Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Ralizah
DeckyLoader? HECK YES. That ProtonDB badge app is soooooo useful. Just a shame it doesn't show in the store. Only your library. Have to Google games before I buy them when they show Unsupported. Still, it's great.

I have a ton of useful DeckyLoader apps. The color one was great before the OLED arrived as it made colors pop more. I still use it though and now they REALLY pop. The art icons was useful for non Steam games like Primehack. I also like the auto suspend at 5%, and the video recorder for last 30 seconds using Steam+Start.

Setting up Primehack is easy (can download directly from Discover store in desktop mode). The trick is getting controls to work. Most ppl complain controls won't respond. But I know how to do it now (I did it for me and I bought my bro a Deck OLED for Christmas and set up Primehack for him too, and swapped his ssd for a 2TB like I did mine).

Key is you want to download a very specific Steam controller config and place it in the right folder to show up in the Dolphin Primehack menu for control profiles for Wiimote (I have the config and can email if needed).

You set the controller in top left to use the SDO Xbox 360 controller. Leave everything at default. Load that controller config. Then launch in game mode and go download a specific community config designed for that particular controller profile. It's so good. Left track pad top half is save, bottom half is load. I changed from release to click to avoid accidental presses though. And I changed hotkey settings to use F2 for save slot 1, and F1 for load slot 1. Then I erased the F2 that was by default assigned to load slot 2 so it wasn't double assigned.

I was originally getting save errors because my save was in 1.6 and Primehack was 1.7, but I went to save folder and deleted the saves, then manually using file>save>slot1 created a new save, and then it worked.

It's AMAZING. With the HD texture pack and text and menu interface mods it looks dang near close to Prime Remastered. Well... not that good. But it looks freaking great.

And ya, Deck OLED is a gamechanger. I always loved Deck but this finally gave it enough battery to not feel inadequate, and light enough it doesn't feel too heavy, and analog sticks grip so much better now. And screen is gorgeous. The larger size, much like Switch OLED, makes text a bit easier to read.

Highly recommend setting up Primehack (I'll help, just shoot me an email at jaxonads at live dot com) and buy Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines from Steam. It's super cheap. It takes a bit of work downloading the unofficial patch and adding as a non-steam game and the whole process of getting that applied but once you do, it runs perfectly. Gyro is excellent. And it genuinely is an all time classic.

Baldur's Gate 3 is super good, definitely look into that one. MH World is fantastic too. It'll feel a bit slow after Rise but maybe get used to that cause Wilds will likely be slower as well (speaking of which, I'm confident we'll see Wilds announced for Switch 2 since it's a 2025 game, but if not, having Deck OLED as a backup is clutch).

God of War, Spiderman, Miles Morales, Uncharted 4, Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, Days Gone, Ratchet & Clank, Halo Infinite, Halo Masterchief, Gears 5, Gears Tactics, Forza Horizon 5... all these games can run locked 30 on Deck using FSR and low settings for 720p (I ALWAYS do 16:9 720p instead of 16:10 800p because the black bars allow my battery/framerate info on level 2 to stay on the top black bar, plus that fewer pixels rendered = slightly more battery). Just don't try Returnal. That game runs like crap.

Hogwarts Legacy is a gem on Deck. All 3 Trails in the Sky games, first two Trails of Cold Steel games also run (to fill in what Switch doesn't have). RE4 Remake, RE7 and RE Village all run great on low settings with FSR. I archived RE2 and RE3 cause I never liked being chased but I did play a bit of it. Looked a bit pixelated with FSR but I got it running at 30 at 720p with right settings.

Rayman Origins, Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Sniper Elite 5, Sonic Racing Transformed, Soul Hackers 2, Street Fighter 6, System Shock, Tales of Arise, Vanquish, Wolfenstein New Order + Old Blood, Wolfenstein 2, Doom, Doom Eternal, Ys IX Monstrum Nox and Rune Factory 5 (since Switch ports weren't satisfactory), Monster Hunter World Iceborn, Nier Replicant, MG Rising Revengeance, MGSV, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Hifi Rush, Ghost Runner 2, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Dragon's Dogma (to get gyro which Switch version lacks if you cast spells or shoot ranged), DMC reboot, DMC5, Dishonored 1 and 2, Dead Space, Cyberpunk 2077, Control, Castlevania Lords of Shadow 1 and 2, Bioshock Trilogy (for gyro Switch versions lack), Batman Arkham Knight (inadequate Switch version) and Origins, Torment Tides of Numenera, Tyranny, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, The Witcher 3, Trials Fusion, Alan Wake + American Nightmare expansion (original version, not remaster, gets like 9 hours on Deck OLED), etc...

So many other games work well though. Elden Ring (it just wasn't my jam so I uninstalled), Dark Souls 2 and 3, Death Stranding, Deathloop, Fable, FFXV, Ghostwire Tokyo, Hellblade, Heavy Rain, all the Yakuza games, Kena, all the Life Is Strange games, Midnight Sun's, Guardians of the Galaxy, Metro Exodus, Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, Ni No Kuni 2 (Switch version has framerate issues), Remnant From the Ashes (haven't tried Remnant 2 but I think ProtonDB shoes it's playable despite being "unsupported"), Resonance of Fate, Scarlet Nexus, Sekiro, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, all the Utawaretumono games, Borderlands 3, tons of CoD and AssCreed, both Deus EX games, all 3 Dragon Age games, tons of Far Cry games and Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, all 3 Final Fantasy XIII games, Gotham Knights, GTA4 and GTA5, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Outer Worlds, FF Stranger of Paradise, Splinter Cell Blacklist.

You won't get Trials Rising working though. Ubisoft's launcher breaks it completely. Which really sucks.

These are a bunch of the games I have installed, among others. But that's to say, they all run well on Deck. Maybe gotta hit that ProtonDB badge and read optimal settings and Proton version but, I've got em all dialed in to precision.

I like the track pads but I do still prefer the right analog with gyro over the track pads. I use the pads for things like touch activated in game menus, or navigating the mouse on the Protondb touch-only web page (Steam + right track pad = navigate mouse).

@NeonPizza
No, I never really got into VR after my initial 2 month phase with it. I'm pretty much exclusively a Switch and Deck gamer at this point.

I am still glad we get the occasional game like WarioWare Move It that capitalizes on motion in ways beyond just making aiming easier with gyro. But they're occasional, which is why it's OK.

Launch switch and launch Deck look washed out compared to OLED. It sucks but, ya. I had to tolerate it with the Deck until recently and, I'm already preparing for the regression back to LCD with Switch 2.

I do hope they just offer a higher priced OLED model off the bat though. I'd like that. But as Ralizah said, prob gonna save that for a revision. Ah well. At least we have Switch OLED and Deck OLED for everything else.

I think being briefly intrigued by VR and then getting over it is a very common reaction... same thing happened to me.

I kind of hope Nintendo doesn't try to delve too deeply into that area anytime soon; it's just hard to get right. Although part of me thinks e.g.
Pokemon Snap would be a great VR game, an even larger part of me likes to actually see the world in case something comes up or I need to interact with someone else during gaming time. Plus wearing random things on your head is not the most comfortable gaming experience whereas Switch is insanely comfortable to use whether vertical or horizontal.

People over here complaining about the forced waggle in DKCR, and I'm the freak who 100%ed Tropical Freeze on Wii U with a Wiimote + Nunchuk over other control settings lol

@JaxonH There's an app on Decky Loader that gives you good settings to use for various games. I have FSR turned off on RE2 (made the rain look terrible as I recall), but the particular combo of settings I'm using that I followed from recommendations make it look genuinely glorious on the small screen. And it runs at a locked 45FPS pretty much 99% of the time. If you ever decide to play the game again, you can make it look incredible.

And those HDR explosions! OMG

I've accepted I'm just never going back to the Prime games on my Wii, so yeah, when the time comes, I'll absolutely shoot you an email about setting those up, thank you. At least for the second and third games. I'll get Prime Remastered when I eventually feel like replaying the original.

I sort of miss the slower pace of the older games, so I'm looking forward to World. Don't get me wrong, I love Rise, but there's a charm to actually feeling like a normal person hunting down a monster.

You said you got Soul Hackers 2 working? Everything I've seen online says that game is a buggy mess on Deck. Was that not your experience?

As for Returnal, I saw this video, and it seems like maybe Returnal is running a little better on the Deck OLED?

Yeah, I wish the badges worked on the store pages for unpurchased games, too. Still, it's amazing being able to just look it up on my Deck for what I already own.

Any emulators/systems you've had bad luck with?

@NeonPizza Yeah, it's amazing how much a good screen can improve a console. I don't know how I ever played on my V1 now. Ignorance is bliss. Deck OLED also has a brilliant screen, and I'm only going back to PC for games that genuinely run terribly or not at all.

I'm sure you can get OLED TVs that look comparable/better, but I'm a cheapskate and prefer the smaller, built-in ones included with these consoles.

@XandertheWise it's not that big a deal. People like to have discussions. Carry on.

Would it be better if people wrote 12 short posts in a row instead? 😝

I would say just skip what you don't want to read... it takes a fraction of a second to scroll down. We're on page 3,486 of this thread, so we've already passed composition and gone for full-on novel anyways. 😆

I don't mind the walls of text, but holy cow do I wonder how some of you guys afford so much money for games and consoles lol

@Ralizah
Oh very nice. Ya I installed that one but I didn't have it back when I played RE2. Sometimes games don't have any settings reports, like with Serious Sam 4 and Pillars of Eternity 2. But it's good when it does.

I haven't played Returnal cause I didn't buy it due to reports of performance issues, just going by what I read for Deck compatibility. I haven't played much of Soul Hackers 2 but mainly I just read some bugs and crashes tinkering with settings. Use GE for compatibility.

That's impressive. I'll be sure to note the settings of that video for Returnal. They did note they're using sub-720p resolution but, FSR can help with that. It looks good to me.

Gotta grab all those 50-90% off sales. My last game cost like $1.50.

Although, honestly, with food prices what they are lately, buying even a newer game isn't all that different than going to a restaurant. Just gotta decide which things to spend entertainment budgets on for those lucky enough to have some extra money.

@FishyS
With my gaming scope now limited to Steamdeck OLED and Switch OLED, costs have come down for me. No more buying PS5 games physical then digital then triple dipping on Steam.

Plus with Steam I now wishlist and wait for $10-30 price points to bite. I got Serious Sam 3 for $5, Tokyo Ghosthunter for $18, etc. Occasionally I'll buy day one (Baldurs Gate 3) but even then isthereanydeal can usually find them for 20% Off day one ($48 preorders).

With Switch I'm wrapping up my physical purchases, as Switch 2 will usher in my fully digital only era. No more room for physical games. Nor any interest. So that'll dramatically cut costs even further.

I'm spending half on games nowadays as I was a few years ago. Down from $6k/year to around $3k/year, and once Switch 2 drops I suspect that'll drop even further to $2k/year. Which is like, less than $100 per payday on games. A FAR cry from the $400-500 I've budgeted this past generation

I eagerly await Switch 2 so I can officially cut ties with double dipping on physical Switch releases. Tired of spending so much on games.

2024 is gonna be $100/paycheck on games, that's it. A much more modest and reasonable allocation toward the hobby.

I allow myself at the absolute most the equivalent of one full retail release a month. Then for hardware the equivalent of "one PCs" worth of hardware spend a year. And that's across movies/games/music. Usually I don't hit it...

I did blow through it in 2022 when I got myself a OLED TV, Sonos Beam and Quest 2. Probably double the budget there. But 2023 I only got a 4060Ti an Anbernic 35XX+ and a G920 Wheel, which probably works out to be maybe $200-500 under? Also there was a huge hole in my gaming spend when TotK launched because I was more than entertained for a while there. 2023 was a bit frugal all things considered

I assume Switch 2 this year is going to carve out a fair amount of my gaming budget. Especially given I'm going to want a few games at launch

@JaxonH I can certainly identify with the spending fatigue that Switch has imposed upon those of us that committed to supporting the ever-growing library the platform offers.

I'm inclined to think that Switch is a 'once in a lifetime' type convergence of console-portable hybrid, HD resolution, first and third party support, and consumer appetite for the all-you-can eat buffet that's been presented to us. You and I have over-indulged and our appetites are naturally waning.

I wish the Switch generation would never end, but at the same time I know the relief I will feel after my final indulgence will be welcome.

@FishyS
Oh, trust me, I only do sales and mostly pre-owned discounted from Gamestop (as long as it comes with the case!), but I just can't fathom spending thousands on games a year. I would need a different career lol

If only there were more sales to get games in. I missed the Black Friday sales, and then I also missed the cyber Monday sales as well as the Boxing Day/Christmas sales but luckily there are the New Year sales now but if I miss them I will have to wait util the Spring sales!

@jump Don't worry, I'm sure there will be some Valentine sales in February also.

@gcunit
Well put.

It's been fun, as they say. But my shelf is full, my bank account is drained and I'm ready to move on to the next phase of this hobby. The digital era, and without games on a shelf, there's no temptation to buy anything except the ones I'm 100% in love with.

SteamDeck OLED has helped me accept and prepare for this major transition I'll be making. I've been double dipping on Switch games physical and digital, but with Deck it's all digital. And I'm ready to do the same with Switch 2.

I'm glad we got to experience the rush of this generation, like kids in a candy store. Especially after Wii U when I got into gaming, this was truly an all you can eat buffet. But I'm stuffed, you're stuffed, it's time to ask the cashier for the check and move along.

Perfect timing too, with 1.5 TB micro SD out for $150 (I grabbed 3 on sale for $129/ea) and Kioxia's 2 TB micro SD releasing within the next 90 days. When Switch dropped, 256 GB was as large as you could find. And it wasn't enough.

It's nice going into the Switch 2/Deck era equipped with incoming 2 TB microSD. We're gonna need it.

I just hope Switch 2 runs on SSD, and offers expandable 2232 NVMe like Deck so I can toss in a 2 TB like I did on the Deck OLED, then add a 2 TB microSD on top of that. Even if Switch 2 games must run on ssd and the microSD is only for BC Switch games, that's perfectly fine. 2TB for Switch catalog and 2TB for Switch 2 catalog.

Unfortunately I don't think they're going ssd. And even if they do, I doubt it'll be expandable. They'll just ensure games can run on ssd or microSD instead.

I'm so glad SteamDeck OLED exists man. It's already my 2nd favorite gaming device I've ever owned, behind Switch OLED. It's so nice having a backup device where, if a game by chance skips Switch 2, I know I can just grab it on Steam for Deck OLED.

Like Monster Hunter Wilds. I'm 95% confident once Switch 2 drops, we're gonna see virtually all multiplats announced for it as well. Since it'll be able to run them without insane optimization, excessive manhours and extreme compromises. With Rise on Switch matching if not outselling World on PS4, they'll be keen to ensure all MH games moving forward release on all platforms. No more split releases for console and handheld. Couldn't do that with Switch, but with Switch 2, it'll finally be feasible. SteamDeck alongside Switch 2 helps ensure all games will be designed to scale to run on that level of hardware. Might not offer raytracing or 4k or 120fps or ultra graphics settings. But a solid 30fps at 720p handheld, 1080p docked on low-medium settings? All day long. Bonus points if Switch 2 has DLSS and can upscale to 4k at 30fps, or offer 1080p 60fps docked, 720p 60fps handheld modes.

I've said many times this is a golden era of gaming. But the diamond era is about to begin when Switch 2 drops. That's when we truly ascend. Switch 2 + Deck = the promised land

Heavy Steam users are infamous for buying tons of random digital games they never actually play. 😝 On Switch I feel like the terrible eShop actually helps a little, but the temptation is still there. During my own transition from physical to digital with both games and books, for a while it was new enough I did only buy what I truly needed, but eventually the 'collect everything' temptation came back just as hard (for me at least) as it was in the pre-digital days.

As for a display shelf? I spend a lot of time organizing my icons and directories to look perfect. 😆

Also, it just occured to me....Nintendo has played enough with augmented reality, maybe someday your digital directories can be displayed as a real (visual) shelf in your home.

(moving this reply from resolutions thread so that thread doesn't get off topic - https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/nintendo-switch/your_2024... )

Decent point... If my OG Switch weren't getting a bit worn out, I wouldn't be as serious about getting the next console day 1. There will certainly be some big exclusive game to start with (e.g 3D Mario) but there won't be many at the start. I have enough Switch games I haven't finished to play for several years without running out so part of my goal is to get new shiny hardware just to keep playing games I already own.

My personal hardware spending has been fairly low — OG Switch in 2017, a slowly growing collection of controllers (I think I've bought 5 during the Switch life cycle?) and.... 3 micro SD cards of increasing sizes. If the new console ends up requiring me to get a new SD card and new controllers, it will be a lot more for me. It will be very interesting to see what degree of controller compatibility there is. I spent more money on games in 2023 than I usually do, so I will have to be a bit careful in 2024.