It seems that no game release is safe nowadays without frame rate graphs and resolutions being counted. That is fair enough, as games should ship in a competent and playable condition, but it's easy to forget that we're often spoiled in this modern gaming era. We gasp if gameplay regularly dips below 30fps, and with certain first-party (mainly) Switch titles and pretty much anything on PS5 / Xbox Series X|S, the expectation is often for a silky smooth 60fps. Oh, and resolution is supposed to stay high — we can't be having fuzzy visuals.
Yet some of us of a certain age remember a time when a lot of games were, technically, rather messy. Perhaps it was in the 'bit wars' era of iffy arcade ports, or even console exclusives that would have slowdown as a dramatic 'feature'. Oh and if you were a Nintendo 64 owner in PAL territories, you got used to pretty much every game feeling slow, and even the best games were prone to significant dips. Seriously, fire up the classic GoldenEye 007 nowadays and check out those frames, especially in multiplayer. It's brutal.
But actually, it's still fun. The thought for this article came up when playing a Switch game that dropped to extraordinary frame rate lows, yet I kept playing. And so a few members of the team have pitched in with games they play and enjoy despite their cardinal sin of not actually running well. Because a game being entertaining doesn't mean it has to be perfect.
In fact, in some of these examples, they're far from perfect.
Tom Whitehead, deputy editor
This thought came to me recently, after I'd crumbled and used some long-overdue Birthday money to pick up Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order in the eShop Cyber Deals; I even bought the expansion pack because why not. Because of the mixed things I'd heard about the game, 33% off maybe wasn't enough, but then I remembered it was published by Nintendo so that discount is about as good as it's going to get.
There were reasons not to buy it, of course — I'm playing it almost exclusively in single player, and in portable mode, and a 'One Year Later' review I watched said the grind to level up characters was very real. And yet, I couldn't resist. I enjoy the current Marvel films and TV shows, but I have treasured childhood memories of the '90s era cartoons, in particular X-Men and Spider-Man. They were the business, and when I saw that the game seemingly adopted that style (visually and in some storytelling) I had to have it.
The good news is I'm having a good time despite its flaws. The cutscenes are brilliant, I'm about two thirds through the initial campaign and have been dabbling in some of the easier challenge missions and add-ons. You tap buttons, use special moves and watch madness happen, and it's good silly gaming. Most of the levels have fantastic throwbacks and references, and there's zero doubt that the developers were more influenced by comics and cartoons than the blockbuster films. One level I've done so far was pretty irritating, but it's a game where I find it easy to work past its flaws. And the X-Men level — oof, so much good nostalgia.
All of the button tapping and on-screen shenanigans push the Switch hard, especially in handheld mode. It was when tackling a 'Danger Room' (or something, there's a bunch of modes) when I nearly broke the game. There were a bunch of big enemies on the screen and the gimmick was you could throw explosive cores to kill them quickly. Screen-filling enemies + multiple explosions = broken frame rate.
I could almost hear the CPU and GPU creaking and I was down to single digit frames in the final stretch of about 20 seconds. It was hard to see what was happening but I kept tapping buttons, even adding a special combo-mega-attack-thing to punish the Switch further. The countdown ended and... I had won, somehow.
It was gameplay that, if captured and presented by Digital Foundry would be absolutely shredded by critics. And yet I regret nothing. It was fun, even though it probably shouldn't have been.
Kate Gray, staff writer
I'm pretty un-sensitive to frame rates and resolutions, so a game has to be really bad for me to notice! That said... Control (Cloud Edition) had a lot of egregiously fuzzy bits because of the nature of the cloud streaming.
Compression apparently handles red-on-red very poorly, and Control has a lot of red. There were some fights that were a bit like trying to find your keys in a bowl of tomato soup with your face. Still, the game is extremely good, once you're back in the light!
Gonçalo Lopes, reviewer
Wrestling Empire is a hard sell. On still images it looks like something running on a fifth generation console. Giving the free eShop demo a chance may still be unconvincing due to the virtual wrestlers themselves struggling to even run properly to the ring without tripping over themselves. Yet this game keeps shining brighter and brighter thanks to 10 months worth of continuous updates by one-man: developer legend Mat Dickie.
Major bugs have all been ironed out but on occasion everything still goes horribly wrong and, when it does, I can’t help but laugh out loud at the on-screen absurdity. A price one must pay for the very first wrestling video game ever to allow thirty (fifty on PC!) wrestlers on screen at once, leading to a massive performance drop but unbelievable, absurd carnage both in and out of the ring.
Wrestling remains one of the few annoyingly sparse genres on Switch but thanks to Mat Dickie’s magnum opus every other attempt on the system by AAA developers just pales in comparison. A case of not judging a book by its cover, or for a more accurate description, the stumbling Sting facsimile attempting to setup a top turnbuckle missile drop kick into the announcer's table only to botch the spot and fall haplessly back onto the canvas. Ouch!
Alan Lopez, contributing writer
The name Super Baseball 2020 implies a bold proclamation: by the year 2020, all professional sports will be a literal pay-to-win spectacle performed by a litter of cybernetic avatars, ornate in homage to the past, but with the freakish super powers of the future.
In this version of 2020, headbanging throngs of blurry human flesh scream at the shiny and wildly attractive robots attempting — with foregone futility — to field baseballs hit towards them at 200 mph. They instead blow up after stepping on random landmines buried all over the outfield. In the future, onlookers have become accustomed to patiently waiting for pop-flies with 20-second hang times. Starting pitchers uniformly tire by three innings, unless the manager pays a few hundred bucks to enhance them. (They can use the money the umpires slip them mid-game.) Base-running is impossible.
This cacophony is my favorite digital interpretation of baseball. Baseball, after all, is a game of extreme nuance that has never translated particularly well to video games as a whole — only in pieces, as every swing of a Wii-mote reminds us. Thanks to Switch’s retro offerings here in the year 2021, I can easily return to this terrible NEO GEO arcade classic, as I’ve done time and time again going on 20 years. Why? Because despite the buttons that don't really work, the rigged gameplay, and the non-existent balance, it’s stuck with me as the most fun version of hitting a ball around that I’ve ever played.
I find that irony kind of fitting. After all, time isn’t a factor in baseball: you just keep playing until you fail the least.
Gavin Lane, editor
When Tom first posed this question, I had a hard time coming up with an answer because *adjusts tie in a smug fashion* I only play the good video games. No, but seriously, if I hear that a game is afflicted with terrible performance issues, I’ll typically steer clear, at least until patches arrive. It’s not like there’s a paucity of great software to play.
My greatest memories of dropped frames and stuttering gameplay mainly centre around 8- and 16-bit titles that ground to a halt when there were too many sprites on screen, but back then it was infrequent enough that I thought that was pretty rad, all told. Woah, this game’s so awesome my Mega Drive can’t even handle it!
But then it suddenly dawned on me – there could be only one answer to Tom's poser. If you’ll permit me the impertinence of quoting myself, I’ve previously discussed the perfect example: Deadly Premonition 2.
As you play, you know that it's a woeful underperformer on a technical level. You observe the slowdown and pop-in and crude PS2-era animations and acknowledge them as objectively terrible...
And yet you keep playing. And you keep playing. You complete the game. You go back to the game when a patch upgrades the frame rate from 'laughably atrocious' to 'plain awful', and you carry on playing. Incredibly, your takeaway impressions aren't sullied by its myriad shortcomings; legitimate technical criticisms are like water off Deadly Premonition’s duck's back.
And like a duck, it's ungainly, unsophisticated and hugely unimpressive compared to the magnificent video gaming beasts in the wild... but there's something irresistible about it. We're not sure we agree that the jank in SWERY's off-the-wall horror series is somehow necessary or part of the charm, but the fact remains that we came away from Deadly Premonition 2 filled with a deep and warped affection for it.
So there you have it: Deadly Premonition 2 — the worst-performing game that I’ve had a great time with.
Those are some of our picks for good games with bad frame rates / performance, but we want to know which games you love in spite of everything they do to try and make you hate them. Be sure to share some of yours in the comments!
Comments 101
Wanted to play SMTV but just could not stand the poor framerate, made my head hurt
The switches hardware is crap compared to other consoles so of course it's going to have the lowest resolutions & frame rates
Get your hardware and software to the point where 60fps is the bare minimum for all games going forward without sacrificing visual fidelity and people will stop giving a ***** about framerates. But that would mean Nintendo (and Sony and Microsoft to a lesser extent) would actually have to put effort in for once.
Frame rate does matter. It's reasonable when you might into a few small dips here and there, but when you start falling into the single digits number then that's a problem. People spend 60$ (now 70$!) to be able to sit down and not be frustrated watching still images.
I find 30fps hard to deal with these days, a game has to be exceptional for me to play it at 30 (BOTW, Animal Crossing).
Goldeneye and Mario 64 are two of my favourite games ever, and I still enjoy them to this day. But again, they are exceptional, plus nostalgia factor.
Overall though, 60 is a big pull for me. It's not just about response times or sense of speed, 30 literally hurts my eyes. Put it this way, I'd take 480p60 over 1080p30 without thinking twice, for any game.
Mario Odyssey and Mario Kart 8 are probably my 2 favourite Switch games, no doubt helped by their silky smooth 60fps visuals/gameplay.
Some bad frame rates give me a genuine headache, Control on PS4 comes to mind. Some games are fine though, Deadly Premonition for sure, as well as lots of N64 games. 60FPS does feel great though, very much a bonus. Resi Village runs in roughly 45-60 FPS on PS5 but it’s perfectly playable imo.
I typically don't have a problem with frame rate as long as it's stable. I think JRPGs can get away with not having consistent 60 FPS since a lot of the time you are just choosing cycling between options to choose from, but close to 30 is a must. I personally don't understand a lot of the hype for squeezing out as much FPS as possible because I tend to get motion sick when playing 60 FPS games. I just don't feel good when I'm viewing something that comes close to reality, but in reality I'm not moving at all -just sitting still. With lower frames, it gives my mind a chance to remind myself the games aren't real
It's going to differ from person-to-person based on how sensitive they are to framerate fluctuations. I can deal with low-ish framerates if they're mostly stable, but I don't think I could play a game like Deadly Premonition 2, based on some of the footage I've seen.
At the same time, though, there is something of a culture of performance fetishism that has creeped into the gaming community in the last few years that bugs me.
In general, I'm not one to judge the preferences of others. Especially as a partial PC gamer who is used to playing AAA games at 60+ fps. But 30fps is perfectly playable and enjoyable. Until last year, it was what the majority of games on power consoles were targeting, and people enjoyed those games just fine.
I won't pretend like higher framerates aren't obviously better, but I also can't take people seriously who act like anything under 60fps is a slideshow. Especially as I get older and increasingly lose my patience with stupidity.
@valharian SMTV works absolutely perfectly fine apart from a few built up areas where it’s slightly noticeable. It really shouldn’t determine whether you play the game or not. Unless it really is giving you a headache, which I find astonishing.
It's funny how back in the day frame rate issues could add to the experience. There was something cool about the way games slowed down when there was bunch of stuff on screen. It made some shooters easier since you had more time to react.
Kirby's Adventure is one of my favorite games ever but if it released today, people would spend their time talking about how badly it runs instead of how good the game is. I still find it funny that the game seems to do a collision check for every frame when going through a Shotzo while invincible.
I'm not saying games shouldn't run great. I'm just saying that the perception has changed over time and people know now that frame drops don't happen on purpose.
For me, 30 FPS are sufficient to enjoy a game. But they have to be stable - for the most part. Unfortunately, there are a lot of ports on Switch, that can’t deliver 30 FPS without regularly dipping into the low 20s. All Compile Hearts ports come to mind.
Talk of frame rates is just a numbers game like the bit wars back in the day. I really don’t care, as long as the game is stable and runs as intended.
People who don’t touch a game unless it’s 4K 60FPS are nothing but entitled, spoiled internet brats.
For me, I guess it depends on the game and the nature of the framerate issues.
Frame drops and stuttering take me out of the experience. I stopped playing Death Stranding because of that. I put it down last year (after about 20-30 hours) until I could buy a better computer. (Which I just did, so I guess it's time to restart it.) A few years ago, I did likewise for Nier: Automata, just quit and picked it back up once I upgraded.
If it's consistent, though, I can adjust to low framerates, like with Ocarina of Time. Especially so if animation and movement are tied to that frame rate.
There are limits, of course: Star Fox for the SNES is a fine game, as I discovered last year, but the framerate is nauseatingly low. I soldiered on, but it wasn't wholly enjoyable. Stunt Race FX was even worse. I tried it on NSO and I was actually impressed with the track design and general vibe, but it's unplayable for me at that framerate.
Of course, 60 fps or higher is usually preferable, but I dislike the framerate wars being fought on comments sections. They're boring and filled with terrible arguments.
I'm currently 4 hours into SMTV but man is the performance rough. "It doesn't matter in a turnbased game" doesn't really hold much water when you spend just as much time running around in the overworld as you are spending in battles. I really wished they managed to target constant 30 fps. That said, it takes more than that to make me abandon a game but it certainly muddies my opinion on it.
@Would_you_kindly Of course but good luck getting hardcore fans to admit such a thing. According to many peeps, low fps is fine, nah the blurry resolution doesn't bother me.
One can still enjoy the switch yet be critical of it's shortcomings. At some point Nintendo fans have to stop excusing every last thing.
Performance is only a problem if it interferes with your ability to actually play a game.
I see a group of people determined to ROM hack every SNES game to "FastROM" just to squeeze a couple more FPS out of games.
In my day I played Super Mario World and loved it even when the occasional frame drop happened.
I think it's just that higher definition has made people more picky.
Oh yeah, I don't know what people grown on modern gaming would think of the RF hell we had to endure back in the day. Somedays we couldn't see our game AT ALL.
I don't care if the game is 30, 60, or even cinematic 24 as long as it's consistent 99-100% of the time. Roller coaster frame rates/times are what really ruin the gameplay. You can blame optimizations and lazy devs, which are true in some cyberpunky and auto thieving examples, but in many cases, the hardware is also to blame.
Switch has a cpu and ram limitation that makes cpu heavy and open world games run like a bent bike. Occasional dips are fine if the scene gets too crowded, but in many switch games, it's more too often even when they aren't.
As long as it does not interfere with great game play, then I do not give a damn about frame rate, I mean if the frame rate is so bad it makes the game unplayable, then OK but as long as the game play is great a little fuzzy graphics is not going to stop me from enjoying a great playing game.
@valharian you are loosing one of the best RPG on switch for... some frame rate drops... good choice
@WaffleRaptor01 my thoughts exactly I still enjoy playing my retro consoles so I don't need the best graphics to enjoy a game but with modern gaming developers are wanting to move on from older less capable hardware & soon they'll be making games that aren't cross platform & will be exclusive to next gen consoles (I don't have one yet use my PS4 pro for most games)
People like to knock The Outer Worlds but it is one of my favourite games on the switch. To me it seems to play well but what do I know I’m a 90’s gamer who still love me Banjo And OOT. I get it when a game is broken and bugs galore like the new GTA trilogy but I think some people just hate on not perfect performance even if it doesn’t really effect gameplay or enjoyment. It’s like the ‘in’ thing to do these days especially specifically at the Switch games.
It's weird, I seem to be more tolerant of low framerates on Nintendo systems than Xbox. Like while Age of Calamity's framerate was really bad, I still had fun but a lot of Xbox games released after 2017 I just can't tolerate the framerate being so rough that I'd stop playing and just wait until I got a Series X (which I have for a few weeks but don't have enough memory space because I forgot Series X|S enhanced games can only be installed on the internal drive or the Seagate SSD expansion card so have to wait longer).
Anything below 256.7fps literally hurts my eyes so hard I have to gauge them out and replace them. It’s so annoying.
Long live Stunt Race FX
A bad frame rate doesn't matter if it's sporadic. A consistently bad frame rate can ruin a game's experience. Old NES/SNES games that had to dynamically lower frame rate to be able to display what was on-screen was for the most part, bearable. Jarring framerates from certain games on the Switch, are not.
If it hurts your eyes, it's bad. Simple
The absolute minimum for me is 30fps. Doesn't mean I won't play a game because of poor performance, but I would want to be aware of it before purchasing.
But if it was painful to my eyes, I'm not buying it, I already have bad enough eyesight.
Still have Deadly Premonition 2 unopened in my collection, I will play it sooner or later.
I also really enjoyed Disaster Report 4 on Switch, even if the performance was pretty bad.
But with a PS5, I'm used to high standards right now. Almost no load times and high frame rates. I think, 120 fps is overrated. And since games, who feature this, have no Ray Tracing or high resolution, so absolutely useless to me besides 2D games.
The Switch is not built to play most games, other that Nintendo and basic indi games. The rest are suck it and see or read a good review or two first.
I have read half a dozen reviews of Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny and they all comment on the frame rate and resolutions.
Apparently the game has four or five setting adjustments but none work well. Yet it runs ok on the PS4.
So either this is a lazy Switch conversion or lazy Switch hardware.
Maybe reviewers need to realise that the Switch has its limitations and don't just point out the issues, but mark the game down for being a bad port, instead of praising the makers for getting it to run on the Switch as though this was some great achievement. "The game looks a mess but at least you can play this mess on the go".
I’ve become used to 60fps recently but can readjust quite quickly back to 30fps. However I struggle going back to below that.
However good games are still good games even with bad framerates. Digital Foundry, who I’m a fan of generally, and others use terms like “unplayable” when a game has an inconsistent frame rate. It’s total hyperbolic BS.
@themightyant
People misunderstanding what they’re talking about is probably the reason From Software still gets away with hideous frame pacing in their games despite them being execution and timing focused.
@Meteoroid Ok who said anything about the switch needing to be as powerful as home console? Does that excuse that it's current hardware age is showing where even first party titles and console exclusives games are having trouble? SMT V has some performance issues and that game was designed for the switch.
The switch is not equipped to handle some of the big titles in it's current state. No one here is asking for the next playstation but it would be nice to have a steady frame rate.
If you won''t give devs a free pass then you shouldn't give Nintendo a free one either.
Most of the time, a frame from doesn’t bother me. The worst I’ve seen on a decent game was blighttown back on ps3. Still playable, but very noticeable. Never bothered me and I never felt like it affected the game for me. However, the worst I can remember was oblivion in ps3, where the game would crash when it rained in game. That’s unplayable and shouldn’t ever be allowed. I am content with a locked 30fps for most games. 60fps is nice for the faster paced games, but it has to be locked in because I think any drops are more noticeable.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity got a lot of hate but I really enjoyed that game!
Framerate always matters.
Always.
@Would_you_kindly
That's unless the developers know their limits and make smaller games. Just look at Splatoon, for example.
At this point I'm convinced gamers will just take anything. In that case this a good note to devs to not bother making a polished game anymore. As long as it technically "works" that's good enough.
That'll be an extra load off developers backs.
For me when a game requires fast movement, aiming or platform jumping then those games need to have a stable 60fps option at the cost of graphics.
When it is a menu based game like a turn based game then I am not so picky on the frame rate but that depends on the type of turnbased though. If it Final Fantasy games then it needs to be atleast a stable 30fps with the exception of 1-3 and 10 where I don't mind it as much as you can take your time with your actions.
@themightyant Well I can understand why you think that with the term unplayable. I think a better term might be unenjoyable. But put it in a sentence like " The game can become unenjoyable with the inconsistent frame drops"
There are a lot of variables to consider.
To me the most important variables are the genre and the consistency.
For a lot of genres 30 fps would be the standard and the experience would mostly remain the same for games that fall into RPGs, Action, Adventure, and others similar to it.
An RPG for example I would argue framerate matters the least since they player slow past compared to other genre, especially if its turn based combat like Dragon Quest, Octopath, Braveley default etc. Even with more action oriented games or RPGs like Monster Hunter the framerate has always ran at 30fps and the experience was still fun, fast paced combat.
Now for much faster paced genres like shooters, fighting games and platformers I would argue 60fps should be the standards, especially for fighting games where performances effects everything in a match. Any fighting game that plays under 60fps is unacceptable. For shooters that can be just as hectic performance is very important as well and can be a deal breaker for some. For instance I refuse to play Fortnite with my friends on my switch because 30 fps feels god awful on it especially when every other version runs the game at 60fps, even on mobile. And this is an even bigger deal when crossplay is involved where now you're at a disadvantage and just asking to lose.
And lastly the consistency is very important as well. How often does the framerate drop for example?
Does it only drop in certain areas in the game? Or are the frame drops frequent throughout it? Are the frames decreasing significantly? Is it just a small dip in performances just heavily exaggerated? Or does it drop to borderline unplayable?
If its only in some small parts of the game or situation moments like xenoblade 2 or and botw then its negligible imo.
But to sum it up framerate/performance DOES matter and can be a deal breaker for some people depending on how consistent or severe it is.
Owning and Xbox Series X has afforded me the ability to go back and forth with frame rates. So, I played Sonic Generations and it's apparently 30 FPS on Xbox 360, so I tested out the frame rate boost feature and went back to 30 FPS from 60. While I noticed a difference, it really didn't strike me as much as much as I thought it would. Then, I tried out Fallout 4 with the FPS boost. Again, I noticed a difference but it wasn't drastic to me. So, I switched back to resolution mode and I actually prefer that because it looks so much better in 4K than 900p(or so). I played about an hour of each in each mode of each game to get a decent feel, just as an fyi.
I also played RDR, which doesn't have FPS boost. Not at all to my surprise, I find the game to be excellent. It also looks great in 4K.
My experience with frame rates on Switch is about the same. I sort of notice the difference but, to me, the DF-style criticisms of performance in games seems overblown. Don't take my experience as me saying devs shouldn't try to optimize their games, just that I don't really notice the difference between 30 and 60 FPS.
Also, I didn't mind AC IV on Wii U until I went back to it years later. The frame rate seemed fine to me at first and Idk for sure how much it'd bother me now unless I re-install it.
Interesting topic. Now, for me, The performance of a game, when it's really nothing more then "Oh no! All the hairs on the models in game look horribly fuzzy and it looks like play dough for most of the models!", I'm fine. This article appears to mostly be talking about Graphics and frame rate, and whether they deserve to be included in the conversation or not though. To be honest, I must really be lucky with my purchases, as i cannot recall any games with that kind of performance issues that really bothered me. I mean, I Finished watch_Dogs on WiiU and got some enjoyment out of it AND thought that the technical downgrades on Hellblade on switch actually helped out thematically, so that should really say something about my standards.
But then the thought came into my head. "Wait, there was... The one where..." But i could not remember for the life of me which one it was. I Racked my brain, tore apart my game collection and rapidly said "Think! Think! THINK!" to my constantly slapped forehead until the game that was torturing me came to mind- Epic Mickey 2 The Power of 2 on WiiU. HOLY COW. The game will slow down even when everything's on screen and accounted for, which i can only assume is some magic trick gone horribly wrong or the game being rushed for WiiU (Which i mean, yeah, sure, i won't disagree with you there). I Bring it up because it actually made some parts harder for me.
But yeah, the reason I'm commenting on here is because frankly I'm fine with choppy performance as long as the game doesn't crash at every given opportunity or have some kind of a glitch up that has you holding your Butt with every loading screen hoping that THIS is the time nothing screws up. Then again, i only stopped playing Blacksad under the skin (Which has all the aforementioned issues and more!) because I've gotten stuck on a puzzle near the end of the game and am too afraid to look up a walkthrough because I'm a wuss for spoilers.
Speaking of digital foundry, i wonder what they think of all this. Can someone get this article to them and ask for their input on making everyone pay more attention to the inner workings of a game then they likely should? I'm genuinely curious.
Whenever frame rate comes up, the one game that instantly comes to mind is Spinch. I haven't played other versions besides the Switch one, but the framerate inconsistencies made that game much more difficult that it should have been. It could be a great platformer with a patch.
The real question is what will BOTW 2 frame rate be and how low can it go with people defending it because it’s Zelda.
For me, it depends on genre.
Fighting Games: Must be a locked 60FPS with no frame pacing issues or rate drops. At all times. This is due to the nature of combos and links. Especially links. It must be 100% right all of the time.
Shooters: Must be 60fps, but small drops here and there are tolerable. Must have smooth frame pacing.
2D Platformers: This isn’t even a question. 60FPS. No frame pacing problems.
3D Platformers: preferably 60fps. But I can go with 30. As long as it’s stable with good frame pacing.
JRPGs aka turn based or tactical turn based: 30 is fine.
Decision based story games: I actually like smooth 24fps for those. Makes them feel like movies.
This article is for @Astral-Grain because he has a Deadly Premonition profile picture 😝😎.
Not being THAT distracted by inconsistent frame rates is something I'm thankful for, but I have to say I have my limits and I can't stand all kinds of poor performance
I think delivering a good product is part of a developer's work. Some things are just not acceptable from a consumer's perspective. If you're paying for the product, it's gotta have at least a reasonable quality level. These days some games have been released in such a state that 6 extra months of development would not warrant any minimum quality to be sold, and that's the curse of the updates
And I've played some games in better hardware that have big inconsistencies too. That's not a Switch problem. It's the whole industry. Of course, weaker hardware is gonna be more affected, but bad performance is all over the competition too
About fps, do all Xbox One games run at 60 fps? Of course not. There are games running at consistent and inconsistent frame rates everywhere
And talking about bad performance, I'm waiting for some (big) improvement to buy YS IX. I'm dying to play it but not in the state it is now. Or have they release any good updates?
I've been gaming since before Star Fox was considered perfectly acceptable frame-rate wise. There is a certain level, probably at around 40 FPS, where I feel like the whole frame-rate thing is an emperor's new clothes situation. Like there's no way anyone can tell the difference between 40 and 60 FPS. But then I play a lot of simulations and RPGs, so maybe I just don't play the kinds of games that really suffer when the framerate starts to drop.
@ModdedInkling well yeah of course Nintendo exclusives are going to be developed solely for the switch
@Would_you_kindly Does Nintendo even know their own limits? They are more than willing to even let their games sneak by with issues. Quality control ain't what it use to be.
@Meteoroid I agree up to a point that developers should not port games unless they can be confident that the game will port well. But mostly profit gets in the way.
But developers know in advance what comprise they will have to make, but reviewers should be stricter with their review instead of trying to justify why the game regardless of faults is still worth the cash. Giver a lesser score for poor graphics.
Visual novel, turn based RPGs or action games, card battle games, visual board games, casino games, compilation of mini-games, education games, dating games, casual games, QTE games, FMV games, Minecraft, RTS, Sim games, color matching puzzle games, card matching games, Solitaire, Minesweeper, tic-tac-toe, rock-paper-scissor game, music or band games, co-op or competitive multiplayer action games, game involving luck, free-to-play shovelware, single screen game (like Bomberman and Pac-Man), wrestling games and sports games, these ran okay with low or dipped framerates as they don't hinder the experience that much but high active action RPGs, platformers, side-scroller, Tetris, fighting games, shmups, beat em ups, pro wrestling games, arcade games, Nintendo games, racing, driving, jet ski, skating, survival horror, fps, pro sports games, party games, motion control games, etc., these needs that solid smooth 30 or 60fps to get the best experience or else the game may dropped to a bust.
For me im perfectly fine with 30fps if its stable, in fact stable 30 is preferable to unlocked with bad frame pacing.
really anything that can help avoid that unpleasant stutter feel since i find it distracting at best and headache inducing at worst.
but yeah, for me priority is things just being stable without frequent sub30 drops.
I have enjoyed innumerable games on switch that were "poor ports" but so long as the drops don't affect my gameplay I'm not so disturbed buy anything
Not the greatest example but before I got a DSi in '11 to replace my broken lite, I got hooked on Ace Attorney on Wii and after finishing them I wanted to play Apollo Justice, so I did it... on an emulator on a very old PC, the game never ran at full speed and the audio crackled, yet I don't remember all the bad stuff, just the game itself. Still there were several times I wanted to stop playing because of the issues.
I typically don't care about performance issues. There are certain games though where I simply don't stand it.
Sonic Generations on the 3DS had no excuse for being a 30fps game, if the hardware was too limiting they should've designed it differently, the level design is already very simplistic.
By comparison Sonic Rush on the DS is 60fps but certain levels, when boosting, bring the rate down a bit, this slight slowdown is enjoyable IMO, you can appreciate better what's up on the screen.
This one will sound weird, but in Sonic 06, which is usually 60fps, will slowdown when there's a lot of action on screen, this is great as I mentioned before, the enemies and items in this game are more detailed, when you destroy a robot or box it's cool to see the pieces fly around in an epic slowdown. As a kid in 2006 this always appealed to me, and it was just an unintended design.
An even weirder example is Sonic Classic Collection, if you play it on a DS the games are very laggy, the fps is halved most of the time, and there is added slowdown. Surprisingly, it's quite playable. Beside ruining some sprite flicker effects, I had no issues playing, as well as enjoying the games.
I don't mind playing OOT or MM at 20fps, but absolutely need 60fps in games like Mario, Sonic or Smash Bros.
Those old games were played on CRTs, and 20 fps on a CRT is better than 30 fps on an LCD, especially an LCD from the early 2000s. The difference is bigger than if you turn on Black Frame Insertion on a modern lcd, to give a comparison (and you also avoid the likely headache from the black-flickering image.)
No one realized that about LCDs back then though. This is why we can complain now. Well some of us. Sonic on MD in 30 FPS on a CRT is still better than the same in 60 fps on your current average LCDs. Only Black Frame Insertion and 60 fps might get you to the a similar level of motion resolution.
4K is really the limit to what we need, unless you like to have your face touching the screen when playing. What we need now is less ghosting and a clearer image, which is not necessarily connected to whether a TV is 60hz or 120hz but more to how well it clears and updates its display.
@TheRedComet I also prefer movie-like games/cutscenes at 24 or even 30fps. I actually can't stand when I'm playing a 60fps game only for it to go to a cutscene and continue playing at 60. It looks so artificial. This is a case where the tech-heads obsession with numbers gets in the way of artistic flair... at least to me.
Frankly, it depends on how poor the performance is.
I can cope with the game stuttering every now and then. But if it happens too much, we that’s no good
@Ralizah Amazing profile pic.
I can deal with Bad framerate in everything (Mostly) but FPS games, those games need to be running there best if you want to actually play.
i don't accept games that don't have smoothy frame rate, constate frame rate drop ruin my expierence, no matter if is 30 fps or 60.
Age of Calamity was great but the frame quality was nauseating. Pokemon Legends Arceus is looking to be in the same boat when it launches next year 2022. I can give a pass to third parties and smaller games but these are Nintendo flagship titles that are struggling to run. The Tegra chip was already old when the Switch launched and now it's very outdated. It's time for new hardware
It depends on the game, and the equipment. Back in the NES/SNES/Genesis days everything was basically 60fps (NTSC) with a zero-latency CRT display. That set the baseline for how I view everything after.
But then I spent a decade on PC maxing all the sliders at max resolution and ending up with 14fps slideshow games, and I was fine with that because it was oh so pretty.
Today, if it's an RPG or something the fps doesn't matter. Some games "look more cinematic" at low fps. But if it's any game with fast motion, I can't stand 30fps. Some of that depends on display tech. Forza Horizon 4 on X1X I preferred 30fps 4k because the gfx were so much better with so much less aliasing, and the 30fps didn't bother me. But I had a slow monitor at the time that "hid" the speed. On XSXS and even streamed I can't STAND the 30fps on FH5, it actually jitters, or flickers a bit with anything moving fast. And everything moves fast in the game. I think the difference is a faster monitor that uses different tricks to be fast. It makes it jarring and usettling to play, and makes the motion feel somehow slow. So it's 60fps all the way, even on XSS where it's very obviously cut back graphics to do it.
Calamity Warriors was an experience I couldn't even bother playing through, the framerate just bothered me to play it and it made the whole experience feel like a bargain bin reject. But SMTV isn't bothering me other than when it transitions to the menus at like 8fps.
Maybe I'm old, maybe I'm weird, but I've been gaming since the days of the Atari 7800 and had every major console and handheld... and I have never, ever been bothered by the frame rate in any game to the point of complaining about it. I've seen differences, sure, but it has never affected my enjoyment of a game. It barely registers for me.
When I read reviews, the frame rate topic doesn't affect my decision no matter the genre.
Phantasm star online 2 GCN version 4 players. Love every bit of it. Originally never even thought of frame rate ls and 60fps until ps4
@Dualmask Same here. I think being around since the days of Pong and the Atari 2600 has desensitized me. As long as a frame-rate drop doesn't prevent me from succeeding, it's not much of a bother.
@NintendoKnight I appreciate your consideration!
The article is definitely for me, I like me some weird games and I'm not usually bothered by performance issues unless they break the game or give me a headache. It's not often talked about that some janky games are appealing because they offer an experience unlike any other game so I really like this article and conversation appreciating janky yet wonderful games.
The thing I don't like about performance conversations is that when someone says "I like this game, even though it has performance issues" - there's almost always someone else that come out and calls them a liar or tells them they have awful standards, etc. or vice versa when someone says "I can't play a game unless it's 60FPS" and others argue they're being snobby or whatever - it's all just preference. Let people like what they like and it's okay when they don't like the same things you like.
It has to be Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. That game has frame-rate drops, but I didn't care at all when I played it. In my mind, it was like "yeah, it slows down for a dramatic effect".
If it's a racing game, action game, fighting game, first-person shooter, side scrolling platformer, etc. Frame rate matters to me. A lot.
If it's a slower paced adventure game (like Breath of the Wild), a turn-based RPG, or something chill like Animal Crossing, bad frame rates don't bother me so much.
Me and Crash 4: It’s About Time. I have a Switch but I played it first on a friend’s PS4. The dip is certainly noticeable but really I find it such an enjoyable game to play I don’t see myself minding too often. Though some areas in handheld mode have resolutions that can take me out of the experience a bit.
@Meteoroid I would absolutely welcome an improved Switch. Didn't get the Switch OLED and still hope for a better model sometime.
Depends on how bad it is and how frequent the drops are. Dark Souls on PS3/360 had an awful drop in Blighttowm, i don't know the numbers it dropped too but it was near or was single digits at times and made the area what is already a pain to explore even more hard, a reason the area was hated back then was because it was so hard to play in thanks to performance. Now thankfully that was the only real area with such poor performance so you could excuse it but i'm willing to bet if the whole game was like it DS wouldn't be looked at the way it is now.
I think those saying "i don't care" are those who are used to that mostly stable 30fps and have never felt that awful unstable performance where it hovers between single digits and mid 20's most of the time. I think those who console game can put up with the 20-30fps you may get on 360 games or Switch but once it starts getting much lower the problem is clearer. A big problem i find with the Switch now though is its quite jarring going from the standard 60fps of PS5 to the not quite standard 30fps of Switch, i love SMT V and its easily a GOTY contender but its performance is way more noticeable now after getting used to that 60fps of PS5.
@valharian How to say "I'm a zoomer" without actually saying it.
When you get a headache playing a game that reviewed so well and barely anybody complained about the framerates.
@Snatcher Thanks.
For me, fighting games don't feel good at anything other than 60fps. It's the reason I never enabled the steroscopic 3D effect in DoA Dimensions on the 3DS: doing so halved the framerate, and it just didn't feel... right.
In my opinion, performance issues are unacceptable in a game that costs $60. I'm fine with a 3.99 game chugging. I was tempted to pick up the 3D Contra for $4 in the sale, but I didn't. I would like games that are made to run on the switch. If they don't look like they can be optimized, maybe they shouldn't. I have a gaming PC and a PS4, will probably get a PS5 if I find one, so I don't need stripped back versions of games. I liked Metroid Dread, and it really was a retro , throwback with simple graphics. Same with Links Awakening. BOTW, uses a nice filter to hide the simple graphics, but it looks lovely. Those are the kind of games I would like to see on Switch. As for GTA, this isn't to do with the platform, it is poorly optimized, that is unacceptable.
I used to think when real bad slow down happened with my nes or genesis, I was just too much a bad @$$ and the system couldn't keep up with my brass b@ll$. Now, I know that wasn't the case. However, I want slow down to happen more so I can feel like I'm champ again #10FramesPlease
@Ralizah Well of course, I need to see that speed, of the punch!
60fps is the reason why PC has been my main platform of choice since 2009.
As long as its consistent and doesn't drop constantly, I'm fine with 30fps. 60fps is awesome, but it doesn't bother me otherwise.
Honestly, I have a hard time understanding why people can't play anything below 60fps. It must be a sensitivity thing.
for me, anything below 60fps is unplayable. once i got a taste of smoother performance i just couldn't go back. i honestly think the next nintendo console should prioritize 60fps+ over anything else
indie 2d games shine on switch, because they don't have cutbacks and they're 60fps. 3d ports are awful on switch for the most part
I cap my PC at 60fps and and don't use raytracing on some games because I don't like the little quiet hiss from my graphics card.
I do like playing games from the Wii/Xbox era on Ulta settings, turning everything to max on my PC, to see what they would have looked like on rich people's computers back then. They look much better than modern games running in potato mode. The Switch should be able to run old games, like GTA trilogy and those old Star Wars games flawlessly, and the fact that they have performance issues is inexcusable.
@CactusMan That's not really true. Most PS5 games give you a choice now between quality and performance with the quality usually being 30fps and the performance being 60fps, its easy to flick between them so yeah you damn well notice the difference, i tried AC Valhalla on Quality after getting used to performance mode at 60fps and yeah the 30fps was just to off putting after getting used to the better framerate. Also after playing Doom External at 120fps round a friends house all day it was pretty noticeable going back to the 60fps on my version.
I feel people what say the stuff you have don't really know what they're talking about and haven't played enough games at 120fps/60fps to have that jarring feeling of going back to 30fps.
I was in my 20s when TES IV was released and i remember vividly playing it at ~20fps with 10m draw distance (yes, my PC was bad at a time) so I can handle low framerates. However, I do not like low framerates I consider stable 30fps a bare minimum and anything lower gets hard to watch and play. And as much as I consider BotW one of the best (if not THE BEST) game of all times, it still pains me to know the framerates in the Hyrule Forest, it was pretty much unplayable. I love how 60fps feels, but I it's not something i need.
I hate Age of Calamity because of the terrible frame rate had to stop playing it after a few hours
@SalvorHardin FromSoftware games are a perfect example that validates my point though. I’ve played them all, and platinumed most of them when it’s not a needless grind. Calling them “unplayable” because they have uneven frame pacing is the sort of hyperbole that is unhelpful. Call it what it is.
@SilentHunter382 That’s much better, it accurately describes the issue for SOME players. But let’s also not forget only a small number of players are as sensitive to these issues. The vast majority just get on with it and play. Every GTA has had an unstable frame rate yet millions play happily. Blissful ignorance
Though DF and others are so inconsistent. They rave about Retro games and yet didn’t call Ocarina (20fps, 17fps on PAL) or Goldeneye (10-15fps) “unplayable” back in the day.
The consoles of old like NES and SNES had 60 or 50 fps as standard. If you are in NTSC region it's 60fps, in PAL it's 50fps.
The frame rate is sync to the electricity in your region, 60hz or 50hz - just like the light bulbs. That's why you see some videos flicking like mad, when someone is filming using 60fps in PAL region where the lightbulbs are 50hz.
They had to do it that way because the Cathode-ray tube TV is like the light bulb, it refreshes according to the frequency of the electricity.
I am someone who has an ultra high end PC going at 144 fps on basically any game that supports it yet I'm truly not bothers by Switch games when they have low frame rates. The truth is if I'm still able to have fun then it doesn't matter. SMT V, BotW, NMH3, etc all had frame rate issues, but where ultimately so fun regardless.
When it's becomes an issue for me is if it is actually 'preformance issues' meaning I cannot play the game. The biggest offender in the past few years that I played was actually Deathloop's multiplayer. Their matchmaking system and poor net code meant on most matches I was warping back and forth whenever I tried to do any input. It was so unplayable and jittery it actually made me feel sick trying to play it. Since the single player wasn't as interesting as I hoped I ended up uninstalling the game.
@valharian the frame rate is pretty consistent except immediately after quick traveling.
Unless it's an fps or racing game, 60 fps is fine for me. 30ish on switch games is OK I guess. Doesn't bother me much, but the drops in BOTW, and XC2 handheld were noticeable. As are the ones in SMTV, but it's for such a short period I don't care.
Perhaps it's the soft resolution that makes me not care. Or the short sticks.
It really depends on the game.
On AC, 30 fps is more than enough for that type of game. Let's say Metroid Dread, that game plays great at 60fps, really looks fluid.
I think a lot of the people in this comment section need to have a word with themselves, quivering lips over a frame rate what a bunch of pus****.
I don't have an issue with any frame rate, apart from when it goes up and down and causes movement to be impacted. I played commodore, Snes, n64 and was always fine with all of these so any new game obviously is good. I did use to complain if games had bad bump mapping cause that used to annoy me
The perfect example of this is Bloodborne. The performance is awful, yet the game is such a masterpiece that it's considered one of the best games of the century
Honestly I couldn't tell the difference between 30 and 60 fps most of the time. All the while I thought Splatoon 2 was 60fps and I thought it ran 60fps smooth even on intense turf war gameplay. Its only because I read a lot of gaming media in recent times, which started during the pandemic, that I tend to consider these things now when buying games. Ultimately doesn't affect my enjoyment in any way. More importantly, I make sure that games don't suffer from crashing and glitches before I buy them.
>Great game
>Deadly premonition 2 .-.
Have been playing Castlevania 64 lately. Besides it being underrated (fight me!) it does suffer from slowdown in certain areas (some of which are VERY sluggish like the Tower of Execution) and the N64 slows to a crawl. And you know what... I don't care it is still awesome and I love the game. Thankfully this game seems to still render all of the frames but just more slowly so it is like the old 8 and 16-bit games where you avoid a slideshow but everything turns slow motion. I used to love that when playing games. Made things feel more intense.
Pretty much every decent 3rd party game on switch...get a 2nd console you losers...😁
I don't have too much expectations when it comes to ports. My standards are pretty much Panic Button.
However...when it comes to a brand new remaster or a low-level remake, my expectations are through the roof. It HAS to run at peak performance on the Switch or equal to other platforms. Otherwise, I see it as an insult towards the Switch because of such wasted opportunities.
@Would_you_kindly
It is but here's the kicker, it would actually be able to display some much finer looking graphics if either Nintendo or another company had a custom engine built to tackle the Switch lower specs, right now most are using engine's as Unreal engine 4, this is an absurdity and an exercise in futility, as the UE4 is an engine that is too heavy even for the PS4 and Xone (it is mainly shines on PC games), hence why so few games on this engine run at full 1080p on consoles.
If Nintendo was a bit smarter they would have produced an exclusive, free to use (for devs at least) custom light weight engine, when producing Switch games
But instead smaller third party developers are forced to pick wonky engines like "Unity" (that isn't really cut out for larger ambitious 3d games or UE4 and end up using effects and rendering that completely decimates the Switch lower bandwidth and cpu.
Believe me you could actually produce great visuals on the Switch, its just that it must be built with the hardware in mind, it cannot be a port of a ambitious PC or console game running on a work station engine.
@completo88 I think capcoms re engine is good I remember playing re 7 for the first time & being blown away by how good it looked
I still love and play N64, although I notice the chugging at first I'm having fun & oblivious within minutes unless it's agregious. Modern racing games should always be 60fps though IMO.
I've had massive framerate drops on Telltale's Batman, which makes the game painful to play at times... but it's still so moreish... 😋
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