No it cant hold its own, art direction goes s long way in games like mario and zelda. But doom is evident that technicallyt this thing cant even hold a candle to a base launch xbox 1
Switch can handle PS4 and XBO downports better than most expect in my opinion
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I never once saw someone saying porting Witcher 3 would be easy - hell, I don't even remember someone asking for Witcher 3 (certainly there's a post asking for a port, but it's not a general feeling). It seems like you're getting pretty specific individual comments and implying every Switch owner says this.
I don't think it's even close to PS4 and XONE, but lol. Doom runs well within the system's limitations and people are playing it and enjoying the game perfectly fine. Reviewers also had no big problems with the port. I don't know what's the big problem.
I'd love for you to show me where I even implied every Switch owner thinks this. The poster I was originally responded to said that the Witcher 3 would have no problem running on the Switch if it had Witcher 2 graphics. I've seen plenty of people in the past, not just here, imply that porting games to the Switch shouldn't be an issue if the resolution, textures and effects were scaled back and the Witcher comment a text book example of it.
I don't think all 8m Switch owners think this. I'm one of them, and I certainly don't. But I'm just challenging the notion I've seen from some, emphasis on some, Switch owners that simply dialing back parameters in a game will get it to run on the system. It isn't that easy and I suspect some games, like Battlefield as a random example, are just out right not viable games to port over.
I downloaded Rocket League the other day and holy shit does that game look awful. Yeah, it's 60fps (and that is the most important aspect); but gee golly is it ugly. It needs some AA bad.
The Switch is a fine system and lots of people are having a lot of fun with it. But these sub-native games that can't maintain 720p undocked or 1080p docked in the first year are very disappointing.
Do people really not believe that BoTW would look better on the PS4? Is there an argument Mario shouldn't run at 1080p in 2017? That works the other way around - sure, theoretically you can make anything run if you turn down the settings and sacrifice resolution and frames enough. I'm really glad lots of folks are having fun with Doom, for example. But I wouldn't ever even consider sub-60fps Doom as "good."
The Switch is a fine system and lots of people are having a lot of fun with it. But these sub-native games that can't maintain 720p undocked or 1080p docked in the first year are very disappointing.
Do people really not believe that BoTW would look better on the PS4? Is there an argument Mario shouldn't run at 1080p in 2017? That works the other way around - sure, theoretically you can make anything run if you turn down the settings and sacrifice resolution and frames enough. I'm really glad lots of folks are having fun with Doom, for example. But I wouldn't ever even consider sub-60fps Doom as "good."
The Witcher 3 looked very good for PS4 standards, I don't know why you're constantly moving the goalposts.
My claim is pretty simple: whatever Square Enix launches on the Switch will be compared with the rest of the software released on the Switch.
If it looks much worse than what most users expect from a Switch game, then it will be SE's fault. If it looks competent for the hardware, then maybe someone will complain, but it won't be me.
Define "too hot". The Switch is not as powerful as a PS4, we all know this, so a downgrade is inevitable, but if it's a competent port most people won't complain.
You're using your own criteria on what's acceptable or not to answer to what I'm saying.
To me, unless the graphics are good enough to sustain the gameplay, I'm satisfied.
That doesn't mean I don't have some (very) basic knowledge about how graphics in a videogame work, but I'm not one of those "900p is shit, 1080p is incredible" guys.
What's silly is to pretend there's a single thing in TW3 too demanding for the Switch to run it. You start speaking about "excessive cuts" but you refuse to specify what those "excessive" cuts are.
Would The Witcher 3 be a much worse game if it rendered at native 720p and used lower settings than PS4/XBOX One?
To me it would be the same repetitive, design-broken game with a good plot that it currently is.
PS2 and Xbox had absolutely nothing in common, nothing. To make the same game between the two platforms in reality meant to program two different games that shared the same assets.MatrixMan.exe said:
And that's besides the power gap between the two being there as well.
Well, between the Xbox One and the PS4 the Xbox One had a good bandwith advantage as long as you could fit enough things in the 32MB of Sram the chip had, and I think that if pages like Digital Foundry hadn't done as much damage as they have the console could've shone more than it has.
Regarding the Switch and the PS4/Xbox One, it's not a secret by any means that Nvidia's geometry units and tessellation capabilities are much, much better than those of AMD cards (to the point where some games with an Nvidia contract use excessive tessellation which makes performance in AMD GPUs to fall a lot) and considering that Switch docked GPU works at 768Mhz (which is not that far from the 900 Mhz PS4 and Xbox One GPUs run at) I think its safe to say that when it comes to tessellation the Switch may be even above the PS4 Pro or the Xbox One X (unless Microsoft's changes to the GPU improved that, which I ignore).
That being said, a single aspect being better means nothing, even less if we are speaking of porting to other platforms, in which cases platform specific strengths tend to be ignored.
I assure you that when it comes to technology applied to gameplay, Zelda Breath of the Wild runs circles around it.
Everything FFXV does, Zelda does it with worse graphics. On the other hand, lots of things Zelda does, FFXV simply doesn't.
Yes, they're bigger and Just Cause let's you traverse it as openly as those games do, but they're "skyrim" like open world games, which is big empty plains separated by mountains.
Zelda and Xenoblade X are much more dense with tons of cliffs to climb and para-glide from or in the case of Xenoblade X tons of walls to jump to and explore from them, it's part of the core gameplay and something one can't cut without fundamentally changing the game.
The problem here is that only Nintendo has attempted to design an open world like those in consoles (at least that I know) so it's impossible to say if it would be possible with less than half the RAM they achieved it.
I'm not moving goalposts at all. Your comment still makes no sense. If Square Enix were to port World of Final Fantasy to Switch, it would look a damn sight better than an FFXV port would. Are you honestly telling me that this is would be Square Enix's fault, rather than the fact that the Switch struggles more with games that use more hardware intensive technology? Again, dialing back parameters works up to a point, but the question is, by how much?
Subpar performance and visuals. It's really quite simple. We're talking in hypotheticals here because I'm trying to understand what you're suggesting, so I'll ask again. In a world where a high end AAA console game like FFXV or The Witcher 3 is ported to Switch but has shoddy performance and muddy visuals (I'm talking worse than DOOM here), is that the fault of the publisher/developer?
I'm not in the 900p is shit camp either though. I own a Switch, it's an amazing system save for my gripes with the OS. Hell, I think there's some real hyperbole coming from some people about how "bad" Super Mario Odyssey looks in handheld mode, but I just don't believe that the Switch is capable of running most high end AAA games, even with scaled back visuals and resolution. This is based purely on what I've seen and played. If the Switch struggles to run DOOM, with it's frame rate cut in half, sub-HD resolution and a bunch of missing effects, what hope does it stand to respectably run some of the games we discussed? Next to none, if I had to guess.
No it wouldn't be much worse at all. But I sincerely question the Switch's ability to even do that, which is my entire point. Your original "Witcher 2 graphics" assertion doesn't even come into it, because it isn't the Witcher 3 and is a last generation game. For the Witcher 3 to run at "Witcher 2 level graphics", it'd have to be a bespoke build of the game. Not a straight port.
Okay.
I am actually going to disagree with you here. DOOM, a rather close quarters title, only runs the way it does on Switch because its engine is lauded for being so scalable. Redengine, as beautiful as it is, is hardly comparable to that. TW3 renders an absolutely massive open world with poly counts massively bigger than previous gen. Whilst a lot of the individual effects could be achieved on Switch (DX11 equivalents after all) the sheer size to render such a huge world and with that kind of detail will prove too much for a Switch, especially given its low memory bandwidth.
This is why i suggested The Witcher 2 (Not TW3 with TW2 visuals tho). CD Projekt crafted a specific version of Redengine for The Witcher 2 X360 port and it ended up looking very faithful to the PC release. It also does not use modern techniques like PBR, particle systems, quasi global G.I, deferred rendering and so on. A port of that game to Switch would, i feel, behave similar to the recent Skyrim port. Likely running at higher resolutions, with a texture bump so that it looks like the PC settings on high or something like that, and at 30 fps.
Remember, Switch is very much an ''inbetween'' console in terms of games visual quality.
The bolded has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Mhz's are not a metric to judge the quality of tesselation shaders. Switch has 256 CUDA cores. They can only do so much against 768/1152 GCN cores, so i disagree with the notion that a Switch does better tesselation than either of the competitors. It might come close, but in total performance the GCN cores are simply more of them at their disposal. Someone would have to benchmark the Switch to that kind of metric.
That's exactly not a simple porting process. Pretty much everyone saying that ports are possible are saying there'd be concessions, cutbacks and in FFXV's even an engine change. You're the one oversimplifying here, there's nothing simple involved.
We'll have to agree to disagree. Saying that Switch can do everything those games can mechanically so it's instead a case of down porting is a simplification of the issue because it suggests that down porting is possible in the first place, whilst still maintaining a level of quality the publisher/developers deems acceptable. You understand it, which is great. I can't say the same for everyone else.
Nintendo should source Shinen to work on a FF7 remaster port. The collab with SE, Nintendo and Shinen would truly be something to behold.
I would think 720p docked would be doable if they port to the metal.
I would think 720p docked would be doable if they port to the metal.
The prettiest Switch game is Mario + Rabbids hands down.
https://store.ubi.com/on/demandware...9/images/large/5927e76dca1a644d498b4578-4.jpg
The IQ helps a lot making this game look good. Next to nice particle effects and lighting. Mario Odyssey wasn't designed as a technical show piece but Mario + Rabbids was. The Ubisoft guys really tried to impress Nintendo.
For the hardware Nintendo put in the Switch, it does handle console games better than expected. PSP and 3DS weren't quite there yet. Even if on paper the 3DS was close to the PS2 and the PSP say an original Xbox or GameCube neither really hit those heights.
Also with the Switch being a popular system developers will try to push it more.
IQ for me is the big thing that can help console games look better even if the overall geometry is basic. Which is why something like Forza Horizon 3 looks so much better than the blurry HALO 5 on the original Xbox One.
Nintendo got lucky that Sony and Microsoft really cheaped out with their next-gen machines early on and especially the Notebook CPU if DOOM is doable to port so are many other games.
However with the third parties back into the fold, it won't be long before Nintendo will be pushed to release upgraded models of the Switch and maybe release a dock with a hardware upgrade for more demanding titles.
All this was made possible by the strides in mobile technology. The very thing that analysts expected would kill Nintendo actually saved them. Oh and switching to Nvidia #TeamGreen.
https://store.ubi.com/on/demandware...9/images/large/5927e76dca1a644d498b4578-4.jpg
The IQ helps a lot making this game look good. Next to nice particle effects and lighting. Mario Odyssey wasn't designed as a technical show piece but Mario + Rabbids was. The Ubisoft guys really tried to impress Nintendo.
For the hardware Nintendo put in the Switch, it does handle console games better than expected. PSP and 3DS weren't quite there yet. Even if on paper the 3DS was close to the PS2 and the PSP say an original Xbox or GameCube neither really hit those heights.
Also with the Switch being a popular system developers will try to push it more.
IQ for me is the big thing that can help console games look better even if the overall geometry is basic. Which is why something like Forza Horizon 3 looks so much better than the blurry HALO 5 on the original Xbox One.
Nintendo got lucky that Sony and Microsoft really cheaped out with their next-gen machines early on and especially the Notebook CPU if DOOM is doable to port so are many other games.
However with the third parties back into the fold, it won't be long before Nintendo will be pushed to release upgraded models of the Switch and maybe release a dock with a hardware upgrade for more demanding titles.
All this was made possible by the strides in mobile technology. The very thing that analysts expected would kill Nintendo actually saved them. Oh and switching to Nvidia #TeamGreen.
Yeah but thats not a tech thing.wich this thread is about, Taking FFXV for example:
Does the Switch can make bigger worlds? Yes. Better AI? yes . Music? Of course . Higher or same resolution? In some cases yes
but more advanced lightning? No. Higher poly models? No. higher quality textures? Of course not.
There might be a point were a game can't be downgraded enough specially if it pushes polygons and CPU heavy stuff . The Switch simply can't keep up and thats ok because it is a handheld.
We aren't talking gameplay here , KINGDOM HEARTS III is another example do you believe KH 3 can run on a Switch? that game is on a Switch friendly engine yet i can't see the Switch having a good version of it
What you said is true but don't expect Nintendo to flood the market with different Switches anytime soon, the hardware is what it is and they will support for years to come. Even if its closer to a Wii U + than a One. Nintendo benefits from better mobile hardware but their systems will lack the stronger AAA third party games in generalThe prettiest Switch game is Mario + Rabbids hands down.
https://store.ubi.com/on/demandware...9/images/large/5927e76dca1a644d498b4578-4.jpg
The IQ helps a lot making this game look good. Next to nice particle effects and lighting. Mario Odyssey wasn't designed as a technical show piece but Mario + Rabbids was. The Ubisoft guys really tried to impress Nintendo.
For the hardware Nintendo put in the Switch, it does handle console games better than expected. PSP and 3DS weren't quite there yet. Even if on paper the 3DS was close to the PS2 and the PSP say an original Xbox or GameCube neither really hit those heights.
Also with the Switch being a popular system developers will try to push it more.
IQ for me is the big thing that can help console games look better even if the overall geometry is basic. Which is why something like Forza Horizon 3 looks so much better than the blurry HALO 5 on the original Xbox One.
Nintendo got lucky that Sony and Microsoft really cheaped out with their next-gen machines early on and especially the Notebook CPU if DOOM is doable to port so are many other games.
However with the third parties back into the fold, it won't be long before Nintendo will be pushed to release upgraded models of the Switch and maybe release a dock with a hardware upgrade for more demanding titles.
All this was made possible by the strides in mobile technology. The very thing that analysts expected would kill Nintendo actually saved them. Oh and switching to Nvidia #TeamGreen.
The latter factors being things that make it not a possible platform for many games.
That really depends on the publisher and their priorities. Right now, as many devs have pointed out, specs aren't an issue moreso than politics (i.e. EA).
The GPD Win's CPU is a bit stronger than the Switch's but the GPU is way behind, correct?
Anyway, I've said repeatedly that TW3 would certainly be possible on the Switch with a number of significant cutbacks specifically because it can run on very low end PC devices like this with zero optimization. If a porting studio spent ~6 months optimizing it for the Switch I could see it performing far better than what we see in that video, but still obviously significantly worse than the other console versions.
It being difficult doesn't mean it's impossible. It does however suggest that there probably isn't enough interest in investing in such a port, and I still don't think we'll ever see it.
That is a horrific downgrade though.
Like the thumbnail looks alright but I skipped ahead and it barely runs.
Edit: On second look it doesn't look as horrific that one moment as long as I ignore the ground
But that frame rate is no good
I don't get if you are you trying to prove that witcher 3 can run on the switch or not.
I saw that video time ago and IIRC there ae lots of modification to make it run like that(look at the DS level textures or the lack of grass), also it's inside a castle with just a pair of characters, in the wild with many things and characters on screen it would destroy the gpd win, i have the witcher 1 on the gpd win and that already doesn't run really well.
For comparison this is doom on the gpd win, the resolution is really low but i played the demo at higher resolution and it was still sorta playable, especially once left the initial indoor part, for some reason in the first indoor part the framerate was worse.
That video is vile. I definitely think that a Switch version would look better than that, but given the CPU constraints, I doubt optimisation would save the framerate.
It's the same pleasure to play though.
For AA I got the Marseille mcable gaming, it helps a lot.
Again, this is being played on that machine with zero optimizations from the developer. And the Win has to run a much heavier OS than the Switch, so even without optimizations at all it would look better than that.
I'm not saying it will be easy, profitable, or even that it would wind up looking as good as the developers want or running decently, just that a Switch port would look a lot and run a lot better than that.
I agree with you. It would look and run better than this. Only question I have is how. I'm skeptical, but I'd like to see it all the same. As much as I doubt Switch's potential to handle some of the more taxing AAA games from this generation, I want to see how far it can go. DOOM is a good measuring stick, but it can't be the only one.
It's really a case by case issue. There's exaggeration on both sides really. While I can't see FFXV ever being ported (S-E would be absolutely mad of re-doing it on another engine, but that's their problem) and TW3 would be pretty hard to port (but doable depending on how their engine works), some like FFXIV/MHW/KH3/etc shouldn't need as much work as some are trying to make others believe.
It all depends on the scope of the game, the engine, and if the publisher really wants to allocate resources to that port or not in the end. Obviously an open-world game struggling to run correctly on PS4/X1 would be a bigger task than a relatively smaller level-based game with less demanding features (advanced physics or AI being a big one) or an older/more classical open world game with a well-proven engine.
If you're talking about the engine change part, obviously, but FFXV is a special case. The engine is a mess on any platform.
I don't see how they could port it on Switch, while some games talked about in this thread could be ported without any engine change. Concessions happen for every game and port, whichever the platform.
This is my stance for sure. Like I said, Switch could make Witcher 3 look a lot better than this, but the performance would likely be pretty abysmal. Like PS4 and XB1 before it, the CPU, especially being a mobile CPU, is going to be a big problem.
No optimization can make anything run well on Intel Integrated HD405.
You mean like the Jaguar?
I agree with you about TW3 btw, but what you're saying about CPUs doesn't make much sense. The issue is more due to how the game was designed and how the engine isn't particularly scalable from what we know.
There are many unoptimized ps360 level games that want to have a word with you :P
Like the Jaguar, aye. Was just mentioning the fact it's mobile to stress the enormity of the task. The engine is an issue no doubt, but at a base level, the CPU will cause performance issues as it has with XB1 and PS4 games. It's just one of many obstacles though. Essentially, one of the biggest bottlenecks on current gen systems is also a potential bottleneck for the Switch, which is much weaker than those systems to boot. What you said earlier about allocating resources is 100% true as well. Porting games like that to the Switch may be possible to a degree, but then the issue of resource comes into play. This isn't necessarily Nintendo's fault, but the release timing of the Switch must be an odd one for third parties. At this point, I have no doubt that they're in talks with Microsoft and Sony on their next generation systems and working out how those will factor into their dev pipelines. Switch will likely get lost in the shuffle unfortunately.
Intel Integrated Graphics are the "Is Pepsi okay?" of the graphics world.
PS360 games had roughly a real world ceiling of 350ish MB RAM, give or take (yes, the 360 physically has 512, but you lost a lot to overhead), many PS3 titles didn't even attempt to deal with it's split ram and targeted 256MB, and were often not even using all the cores for actual gameplay or rendering because a core or two were being used entirely for audio.
No surprise that Witcher 3, a game not on platforms with weird designs like that, a 5GB RAM ceiling, and cores not being consumed to render audio in the first place are going to struggle more than what desktops were already running in 2007.
The ram is neither what makes calculations nor what makes graphics, it's fundamental obviously but the gpd win can sorta handle games that require even more ram that it has.
That's because Windows starts using the hard drive as RAM, so you can never really "run out of RAM" on Windows because of that - if you have a 2TB drive that's empty, you could potentially run 1TB worth of RAM-requiring programs. When it's doing that, those sections of RAM are super slow. Programs generally cannot control if they're getting fast or slow RAM; a game console generally -does- have an API that lets them fine-tune which areas they are using. More RAM = less CPU spent on streaming objects and other things in and out of memory. Less RAM = more CPU spent streaming in and out and on Windows swapping memory regions from RAM to HDD and back.
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For over a decade, console players have played on far inferior devices with subpar performance compared to PCs with the widely used and acceptable "excuses" of convenience, form factor, price, etc.
Now that there is a new class of device that offers new conveniences in exchange for performance trade offs, all of a sudden some console players are turning into...
Console Master Racers....
Xbox One X and PS4 Pro are so far inferior to PC's and now offer almost no added conveniences.... yet you get all upset that Switch has downgraded current gen ports.
The hypocrisy.
Now that there is a new class of device that offers new conveniences in exchange for performance trade offs, all of a sudden some console players are turning into...
Console Master Racers....
Xbox One X and PS4 Pro are so far inferior to PC's and now offer almost no added conveniences.... yet you get all upset that Switch has downgraded current gen ports.
The hypocrisy.
I agree but my point is that no amount of ram can make a game run on an hardware that's not enough, even with 128 gb of ram and vram gpd win and switch can't handle witcher 3, cpu and gpu are still the most important factors.
I want to see if 500 bucks will net you a similarily sized PC with similar or superior specs to both XB1X and PS4 Pro. All you will end up with is Zotac's Zbox line and that aint 500 bucks.
So, no. For a superior experience in the same form factor, be prepared to pay atleast a few hundred bucks more.
Hyperbole vs Nuance: The hypocrisy. It could be a good movie tile.
Studios just look at numbers only before checking if a port is possible or not FYI, and that's a good thing.
Yeah, I agree with you on some of those points, especially about the timing for Tegra. That said, it's not a Wii situation this time, the hardware gap is not that problematic.
Just thinking that you underestimate a bit its power, just like some here vastly overestimate it.
For the last part, obviously, just like Nintendo is likely in talks with Nvidia to make a proper Tegra successor (or a new mobile chipset) since it's the best choice now. I don't think the pipelines will matter that much at first though, since we'll likely get a long cross-gen release period once again. Nintendo will obviously be left out for some games (more due to the audience rather than the hardware) but will still be kept in mind as long as it keeps selling for the years to come.
Yeah, I agree with you on some of those points, especially about the timing for Tegra. That said, it's not a Wii situation this time, the hardware gap is not that problematic.
Just thinking that you underestimate a bit its power, just like some here vastly overestimate it.
For the last part, obviously, just like Nintendo is likely in talks with Nvidia to make a proper Tegra successor (or a new mobile chipset) since it's the best choice now. I don't think the pipelines will matter that much at first though, since we'll likely get a long cross-gen release period once again. Nintendo will obviously be left out for some games (more due to the audience rather than the hardware) but will still be kept in mind as long as it keeps selling for the years to come.
Switch sort of reminds me of PSP vs PS2-era consoles. I mean it as a positive. PSP ports fell short of the other versions, but not so much that you were getting a radically different experience for the portable convenience. There were a number of 'inferior' ports I bought on PSP as it suited my lifestyle then. So I get why folks are happy with Doom on Switch
Would it be more apt to compare PS Vita remote play quality vs full on console experience in terms of what the Switch can/is capable of doing?
There's nothing to compare. Vita streams an audio/video feed of what's happening on your PS4, which you can then play with heavily gimped controls unless you carry a DS4 around. The stream's quality depends a lot on factors that are out of your control (including at home), and you'll still experience lag even in optimal conditions.
Switch games run on the device itself and work perfectly 100% of the time barring a defect with the console. There are no missing controller inputs compared to other consoles aside from analog triggers, which aren't even used in the vast majority of games.
Remote Play shouldn't even be in the same conversation.
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So you've proven my point. Xbox is inferior but acceptable given financial considerations. Switch is inferior given its form factor and hybrid nature. Always a new goal post eh? The hyperbole of something the size of a tablet vs something the size of an Xbox is on the scale of $500 vs $1500. Despite all these inferior machines priced below $2000, most of these gaming machines are all pretty damn good and people enjoy them.
The Switch is fucking fantastic for what it is, and hopefully the Xbox X is as well. This Switch bashing on the merits of its performance vs PS4/Xbox is stupid. It's amazing how butt hurt some people get at Nintendo Switch being successful. You know what I did when PS4 was successful and people praised it?? I went out and fucking bought one.
Single core, it would be about 2.5x. But has half as many cores.
You're reading way too much into this. This is a technical discussion and the point of dispute is that Switch "holds its own" against PS4/Xbox One. I don't think anyone is denying that for what it is, Switch has great performance, but that's very different to holding it's own against PS4/Xbox One. I'm scratching my head at why people like yourself seem to think any discussion about the Switch that has a negative slant is somehow evident of people being upset at how successful the console is. I own a Switch and I think it's great, but I'm also up for having nuanced discussion about the system too. If you don't want to, and instead get upset by people who don't praise the system then don't bother post in the thread.
As we are seeing with Square Enix's commitment to smaller budget games, it seems unrealistic that the Switch will get many modern ports, but ideally it will still get some good quality third party games. Smaller budget games seem to be more sustainable and will look good enough on the system.
*looks at the Switch tablet*
*looks at the Xbox One VHS monstrosity*
It can hold its own just fine then.