Zelda: Breath of the Wild looks amazing on Switch, but modders – using an emulated version of the game – have been working on making it look even more fantastic via the magic of PC hardware for the past few years now.
Take German modder Digital Dreams, who has managed to get Breath of the Wild running at a pin-sharp 8K resolution – with a ray tracing turned on to make it even more visually arresting.
The catch, beyond the fact that you need to resort to emulation and piracy to play it? Well, the sheer processing power required to see Hyrule in this dazzling form is pretty staggering – an Asus TUF RTX 3090 graphics card, 32GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD storage, for starters – but the end result is something that looks so good, it's hard to imagine the rumoured Switch Pro even matching it, let alone the soon-to-be-released Switch OLED Model.
Still, you can't fit that kind of PC power in your rucksack, can you? Each to their own.
[source kotaku.com]
Comments 77
Still soulless, but at least they chose a game a hyperrealistic aesthetic would fit and not god damn Banjo-Kazooie or whatever.
Wow, that looks amazing! Imagine a future Nintendo console achieving such graphics. <3
Needs to be a deal with Nvidia to get Switch games on Nvidia now, it makes so much sense when you see how good the games "can" look and run on PC.
@Noid you really calling botw a soulless game? Or just because it is 8k? Because the last part makes no sense at all.
@FargusPelagius Nintendo would never allow their own games to be put on a pc. It’s the only true reason they have to make people buy systems from them, and if they were put on pc, they’d lose a bit of the market they were already selling to.
@BrintaPap Pretty sure Noid was just saying they find these mods to change the original aesthetic too much, making them look more soulless, and that even "at 8K with RTX" it still looks soulless to them compared to the original.
Wooooow, that really does look fantastic. Shame you need a NASA supercomputer to run it 😂
@FargusPelagius Nintendo is practically never allowing their games to be sold through a client that isn't them. They're the last console manufacturer that's actually completely restricted to the console when it comes to their games. If it's not on Nintendo hardware, then you're not playing it through any means that isn't unofficial like emulation
@Noid BOTW soulless? Now I've heard it all
But is it portable? No? Okay, byyyeee..!
watches video at 144p
"Wow! .... It looks the same, a bit worse if I do say so myself."
@Oish @BrintaPap I'm talking about the upscaling, not BOTW itself. The "Still" is in relation to previous game upscales like Mario 64.
I don't fell like this game needs 8K or Ray Tracing. I'm happy the way it is now (60fps would be nice tho)
I now BADLY want a full playthrough of this mod.
"New Zelda: Breath Of The Wild PC Mod Makes The Game Look Better Than Ever"
Yeah, that's entirely subjective. Imo a lot of the personality of the game gets lost by some of those mods like raytracing or reshade. Higher resolution and framerate would be appreciated though
Hurts my eyes lol. It's far too bright.
I don’t understand these. They run like crap and look good, but feel really unnecessary. 4K is already debatable whether or not it matters too much, but 8k is just extremely unnecessary. 8k TVs would have to be huge for you to notice a difference. The mod also
removes some of the spirit from the original.
Idk why Nintendolife keeps reporting on these since they have already made (at least) one article on pretty much the same thing about a year ago. It’s not really news.
It's like you tryhard to make effect of cel-shading look realistic and you can't do that, regardelss how many visual effects you add
It's still cel-shaded cartoony game
@Noid Are you referring to those videos recreating SM64 in unity? Cause this something completely different, it's just the same game running with different lighting, not a total overhaul.
No thanks.... ray tracing makes the game lose much of its charm. Stable 60fps and 1080p would be nice though
8k but NOT 240 FPS?!
Heresy!
@link3710 I'm more thinking of the mods that put photorealistic water into Mario 64 and such.
Rucksack? How about fitting that "kind of power" into one's wallet to begin with? 2 Tb SSD alone can cost like a whole Switch. And all for the above effect which is... NICE. That's still the whole problem of all this graphical fluff - it's just NICE. It doesn't make the game look "awesome" because the artstyle, designs and other artistic/programming work that went into the production already did that before, in the original resolution. And here we have visual polish your brain will get used to and completely forget in a matter of minutes. Is this why people keep blindly (no pun intended) chasing bigger and bigger numbers of K's? Because the thing is like an illusory drug and the effect of smaller "doses" rapidly degrades with each use? You can't go back to lower dosage (give a modern gamer the resolutions we grew up with, and you'll hear howls and wails that "the goggles do nothing!"), only up and higher up. Does any of this sound like a selling point of consumer tech? Not to me.
No thanks. Not remotely impressive enough to justify the outrageous machine that would be required to run it.
Why do so many people want to spend so much money on gaming? I don't get it. To me, it's called "diminishing returns".
@Noid Ah, fair enough. This one does look like someone cranked up the contrast slider to max on a game that is supposed to have been inspired by the soft tones of Ghibli films
If only I had a super-computer instead of a crappy laptop
Just want to point out that you don't "need to resort to...piracy" to do this, just emulation. You can absolutely take your own copy of the game and rip it yourself- there's no need to bring maritime larceny into it.
soooo, you guys showed this back in march. thought that video looked familiar.
@flighty Let’s be real. Majority of that “community” don’t do that.
@TheFrenchiestFry companies change over time. If it makes them money, they'll do it. The times are changing. Besides it would be on Nintendo Hardware and still tied to their subs, Switch can access it via streaming, and the Next piece of hardware can run it natively using an Nvidia GPU.
@VoidofLight it would be on PC for streaming purpose, still tied to their NSO sub, and via the Switch and the next console along. Just be an Nvidia powered machine pumping it out at other end, hopefully with a similar spec to Nintendo's next machine.
Edit: signs this is already occuring within Nintendo. Wii games on Shield in china (now being pulled though), PC versions of Monster hunter Rise, W101, Daemon X machina, Fatal frame/project zero. The balls already rolling.
@Heavyarms55 Some people are highly stimulated visually, and take great joy in how beautiful games can look. Think on that fact, and it might help you figure out why someone would want to crank the graphics as high as possible, thus spending more money on a gaming setup.
Holy smokes that’s a good looking mod. Such attention to detail! It’s a shame Nintendo doesn’t make games that look that lush and beautiful. Maybe one day, they will get on with it.
@PhhhCough In before running it on the Steam Deck.
@PhhhCough Steam Deck says yes
Looks absolutely beautiful. Would love to play the game again in this fashion in the future when it’s more affordable
@BloodNinja I don't see it. Perhaps my eyes just aren't good enough, nor have ever been good enough to recognize what I must be missing.
I just feel like you get these absurd gaming PCs that cost more than my first car did and I see them running games and it doesn't look all that much better.
@Heavyarms55 You're probably accustomed to lower resolutions and framerates at this point given you seem to only be a Switch gamer but take it from someone who does game on PC regularly, once you actually see how good things can look with the right hardware it's almost hard to go back, especially in regards to multiplatform games
I actually gave up on trying to play Wolfenstein 2 on Switch because of how much blurry it was, whereas on other platforms it does a much better job of preserving the game's artistry and attention to detail in my opinion. Doesn't make the port bad, but sacrifices had to be made
@Heavyarms55 What device are you viewing these videos on? It makes a world of difference if I view these types of things on my phone vs a good monitor that can display the correct color saturation and such.
The PC mentioned in this article is considered mid-range, by the way. There are even stronger and more expensive setups than this out there. Graphics artists working for movie studios often link multiple computers together to be able to handle the amount of processing required for after effects.
I’ve been gaming on mid-range PCs for the past two decades. It really does make a significant difference. Going beyond 2K requires the right viewing angle though. If you sit 6-10 feet away from the screen, the difference is imperceptible. With greater resolutions, you need larger screens and a greater viewing distance from the monitor to appreciate what it does.
It looks nice, but the gameplay is still the same, and not improved in any way by the changes made.
@Noid Ahhhh I forgot those exist lol.
I'll take the original. The colors are very off.
There's only so much a mod can do, but it's worth noting that the ray-tracing here is only a screen-space method (using Reshade) for having ray-traced global illumination. Not quite as fancy as something that you would expect to see in a game build around RT. But cool effect nonetheless.
Honestly, running a game in 8K is such a waste. I doubt many gamers even have 8K displays yet, and 4K looks super sharp even on big TV screens.
@Arawn93 I wasn't making any sort of statement about the um... game-emulating community? I only took issue with the phrasing that suggested that you had to pirate the game if you wanted to mod it, which is absolutely not true.
@Xaessya 🤣🤣but in all honesty, you saw the specs this person had, to run these mods. You honestly think the steamdeck can do that?
"but the end result is something that looks so good, it's hard to imagine the rumoured Switch Pro even matching it, let alone the soon-to-be-released Switch OLED Model."
Think you meant consoles in general
Only available on steam deck 😂 haha just kidding.
Man the length fans fo for this. Looks amazing.
@Lando_ that would be in 2030 minimal…
This type of complex mod would not be currently possible had BOTW not come to Wii U. Think about that for a sec, the article doesn't even mention this is the Wii U version.
We have a couple of 3090 equipped PCs that will run this but I prefer original hardware personally. I like to play the way the developers intended.
So much bloom you can't see the game. If this is what people consider an upgrade, I'll stick with the original thank you very much.
@andykara2003 "I like to play the way the developers intended."
Which, for most Switch ports, means you prefer crippled graphics and capped at 30fps? 😅
On one hand it's interesting and impressive, on the other it takes away the arty character of the game that it had with the current visuals. I prefer the way it looks currently on the Switch.
@Prizm Slightly immature language there - but I play multi platform games on PS5, Series X or PC. Using.a 3090 means I can run at very high frame rates so I usually choose that. I only use the Switch for exclusives.
I have that hardware minus a 3090, but my 6800XT is just as good at 4k.
I've already done a 1080p/60fps BotW run on my PC, so I'll do a 4k60fps run of BotW2 later on.
@andykara2003
I use my Switch for exclusives too but play stuff like this on my PC because I can't stand 30fps and won't tolerate it anymore.
Metroid Dread will be 60fps so I'll play it on my Switch OLED, BotW2 will be waiting for PC patches after I buy it.
Yeah maybe 3 more gems and Nintendo will learn we too like pretty graphics, but I'm sure it will be some new wonky gimmick.
I'm not sure you're pirating if you own the game legally and you're only emulating it to play for yourself.
2TB of storage?
Very stunning! I don't understand the dislike for modders and re-texturers. Many of them have managed to upscale these beloved games while staying as close to the original as possible.
There is only so much they can do and I commend the ones for putting alot of effort into modding. Just shows what can be achieved if not for hardware limitations.
My Phone: Best I can do is 1440.
The Ray tracing seems to be doing a whole lot of the "wow" here considering all most everyone here wasn't watching on a 8K screen. I'd happily play an 1080P version with RT, guess that's gonna have to wait till the Switch 2.
Here come the comments talking about watching a high-resolution video at something lower.
In all seriousness... Breath of the Wild is proof that better hardware isn't "needed" for a game to look gorgeous. Whether someone wants to play higher than 900p 30fps is fine, but because the game was made with the Wii U specifically in mind, anything higher is pretty much just eye candy.
@Prizm
The Switch is better for games made specifically for the Switch. For the most part, any Switch game developed and/or published by Nintendo will run pretty well (a number of exceptions, but still). Any sort of port is more of an extra treat, or for those who actually play handheld.
At this point, you could just get the Steam Deck to play those games that don't run well on the Switch.
So cool, this PC mod! You don't even have to play the game and earn the Mon to buy the Dark Link outfit from Kilton, you can just start the game wearing it! So you can look like a fool, being struck by lightning and simple Bokoblins, wearing mid/end-game armor.
8K gaming is totally worthless. And like 0,00001% of population got 8k monitor/tv. Switch Pro will not be as strong as Xbox Series S for at least a decade. It prob won't be as strong as Steam Deck
@BloodNinja Sorry but I agree with @Heavyarms55 as for me this takes away far more than it adds. I also noted your comment about people wanting to change the game and felt this often seems to ignore that lots of people like the authentic experience that was intended for their game.
Mod Developer Finds You Can Make A Game Look Better When Using More Powerful Equipment Needing Fifteen Developing Countries' Worth Of Energy
Shame it doesn't fill up the sparse world and make weapons stronger than wet cardboard.
@mariomaster96 Honestly you might be onto something with the personality aspect. If you look at recent games like not just Zelda titles but even stuff like Mario Odyssey, you can see that Nintendo was often drawing from specific artistic inspirations and styles and balanced a lot of the visuals, palettes and lighting to try an convey such effects.
Effects that can be easily lost in "upscales" like this which focus only on technology and not how they can be used to enhance the original intent instead of overwhelming it.
Like.... Skyward Sword was clearly inspired by the art of impressionists who'd paint environment in small brushstrokes that have to be viewed at a distances to truly appreciate the way they blend and meld into hue and shapes(as up close the brushstrokes would seem too thick to truly notice the details, ironically).
Similarly Breath of the wild was itself inspired by the work of other painters, something that can be lost upon with unbalanced use of shaders and lighting.
In fact, if anything... looking how cel-shaded characters stand apart from the more muted background in Breath of the Wild feels intentional and sometimes even remind me of old style cartoons where background artwork were often (slightly desaturated) watercolored paintings whereas characters were more vibrant/saturated cel-shading that would "pop out" in the image further.
That kind of shader/lighting such as in those mods can often lose this effect.
I already got that quality graphics when I downloaded some RAM onto a USB stick and put it in the dock. I thought everybody knew about that life hack
Reminds me of that E3 2011 Zelda tech demo.
People complaining about the mod being too good. eye roll
Thos got me thinking, maybe I can enjoy BotW. I can just run it on the Steam Deck, and hope for a mod that removes weapon durability.
Yeah it's a no from me. The whole feel of the art style is off here and the lighting all wrong, more power does not necessarily = better and this is a prime example of style over substance.
It's not piracy if you purchased the game.
Really annoyed by this article for a few reasons.
1. Piracy isn't needed, emulation and dumping is 100% legal.
2. You only need like 128GB of storage, probably less.
3. The guy didn't "manage" to get it running at 8K, he just pushed a few buttons in Cemu and then ran it on his beefy PC. Even the people who made the resolution pack didn't have to do much, Cemu lets you input pretty much whatever resolution you want. Hell, there's a 10K option now.
4. 8K is just overkill, this is getting pointless. Also, the path tracing shader limited to what ReShade can do, which means it's screen-space only.
5. BOTW is a 32-bit game on Wii U, so it's incapable of using more than 4GB of RAM. And that's when modded, normally it's limited to only 2GB. You don't need 32GB of RAM, 16 or even 8 will work fine (although with 8, Windows might eat a bunch of it).
6. As for the required hardware power, my midrange laptop (1650, 10th gen i5, 32GB RAM) can run 8K at 10 FPS if I force it to. I'm amazed it even runs at all (If you're curious, the highest I can push resolution without dipping under 30 FPS is 4K, which is already overkill for my 1080p display). I reckon a 1070 or a 1080 could run it at 20+ FPS. You probably don't need a 3090 to run it at 8K full-speed.
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