Nintendo could learn a thing or two. Their first party games literally do not have any anti-aliasing at all, they look disgusting. It's doubly sad because they were pioneers with the N64, it had hardware-level anti-aliasing and it was the best on any console before the HD era. I have no idea what they're thinking on the Switch, third-parties use proper AA and they don't.
Because Gamefreak doesn't give A F. They know people will buy the games no matter what. If Nintendo actually owns the IP, they'd have better developers on the job
Meanwhile Xbox One port: barely playable At least that's what it looked like the last time I played it Yeah, Ik about the HDD and stuff, but come on, why X1 port plays worse than Switch port?
Hello Games making a custom version of FSR 2 for the Switch is quite impressive. I think they may be the first and only developer thus far to actually get FSR 2 running on the Nintendo Switch and I can only hope that other studios are able to implement similar changes to their games on the Switch because the visual quality difference is quite amazing. I now kinda wanna see Nintendo do something similar with TOTK, upgrading from their FSR 1 use to a custom version of FSR 2 which hopefully improves the image quality without negatively affecting the performance.
@@mikeyytube00 what a unnecessary comment. High resolutions arent important. What’s important is how the gameplay feels and how it looks on the specific device.
Very impressed by the NMS FSR2 implementation. One of Switch's biggest issues is image quality especially with ambitious ports like this. Looks super clean and stable, just goes to show what can be achieved on this hardware when you put in a little more optimization effort. Fantastic job by Hello Games.
I wouldn't call any switch optimization "small". Because of how weak and underpowered it is ( Tegra X1 can run up to 2.1 GHZ, why limit to 0.8? ), work devs have done to put on this console that's weaker than the device you're watching right now is insane
I wouldn't call it a little more, it cost time and money to optimise games and it becomes harder on weaker hardware. In the case of No Man's Sky, the developers have continued to support that game with new contents, so for them, it's more worthwhile in them cleaning up the port, but in most cases where developers move on, it's likely not worth putting the extra work in. Still, I've got to say that I'm impressed with this custom FSR implementation, considering how low the base resolution is, the image looks a lot more stable, whiles being on the soft side, it looks a lot cleaner than it did, and it makes me wonder if the same tricks could work on FSR on the PC and consoles to get better results out of lower resolutions, with the results likely being better than the Switch because hardly any PC or console game would drop as low of a resolution that the Switch does, so the same tricks on PC and consoles should look far more stable and with less blur because the starting resolution is higher.
@@izznazhanzur it’s limited because of the power budget and battery draw but yes, these are very conservative numbers regardless. Funny how much more capable it becomes once unclocked.
FSR implementation is a interesting subject. Sure it's not DLSS, but when used within its limitations and with sensible choices it a great option. It also looks like Hello Games have really used it to their advantage. The switch is an awesome "handheld" and still amazes me with what it can do taking into consideration its hardware and power limitations etc.
I get the impression that with enough attention and care, developers can get good results out of FSR, but I feel that because developers are focusing on 2 or 3 upscaling tech, the fine-tuning results take a backseat and the quality suffers. It does kinda indicate that developers need to pick one and put more effort into the fine-tuning process and not support all 3, with FSR making more sense across a wider range of hardware, maybe XeSS if it works well enough.
We are kind of unfair to the hardware when we talk like that because the hardware may have limitations but the chip inside a Switch console is only half used at best. The specific hardware could do much better in a different system.
@@paul1979uk2000 I disagree. We need all 3 for competition sake. I am sick and tired of just 2 companies being recommended to people by basically every tech tuber. On forums it's probably much the same.
@@paul1979uk2000 XeSS cannot even work on the switch. It doesn't have the required matrix instructions for its algorithm. For comparison, it has shader model 6.0 compared to the 6.7 of the now historic GTX 900 series. It is basically a low power 800 series. Cheap mobile phones today have a better GPU.
It's amazing what you can do when you put a little effort and time into optimization. Many dev studios have no excuse for the way they release their titles these days.
@@InhabitantOfOddworldtrue it's not entirely the developer's fault sometimes the Publishers gets too involved and then they can't work the best that they possibly can
Warframe deserves special mention. It's impressive how much Digital Extremes has been able to optimize their engine from its launch day state to its currently released campaigns on the system. It's complete night and day.
@@willwunsche6940 Yes, Warframe was one of the early "impossible ports" for the system alongside DOOM 2016. I recall DF showing some of the open-world HUB areas in the game (Cetus, namely) where performance ran horribly with dynamic resolution scaling the lowest in those areas. Now those area look sooooo much sharper and perform at a more solid framerate. Gameplay in the open-world areas themselves show the same remarkable improvement compared to launch day.
@@packlesswolf1 Err...misread your post. My bad. Warframe doesn't have FSR2 on Switch...yet. (Would immensly benefit from such a solution though.) I thought you were talking about No Mans Sky, where the Switch version 4.4.0 and subsequent versions got delayed by about a week due to the usual lot check. Also, I was comparing launch day Warframe to the latest current version out right now.
It’s really cool what they did to fsr 2 on no man’s sky. It honestly looks more stable than standard fsr 2 (albeit maybe less detailed). I wish more games had a “low cost” solution for upscaling that focuses more in eliminating artifacting than properly increasing detail for low powered pcs (both old and portable), as I find myself relying on on inhouse TAAU more often than not on steam deck. Maybe if amd themselves had a “light” version of fsr, this would be more widespread.
Yup, someone out there published an optimized version of FSR for mobile phones, bringing the cost from 6.3 to 2.0 milliseconds on iPhone 12. I wonder if someone will put out similar work for FSR2
@@BigCheeseEviefsr 2 is good but the issue is ghosting on anything in motion. Dlss has a lot less of that. Its still a lot better than most standard TAA though. Just look at DOOM Eternal or Xenoblade on switch. If those had fsr 2 theyd look much better Actually xenoblade 3 does have some taa upscaling and it looks a shit ton sharper than xenoblade 2 despite having the same internal resolutions pretty much
the amazing work they put into no man's sky really contrasts with the ridiculous performance issues that are still present in the GTA definitive collection. The "newest" game in that still predates the Switch by over a decade.
fair play to hello games for what they have done with nms. unlike some companies who i won't mention (activision/ea/blizzard etc) who only care about profit. hello games actually cares about their games and have done sterling work to redeem themselves. well done to all of the staff at hg.
I thought you guys forgot about the Switch third party games, so I'm super delighted with this video. There has been so many post-launch updates and while Switch is still underpowered, the developers deserve some props for the magic they manage to squeeze out. Thanks for the video!
AMD has been a godsend for sharing their technology. RSR is crazy and FSR2 and 3 seems to be very impessive too . Can't wait to see their 8000 series of APU on handheld pcs !!!!
My problem with the Switch version of Outer Worlds is that each loading screen was literally 1 minute, compared to a few seconds on any other platform. I wish this video would have addressed if this has changed at all.
It is pretty long, I think the Witcher 3 was longer. It's not ideal but I just use that time to browse my phone. What I can't stand on Supernova is that the game saves JUST BEFORE you enter a new location. Would it have killed them to save the game once you have entered? It would have reduced the loading time by half as you would only go through one loading screen then.
FSR2 makes an incredible difference to the Nintendo Switch's dock mode, No Man Sky is so much better now. I would love if games like The Witcher 3, Pokémon Scarlet/Violet or even Tears of the Kingdom received an update adding FSR2 but I don't think that will happen as we will probably see the Switch's successor next year and the interest in working with the original Switch it should unfortunately decrease.
I've no clue what was Remedy thinking porting Remastered version to Switch instead of the original Alan Wake from 360, it would look and run so much better. Unless Microsoft has some sort of ownership over the original version? That seems like the only reasonable explanation.
It's for the same reason they released GTA definitive edition instead of OG GTA Trilogy, same reason they release Skyrim Anniversary instead of OG Skyrim, etc... These people don't go back and work on the OG versions of games, to some extent the developers have probably forgotten how to work with some of that old code, or they may have misplaced or lost it, this is not uncommon. Even if the devs wanted to work on it, shareholders don't like to greenlight a simple port. Look at all the blowback from RDR1 port to PS4 and Switch, fans were mad it wasn't a whole remaster. I personally like straight ports on games that already look and run good, but you can see how upset some fans get. That is why they don't port games, people call it "lazy" not knowing all the work that goes into it. To me it's more efficient, than making a new version of a game that never needed a new version, the original is still great!
It's way easier to port a current gen version to Switch and make cutbacks than it is to port the last gen versions. Switch and make upgrades. Switch is still an 8th gen system in terms of architecture and back-end. It's way more similar to Xbox One and PS4 than it is to 360 and PS3 when you're coding for it. Yeah, it sucks when you get results like Alan Wake, but there's a very good reason they do it that way.
The Switch is such a treasure for emulation. Games are usually like 20% the drive space and very optimized. I'm glad not every game is the Steam version cause that means every game would be 10-100gb. I know people complain about the Switch being outdated, but the limited hardware means Switch ports often run on mobile phones/Steam Deck very well whereas their PC/Steam versions won't be installable at all or have very large file sizes
It's partly because of having to get blood out of a stone whereas on the PC or other consoles, there's more power to play with so more developers get lazy with their optimisation. The switch being a large user base, forces many developers to get to the nitty-gritty when it comes to optimisation, but there is only so much they can get out of limited hardware and if the same effort was put into PC and other console games, the results would be a lot more impressive for the hardware level. At the end of the day, most publishers are going to take the easy option, more hardware power allows them to get lazy and careless on port quality and optimisations, that's unlikely going to change unless A.I. can optimise games for us.
@@paul1979uk2000 Yeah I got an RTX 3090 on my PC largely for that reason, it plays everything regardless of optimization. Other reason is the 24gb VRAM is clutch for machine learning. I'm worried about Switch 2 being more on par with modern consoles, file sizes will be huge and it will be harder to hit 60fps with emulation
No Mans Sky is amazing. Super recommend if the thought of an expansive open world exploration game is somethijg you're interested in. Its super relaxing after a long day of work.
Great video - it’s good to shine a light on games post-launch to see how they’ve improved. It’s something that generally isn’t addressed in game reviews
Well is a portable console that is very close to replacement. I wonder what they will do with the Switch 2. Some think that since Nintendo is cheap with Hardware they will just put 8GB and say is enough since they doubled the memory. Others say they will have to put 16GB to stay relevant in getting third party ports. Personally I see them going in the middle and putting 10 or 12 GB.
The rumors indicate 12 GB, but this can easily change even a few months before release. The Switch should have only 3 GB originally, but devs like Capcom convinced Nintendo a few months prior to release to include 4 GB for UE4 compatibility.
@@SIPEROTH I hope they go with 14gb and a slightly more premium pricey console but the 12gb rumors sound very realistic. Who knows what they end up deciding though towards it's actual launch
That's using software based FSR. If using hardware based DLSS likes in the coming Switch 2, it's game changer for Nintendo console, a big jump in graphics department likes jump from PS2 to PS3. Can't wait for a Switch 2
Only so much you can do on a hand-held. It's amazing some of these titles play as well as they do. Hats off to devs putting in hard work to get these ports running 👊
I'd love to know more about NMS in house engine. How did they integrate FSR "in the engine" pretty much natively? There's no way they could see this coming during development so it's pretty impressive it works like this IMO.
very impressive stuff. Happy for those gamers that only have a Switch enjoying the big performance updates. I don't think you mentioned how much shimmering was in No Man's Sky before the new update. It looks like a lot vs none now. Also I can't believe for Alan Wake they used the remaster as a base instead of the original. The Switch should be capable of running the 360 version at full speed or even 60 fps instead of the remaster at barely 30.
No Man's Sky's FSR2 implementation at such low internal resolutions looks better than most of AMD's first party "sponsored" titles implementations at much higher internal resolutions. I think there's some lessons to be learned by devs using the tech here, perhaps the non-external library structure is actually a boon for the tech?
It could be custom work but it could also be a lot of fine-tuning, which in the case of the PC, I feel a lot of games don't fine tune them for good results because many are supporting 2 or 3 upscalers, dividing resources and I suspect developers would get better results if they focus on 1 over 3 that works on a lot more hardware.
That's the flip side of current upscaling technology being very "plug and play" -- devs drop it in without thought and check if it actually looks good well after the fact. FSR can look really good if the dev team puts some effort into base image stability, but they rarely do. It's also why TAA tends to look like crap in most games nowadays.
It feels like No Man's Sky's team is always ahead of the curve on participating in technical stuff challenging themselves with stuff like PS VR 1, overhauls, PC VR, graphical overhauls, cross play, DLSS, PS VR 2, Mac port, etc. They just do stuff that makes you happy that other devs seem to shy away from until a sequel at least.
I hope Hello Games shares this FSR2 optimization they have done with other developers. It's quite a fantastic job. Also... it shows what a difference DLSS could make on a Switch 2 with actual Hardware support.
It is pointless to share because it is detail work based on their game and engine and way it works. Other developers can't use the same details because their games and engines works differently.
I think they set up a program to share a bunch of there procedural generation tech with other indie developers. Wonder if they learned anything super helpful about implementing FSR2 well
There needs to be more videos like this on coming back to releases especially on switch a year later to showcase performance patches which especially in this case makes all the difference
I'd like to note that the magic that Hello Games managed to work on the NMS Switch port would be impossible if FSR was a closed source technology like DLSS. It's a very good example of why making as much software as possible open source is so important.
Hush, you can't speak well of FSR on a DF video, or Alex will appear under your bed at night to smother you with a leather jacket! :) I'm joking, obviously, but sometimes it is quite depressing to see the vitriol and disgust in his tone and expression when he talks about the technology... Sure, It's not quite as good as DLSS, but to hear him speak, you'd sometimes think it's a crime against humanity.
Glad to see you guys doing videos like this. Switchup has been doing it for awhile but some games definitely deserve to be revisited because some studios are doing great work on Switch.
I still always find it impressive what they can manage on Switch, and with FSR. My OLED Switch is still one of my favorite pieces of hardware. Even Digital Foundry often really underestimates the battery life of the Switch. Especially with the later revisions of it and the OLED. I use it portable a lot and the average battery consumption (based on how much game demand) is usually between 10% to 15% per hour for the 3D games. Persona 5 Royal (which I played a lot off battery) always gets around 7.5 hours of playtime off the battery itself. I hope that the next Switch, using a much newer tech, can also have such great battery life, but I have a feeling (like the original switch revision) it'll probably be only 60% as long lasting on the first model. But needless to say, my OLED is a long life portable gaming device and I appreciate the convenience that gets me. While I love my Steam Deck, it really is more of a plug-in hybrid. It allows me to use it more places than at a desk, but outside of quick sessions, I'm always playing it plugged in within a couple of hours. My OLED, in the same time frame still has between 75%-80% battery, depending on the power demands.
Just goes to show how transformative FSR 2 can be for the current consoles. If developers put more effort into their implementations *cough*Bethesda*cough* you can get much better image quality and performance. While DLSS works better at these lower resolutions, it simply isn't available for these machines. I think with enough care and craftmanship devs could implement FSR 2 into their game engines to give an experience that is close to DLSS.
@@karehaqt Well they still are beaten hard by AMD powered Steam Deck, but I mean that's to do a with AMD's higher end CPUs (NVIDIA just uses some off the shelf ARM cores) and Nintendos insisting to go with the cheapest crap they can find. Just imagine what they could do with a proper AMD or NVIDIA offering...
@@Ultizer TSR is way worse... Also ML (it's not AI, no one has achieved AI yet or will anytime soon) it's only a way of easier creating that algorithm in the end all of these algorithms are just that, algorithms. It is just about how you tune it and which instruction set used (you can use ML to train an algorithm that doesn't use ML typical instruction sets as well, you could probably even improve FSR2 parameters with ML training as well, if AMD doesn't already do that). In the end ML is just usually easier to do, almost never the most optimal way.
I appreciate DF giving these efforts the attention they deserve, even though the games aren't the new hotness anymore. It's a way to reward the developers for their work and commitment to quality. Keep it up!
You guys really should have included Skyrim. The anniversary update brought improved ambient occlusion and it now has volumetric lighting effects. Recent updates also restored the frame rate to a mostly locked 30 FPS. It’s pretty great now.
Now its time to support these guys... they deserve it... look at the love theyve put into this port! I thought fsr2 was imposible on switch.... i didnt get how they were able to adapt it
Optimization is a lost art. Been working as a software dev for the last 23 years and I can safely say that nowadays most want to get an MVP out the door and don’t care about how it runs. It didn’t use to be like this, we actually delayed launch dates to make sure everything felt snappy on day one.
Given the ancient tech, it's amazing the results that some teams get out of the Switch. Really looking forward to part 2 (although really wish it was on a newer TSMC process).
@@andyenglish4303 As they often do 😁 Last I heard from DF, who I trust more than most, was Samsung 8nm, so I'll temper my expectations there. Anything better will be a bonus.
Love this kind of content. Thank you for taking the time to meticulously reevaluate these games as they've changed over time. This sort of information is immensely useful for the consumer.
No one is buying a switch to play these games, and anyone who is doesn't have a choice and doesn't care how the games run. This is literally just crappy viral marketing for Nvidia and Nintendo.
probably one of the strongest cases for FSR2 i've seen thanks to no man's sky. if only we had this technique for some nintendo games, let alone other suffering third party titles
Game is very bad optimized ..... nothing will change. Shaders are very simple in this game. So decrease resolution and upscale with fsr will take more time than rendering without fsr. Nintendo know you will buy this shit game, no matter fps, bugs, image quality ....
I really wonder how a custom FSR2 implementation could look like on Alien Isolation on the Switch, the image quality was already really good with CAS TAA, but FSR2 could take it one step further.
Common Hello Games W putting all that effort into FSR.
11 месяцев назад
If FSR were released with the switch SDK at launch, we wouldn't be so upset about switch ports, It's really amazing how it can change the game. The Switch 2 will be a game changing on performance for a Nintnendo console after all these years, thanks to DLSS and FSR.
FSR improves the image in the way we used to dream anti aliasing would. The detail isn't higher but all roughness, jaggedness and temporal crawling is solved making lower resolutions look pleasing
Played Alan Wake Remastered recently on switch in handheld mode, and I enjoyed the game, Aside from the downgrades, the game is still quite enjoyable from start to finish and I would think the cutscenes ran at a pretty good resolution. In a couple of months I'll come back and play it on PC
It would be nice if you could take a comprehensive look at the recent patch 4.04b for The Witcher 3 on Switch, as it makes further improvements to get the game closer to "next gen", as on other systems. Thanks!
No Man's Sky's standard TAA is very old and thus very unstable and blurry. On my PC, I get way more image stability both standing still and in motion even with FSR2 performance mode at 4k than I do with native 4K and TAA. Quality mode is far better looking than native 4k TAA. So it makes sense that they changed over to FSR2 in the Switch version.
DF did a video on Warframe back in 2018. A lot of work has gone into it since then visually it looks much better, wondering if DF could take a look again!
Honestly always been surprised at how much the Alan Wake gets knocked on the switch. Sure it’s QUITE as visually accurate but I bought it day one and it’s always looked and played really well on the switch.
I do wonder if we get a switch 2 or whatever that developers will be more interested in upgrading their ports for that at the least. You briefly showed Nier at the end there, if that could hit 60fps or if the visuals were upgraded just a little it would be incredible.
That comparison of Alan Wake Remastered vs the 360 version is insane. I've never played the game, but holy hell does the 360 version look lightyears more visually interesting than the remastered version. Damn.
A post release repair job is great - but trying to port heavy modern 2020's games to an old mobile phone and charging $60 or 70 for the experience is pretty poor - as seen in the case of Mk1. It seems like a cash grab to me. They should be put into a Switch 2 dev kit and released next year in playable (and enjoyable) releases if you are going to charge that kind of money
It shows what happens when effort is put into the Switch version of a game. NMS looks great, and the huge Patch for MK1 made the Switch version look a lot better.
Just recently I've heard that MK11 also got quite better with later patches, but I never got to check myself. I don't know if it's possible to make a part 2 of this video but if it is, I'd love to see that one included! (especially with all the chaos surrounding MK1)
MK11 runs and looks great. MK1 on the other hand…. Which doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to me because they made MK1 with the Switch in mind-so they didn’t need to port back any version already made. 🥴 it was literally developed alongside
I played through all of Outer Worlds and the main problem I noticed was performance tanking if I was moving around a lot of inventory. Exiting the immediate area seemed to improve things a bit. Also, when the DLC came in, the performance took a small hit.
GTA definitive edition is still one of the worst ports ever, despite the fixings. San andreas is not even starting anymore on my switch, with no reason. Stuck on infinite loading screen
I've been playing NMS on the Switch since the latest patch and it's great! It does crash on occasion but otherwise it's been great having the game in a portable format. I realised I enjoy it way more than playing on PC, I think the game works really well with the short gameplay sessions often associated with portable game consoles. I've had NMS on PC for years but I've never completed the game because I get burnt out on it. I can actually see myself getting to the end on the Switch version.
I think its one of those sort of games that just sits well as a handheld experience. There's another game I can think of that had an exceptional Switch port, to such an extent that playing it in handheld mode is arguably one of if not the best ways to experience it. Diablo 3.
