Nvidia/Saber GTC 2020 || Witcher III on the Nintendo Switch: GPU & Memory Optimization

ILikeFeet · Apr 2, 2020

from Nvidia's truncated GTC (and I think GDC) content, a look at how Saber Interactive made The Witcher 3 into Switcher 3.

GTC 2020: Witcher III on the Nintendo Switch: GPU & Memory Optimization

A lot of old and new games are ported to Nintendo Switch; this talk will show that Switch is a capable platform that can run even the most demanding today’s games with little loss in fidelity. We describe in detail CPU, Memory and Build size optimizations and tradeoffs we made during the...

developer.nvidia.com

upon starting, CPU game thread was 91ms
CPU render thread with gpu wait time - 260ms
GPU frame time 200ms
5GB of memory
46GB file size
cloth physics moved from CPU to GPU
Switch supports cuda natively
audio was converted to Opus format
the Opus decoder on switch handles 20 sounds simultaneously
used oodle for asset compression as it was faster at decompressing than lz4
used the sound streaming system developed for Cyberpunk 2077 to help save memory
has 3 languages on cart instead of 4, used lower quality compression for lipsync
final build size was 28GB
15 months of development
SWitcher was literally the internal project name

also some choice quotes that probably came from the initial leak thread

Hero of Legend · Apr 2, 2020

Where's that Desert Bus stream? Or was that person LYING?! :P

ILikeFeet · Apr 2, 2020

Switch supports cuda-based gpu code, which Saber thinks that could be beneficial for UE4, cpu-bound gamed

bionic77 · Apr 2, 2020

This thread is an excellent reminder for when people begin making predictions about the power of the soon to be released consoles.

SleepSmasher · Apr 2, 2020

"A lot of old and new games are ported to Nintendo Switch; this talk will show that Switch is a capable platform that can run even the most demanding today's games with little loss in fidelity."

TW3 is an impressive technical accomplishment on Switch but come on Nvidia, I wouldn't go that far.

molnizzle · Apr 2, 2020

I still can't believe that it's real. My fucking PS4 struggled to run this game when it launched.

shadow2810 · Apr 2, 2020

bionic77 said:
This thread is an excellent reminder for when people begin making predictions about the power of the soon to be released consoles.

even on already released consoles, people will still make stupid claims

bionic77 · Apr 2, 2020

shadow2810 said:
even on already released consoles, people will still make stupid claims

The strange thing is no one ever remembers all the horrible past predictions and is ready to all in with knives out on things that none of us really understand and yet are still prepared to fight to the death to.

The cycle continues!

Deleted member 51691 · Apr 2, 2020

ILikeFeet said:
also some choice quotes that probably came from the initial leak thread

Lmao at "It couldn't even handle a port of Gwent," that one ended up coming over too (kinda)

Chamber · Apr 2, 2020

bionic77 said:
This thread is an excellent reminder for when people begin making predictions about the power of the soon to be released consoles.

ILikeFeet · Apr 2, 2020

finished the "summary". there's a lot missing, because it's a rather technical talk. tried to get what I though was easily understandable

Deleted member 2791 · Apr 2, 2020

People often say that the power difference can't be used as an excuse to not port games to Switch since TW3 is on it but

ILikeFeet said:
15 months of development

15 months on a single port is absolutely not something most publishers or dev could afford while still attempting to make a profit. It's a huge amount of time for a downport. Now, TW3 on NSW likely made that up since it apparently sold pretty well and was heavily promoted by Nintendo, but still.

ApeEscaper · Apr 2, 2020

Bravo to the team who made this possible

Zedelima · Apr 2, 2020

Hopefully people downplaying the port will not come here to...downplay the port.
Last time i was this impressed was playing BOTW in a fucking Wii u

scitek · Apr 2, 2020

I love that they used the sound streaming system from C2077.

NateDrake · Apr 2, 2020

How many of those "Witcher 3 can't run on Switch" statements came from ERA?

Vitamin_B_Complex · Apr 2, 2020

To be honest, I find software optimization cooler and crazier than hardware jump. Like imagine we never parted with the PS2 people would've created the craziest solutions to eek out the last drop of power. Obviously I love tech jumps and want always more, I just love it when hardware is pushed to it's limit no matter what the hardware is.
This also shows that hardware power alone is useless if the software is not pushing it. This is why I love consoles: fixed hardware over a long period means a steady playground that nurtures software advancements.

Jimrpg · Apr 2, 2020

Passing Assassin said:
People often say that the power difference can't be used as an excuse to not port games to Switch since TW3 is on it but

15 months on a single port is absolutely not something most publishers or dev could afford while still attempting to make a profit. It's a huge amount of time for a downport. Now, TW3 on NSW likely made that up since it apparently sold pretty well and was heavily promoted by Nintendo, but still.

Because TW3 made a shit ton of money so they can basically make whatever they want.

ILikeFeet · Apr 2, 2020

Vitamin_B_Complex said:
To be honest, I find software optimization cooler and crazier than hardware jump. Like imagine we never parted with the PS2 people would've created the craziest solutions to eek out the last drop of power. Obviously I love tech jumps and want always more, I just love it when hardware is pushed to it's limit no matter what the hardware is.
This also shows that hardware power alone is useless if the software is not pushing it. This is why I love consoles: fixed hardware over a long period means a steady playground that nurtures software advancements.

I read here that the PS2 had mesh shaders similar to what Microsoft is pushing for DX12U. Wonder how things would have changed if it took off

Cow Mengde · Apr 2, 2020

LMAO! That Desert Bus comment. I hope he kept his promise.

LuigiV · Apr 3, 2020

ILikeFeet said:
I read here that the PS2 had mesh shaders similar to what Microsoft is pushing for DX12U. Wonder how things would have changed if it took off

PS2 didn't have shaders but it did all geometry transforms on the CPU using one of it's vector co-processors (VPU1, specifically) so it was highly programmable, more so than it's hardware accelerated contemporaries. Wouldn't be surprised if it could do something similar to mesh shaders.

Nano-Nandy · Apr 3, 2020

NateDrake said:
How many of those "Witcher 3 can't run on Switch" statements came from ERA?

All of them? :p

ArchedThunder · Apr 3, 2020

Vitamin_B_Complex said:
To be honest, I find software optimization cooler and crazier than hardware jump. Like imagine we never parted with the PS2 people would've created the craziest solutions to eek out the last drop of power. Obviously I love tech jumps and want always more, I just love it when hardware is pushed to it's limit no matter what the hardware is.
This also shows that hardware power alone is useless if the software is not pushing it. This is why I love consoles: fixed hardware over a long period means a steady playground that nurtures software advancements.

This is one of the reasons why I'm happy that generations have been longer since PS360. The stuff achieved late gen is so impressive.

SiG · Apr 3, 2020

Passing Assassin said:
People often say that the power difference can't be used as an excuse to not port games to Switch since TW3 is on it but

15 months on a single port is absolutely not something most publishers or dev could afford while still attempting to make a profit. It's a huge amount of time for a downport. Now, TW3 on NSW likely made that up since it apparently sold pretty well and was heavily promoted by Nintendo, but still.

...but still it was worth it. Playing The Witcher 3 on Switch is a marvel and even with the compromises, a lot of people can see its value especially now with the ability to sync Steam/GOG saves.

It's funny how much they saved by removing reserved caches reserved for data streaming. I always did think that optimal compression and efficient core usage were the key to well performing Switch titles. Seems like there are many more things that can be offloaded to CUDA than expected to lighten the load on the CPU.

Astandahl · Apr 3, 2020

15 months of development? Kudos to the team. They've done a great job.

( Still remember when someone was pushing the narrative that in order to port a game to the switch you just need to "push a button" )

pswii60 · Apr 3, 2020

15 months of development just for a port though.

Impressive that it exists nevertheless.

Reinhardt Schneider · Apr 3, 2020

Well, the Switcher is literally not just a port, it's more like a version, kind of like comparing Street Fighter 2 SNES with the Arcade original

And yeah, there was compromises but the experience is the same, the game keeps a playable framerate, nothing has been cut content wise, and there were even improvements in the last update.

It's an achievement not only worth mentioning, but worth boasting about. Not "just a port"

I'm watching this later. It's going to be very interesting.

Atolm · Apr 3, 2020

Passing Assassin said:
People often say that the power difference can't be used as an excuse to not port games to Switch since TW3 is on it but

15 months on a single port is absolutely not something most publishers or dev could afford while still attempting to make a profit. It's a huge amount of time for a downport. Now, TW3 on NSW likely made that up since it apparently sold pretty well and was heavily promoted by Nintendo, but still.

Yeah, it's great if thanks to this other developers start offloading CPU tasks onto the CUDA cores to compensate for the lack of CPU muscle, but 15 months for a port is simply not feasible for 95% of teams. They can probably pitch a new game and do quite a bit of development in that time if the game isn't a triple A.

Dash Kappei · Apr 3, 2020

Super interesting stuff

Zedark · Apr 3, 2020

Passing Assassin said:
People often say that the power difference can't be used as an excuse to not port games to Switch since TW3 is on it but

15 months on a single port is absolutely not something most publishers or dev could afford while still attempting to make a profit. It's a huge amount of time for a downport. Now, TW3 on NSW likely made that up since it apparently sold pretty well and was heavily promoted by Nintendo, but still.

There's another variable needed to determine how costly the porting process was, namely the number of programmers working on the port. Did they say anything about that?

Oregano · Apr 3, 2020

Zedark said:
There's another variable needed to determine how costly the porting process was, namely the number of programmers working on the port. Did they say anything about that?

Yeah 15 months for a port probably isn't all that expensive when you consider it's a much smaller team.

fiendcode · Apr 3, 2020

Passing Assassin said:
15 months on a single port is absolutely not something most publishers or dev could afford while still attempting to make a profit. It's a huge amount of time for a downport. Now, TW3 on NSW likely made that up since it apparently sold pretty well and was heavily promoted by Nintendo, but still.

It's probably comparable to DQXI S in terms of timeframe. Although that game likely had a bigger staff since there would be designers for the new content. It'd be good to know exactly how large the actual port team was on The Switcher, might be a better business model than you'd think for proven massmarket AAA ports.

nelsonroyale · Apr 3, 2020

Playing through it right now. It's an impressive port, no doubt. Playing a game like Witcher 3 on a portable is pretty crazy.

Onix555 · Apr 3, 2020

Astandahl said:
15 months of development? Kudos to the team. They've done a great job.

( Still remember when someone was pushing the narrative that in order to port a game to the switch you just need to "push a button" )

That was the head of UE4 development, and yes it is very easy to port a piece of software to the Switch and get it running. The difficulty is optimising and getting it to run well (i.e. not 2 fps); that said for most indie games that dont push the graphical envelope its usually a very simple affair if its on UE4 or Unity. I've heard a few dev tales where it only took a few days to get the majority of the work done. No one would expect that of a big AAA project though, well.. some people on here maybe...

Pryme · Apr 3, 2020

Passing Assassin said:
People often say that the power difference can't be used as an excuse to not port games to Switch since TW3 is on it but

yep. That's also why most EA games aren't on Switch yet. Porting Frostbite to Switch is most certainly no easy task. Same with Ubisoft's Snowdrop engine.

I'd like to see more involvement from Nintendo to get some of these engines running on the Switch. Same way MS worked to get PUBG optimized for Xbox and how Cerny worked as a producer on Spider-Man PS4 to help ease the process.

Deleted member 2791 · Apr 3, 2020

Pryme said:
Same with Ubisoft's Snowdrop engine.

Snowdrop is already Switch compatible though. Mario + Rabbids and South Park 2 are on it.

Oregano · Apr 3, 2020

Pryme said:
yep. That's also why most EA games aren't on Switch yet. Porting Frostbite to Switch is most certainly no easy task. Same with Ubisoft's Snowdrop engine.

I'd like to see more involvement from Nintendo to get some of these engines running on the Switch. Same way MS worked to get PUBG optimized for Xbox and how Cerny worked as a producer on Spider-Man PS4 to help ease the process.

There's multiple Snowdrop games on Switch, including one of its big exclusives.

fiendcode · Apr 3, 2020

All Ubisoft's major engines are Switch compatible now (Anvil, Snowdrop, UbiArt). Nintendo shouldn't lift a finger to get any proprietary EA engine running on their platform. I'm not sure if any proprietary 3rd party engine is really worth it generally tbh, maybe RE Engine?

Forsaken82 · Apr 3, 2020

Astandahl said:
15 months of development? Kudos to the team. They've done a great job.

( Still remember when someone was pushing the narrative that in order to port a game to the switch you just need to "push a button" )

This is the narrative of Posters on era for any game, port or AAA. Game Dev is ez according to all the backseat designers on this board.

Deleted member 51691 · Apr 3, 2020

fiendcode said:
All Ubisoft's major engines are Switch compatible now (Anvil, Snowdrop, UbiArt). Nintendo shouldn't lift a finger to get any proprietary EA engine running on their platform. I'm not sure if any proprietary 3rd party engine is really worth it generally tbh, maybe RE Engine?

Wouldn't call UbiArt a major engine anymore lol

Was that Rayman Apple Arcade game even in UbiArt?

MP! · Apr 3, 2020

I don't think 15 months is out of scope for a port... it's not THAT long... though likely longer than usual.

ILikeFeet · Apr 3, 2020

stealthyfrog said:
Wouldn't call UbiArt a major engine anymore lol

Was that Rayman Apple Arcade game even in UbiArt?

did a quick search and I couldn't find anything stating either way. they do use Unity for some mobile games though

hrœrekr · Apr 3, 2020

MP! said:
I don't think 15 months is out of scope for a port... it's not THAT long... though likely longer than usual.

Keep in mind the team size for a port is many times smaller than a development team from ground up. Even for a long time like this, the returns are big even with modest sales.

benzopil · Apr 3, 2020

Switcher 3 was the second best selling Switch game in Russia during first two months of 2020, so it was worth it at least for this country

MP! · Apr 3, 2020

hrœrekr said:
Keep in mind the team size for a port is many times smaller than a development team from ground up. Even for a long time like this, the returns are big even with modest sales.

exactly

Smash Kirby · Apr 3, 2020

MP! said:
I don't think 15 months is out of scope for a port... it's not THAT long... though likely longer than usual.

It seems longer than some studios are willing to do. I might need to pick it up.

Edit: I hope it doesn't come off as lazy dev rhetoric, some of the ports we have been getting are amazing. I think Fallout 4 could do well on the Switch as well.

Celine · Apr 3, 2020

benzopil said:
Switcher 3 was the second best selling Switch game in Russia during first two months of 2020, so it was worth it at least for this country

Also Witcher 3 saw an increase of 554% last December compared to December 2018 in US and almost 500% of that growth was due to the Switch version.

Lylo · Apr 3, 2020

It's amazing what people can accomplish when they have talent, time, support and will.

Poison Jam · Apr 3, 2020

Hey, CD Project! Do that again. Switcherpunk. I dare you, I double dare you motherfuckers!

Zedark · Apr 3, 2020

Poison Jam said:
Hey, CD Project! Do that again. Switcherpunk. I dare you, I double dare you motherfuckers!

60 fps 4K DLSS launch game on Switch 2 is my guess. CDPR already seem to have issues getting the PS4/XB1 to run acceptably, so I doubt they will try it on Switch 1.

Nvidia/Saber GTC 2020 || Witcher III on the Nintendo Switch: GPU & Memory Optimization

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