There's no need to do this... Wipeout, although not a port per se, was mighty impressive.
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Digital Foundry: Wolfenstein II on Switch
- Thread starter Deleted member 8112
- Start date
I guess I just find it funny that so many people are bagging on Wolf 2 when no other portable in history has produced an AAA port as good that was released in the same relative time frame of its console counterpart.
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I was wondering, why does Nintendo not overclock the Switch more in docked mode? So that it would atleast be able to render games like Wolf in native 720p. Sure, it produces more heat, but the Switch doesn't really get hot in docked mode so I think there is enough headroom. Overclocking GPU and VRAM speeds would certainly allow for a higher resolution.
Bought the game because these ports are cool and Doom ended up being my surprise Goty.
Played the first two missions one difficulty above normal in docked mode in front of two cousins who are big Sony fans and aren't usually too interested in Nintendo platforms (Smash aside, they've briefly owned prior handhelds) and they were impressed. Both said the game looked surprisingly good and one even said he didn't know they made games like that for Switch. They liked what they saw of the game, so I told them it was already cheap on PS4/XBO. If anything, at least these re-releases are a new marketing push for the game.
Docked was an improvement over launch Doom for the most part, but the framerate did dip in the arena from the E3 demo (I assume this is because of an increased enemy count/difficulty because DF barely encountered a dip there). Youtube compression definitely made the low resolution look worse. It's not beautiful, but the first two levels are very playable from a normal viewing distance.
Handheld looks gorgeous but is definitely a little choppy. Doom was more consistent.
Doom made a better first impression than it did overall, and I'm sure the same is true here.
All my playtime was pre day one patch.
Edit: Replayed the 2nd level in portable mode post update and it was basically flawless. Resolution seemed similar to prepatch for the most part, but I think the resolution at stress points was allowed to go a little lower.
Played the first two missions one difficulty above normal in docked mode in front of two cousins who are big Sony fans and aren't usually too interested in Nintendo platforms (Smash aside, they've briefly owned prior handhelds) and they were impressed. Both said the game looked surprisingly good and one even said he didn't know they made games like that for Switch. They liked what they saw of the game, so I told them it was already cheap on PS4/XBO. If anything, at least these re-releases are a new marketing push for the game.
Docked was an improvement over launch Doom for the most part, but the framerate did dip in the arena from the E3 demo (I assume this is because of an increased enemy count/difficulty because DF barely encountered a dip there). Youtube compression definitely made the low resolution look worse. It's not beautiful, but the first two levels are very playable from a normal viewing distance.
Handheld looks gorgeous but is definitely a little choppy. Doom was more consistent.
Doom made a better first impression than it did overall, and I'm sure the same is true here.
All my playtime was pre day one patch.
Edit: Replayed the 2nd level in portable mode post update and it was basically flawless. Resolution seemed similar to prepatch for the most part, but I think the resolution at stress points was allowed to go a little lower.
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I see what you mean. I was thinking thinking vow the visual predentation affected the enjoyment of the game, therefor affecting the gameplay (as in being less enjoyable). I dont think the resolution get so low that its hard to make out pickup-able items, so i didnt think of that. From what i remember, the items also "glow" to make them a bit easier to spot.
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I just woke up and wow, this thread turned strange. Why is there a comparison between switch and psp?
Even if I don't find this port appealing personally, the switch itself is a very nice machine for what it does and no other hardware that I can think of does it in a better way even if looking to the past imho.
Even if I don't find this port appealing personally, the switch itself is a very nice machine for what it does and no other hardware that I can think of does it in a better way even if looking to the past imho.
It's less of a commitment. When you're playing on Switch you can just pick up the console and quickly put it in standby whenever you need to. Some people also may not live in one place for long very often and thus packing up an entire console every time may not be feasible. To some portable systems really are the only viable options. There are a lot of people out there who only have a 3DS for instance.
Which features are missing from those games? The God of War gamed are fully featured games, that i know for sure since i've finished both of them. Not sure about Ridge Racer since i havnt played much of them, but from a techinal standpoint, it definitelly looked and felt like a console Ridge Racer game to me.
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I don't know what's wrong with DF's video but in this comparison from gamexplain the switch version looks way better somehow, the blurriness seems much more manageable.
https://youtu.be/-9RG21GHC0U
Edit: Well, upon viewing again DFs video I thinkit was just me having watched it first on a bigger TV via Chromecast
Edit 2: ah, i think it also has to do with some of the comparisons being done with zoom ins into the image which makes the switch version fare way worse of course
https://youtu.be/-9RG21GHC0U
Edit: Well, upon viewing again DFs video I thinkit was just me having watched it first on a bigger TV via Chromecast
Edit 2: ah, i think it also has to do with some of the comparisons being done with zoom ins into the image which makes the switch version fare way worse of course
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Mortal Kombat 9 Vita was a REAL disappointment and downgrade, there were plenty of decent ports though :)
Forgot about thermal throttling. I think this will also be a problem for The Elder Scrolls Blades. It looks better than PS3&360 games in the city.
Tekken: Dark Resurrection in 2006 (Tekken 5 was released in 2005).
360p on handheld mode looks fucking terrible no matter how amazing the fidelity behind it is. On a big tv it would be even worse.
I don't wanna give any kudos to Panic Button on this tbh. Good devs should aim for native res and find ways to scale the graphics in LOD between the player's gun and the backdrop in the distance and bake in some environmental shadows. Also, Mario and BOTW shows that the better solution for variable resolutions is to "fake" it by cutting down on the horizontal axis. No matter how corny or jaggy it winds up looking it always has a crispness to it for having native res on one axis.
I don't wanna give any kudos to Panic Button on this tbh. Good devs should aim for native res and find ways to scale the graphics in LOD between the player's gun and the backdrop in the distance and bake in some environmental shadows. Also, Mario and BOTW shows that the better solution for variable resolutions is to "fake" it by cutting down on the horizontal axis. No matter how corny or jaggy it winds up looking it always has a crispness to it for having native res on one axis.
I guess I was on drugs imagining playing The Warriors or Midnight Club 3 on PSP then...
someone that dont have a tv on their own room and the TV in the living room is used by other family members?
You've got my vote! It would be great to see their take on some of the technical marvels people like Velez & Dubail did with the GBA (V-Rally, Driv3r, the Asterix game…).
Please, Dark1x tell me at least you'll think about it :)
I was going to mention The Warriors. Although it did release a year and a bit after the original version. Rockstar's non-open world games got pretty faithful PSP ports. The open world ones got straight up prequels instead.
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it already work within the "safe" parameter, any more significant amount of overclocking enough to make a different in the game output, if not fucking up the machine will likely reduce its life spam
Yeah Rockstar was really awesome interms of PSP support.
I have been playing Manhunt 2 with uncut patch on PSP Go and it plays like a dream looks great as well.
I'm playing mostly portable at home. Finished Mario Odyssey on portable. It's just more comfortable.
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If you've never seen it, this is how big the actual Switch heatsink is: https://i.imgur.com/bGmlLuj.png
LOL, I was obviously wrong on my assessment. My apologies.
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It's not necessarily the case, the SoC is limited to a certain wattage (10W) by design, and that's simply enforced by the Bios, which in the case of the Shield means that during a prolonged load on both the CPU and GPU it ends up running at the same frequencies as the Switch, while the Switch is just locked at those frequencies.
However, neither device runs particularly warm when under load, so theoretically the TDP limit could be increased to, say, 11 or 12W for a tad higher frequencies and performance. Of course it'd run hotter, and the fan would have to spin faster, and maybe Nvidia and Nintendo don't want that. And also, the performance of planar 20nm is good at low-ish frequencies and not that far away from the Fin-Fet forms, but it's leaky at higher voltages. So maybe the improvement would not be too great and would all be spent in the form of heat. The only way to know is hacking the thing if that's possible, and then the results might vary by individual chip.
IMO, the Switch is fine for now. When a new version is inevitably released in a few years, that will bring an upgrade far beyond what a slight increase in frequencies of the current Switch could.
No need to. Just go back and read the posts. Unless you forgot when the PSP and Vita released. And their specs at the time of release vs the home console counterparts. And just tech, development in general then vs now.
I figured the link I posted about BattleFront 2 PSP would get dismissed. Look at the release date of Tomb Raider Legend, PSP. Look at Dead or Alive, Vita.
The list would be bigger than AAA ports the Switch has right now, not really a fair comparison, right?
Like I said before, goalposts....
No, this doesnt help with myth that the PSP couldnt get or play AAA ports...
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This is pretty silly. The PSP (especially) and the Vita absolutely fell into the same category as Switch at the time of release. Switch is a more versatile system due to its focus on docked/handheld (something you can do with PSP...but not at launch).
Were you around during the launch of PSP? It was absolutely amazing at the time and set a new standard in what you can expect from a handheld system. Many of its early games still look remarkable to this day.
That said, things were different during this time. The PSP received PS2 class ports and the types of games we're seeing on Switch today (like Wolf 2 and Skyrim) weren't really ON consoles back then. Thus, the PSP library is more focused on racing, arcade and other such titles...but all of them were a huge step up from any other portable experience of that era. These ports aren't anywhere near the best looking games on PSP either but I think they DO hold up nicely (though, for a couple of them, overclocking is admittedly required for optimal performance).
http:///jGPc.jpg
I'd argue that something like Tekken 5 on PSP is as impressive for the time period - it came out in exactly the same time frame as Wolf 2. You gotta remember this is the PS2 era - seeing a high-quality 60fps 3D fighting game on a portable system was as insane back then as seeing Wolf on Switch is today.
Ridge Racers in 2004, which is an original game, is still more impressive to me than just about any other portable game in history keeping mind its release date and what it was doing.
I mean, Crazy Taxi and Power Stone and stuff were last gen games at that point, how does that reply to your quoted? I'll concede about the Tekken/Soul Calibur ports, amazing visually. No reason to pad your list with stuff like that and a sprite based 2D title on top, whatever Guilty Gear style thing that is, haha.
I consider Dreamcast part of that generation and having Dreamcast ports on a mobile device at that point was really impressive. It's not something we had ever seen before.
That's why PSP was so impressive. There hadn't been anything like that before. Not even remotely close. Switch feels like a continuation of what Sony started in 2004 but done even better.
Were you around during that era?
Again, I'm not sure you're remembering just how insane it was to see 2D fighters like that on a portable.
That's my point. Too many people here lack the proper perspective to understand this. It looks silly by today's standards but that's not what we're talking about. It needs to be considered in its original release window.
I'm not sure why this needs to be a battle - it seems that some folks balk at the idea of PSP impressing to the same degree as Switch but it absolutely did and then some. They're both very comparable system in their time but the Switch is simply better executed. There were already console style games in the mobile space when Switch launched, however (even if they weren't nearly as impressive) while no such thing existed when PSP launched. This is key.
Yeah, my bad, Dreamcast is same gen. Still those weren't particularly striking examples of visuals by that time... But yeah PSP still got Tekken, Monster Hunter and many more games nearly intact from the PS2 counterparts. But it's not like Nintendo was following that, rather just that (affordable) mobile tech has caught up with (affordable) home stuff even more since.
These aren't all ports but they are console style games and I think this is perhaps a better selection of shots. I mean, come on, this is a 2004 era handheld! The Switch, though, impresses me in the same way. They're both awesome and at least Switch doesn't have to deal with the UMD format!
http:///lGPc.jpg
Great posts. When we had a similar argument about the PSP's power compared to portables and consoles, I believe we also concluded that the PSP was in the same level of awesomeness in terms of technology when it came out compared to the Switch. If I recall correctly, there was actually a downclocked console-class GPU in the system in a time where phones wasn't remotely close to that power. That is pretty nuts. The PSP-Go that even had a dock. The Switch has advantages in other areas, but that doesn't mean that the PSP wasn't successful on its own right in terms on what tech it had.
Having said that, I'm glad the Switch doesn't use discs.
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I mean I guess... I wouldn't put a fighting game in the same level as a full scale console fps, and yes those existed in the same time of PSP, but Tekken 5 was definitely impressive. Think about it though. You really just only only listed one game that came remotely close to meeting the criteria I listed in the history of portable to console ports. That shows how impressive Wolf 2 is.
I think you are right though that true AAA games were not the same in that era as they are now.
For me the most appropriate comparison would be something like Borderlands 2 on Vita vs. Wolfenstein on Switch, and we all know how that turned out. (and that is being generous to Vita because it's a cell shaded game).
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So what games released this gen are "this kind of game" and which do you think are possible to run on Switch?
Except that doesn't mean shit on its own, adding another pixel shading effect on top of GoW (God of War or Gears of War or whatever you want, lol) to make it look more like American comic books (with the necessary changes in the textures and stuff during development obviously, but without actually lowering their resolution or anything technically) wouldn't make it less demanding (if anything it could be more so since that's an additional effect over already complex rendering/geometry/texturing/etc). It's all the other things (and game logic, quality and amount of AI, physics etc) in the parenthesis that make it demanding or not so demanding, not whether the artistic intent is that of realism or stylizing or whatever. And clearly for all those reasons Borderlands 2 was more demanding for the home consoles of its era too given it's 30 fps and dips to 20 on those rather than 60. It's not like hey Wind Waker is cell shaded and that was on GameCube so if Borderlands 2 is also cell shaded then clearly it could also run on the GameCube equally well, that means literally nothing in that context.
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Eh, I think the issue is that PSP often just received brand new games based on franchises that originated on PS2 (or earlier) and that was often the most impressive.
Midnight Club 3 is pretty nuts, though, as it's a massive open world driving game on PSP with motion blur and reflections intact. Outrun 2, while not perfect, is kind of amazing in that it originated on Xbox arcade hardware - they even found a way to simulate the reflections and specular highlights. The two GTA games are interesting as well - they are new games but also basically ports in that they feature the same city maps and visual design as the PS2 games. It's simply a collection of new missions and a new story. Having an open world game less than a year after PSP launched was impressive as well.
The AAA console space was *VERY* different during that era, however. There were console shooters but, aside from a few like Halo, most weren't that impressive especially compared to what we were starting to see on the PC. It's not really a comparable time period.
The PSP launched in 2004 - that was the year that Far Cry, Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 all shipped. The Xbox ports of those games, which was the most powerful console at the time, are similar in quality to the Switch port of Wolfenstein 2. That's how far ahead the PC was during that period. There simply wasn't a chance in hell that you could pull that off on a mobile device like PSP. It wasn't time yet.
That kind of undermines your arguments as it suggests that you're judging things by eye rather than actually trying to understand what's going on below the surface.
Borderlands 2 is a large scale Unreal Engine 3 based first person shooter. On consoles of its day, Borderlands 2 struggles to maintain 30fps (Xbox 360 and PS3). That's what they were porting to Vita.
In comparison, Wolf 2 is a 60fps game on consoles of its day...just something to think about.
That port of Borderlands 2 is really bad, though. I'd say something like NFS Hot Pursuit is more inline - it took a huge hit to visuals but it offers the same gameplay as the console titles. It's one the most technically ambitious racing games of the last generation - to the point where Criterion had to push beyond the regular 360 libraries. It's using low-level tricks in a way that was rare on 360.
PSP regularly shared ports with Wii and PS2 on both sides of cross gen transition, it even saw conversions of titles that released on 360/PS3 (e.g Split Second, Midnight Club LA). It was sort of the whole point of the PSP, it was a portable console - that's why I bought it and it far exceeded my expectations.
Sure you had different scenarios; often times a unique title would stand in (Scarface MPR, Godfather Mob Wars, Splinter Cell: Essentials) to a mixed reception, or some content would be cut from the full game (King Kong, 007 From Russia With Love, Star Wars Battlefront 2) but the core gameplay would remain in tact. You also had full ports (Ghostbusters, Star Wars The Force Unleashed, Manhunt 2, Motorstorm Arctic Edge, Gun: Showdown, Justice League Heroes, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Medal of Honor Heroes 2, Jak and Daxter: Lost Frontier , Spider-Man 3, Burnout Dominator, Fight Night Round 3 etc....) where often times the PSP versions featured bonus content that the home consoles lacked... and then console grade games that were developed firstly for the PSP (Ridge Racer, Daxter, MGS Peacewalker, Miami Vice, Killzone Lib, 2 GTA games, 2 GoW games...etc..) that in some cases were later ported to home consoles because they still had consumer appeal on the big screen. It would be silly for me to list more.
^Despite all of that, I'm not here to defend the PSP as it can handle itself. That thing came out in 2004 and was a monster. It could almost still pass for a cheaper pseudo-contemporary handheld relative to something like the 3DS. It's the single most disgusting piece of dedicated hardware I've seen released in the gaming industry to date, relatively speaking. When I first held it my life flashed before my eyes.
Switch is the latest and greatest as well but the context is different. It was more about getting to a point with power consumption where a dedicated hybrid would become viable and then capitalising on it with the right price point - Nintendo did that. There was a place for that level of hardware and a market for that quality of gaming with the inclusion of added versatility. There's no need to compare the two I think, they're both great and the Switch is the ultimate progression of what PSP initially tapped into.
Also, sorry to inundate the thread with a PSP related tirade.
Wolf 2 looks great.
Sure you had different scenarios; often times a unique title would stand in (Scarface MPR, Godfather Mob Wars, Splinter Cell: Essentials) to a mixed reception, or some content would be cut from the full game (King Kong, 007 From Russia With Love, Star Wars Battlefront 2) but the core gameplay would remain in tact. You also had full ports (Ghostbusters, Star Wars The Force Unleashed, Manhunt 2, Motorstorm Arctic Edge, Gun: Showdown, Justice League Heroes, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Medal of Honor Heroes 2, Jak and Daxter: Lost Frontier , Spider-Man 3, Burnout Dominator, Fight Night Round 3 etc....) where often times the PSP versions featured bonus content that the home consoles lacked... and then console grade games that were developed firstly for the PSP (Ridge Racer, Daxter, MGS Peacewalker, Miami Vice, Killzone Lib, 2 GTA games, 2 GoW games...etc..) that in some cases were later ported to home consoles because they still had consumer appeal on the big screen. It would be silly for me to list more.
^Despite all of that, I'm not here to defend the PSP as it can handle itself. That thing came out in 2004 and was a monster. It could almost still pass for a cheaper pseudo-contemporary handheld relative to something like the 3DS. It's the single most disgusting piece of dedicated hardware I've seen released in the gaming industry to date, relatively speaking. When I first held it my life flashed before my eyes.
Switch is the latest and greatest as well but the context is different. It was more about getting to a point with power consumption where a dedicated hybrid would become viable and then capitalising on it with the right price point - Nintendo did that. There was a place for that level of hardware and a market for that quality of gaming with the inclusion of added versatility. There's no need to compare the two I think, they're both great and the Switch is the ultimate progression of what PSP initially tapped into.
Also, sorry to inundate the thread with a PSP related tirade.
Wolf 2 looks great.
I disagree. As powerful as the PSVita is, it isn't as ambitious as the PSP (and Switch). The tech they have in the system sounded better than the current iPad of that time, but it was usually downclocked to 1/4th the power a lot of players thought it had. It is actually very close to the original XBox in raw power, but with much more modern tech. It may sound similar to the position of the undocked Switch's in power compared to the 360 and XB1, but you have to consider the HUGE gap between the original XBox and the 360. If Nintendo kept the same pacing of tech for their portables as they did before, it would have taking at least 2 generations for Nintendo's portables to reach the level of the Switch.
In some ways, I think the PSVita was too 'safe' in pushing the graphical limitations of a portable, and the memory card issue was simply ridiculous.
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