The folks over at Digital Foundry love analysing the technology behind the latest games and this time around it is Super Mario Odyssey’s time. The team managed to spend some time with a preview build of the game during the latest Nintendo UK event and have captured their findings in the video here. NeoGAF member EuropeOG has provided a summary of their findings, which you can read below:
- 900p (locked) when docked
- 720p portable
- Locked 60fps docked and portable (minor random stutters during some menu overlays)
- Cutscenes run at a lower resolution
- Some improvements to bloom and LOD settings when docked
- Improved shadows when docked
- Better draw distance when docked
- No AA
- Some pop-in
- Photo mode is 30fps (minor graphical improvements for photo mode)
so digital fucktardery you was 2WRONG agin about the dockerd res
plebs
Spell check much?…
Guess not
wow, edgy language.
How? When they were playing 720p builds, they said it was 720p. The new build they played is 900p so they’re saying it’s 900p. In fact, back when they were talking about the older 720p builds, they speculated that the resolution might be raised to 900p before launch, and they were right.
Bare in mind folks. They have a preview build that is not representative of the final game. That doesnt come out until roughly 1-2 weeks before hand for all the reviewers!
Well obviously the PC gaming master raisins will be able to play it at 4k 60fps… in like 4 to 6 years because there’s no emulator yet LOL! Port begging master race :v
Actually, if I remember correctly, there is an emulator in development right now, that does function. Someone got a game running in it, but I don’t remember what one.
Pretty sure that wound up being bogus. That being said, the Switch just uses an 64-bit ARM chip with an Nvidia GPU that is nearly identical in architecture to older desktop GPUs. After making the JIT compiler and figuring out some of it’s APIs, it could theoretically require less emulation than the Wii U, especially for games that use Vulkan, because it wouldn’t even require the graphics API to be emulated.
Provided that Switch emulation could be done in a multi-core friendly way, it’s very possible that some current phones could run Switch games. All current high-end phones use newer and higher clocked ARM64 cores than the Switch so it would require no emulation of the instruction set. Those phones also have GPUs that outperform the Switch’s GPU in handheld mode and approach or exceed it’s docked performance. Because of Switch OS emulation and Android overhead, I doubt most Switch games would run at full speed, but running them at half speed doesn’t seem unrealistic… IF someone makes an emulator for them.
Cool. Game looks very fun.
again no AA? oh pleeease Nintendo ffs, it’s 2017, make it happen for Mario finally. My sore eyes…
Otherwise Rabbids Kingdom Battle will stay the best locking Mario game so far (in terms of technical fidelity)
AA LOL IT ONLY APPLYS TO BEING 3 INCHES FROM THE SCREENN AND IT CLEARLY DOES USE AA DIGITAL BULLSHITERY
AA is actually very important. It’s easy to tell when something is aliased from a distance, even at 1920×1080, which this game doesn’t run at. Trust me, I’ve made aliased art, and it doesn’t look very pretty unless it’s low enough res for that to be stylistic choice. AA can make a huge difference, especially when a game isn’t super high res.
I’m not completely sure that it does use AA. It definitely didn’t in the previous footage of the city because all the sharp, thin, high-contrast edges created a lot of flickering. I can see some stair-stepping in this footage but it’s not as apparent. It’s possible they used something like FXAA which would do a lot to lessen the aliasing.
Nintendo prioritise Frame Rate over Visuals, and the game does look beautiful and a lot of it isn’t too noticeable, or would you rather 30fps? I thought so
So glad that they managed to get 900p 60fps! This game will be the first ever open world 3d mario game to run at 60fps, and its absolutely gorgeous! Can’t wait for this game!
Have you ever been dissapointed by a main line Mario game?
I have not. And I wont be now … for sure.
Cutscenes at a lower resolution? That better not be the case with the actual game. I want the transition between the two to be seamless. In this day & age, there is no reason cutscenes should look worse, or better for that matter, than the gameplay engine itself. With today’s tech, CGI scenes just ruin the experience when a game actually lets you customize your character’s appearance but they suddenly change to their default look for said CGI scenes. It’s my only gripe with Nier: Automata.
I’m assuming that they’re lowering the resolution so that they can use more effects like bokeh, which would hide some of the additional aliasing in background elements, so it won’t be as jarring of a quality difference as the numbers would make it appear. Of course, I could be wrong. We’ll have to see.
Cutscenes don’t need to be pre-rendered to look better than the gameplay either. For example, since responsiveness isn’t required in cut-scenes, dropping them to 30p or even 24p could allow a bunch of higher quality effects and models as well as additional effects like motion blur while maintaining character customizations and clarity.