Playing
Power saver
Cap games at 30 fps to keep the console cooler, for every game or for one.
On this page
Ren’Py draws at the screen’s refresh rate. Visual novels rarely need 60 fps, and every frame costs heat and battery. The power saver caps the frame rate at 30 fps by swapping every second vertical blank (RENPY_GL_VSYNC=2, Ren’Py’s own switch).
Turn it on
It is a flag file: its content does not matter, only that it exists.
| For | Create |
|---|---|
| Every game | sdmc:/switch/renpy-loader/config/power-saver |
| One game | sdmc:/switch/renpy-loader/games/<id>/power-saver |
Delete the file to turn it off. When it is on, logs/runtime.log has the line power saver: 30 fps cap.
There is no menu entry for it yet; it stays a flag file until the loader gets a runtime settings screen.
Heat on the Switch
- After the first Ren’Py run the tester noted the Switch “gets a bit warm” (run 5). Two fixes followed: the old text loader stopped redrawing 60 times a second while idle, and the bridge polls input every 33 ms instead of 16 ms after 2 s without input.
- In run 22 the SoC stayed at 38.1–38.4 °C over a 9-minute game.
- The 10-minute heat measurement in application mode has not been done yet.