an downclock.
And yea, wish we would have a way of lowering the fan speed...

 

[Cooler3D]

I want to post my overclocking mod, but looks like i need 5 messages for opening threads... This is fourth message. 1 to go.