Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Giancarlothomaz
I've played more games than you can shake a stick at. I've been gaming since the late 80s.

I've played every type of game there is. And not once in my entire life have I ever played a game that needs higher framerates. Not shooters, not even fighters (ya, I said it, not even fighters). Those games benefit from it, and they should strive to achieve it whenever possible, but it's not needed.

Name a game, any game on earth (well, on Steam anyways). And I'll fire it up on Steamdeck right now, cap it at 30 fps and take a video proving its perfectly playable.

Even games "demanding high reflexes" don't demand reflexes so high that 8ms is going to make a flip of a difference. The average total latency you experience is at least 50 ms, for any game. Another 8 isn't gonna break the experience. I don't care what anyone says. I trust mathematical truth over arbitrary opinions.

Unless you're on an eSports team where the upper echelon of talent is all tightly bound at the tail end of the skill distribution to the point winning and losing depends on mere milliseconds, it's nothing more than a luxury that feels better. And last I checked, you're not an eSports gamer competing against the world's best. In fact, you probably don't even have a quality setup to reduce latency as much as possible. It astounds me ppl go off about the average 8ms latency from 30 vs 60 but are completely oblivious to the 20-30 ms extra latency from their TV. "That average 8ms extra latency from 30 fps will make these games unplayable, but the 20-30 ms from my tv/controller won't" is flat out irony. Even more so when talking about a 60 fps game that simply dips to 50fps, which is only a 3 milliseconds difference.

At least some ppl here are aware of their TV and controller latency and are consistent in their beliefs, and specifically buy newer TVs with quality gaming modes of around 10ms (still must account for system and controller latency). I can at least respect that.

I'll say it again. These are not opinions you came to yourself. These are opinions you were taught. It's ideology. Gamers buy into whatever is repeated ad nauseum whether it's right or wrong, rarely questioning the narrative to come to their own conclusions.

So far situations like the end of the September 2021 Direct trailer are the only times when framerate has been a problem in Bayonetta 3 (it's hard to dodge in those instances). I also have trouble blocking with Viola but that's not a tech related issue.

Finally starting to get into the swing of things in Bayonetta 3.

When I first started out, it became painfully obvious I was rusty as heck. With wicked weaves gone and a new system introduced, with new combos, even the few I remembered had changed. I couldn't even remember how to dodge for goodness sakes.

But now, I'm finally starting to get back into the groove. That last fight was intoxicating. Getting better at dodges and witch time, getting better at combos. When everything starts coming together it feels so dang good.

Lol are people really doing the "30 FPS is fine, if you think 60fps is a base necessity you're an elitist" ***** in here as well?

Such an odd hill to die on, when 60 FPS is objectively better in almost every genre that requires the slightest amount of precision. I wonder why people delude themselves rather than just accept the truth. Especially when it comes to those who have tried both, like who are they trying to kid and why?

Anyway, I started my replay of Bayonetta. I played it on 360 originally but that was probably well over a decade ago and so I remember basically nothing beyond the lady getting more naked as she does combos thing. Of course that seared into my teenage brain.

This is my first playthrough on Switch. I'm really happy this runs at 60 FPS. I dunno what other sacrifices they had to make to achieve that, but it's got that ugly grey brown visual palette typical of that era anyway, so there isn't much fidelity to protect. The character/monster and ability designs all look great on the SWOLED though, the few sources of colour and vibrancy to be found.

Storywise I have absolutely no idea what's going on. Feel like I'm coming in about midway through the third season of some anime. The cutscenes can also be crazy long too.

Thankfully the gameplay is great. My understanding is easy mode automatically creates combos for you as you just mash random buttons, whereas on Normal it's all manual.

To be honest both difficulties feel pretty button mashy to me, it just feels like automode creates cooler combos easier. I'm gonna stick with normal for now though, see if I can create flashier combos with more mastery. Or if the game becomes too hard I'll just drop it down. Right now though it seems very forgiving with incoming damage and the generosity of dodge windows on Normal.

The Nintendo themed costumes are a good laugh too, especially the Peach and Daisy ones that allow you to summon Bowser. I also love how you can pick up enemy weapons, and that they have their own depth and unique combos too. Just feels like a great sandbox.

The scale of some of the boss encounters immediately is also just insane in the best possible way.

Really looking forward to playing more.

If people require a perfect 60fps to consider a game playable, then they should be gaming on PC only, full stop. 60fps has never been a 3D gaming standard on consoles. Even with this current generation, we're starting to see games release without performance modes. And that'll likely become more common as the generation wears on.

It's one of the major reasons I'll likely always have at least one foot in the PC gaming scene. I'll always dial down settings in order to improve performance.

With that said, 30fps IS playable for every type of game, even though games looks and feel better playing at higher framerates.

When the same games on Switch version running on 30 fps but 60 fps on PS4 / PS5 version, I will pick the PlayStation version instead and avoid getting the Switch version.

This is generally my take. If 60 fps is so important and you have the money, just get a good gaming PC. That's it.

THAT BEING SAID, I do think 60 FPS should probably be the standard to strive for, and companies not actively striving for it probably either have issues or are desperate to prove their graphics in 2022, for some reason. Most people are fine with 30 fps, but the actual issues of why games don't reach 60 fps is probably worth exploring.

@Eagly
I'll never understand why Gamefreak doesn't swallow their pride and ask Nintendo for help, both with a properly optimized engine to use and coding efficiently to achieve reasonable performance.

I also will never understand why Nintendo doesn't take a proactive approach to help them, either.

Nintendo is a stakeholder in the IP. They have a vested interest in the games being as good as possible.

I suppose new hardware could help. While the root cause of the issue is lack of programming skill, if you throw enough power at the problem it can at least brute force its way through some of the issues. In that respect, I very much do look forward to next gen Switch.

@kkslider5552000 Console game developers will almost always prioritize graphics. There's a lot of compute overhead for performance modes during this cross-gen period, but 60fps will be first on the chopping block once more complex modern gen AAA releases become the norm.

As for Switch, it's weak enough that expecting higher framerates simply isn't realistic. You kinda take whatever you can get with that console. Same way with late-gen PS4 and Xbox One, frankly, which have a ton of games that struggle to even hit 30fps.

People who play on the current-gen equivalent of the Game Boy and complain that performance and image quality aren't perfect don't really get much sympathy from me. Especially when they start making a nuisance of themselves online, as some are wont to do (not generally on here, thankfully).

AAA game companies nowadays frustrate me with their overly long development times, but Gamefreak feels like the counterpoint to all that. Since it feels like they just refuse to develop their games differently and think because they don't put out 3rd versions anymore and hired some more people that they can do exactly the same quality of work on HD consoles as they did 15 years ago on GBA and DS.

They should prioritize actually releasing games, they've mostly been very bad at that lately. :V

@kkslider5552000 The more complex games become, the longer it takes to produce them. Which is a big reason why I'm not sad Nintendo is still pretty far behind in the technical arms race. Switch is still at the point where it's feasible to have a strong development pipeline in place.

As for Game Freak, considering they're expected to release games annually, I doubt they have full control over their production timelines. It's easy for the next Zelda to be great when Nintendo can spend five years developing it.

As I said in an earlier post, 60fps is arbitrary and only exists as a target because some dude 100+ years ago decided a standard AC cycle rate for the US. What the goal should be is reducing frame time variability and lowering input latency. In 2022 nobody should be talking about 60fps, we should instead be asking where VRR is and/or communicating the benefits of not having your GPU wait for the display to be ready

@Pizzamorg finaly someone understand my point, that i was trying to state all this time, i don't want to play a game with spoty performance, i want to play a game that have good performance, be it 30 or 60fps(is it so hard to understand @JaxonH?)

@Giancarlothomaz
Everyone wants to play games with good performance. But that doesn't mean anything less than perfection is some kind of catastrophe. And dips from 60 are far more acceptable than dips from 30. Which I've stated more times than I can remember now... it's starting to feel like you're just not listening.

I'm tired of you keeping this going, desperate to be right and scraping for any comment that provides you with affirmation... I'm about to block you dude. Just so you know. I don't want to, but I'm seriously over this back and forth, nagging on and on without saying anything different than the last half dozen posts you tagged at me. Please, for the sake of my own sanity and that of everyone else here, let's move on.

@skywake
Facts. VRR is where it's at. That should be it.

It's a shame SteamDeck didn't have it, and I'm not holding my breath on Switch 2 having it either (it really should but ya know, VRR capable screen = higher cost and they want to keep costs as low as possible).

Ah well. At least consoles and PC have finally gotten there. One day handhelds will too.

All mine comes from pop physics books, so I'm probably talking mince.

If you were to play a game on the event horizon of a black hole, anybody watching you would see it take an infinite time, so frame rate would be useless for any observer.

To echo @JaxonH 's posts - a lower framerate is only a negative when it is detrimental to the game. Otherwise it's just another set of numbers

@skywake
If you're into music production, input latency was / is a big thing with control surfaces and keyboards.

When the first commecial church organ models were released, latency had to be introduced as the average high-end soundcard had a much lower latency than a real church organ

The HD rumble in Bayonetta 3 is some of the best of any Switch game I've played.

In fact, it's been so long since a Switch game truly utilized HD rumble to an impressive extent like this, it almost feels like a PS5 game using the Dualsense. That's how good it is. I've never felt rumble this good from a Pro Controller. It's usually the joycon that showcase it best. But they nailed it here, and it really adds to the experience.

Which, btw, I think after this recent chapter I can officially say this game is topping Bayonetta 2. And I don't say that lightly. Bayo2 has long been the best action game I've ever played, and one of my favorite games of all time. But this one is just better. The exploration is more addictive, the sound the little light green claw currency makes as it clatters into your inventory, the insane amount of secrets and hidden collectibles, and the combat. Oh my gosh, the combat.

Bayonetta has always had the best combat of any action game, but the demon slave mechanic takes this one to a whole new level. Expertly interweaving summons into your combos, delicately balancing your magic meter while strategically positioning Bayonetta to not get hit during the summon, knowing when to cancel the summon in order to dodge an attack coming for Bayo... it's so intoxicating.

Every now and then you play a game that's so good, so incredible, that has you so totally absorbed into it, you have to pause the game and reflect on how amazing it is. Maybe go to a comment section to spiel about how awesome it is.

That's what I'm feeling right now.

@JaxonH
Bit of a chicken and egg thing. We kinda need people understanding what it is and why it matters for manufacturers to bother including it. But it needs to exist for people to see why it matters. Although in both cases, it's a much harder thing to communicate than "high frame rate go brrr, big GPU go smooth". Which is a shame given it's the lower spec devices that benefit the most from VRR

At least now since it has become part of the latest HDMI specs we're seeing more consoles supporting it just because. And it seems TV manufacturers are keen on it, at least more than they are for other things that should be standard (I'm looking at you 100Mbps Ethernet ports)

This new Tactics Ogre Reborn launch trailer is straight 🔥 🔥 🔥

@Ralizah
I think we have a new contender that will go toe to toe with Triangle Strategy...

Switch OLED Gameplay