We found out recently that Overcooked is destined for the Nintendo Switch which pleased many. Technology publication Digital Foundry have gone hands-on with the Switch version and have produced the video below giving their verdict. Interestingly, the site says they can not recommend the Nintendo Switch version of Overcooked in its current state. Here’s a summary thanks to NeoGAF member Plum.
- Runs at 1080p in docked and 720p handheld
- Good use of HD Rumble
- Severe performance issues, mostly runs at 22-26fps w/drops lower
- Judder and bad frame-pacing makes things even worse
- Potential for improvement (e.g. Bomberman which also ran on Unity)
- Dev team fully aware of the issues
Rushed port job?
Wow, usually Indies aren’t rushed but I guess Team 17 doesn’t know how to managed teams, let alone publicity
Seems Unity isn’t necessarily the best/easiest engine out there, at least when porting to Switch perhaps. As mentioned above, Bomberman figured it out and it’s buttery smooth now, but just seems odd that an engine of that caliber has issues like this. It seems like an engine that needs more optimization to run as smooth and efficiently like UE4 does.
Getting UE4 to run smoothly really isn’t any easier than Unity. Speaking as a game dev here. Both engines are incredibly big, complex and flexible and while this is their biggest strength, it’s also their biggest weakness, since this means there’s some compromises and it’s way harder to develop a game with good performance and even simple things can already have severe performance implications when not dealt with. For example: When you create a new project in UE4 with absolutely nothing in it and try to run it on a PS4, it will run at 30 FPS only, because in its default state, UE4 is already too demanding to run in 60 FPS on the PS4. You actually have to disable a couple of features before 60 FPS on the PS4 even become possible.
In general, getting to run a Unity or UE4 game at stable 30 FPS (or even 60 FPS) requires some expertise and polishing. It’s way easier to get good performance with custom engines, since you have control over everything and know much more about your code than if you were working with UE4 or Unity.