Topic: Anyone else a bit unhappy with backwards compatibility?

That’s why I suggested the 2D entries, I think it’s important to distinct very clearly when it comes to remakes. Some are dead-easy, because all you need to do is remake the visuals while the logic can stay 1:1 as it was. They’ve already designed an engine, so for the Oracles or Minish it would really only mean designing new assets.

An OoT remake is another magnitude. That’s ancient simplistic 3D, simply swapping for hi-def textures is not going to cut it. That’s why they only ever remade them for 3DS with its post stamp sized screen..

what I don't like about backward compatibility on Switch 2 is that for some people games run much better and for some users much worse. Prime example would be Batman Arkham Knight. I can't even play the game for 2 minutes before it crashes and that every time. I also tried to redownload it, but to no avail. And that happens not only to me. But some people say that they never had even one crash when playing the game. Makes me wonder if there are different chipsets used for the Switch 2

@NintendoPete Could it be internal vs external storage? Worth testing. On Switch 1, Pokemon Scarlet/Violet would be a buggy mess when streaming assets on a lot of external microSSD cards, even if they met the specs. Moving it to internal would fix it for everyone I know.

@OmnitronVariant I am only using the internal storage because I don't own an express micro SD card

I see. Then it really is strange and might point to subtle hardware differences.

@OmnitronVariant, to answer your question about Animal Crossing getting a Switch 2 Edition, as interesting as that would be, I don't think it's happening. Though the game supposedly loads faster on Switch 2, and there are rumors of a new one coming out on Switch 2, potentially as soon as next year.

@ShieldHero I don't mean an edition, I mean an update to actually render full resolution in handheld and increase the framerate. Like Pokemon Violet.

@OmnitronVariant, oh, that's an error on my part. The free update thing could happen depending on the timing of the release of the next one, because if there's going to be a new one next year, they might not want to focus on updating the old one. But who knows, I'm just theorizing here. Nintendo does make some pretty surprising moves sometimes (an example is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe suddenly getting dlc out of nowhere five years after its release).

Ah is that the case there?

Generally I suspect that any major S1 games that haven't gotten free updates yet will surely get a paid S2 expansion like Kirby, at a time that Nintendo sees fit. Mario Wonder has to be one of those, I can't imagine NSMBU getting a better treatment than Wonder.
Then there are games that have or are getting a successor, like Animal Crossing or MK8. Those will probably never get an update, sadly.

So, either paid for or never, from here on.

I could maybe see the Xenoblade games and the Paper Mario TTYD remake getting free Switch 2 updates, simply because both Xenoblade X and Paper Mario supposedly have 60 FPS in their code. After all those, I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the upgrades were paid Switch 2 Editions. Again, I'm only theorizing here.

Edit: as for whether people are unhappy with backwards compatibility or not, I'm just happy that the feature actually exists and really hope that it keeps existing going forward.

@NintendoWife There's quite a few games with such updates, including Mario Odyssey, Pokemon S/V, among quite a few others: https://www.nintendo.com/us/gaming-systems/switch-2/transfer-...

These are still launching as Switch 1 games, but they unlock things like framerate and higher resolutions. Scarlet and Violet in particular get pretty major improvements like no reduction in animation framerate at a distance.

That said, this is stuff you get "for free" on PC and on XBOX platforms, and I guess my expectations are set a bit high in that I really wish more Switch 1 games got them. This isn't new content, it's just tweaking configurations within the existing games we don't have access to.

Ah those I know, I thought they used the "Edition" name for the free ones too. Odyssey looks much improved, even without any further additions I'd love it if Nintendo gave all major games that treatment.

I am very happy with the BC. so many games that had unlocked frames that are now a stable 60fps... Or at least stable 30fps...

MH Stories 2 at locked 60fps 720p handheld 1080p docked is chef's kiss.

I don't think games look worse. Technically.
The image is on a higher pixel screen BUT the extra power ensures dynamic resolution stays at its max and doesn't drop. And since nearly every game used dynamic resolution that more than compensates for any fidelity lost being on a 1080p screen.

@OmnitronVariant
Totally agree. In fact, I'll go one step further and say they should have programmed it so that all NSW1 games automatically output docked image in NSW2 handheld mode.

I know it's possible because I do that exact same thing on my chipped NSW1 OLED that I got to overclock with (NSW2 wasn't out yet, plus NSW2 is still limited by max handheld resolution and game is programmed for- the chipped OLED can output any game in higher res by simply outputting docked image on the screen.

Immortals Fenyx Rising looks so good in 720p handheld and locked 30fps. On NSW2 it cant render more than 540p handheld.

Not all games are like that. And there are quite a few that are better on NSW2. Games, where even when you overclock, you can't get a stable 60fps or games that already were 720p handheld mode.

That's why I keep my chipped OLED around. Any game that looks as good and runs as good on that as it would on my NSW2 I keep it there. That way I saves space because I don't have enough room to put everything on NSW2 anyways.

There’s so many first party games that need upgrades and now based on this Kirby dlc I think we’re essentially going to be sold the upgrades on all the games which should be working on their sequels. Luigi’s mansion. Mario wonder. Metroid dread.

Well here’s hoping Luigi’s mansion 1 is the dlc to Luigi’s mansion 3. Metroid Federation force for Metroid dread. And Mario 3d land for Mario wonder.

Somehow I don’t think it will be anywhere near as generous.

@NintendoWife
I'm a bit confused by your complaints here. Excluding actual BC problems like the games that don't boot or crash I don't see how a Switch game running on Switch 2 docked would ever be worse than the same on Switch

Not saying it's universally better. There are some downgrades to Switch games on Switch 2. But these downgrades are due to the screen on the Switch 2. The fact that the 720p doesn't fit cleanly into 1080p, the fact that the Switch 2 screen prioritised refresh rate over contrast and pixel response. None of these issues apply when docked

Really, the only problem you might encounter playing Switch games on Switch 2 is that the improved clarity and performance moves where the weakest link if the game is. Or just generally better performance and different expectations makes it hard to go back to how it was on Switch.

Honestly, when docked, the only issue I've seen is that some games put information in loading screens. And now the loading screens are super fast. Which can be an issue

In my experience it's been pretty good.

Every single game that I've got that was on the list prior to launch as incompatible has been patched by now. I dare say that there are plenty still that don't work, however, both Nintendo and the developers of the games in question have clearly been putting in the hard work to make at least the more popular games function.

Some games still have occasional glitches and niggles but they're few and far between and I'm not entirely sure that they weren't present in the originals. So far, so good.

There is one glaring issue though and it's that so many Switch games are rendered sub-native and reliant upon a mixture of anti-aliasing and sharpening filters to get a somewhat acceptable picture. However, what works on the small screens of an OG Switch or Lite can get thrown rather off-kilter by the larger screen of a Switch 2, and the inexact upscale to 1080p, to the point where it looks obviously blurry.

I'm thinking in particular of the numbered Xenoblade games here, although a lot of the more demanding "miracle ports" rely upon similar solutions. I'm not really sure what Nintendo could do about this, as it's an inherent limitation of the games themselves rather than anything to do with the compatibility layer.

Ultimately, the affected games could all use a performance patch, although I doubt that too many developers will be in a hurry to revisit something that's eight years old just to provide a free upgrade.

It's exclusive to the Switch 2 but I guess some people are making the point that despite being a Switch 2 title it has old inferior FSR upscaling instead of DLSS. This could be due to the greater CPU requirements of DLSS or just the engine was started initially to use FSR like many Switch 1 games and would need serious re-writing to update to DLSS. As DLSS needs to be integrated into the code itself to give all the correct information to the Nvidia GPU for upscaling they decided not to do that work.

Personally I don't see how Cyberpunk isn't a fully tailored Switch 2 game. They have completely optimised it for Switch 2 reducing the CPU load with a much lower amount of pedestrians walking about etc but given it good graphic features that the Nvidia GPU can handle. The DLSS upscaling has been done to maximise use of the hardware features. To me that is a fully optimised Switch 2 game. I know people will state it hasn't been designed from the ground up for Switch 2 but I don't really agree with that. You have a vision for a game and you work towards it based on what the hardware is capable of. The Switch 2 is relatively simple architecture compared to past consoles like PS3 and PS2 that were difficult to develop for and get full performance out of them. NO reason the Switch 2 can't achieve a decent performance level right out of the gate. However I think I read that currently the Switch 2 uses 2 of its CPU cores for the operating system but there is a goal to get that to 1 CPU core in the future by optimising the operating system and game chat code. This will mean at some point another 1Ghz ARM A78 core will be available for later games so perhaps a year from now games will have an extra 15% or so extra CPU resources going from 6 cores to 7 cores. That's a fair chunk of extra CPU resources that will come in time. I think the PS4 had a similar situation it shipped with 2 cores used initially even though it has a auxiliary ARM processor to help with background tasks and dedicated audio processing but in time they cut it back to just one CPU core and released a lot of extra performance for later PS4 games. At the moment the Switch 2 probably has less CPU performance for games than the later PS4 firmware as Virtuos has stated Switch 2 is only marginally faster than the original PS4 in cpu terms. The passmark score for 8 ARM A78s at 1ghz is about 1900 where as the PS4 Jaguar cores 8x1.6Ghz is around 1700 but the passmark score for the ARM A78 was based on a android system which is much lighter than the Windows system on resources than the Jaguar cores were tested on but both would be significantly less than the Nintendo operating system with game chat etc. You would normally do a passmark test with the absolute minimum running in the background.

I'm convinced we will see a significant jump in Switch 2 CPU resources given time which will help out many later games.

I haven't had any problems. One of my favourite games, Snowrunner, has much faster load times on Switch 2, sharper visuals and superior audio.

I've named my complaints. There is added input latency because of the emulation layer, not just in theory but you can see & feel it. And the other is that the output to TV looks worse in my configuration, which is an LG 4K TV set so that native S2 games look great. Colors: S1 games look muted compared to when I start them on the original console. Clarity: The original system looks softer than S2 playing the same games. OG S1 only outputs HD resolution, so the TV takes care of upscaling, likely. Not sure where the upscaling happens when playing S1 games on S2, but the result makes me think "ugh this games needs an update".

@BonzoBanana Not to undermine the amount of work involved in the QA step, but all the adjustments done to Cyberpunk are ones you can do with the PC settings. I’ve done it to make it run nicely on Steam Deck, a comparable platform to Switch 2. It’s not in any way a bespoke port, other than that they added support for a custom DLSS version/build in the render pipeline. But they already have general DLSS and FSR upscaling support so even that is minimal work outside of QA.