Digital Foundry: Paper Mario Thousand-Year Door Switch is 900p docked & 640p handheld

The latest video game release tackled by the tech-focussed team at Digital Foundry is the long-awaited remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. The team has come away reasonably impressed by what Nintendo has accomplished with the remake despite it being 30fps as opposed to 60fps like the original. However, when it comes to the frame rate Digital Foundry say the Switch remake provides “a near-locked 30fps readout throughout our testing. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door runs at 900p when played in docked mode and 640p when played in handheld mode. Here’s some excerpts from their write up of the game:

This Switch Edition visual overhaul goes much further than I expected, though it very much keeps the core gameplay loop, level layout, puzzles, and dialogue from the GameCube original. There are reworked textures across almost every visible point in the world on the Switch version, while UI elements are reworked to suit modern TVs. Geometry is rebuilt from scratch for every level – and even 2D sprites are swapped out for full 3D replacements, often with the aim of emphasising the effect of cardboard cut-outs. There’s a huge amount of extra detail layered in. Crucially though, what’s here is still in keeping with the spirit of the original, even if textures and geometry are redesigned.

To cram all of these visual features in – the updated textures, lighting, shadows, SSR and beyond – Switch runs at a native 1600×900 while docked. In handheld mode, that drops to a lower native figure of 1138×640. As we often expect from Nintendo titles, there’s limited anti-aliasing in place here, so you may notice a slight shimmer across white character outlines. Despite the relatively low internal resolution figures here though, the game still looks beautiful on modern displays – it’s a proper widescreen adaptation, with a cleaned up UI and text to boot.

Finally, let’s tackle that drop from 60fps on GameCube to 30fps on Switch. The visual upgrades are extensive and generous, but the cost in performance is a noticeable one. Question being: is it too steep a sacrifice for the improved visuals, or a reasonable trade-off to get the game running at this level of visual fidelity? In the developers’ defense, the frame delivery is at least consistent at 33.3ms with almost no deviation, providing a near-locked 30fps readout throughout our testing.

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