It was a glorious thing indeed to hear that The Witcher 3 is in development for the Nintendo Switch system. Many people refused to believe it would happen, but the game was announced during yesterday’s Nintendo Direct. The Witcher 3 Complete Edition will be available this year and the resolution has been announced for docked and handheld mode. The game runs at 540p in handheld mode and 720p with dynamic resolution when the Nintendo Switch is docked to TV. As long as the frame rate holds up it should be a great experience and a technical marvel.
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In the Switch’s power is it closer to Wii U or base PS4?
Hard to say, because all 3 are very different architectural. I would say on paper it’s much closer to the Wii U, but it’s much more modern from a technical perspective, that’s why all the Wii U ports run better on the Switch, with much less power consumption.
When did you stop rhyming? Since you’re in smash now , you’re better than that?
More like slightly below Xbox One.
The WiiU could not handle UE4
The WiiU used IBM powerPC CPU similar to the Wii (Tri core version of the Wii CPU) which was difficult to work with.
WiiU used Open GL on par with Direct X 10…. Switch uses Open GL on par with Direct X 12.
WiiU GPU performance was around 320GFlops… Switch is close to 1TFlop.. but slightly below it.
WiiU used 2GB DDR3 for Ram
Switch uses 4GB DDR4
WiiU used eDRAM to boost RAM speed but it was difficult to program for so it was largely unused.
Overall, Switch is more powerful than WiiU and leans much closer to the current gen consoles (Base Xbox One and PS4). That’s why it can get ports of games released for those console, whereas WiiU was skipped altogether.
Idk what you’re talking about but it sounds impressive.
Slightly below the XB1? LMFAO.
What are you smoking? The Switch doesn’t even come close to touching the XB1, in terms of power.
You say it’s slightly below the XB1 (again, lmfao) and then you go on comparing it to the WiiU…
?????
Sorry to break it to you, but the Switch is definitely closer to the WiiU in relation to power than to the XB1/PS4.
If we speak only in FLOPS, raw power.
WiiU : 0,35
Switch : 1 (near 3x the WiiU)
X1 : 1.31
So Switch is nearer to current gen than Wii U. But some other parameters needs to be taken into account : RAM quantity, bandwitch, cache … We can easily say that Switch is a X1 with a step lower on resolution :D With a mobility point of view, it’s an incredible portable console.
To come back to article, I was not impressed of trailer because of aliasing and blur on some parts. I never played Witcher 3 (waited for a badass PC), but this on the go version can be mine if portable mode is acceptable. On the Switch Pro/2, maybe the game be optimized and impressive #dreams
#my2cents
Wrong. The Switch isn’t at 1 tFLOPS, it has a downclocked chip and is at around 400-500 gFLOPS in docked, ~200 gFLOPS in handheld mode. Obviously doesn’t come close to the 1.3 tFLOPS XB1.
Combined with all the other parameters, the Switch is far behind the XB1 in terms of performance.
Your numbers for the WiiU are wrong as well btw, it’s at ~180 gFLOPS.
If we’re making a simplified version of this, the Wii U had supposedly a 17Gb/s memory bandwidth. Switch has 25.6 and PS4 has 176. GPU wise, the theoretical performance of Wii U was probably 352 GFLOPS (or 0.352 TFLOPS). Switch has 1 TFLOP and PS4 1.84 TFLOPS. Since Switch GPU is nVidia, it have a tendency, on PC at least, to have a higher gaming performance even though AMD(PS4 uses AMD) has more or same amount of flops. So Switch is probably not that far for PS4 on graphics, but other parts like CPU and Memory Bandwidth is quite far off; and somewhat better than Wii U.
Since THE Switch GPU*
or THE same amount of FLOPS**
not that far FROM PS4***
The Switch has a downclocked chip, it’s at 400-500 gFLOPS, actually.
The reason why nVidia chips perform better than AMD on PC despite having the same FLOPS is most likely due to nVidia having better and more optimized driver support for games on PC. Consoles have their own dev kits, so that’s irrelevant in their cases.
Yeah, (256 cuda cores x 768Mhz) x 2 FLOPS per cycle is 393 GFLOPS. I was sure it has more Cuda cores. Boost mose would give it some more juice, but not anything near 1 TFLOP
As you say, drivers play an important part. Forza on PC for example had better performance on Vega rather than GTX. But the new RDNA/Navi architecture from AMD does look decent enough and will make things quite different between AMD and nVidia. Though team green will still own red in raw gaming performance in the high end segment.
In simple terms it sits between Wii u and Xbox one. Don’t know why everybody is trying to throw techy terms in there. There’s too many variables so its pointless really lol
Yeah, we can all just speculate, but at least the numbers could give you a general direction that’s slightly more specified that “something in between something something”. But hey, the graphics are there on the Switch. Jugde it after what it presents, not by the specs. As Doom and Witcher has showed us; the console can surprise us big time.
This is so impressive! I really want to see the finished product!
The game looked like absolute garbage in the trailer, graphically. Actually blows my mind that people were actually impressed by it.
It’s an enourmes current gen game on a handheld console… even if compromises had to be made, it is impressive from a technical perspective, no matter how you look at it. I doubt you’ll find anyone saying the graphics are on par with the bigger consoles or the PC, that’s not the point.
It’s a handheld console with the handheld aspect being its main attraction point, but… Are you seriously gonna play this game in handheld mode? At 540p?? LOL. From the looks and sound of it, this game will be near unplayable and unenjoyable in handheld mode. And as the article says it right here, it’s only gonna be 720p “dynamic resolution” in docked mode. That’s just a fancy way of saying it’s not gonna stay at a constant 720p, that’s just the maximum resolution it will reach, but it will drop below that in certain situations. I don’t even want to think about the framerate dives.
They’ll have to cut so many corners, at that point I just can’t help but wonder – What for?? I don’t know why anyone would want to play a beautiful game like this in such a bad state. And don’t give me that “graphics don’t matter” bs, because this isn’t about graphics alone, these are issues that will affect the entire game experience.
What’s the point of porting it if it’s gonna run so poorly? Sometimes it’s better to not do something at all rather than delivering a bad product. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
I really like CD Projekt Red, and I commend them for trying to make it work with the subpar Switch hardware, I’m sure they can get the game to run, but it’s gonna be very, very far from pretty. Just seems like wasted time and resources to me. I hope Nintendo paid them generously for this waste at least, lol. I know I sure as hell won’t pay anyone to play a game that’s the epitome of low performance, let alone full price.
@Luna Why wouldn’t you play at 540p in handheld mode? I don’t get it. It’ll look a bit pixelated sure, but on the smaller screen, not all that bad actually. It’s likely to look a whole lot worse on your big screen actually, with all the graphical faults magnified and the deficiencies compared to current-gen consoles laid bare. The USP here is definitely handheld mode, and sure, it won’t look great, but it’ll be The Witcher 3 on the go, and that’s going to be enough to sell it to some people.
@Luna I guess you’re the type of person completely content to just sit quietly and do nothing while you’re pooping
@Anonymous
I wouldn’t play it in 540p in handheld mode because it’s gonna look like microwaved dogshit. The Switch screen isn’t *that* small, so yes, it will look bad for damn sure, especially in a game with a realistic style like that. Phone screens are smaller and games in 540p look pretty bad on them already. And if the Switch struggles to uphold a consistent performance in docked mode already, it’s definitely gonna show much more deficiencies in handheld mode.
There are interviews out there with Digital Foundry’s take on the performance of the game, and according to them too the resolution and framerate are only two of the many downgrades the game will see on the Switch. Textures, draw distance, shadows, details in the environment, those are all things that will look bad, and I genuinenly can’t see why anyone would want to play a game looking like that in 2019, most likely for full price too. It’s just laughable to me, honestly.
@Luna I think one has to keep in mind that not everybody has every console and a beefy gaming PC at home, especially younger players. Who will play this? You won’t, I won’t, presumably not many who frequent gaming news sites will, but I do believe there will be those who are fine with lower graphics and those who wouldn’t be able to play it otherwise at all. I agree with you that it won’t look great, but it doesn’t has to. It will _work_, people _will_ play it, and unless the port is _too_ bad, _any_ 3rd party support helps the Switch in the end, which is good for all of us.
@Luna
Hey hey? Do you absolutely know what the framerate is? Is it going to run horribly?
How do you know this? Based off of the trailer?
Switch has surprised us before and it may do it again. This could be running at a solid 30fps with no dips or frame pacing issues. We don’t know and I’m sure you don’t know based off of a compressed video.
Let’s wait and see first before making assumptions based on theoretical graphical performance.
THis is impressive, I can’t believe this big ass game is coming to the switch. I am very excited. It looks ok for a handheld mobile console. Very very impressive.
Still skeptical. I need to see performance on this. The trailer was severely downgraded in graphics department but I might be able to look it over if it’s a stable port since honestly on the switch is the only place I’ll be able to actually complete it.
Should have renamed it to “Switcher” xD
Imo 540p doesn’t sound very nice :v
I’ll still buy it tho (unless the frame rate is terrible).
If it can’t maintain a solid framerate, -let’s say 30fps because we know 60fps is a pipe dream- I’ll pass on it.
On a technical level though, this is pretty spectacular that it’s actually on the Switch. Even at 720p max dynamic.
As long as it looks better than that dreadful ARK port, I’m cool with it.
Keep in mind that it’s pretty common for games to not run at the full resolution the console is capable of. 540p on a 720p screen is noticable when you compare it directly, but while playing you might not notice it at all. The Xbox One version of Witcher 3 for example ran at 900p afaik, instead of at a full 1080p.
Everybody always acts like they know what the heck 540p and 720p etc. means. Heck, I barely have a bit of an idea what any of that technical stuff means. Even with frame rates. I never notice any problems with games, yet others make such a huge deal over it. Everyone tries acting like technical nerds.
I’m a much more simplistic person. If a game looks nice, that’s all that matters to me.
Because we know what it means….