Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2016 - 2017]

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah, really hope Zelda is just a case of rushed development but there does seem to be a pretty significant bandwidth bottleneck on the switch. For larger games like zelda the focus should be on improving a 720p image. Mario kart is a nice locked 1080p60 though, and something like splatoon can be as well.

It's not really rushed as we'd normally think of it being rushed. IE - the game itself hasn't been rushed as it's been in development for a long time and it tells, the game itself just oozes quality and polish.

However, the port from the Wii-U to the Switch likely didn't have a lot of time. And, it's a port from the Wii-U. I'll be interested to see what they or a 3rd party could do when actually targeting the hardware and/or have more time to port engines from another platform to the Switch.

Regards,
SB

 

[Globalisateur]

Yeah, really hope Zelda is just a case of rushed development but there does seem to be a pretty significant bandwidth bottleneck on the switch. For larger games like zelda the focus should be on improving a 720p image. Mario kart is a nice locked 1080p60 though, and something like splatoon can be as well.

On the ps4 pro as well there are games that run worse because of the higher resolution, which in either its or the switch's case is totally pointless, games should look better but never at the cost of performance.

You are right. There are 2 games currently that do runs slightly worse in higher resolution on Pro: Skyrim and FF15. All the 81 others (of those we have fps videos) run the same or usually better in higher resolution on Pro.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1324251

 

[phoenix_chipset]

You are right. There are 2 games currently that do runs slightly worse in higher resolution on Pro: Skyrim and FF15. All the 81 others (of those we have fps videos) run the same or usually better in higher resolution on Pro.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1324251

And hopefully Zelda is as much of an outlier.
*Also tomb raider on PS4 pro had improper frame pacing, I think it was patched.

 

[JPT]

And hopefully Zelda is as much of an outlier.
*Also tomb raider on PS4 pro had improper frame pacing, I think it was patched.

Didn't all versions have improper frame pacing?

 

[Nesh]

And hopefully Zelda is as much of an outlier.
*Also tomb raider on PS4 pro had improper frame pacing, I think it was patched.

Yep they did patch it

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Digital Foundry: Is Zelda on Switch worth the upgrade from Wii U?
Digital Foundry presents initial comparison results.

Spoiler

No.

 

[Goodtwin]

Digital Foundry: Is Zelda on Switch worth the upgrade from Wii U?
Digital Foundry presents initial comparison results.

Spoiler

No.

This is a good thing for Wii U gamers who weren't itching to buy a Switch. Zelda BoTW is more or less the same experience on Switch and Wii U. There doesn't seem to be any major downfall to playing it in Wii U, other than portability.

The framerate stutters seem to come about for no obvious reason. Not sure if it's a bandwidth issue or streaming issue. Either way, I have four hours of Zelda docked gameplay, and while I notice the stutter, it's not been bad enough, or often enough to sour the experience.

Sent from my SM-G360V using Tapatalk

 

[function]

This is a good thing for Wii U gamers who weren't itching to buy a Switch. Zelda BoTW is more or less the same experience on Switch and Wii U. There doesn't seem to be any major downfall to playing it in Wii U, other than portability.

The framerate stutters seem to come about for no obvious reason. Not sure if it's a bandwidth issue or streaming issue. Either way, I have four hours of Zelda docked gameplay, and while I notice the stutter, it's not been bad enough, or often enough to sour the experience.

Sent from my SM-G360V using Tapatalk

I think it's a clash of both streaming and the docked mode, where higher resolution, improved texture filtering and the BW demands of streaming cause frame rate to dip under 30 hz and therefore straight to 20 hz (vsync double buffer feature).

If the game had triple buffering you'd probably see that the frame rate was well above 20 Hz when it drops.

A slight drop in resolution and/or a reduction in texture filtering quality would be a relatively easy patch, as would be adaptive vsync (probably, given Nvidia's doing the API and drivers).

Hopefully Nintendo can massage the problem away ...

 

[Deleted member 13524]

switch is a great portable, the greatest portable console even, but it's just a bad home console specs wise.
Hope it succeeds though, Nintendo is important in the gaming space, proof is the quality of the new Zelda.

The quality of the new Zelda makes me think how well it would look and play even on the Xbone, let alone a PS4 Pro or Scorpio.

 

[Karamazov]

The quality of the new Zelda makes me think how well it would look and play even on the Xbone, let alone a PS4 Pro or Scorpio.

Honestly, i wonder if it would look that much better, because Nintendo do great games,gameplay,art, sound, we can't deny it, but in my opinion, Nintendo have never pushed graphics on their consoles, the best looking games on Nintendo hardwares have always been from other devs, so i would not take Zelda as a benchmark of the switch power. I still think xenoblade X looks better on wii U.

 

[Globalisateur]

Honestly, i wonder if it would look that much better, because Nintendo do great games,gameplay,art, sound, we can't deny it, but in my opinion, Nintendo have never pushed graphics on their consoles, the best looking games on Nintendo hardwares have always been from other devs, so i would not take Zelda as a benchmark of the switch power. I still think xenoblade X looks better on wii U.

Maybe you should. Because this Zelda was co-developed by Monolith Soft. This would explain how Nintendo could finally do a competent open world Zelda in HD.

http://www.polygon.com/e3/2016/6/20/11978514/legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-monolith-soft

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's still a launch title port from a very different architecture. There's no way Zelda is going to represent the pinnacle of what Switch is capable of!

 

[Deleted member 13524]

https://np.reddit.com/r/cemu/comments/5xpis9/cemu_173_preview_botw/

It might just be that the prettiest way to play BotW will be in the PC after all.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Promising, but not sure how you get to that PC could be the prettiest way unless you mean in the future. That video shows terrible framerate and missing grass so is less pretty than the console versions.

What would be funny is an emu on UWP on Scorpio playing Zelda in better quality.

 

[ProspectorPete]

https://np.reddit.com/r/cemu/comments/5xpis9/cemu_173_preview_botw/

It might just be that the prettiest way to play BotW will be in the PC after all.

Did your autocorrect mess up? The "shittiest" way to play BotW at the moment is PC, yes

 

[Silent_Buddha]

https://np.reddit.com/r/cemu/comments/5xpis9/cemu_173_preview_botw/

It might just be that the prettiest way to play BotW will be in the PC after all.

Ah, the results of basically using an SOC that is an open book (well documented, and documentation for the architecture available to anyone). Should make creating an EMU relatively easier. Fairly impressive for only a few days work. But a long way to go before it's prettier or even as fast as playing it on the Switch.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rodéric]

It's still a launch title port from a very different architecture. There's no way Zelda is going to represent the pinnacle of what Switch is capable of!

I'd hope so at least ^^

 

[Allandor]

Ah, the results of basically using an SOC that is an open book (well documented, and documentation for the architecture available to anyone). Should make creating an EMU relatively easier. Fairly impressive for only a few days work. But a long way to go before it's prettier or even as fast as playing it on the Switch.

Regards,
SB

You know this is the emulated WiiU version, don't you?
Just because you mentioned "well documented ..."

I'm curious what's responsible for the sometimes bad framerate in Zelda on the Switch console ... handheld ... well maybe "handsole".
- CPU
- Memory Bandwidth
- GPU

 

[phoenix_chipset]

You know this is the emulated WiiU version, don't you?
Just because you mentioned "well documented ..."

I'm curious what's responsible for the sometimes bad framerate in Zelda on the Switch console ... handheld ... well maybe "handsole".
- CPU
- Memory Bandwidth
- GPU

*Based on Digital foundry's numbers*

Can't be the cpu since it runs perfectly fine in handheld mode, which has the same clocks as when docked. There's no extra AI or cpu intensive tasks when the game is docked.
Can't be the gpu either since the extra speed when docked is enough for 1080p > 720p (exactly enough, actually) let alone 900p > 720p.

Both the cpu clocks and gpu clocks of the console were well thought out ; keeping the same cpu speed so the core game is the same in both modes, and allowing for 1080p over 720p when docked.

It's no doubt a combination of bandwidth and rushed development. And shittastic double buffering of course. Coming from Nintendo it's actually shocking they skimped on the bandwidth department, that's been one of their main concerns since at least the gamecube (and I think N64 had a lot of bandwidth as well?)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Not that surprising. Their solution has typically involved eDRAM which just isn't an option with a generic part. The moment they chose 'not custom' and 'mobile' (and 'cheap'/'not bleeding edge') they were going to suffer from low bandwidth.