'Zelda: Breath of the Wild' is capped at 900p / 30 fps on the Switch

[CaptainTom]

I do want to throw this out there:

Nintendo isn't trying to attract mobile game developers, they're trying to attract game developers - that should be clear by the launch lineup not including one single 'freemium' game. Game developers are familiar with NVidia architecture and devkits. The TX1 in particular is one of nVidia's most popular dev kits, and is a very capable processor, even when underclocked. But judging by the heatsink on my TX1 and TK1 devkits, the underclock in this case is probably for thermal issues.

As said before, resolution doesn't matter nearly as much as polygon count (past 720p), and polygon count doesn't matter nearly as much art styles and story telling. Nintendo still managed to step-up what we expect from handheld consoles, and we will still see the Nintendo staples of Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon (or I expect Pokémon at some point). I'm not sure what anyone else is really looking for at this point.

Yes, the Shield has more power - and it sucks. The Shield tablet is being quietly swept out the door by NVidia because it was sales flop; no one wants a dedicated gaming tablet when the only games available are ones like clash of clans and candy crush. The Shield set-top box is also likely to be a failure too, since it is essentially a glorified Roku and Steam Link in one box, but out-does neither. The only reason I even briefly considered getting a Shield set-top box was because the Spotify app on Roku sucks and is pretty decent on Android, but it ultimately wasn't worth it for that one better experience for an app.

Nintendo offers good games, and then follows just behind the graphics curve to help keep the costs down - even if the hardware is "5 years old", do you really think it would have been $300 5 years ago? No, it wouldn't, because nothing 5 years ago combined all these features into one device, without that device being less than $800.

No one buys a console for its horse power, and no one buys a game for its eye candy alone. We buy consoles for their available games, and we buy games for the fun they offer. End of story.

5 years ago? idk.


But I can tell you that my 2 - year old Macbook Air blows the living crap out of this handheld (Intel 6000 graphics). I would then add that things like Intel 5000 weren't much weaker, and that is 4 years old and only used 15w. Then consider AMD's old 5-25w Jaguar chips, that while probably half as strong as the Switch; they certainly provided a comparable level of relative performance back in 2013 - and they only cost like $30 per SOC. That device could have cost $200 back then with performance a bit above the PS3.



Furthermore this continually perpetuated myth that console purchasers do not care about performance has no basis in fact or figures. Consistently history has proven that people do care.

 

[Kibaruk]

But I can tell you that my 2 - year old Macbook Air blows the living crap out of this handheld (Intel 6000 graphics).

Please do tell me more about how your Macbook Air costed you $300.

 

[mbrowne5061]

5 years ago? idk.


But I can tell you that my 2 - year old Macbook Air blows the living crap out of this handheld (Intel 6000 graphics). I would then add that things like Intel 5000 weren't much weaker, and that is 4 years old and only used 15w. Then consider AMD's old 5-25w Jaguar chips, that while probably half as strong as the Switch; they certainly provided a comparable level of relative performance back in 2013 - and they only cost like $30 per SOC. That device could have cost $200 back then with performance a bit above the PS3.



Furthermore this continually perpetuated myth that console purchasers do not care about performance has no basis in fact or figures. Consistently history has proven that people do care.

Please do tell me more about how your Macbook Air costed you $300.

I would also like to know how a full-blown CPU with silicon real estate dedicated to a GPU can be compared to low-power processor like the TX1. Comparing x86 to Tegra is like comparing Apples to Oranges, almost literally in this case.

 

[liammac002]

well the Xbox 360 and PS3 rendered at 720 and then up-scaled to 1080, I don't remember seeing people complaining about that. I also don't understand the difference of whether it's the console or the TV doing the up scaling.

I really don't understand all the hate that the switch is getting. People didn't care that Wii was capped at 480P while the 360 and PS3 were out and it outsold both. The Switch is the most innovative console I've ever seen and seems to be ever better executed.

It costs less than an iPad and comes with more. It's mind boggling to me why this thing is doing so much. Everyone else just does the same old thing and everyone goes nuts for them, but Nintendo does something different and does it really well and suddenly everyone hates it? Everyone is saying it's underpowered? IT'S A ****ING 6'' TABLET!!!!!!! What do you think they're going to do, put a GTX1080 in something the size of a book?

No, I really don't, I was actually considering buying the Switch, I probably would've preordered it if I hadn't just upgraded my gaming pc. What I do expect is a brand new console being able to outperform 12 year old hardware, and the fact that they underclocked a 2 year old tablet processor and hooked it up to a 720p display and people are calling it "revolutionary" pisses me off. Not to mention the pathetic battery life. I read that when playing Zelda, an in-house developed game, the Switch will only hold out for 3 hours. That's a step down from the 3ds, a system I own and many already feel has lackluster battery life. I like the idea of taking games that live on home console on the go, but I feel like Nintendo isn't taking it seriously, and is just hoping it will sell units off of the gimmick. I like that you can play multiplayer games on the go, but I can't imagine you'll be able to see ANYTHING on a 720p 6" display split in two. If they cared about the console performing decently as a home console, they would allow the SOC to run at full speed (or be over clocked) when plugged in at home, but it still runs slower than the Shield Tablet. If they cared about battery life on the go, they would've used Pascal. There's so many ways this console feels half-baked, that I no longer want to buy it. I like Nintendo, but this disappointed me.

 

[Jennax1985]

I do want to throw this out there:

Nintendo isn't trying to attract mobile game developers, they're trying to attract game developers - that should be clear by the launch lineup not including one single 'freemium' game. Game developers are familiar with NVidia architecture and devkits. The TX1 in particular is one of nVidia's most popular dev kits, and is a very capable processor, even when underclocked. But judging by the heatsink on my TX1 and TK1 devkits, the underclock in this case is probably for thermal issues.

As said before, resolution doesn't matter nearly as much as polygon count (past 720p), and polygon count doesn't matter nearly as much art styles and story telling. Nintendo still managed to step-up what we expect from handheld consoles, and we will still see the Nintendo staples of Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon (or I expect Pokémon at some point). I'm not sure what anyone else is really looking for at this point.

Yes, the Shield has more power - and it sucks. The Shield tablet is being quietly swept out the door by NVidia because it was sales flop; no one wants a dedicated gaming tablet when the only games available are ones like clash of clans and candy crush. The Shield set-top box is also likely to be a failure too, since it is essentially a glorified Roku and Steam Link in one box, but out-does neither. The only reason I even briefly considered getting a Shield set-top box was because the Spotify app on Roku sucks and is pretty decent on Android, but it ultimately wasn't worth it for that one better experience for an app.

Nintendo offers good games, and then follows just behind the graphics curve to help keep the costs down - even if the hardware is "5 years old", do you really think it would have been $300 5 years ago? No, it wouldn't, because nothing 5 years ago combined all these features into one device, without that device being less than $800.

No one buys a console for its horse power, and no one buys a game for its eye candy alone. We buy consoles for their available games, and we buy games for the fun they offer. End of story.

No one buys a console for its horse power??? Then tell me what the hell all that chest thumping PS4 fanboys were rubbing to all XBOX One owners about the PS4 being a 1080p, having 6 more Compute cores and GDDR5 console then huh? You're awfully ignorant if you truly think that way. Buy the way, my Galaxy S7 Edge has more horsepower and renders my mobile games at 1440p and it's $700 because of all the other features it has such as it being a premium phone, IP68 rated, premium camera that shoots 4k video, superior battery life, FAR superior display in using a 1440p OLED display, NFC and replacement for credit cards, fingerprint sensor, lets me use my XBOX One controller with games since the controller has bluetooth or my Moga pro controller that's similar and has a holder for the phone on top of it, lets me play many emulators and games from the NES all the way to the PS2/Dreamcast/Gameboy/DS and even Wii and does VR with Samsung Gear VR they give away free and more that the underpowered Switch has no answer for and the Adreno 530 GPU is as powerful as the Tegra but much more energy efficient too..... The Switch is looking to be a failure already and it's going to be spanked by the new incoming generation of smartphones and tablets, within a year or two, it's going to be left behind and be underpowered even to similar priced mid range phones and tablets..... Worse of all.... my phone is nearly a year old now and will be when the Switch is released.... Even better with Android Nougat update, I can set my phone's resolution to 720p for much longer battery life or switch it to 1440p for VR since 1080p, much less 720p looks like crap in VR. You don't have those choices on the underpowered Switch... Oh yeah, I can also connect it to my TV as well, so there goes that "fancy" TV docking "innovation" as well....

I have plenty of AAA titles on my phone too through the various emulators I have installed that the Switch doesn't have. Can you say you can play Kingdom Hearts while taking a lunch break at work???? Square Enix is even releasing an updated visuals Final Fantasy XI for mobile that will have graphics as good or better than this new Zelda game and it's a large mmo with TONS of content from all the expansions that have come out throughout the years...

 

[Kibaruk]

No one buys a console for its horse power??? Then tell me what the hell all that chest thumping PS4 fanboys were rubbing to all XBOX One owners about the PS4 being a 1080p, having 6 more Compute cores and GDDR5 console then huh?

It's like the AMD vs Nvidia thing, and then Intel, no one will buy a notebook because it has intel integrated graphics, but because its simply not what they are looking for in a laptop. Just like that.

Can you say you can play Kingdom Hearts while taking a lunch break at work????

This sounds kind of sad. You can't compare AAA emulated games lol, you can emulate them on a raspberry pi, it's not much to say and you could even do it on the Wii (3 gens ago).