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Digital Foundry: Saints Row the Third; A Step Up From Ark

ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
61,987
title is my own, only because I wanted to get to the point: it's bad

  • bad framepacing
  • lower lows/higher highs than PS3/360
  • handheld mode about as good as PS3
  • bad input latency
  • Switch Hardware really isn't suited for this type of rendering
  • overclocking hack can't fix this
  • 1080p/720p
  • due to how the rendering works, the higher resolution hurts the IQ in a way


there's a bonus screen space path tracing on the PC!
 
Robin64

Robin64

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,623
England
Remember there's a patch coming on Thursday, too, that claims to fix some performance issues.
 
Shard Shinjuku

Shard Shinjuku

Member
Oct 25, 2017
30,036
Tampa

Digital Foundry
Published on May 14, 2019






Saints Row The Third arrives on Nintendo Switch and the results are not exactly "Johnny Gat Approved". John and Rich dive into the game to check out performance across all modes while stacking it up against PlayStation 3. They also quickly check out the game running on PC utilizing the screen-space Path Tracer! Check it out.
 
ShinobiBk

ShinobiBk

One Winged Slayer
Member
Dec 28, 2017
10,121
This will be brutal. Watching (actually listnening cause at work) right now.

I will say this, last gen or not, I think Switch is really struggling to run open world games on this type of scale. Might be the reason we have yet to see GTA V a.k.a. money printing machine
 
Komo

Komo

Info Analyst
Verified
Jan 3, 2019
7,110
I don't know why they'd bother releasing this poor port. With bad it runs you'd think they'd want to optimize that for it's launch, and not require a patch to fix it.
 
fadedbones

fadedbones

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,589
Again, they can cut into this port so honestly, where's the truth for MK11?

edit: this is a SR3 thread, apologies.
 
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Thoraxes

Thoraxes

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,197
Gehenna
Yeah I knew at launch it's terrible. Was waiting for the patch to hit before even debating buying it, but as for the as-is version of the game, it's an incredibly poor showing.
 
Sub Boss

Sub Boss

Banned
Nov 14, 2017
13,441
ShinobiBk said:
This will be brutal. Watching (actually listnening cause at work) right now.

I will say this, last gen or not, I think Switch is really struggling to run open world games on this type of scale. Might be the reason we have yet to see GTA V a.k.a. money printing machine
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It struggles with Dragons Dogma and that one is a pretty good port all things considered (but it won't even run it at 720p on the small screen and without heavy drops here and there)
 
OP
OP
ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
61,987
ShinobiBk said:
This will be brutal. Watching (actually listnening cause at work) right now.

I will say this, last gen or not, I think Switch is really struggling to run open world games on this type of scale. Might be the reason we have yet to see GTA V a.k.a. money printing machine
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Sub Boss said:
It struggles with Dragons Dogma and that one is a pretty good port all things considered (but it won't even run it at 720p on the small screen and without heavy drops here and there)
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not unless they're made for the hardware, as Breath of the Wild shown. last gen games dealt with a different design, particularly bandwidth. the 360 actually had lower bandwidth but was supplemented by the super-fast frame buffer. Dragon's Dogma was the only MTFramework game that's open world and one of the earlier ones, so I can't say I'm surprised at it's underwhelming performance.
 

Deleted member 437

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
11,039
Sub Boss said:
I don't get it, whats "The Ark"
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An absolute dogshit of a game. Runs like absolute garbage on PS4 and Xb1. One of the ugliest and worst running games on those platforms. Feels like it barely runs.

So they decided to put an already feces game on the switch, which honestly takes the word "garbage" to an even new level.

ILikeFeet said:
mortal kombat truthers are a thing?
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I don't like how they omitted sections of MK11. Honestly, a pretty big section. If you are gonna do a comparison, do a comparison. Don't try to massage other platforms.
 
Black_Stride

Black_Stride

Avenger
Oct 28, 2017
7,388
Seik said:
MK11 is a current gen UE4 game and it runs decently enough to be impressive.

SR3 is a last gen game which shouldn't struggle to run on Switch, at least not without a decent amount of optimisations.

Do the math.
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Seik said:
Oh, you're right! I was sure that they made the switch to UE4 by now, interesting!
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Its so heavily modified it might as well be called the NR Engine at this point.

On Topic
Yikes this looks pretty rough
 

Deleted member 36708

Banned
Dec 23, 2017
8,802
Ha! So will you do another video after the patch that is supposed to fix issues. I mean it hasn't been out a week and the patch comes out this Thursday. Could you not have just waited until after the patch.
 
Sub Boss

Sub Boss

Banned
Nov 14, 2017
13,441
ILikeFeet said:
not unless they're made for the hardware, as Breath of the Wild shown. last gen games dealt with a different design, particularly bandwidth. the 360 actually had lower bandwidth but was supplemented by the super-fast frame buffer. Dragon's Dogma was the only MTFramework game that's open world and one of the earlier ones, so I can't say I'm surprised at it's underwhelming performance.
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Yep if its made specifically for the hardware it can yield wonderful results, like Xenoblade 2 torna, but not without some compromise in handheld mode (it works well on docked) though thats a taste only because Monolith are still working on a new engine that works around Switch limitations and strenghts

Spine Crawler said:
eh.. botw?
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If you tried to down port the Xbox ONE version of GTAV on Switch i assume there would be a fair amount of problems, last gen too though i think it would be more on the game size file.

I mean for the amount of resources a publisher is willing to spend on a Switch conversion.we will have GTA V last gen on Switch and gamers would complain loud
 

Deleted member 18161

user requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,805
This is what happens when people get their wish of a native 720p in handheld mode and a native 1080p in docked mode.

The clocks are more designed around 540p in handheld and 720-900p when docked for PS360 / PS4XB1 level 3D open Worlds.

Hopefully the patch improves the game.
 
fadedbones

fadedbones

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,589
Seik said:
MK11 is a current gen UE4 game and it runs decently enough to be impressive.

SR3 is a last gen game which shouldn't struggle to run on Switch, at least not without a decent amount of optimisations.

Do the math.
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No it is not and no it doesn't. I apologize for the off topic post though, this is a SR3 thread so let's get into that. I was actually looking forward to SR3 coming off the PS3 version and do appreciate that the DF team, watching the vid now, is putting it through the grinder.
 
daybreak

daybreak

Member
Feb 28, 2018
2,415
Honestly seems more like an issue with the game itself than the port (although its still not a good port), considering the poor performance on last-gen consoles.

Overall, this is disappointing. Will be interesting to see what - if any - improvements happen with the patch.
 
Rodney McKay

Rodney McKay

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,189
Little worried about the Red Faction Guerrilla port now.

Granted, that game's environments are a lot more bare than Saints Row, but it does have the destructible buildings which could be taxing...

II watched the GB quicklook for Saints Row 3 on Switch and it was pretty rough looking. Didn't seem unplayable by any means, and it did get me pretty nostalgic for the game, but I'll probably just replay it on PC if I get the urge too.
 

Dark1x

Digital Foundry
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
3,530
Tron1 said:
Ha! So will you do another video after the patch that is supposed to fix issues. I mean it hasn't been out a week and the patch comes out this Thursday. Could you not have just waited until after the patch.
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No, we couldn't have waited. It was either do this video right now or not do it all. There's too much other stuff coming up and we had a lull so this fit the bill. If it REALLY improves things, though, I will revisit.

Abdul Malik Ka'bah said:
Ah so deferred rendering is a bad idea for mobile hardware? Why is that?
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Memory bandwidth is one of the main issues there and deferred likes lots of it.
 
Nooblet

Nooblet

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,626
Spine Crawler said:
eh.. botw?
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Well first of all BoTW is not very dense, it's very sparse and secondly the game isn't alpha heavy. And lastly, the pace at which you move through the world is faster. This is what they meant most likely when they said it's not suited for this type of game. Because the similarity between this and BoTW stop beyond then just bring open world.
 
ShinobiBk

ShinobiBk

One Winged Slayer
Member
Dec 28, 2017
10,121
Nooblet said:
Well first of all BoTW is not very dense, it's very sparse and secondly the game isn't alpha heavy. And lastly, the pace at which you move through the world is faster. This is what they meant most likely when they said it's not suited for this type of game. Because the similarity between this and BoTW stop beyond then just bring open world.
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Exactly

Skyrim is on Switch too and is a solid in-between last gen and current gen open world port but again like BOTW, very different type of open world game.

I actually think Dragon's Dogma is a solid port all things considered. That game ran terrible on PS3.

Assassin's Creed III is the big one later this month. I'm very interested in the game but the first showing was so unfathomably bad. It looked better at PAX but that was all off screen iirc. It has the more sparse areas in the open world, but the cities/towns are huge with a lot of NPC's. I'm hoping they can get that running well
 
Harp

Harp

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,206
ShinobiBk said:
This will be brutal. Watching (actually listnening cause at work) right now.

I will say this, last gen or not, I think Switch is really struggling to run open world games on this type of scale. Might be the reason we have yet to see GTA V a.k.a. money printing machine
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It runs BOTW like a dream for the most part, and Xenoblade 2 runs great as well, though it does have resolutions issues in handheld.
 
Eoin

Eoin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,103
Spine Crawler said:
eh.. botw?
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BOTW definitely runs well, but unfortunately it's very much outnumbered by open-world games that struggle. If we stack up all the open world games on Switch and how well they perform, it seems like the best-looking, best-performing candidates would be games that have a big budget and the full attention of a top-class first-party development team (e.g. BOTW) or are rather simpler in scope (e.g. Starlink).

There's enough examples now to make it clear that it's not easy to port open-world games to Switch, even games from last generation. Even BOTW had initial performance issues, though Nintendo did put in the effort and made big technical improvements.

Tron1 said:
Ha! So will you do another video after the patch that is supposed to fix issues.
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They do mention in the video that it's worth monitoring the game, so probably they will.

Based on the patch notes that were posted in another topic, unless the note saying "added low resolution particle rendering and related performance update" means a lot more than it looks like it means, I wouldn't expect the patch to result in anything more than a slightly smoother framerate graph.

Tron1 said:
I mean it hasn't been out a week and the patch comes out this Thursday. Could you not have just waited until after the patch.
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The game is out now and they're asking for money now. Why would they wait? It's not like DF can instantly make a video, a week-long wait for a patch would probably mean that the DF video would appear this time next week at the earliest, and by that time most people will have either decided to buy this port or have lost interest in it, making a DF video kind of pointless. Besides, when a port performs as poorly as this, why would you not want DF pointing that out at the earliest opportunity?
 

Deleted member 36708

Banned
Dec 23, 2017
8,802
Eoin said:
BOTW definitely runs well, but unfortunately it's very much outnumbered by open-world games that struggle. If we stack up all the open world games on Switch and how well they perform, it seems like the best-looking, best-performing candidates would be games that have a big budget and the full attention of a top-class first-party development team (e.g. BOTW) or are rather simpler in scope (e.g. Starlink).

There's enough examples now to make it clear that it's not easy to port open-world games to Switch, even games from last generation. Even BOTW had initial performance issues, though Nintendo did put in the effort and made big technical improvements.


They do mention in the video that it's worth monitoring the game, so probably they will.

Based on the patch notes that were posted in another topic, unless the note saying "added low resolution particle rendering and related performance update" means a lot more than it looks like it means, I wouldn't expect the patch to result in anything more than a slightly smoother framerate graph.


The game is out now and they're asking for money now. Why would they wait? It's not like DF can instantly make a video, a week-long wait for a patch would probably mean that the DF video would appear this time next week at the earliest, and by that time most people will have either decided to buy this port or have lost interest in it, making a DF video kind of pointless. Besides, when a port performs as poorly as this, why would you not want DF pointing that out at the earliest opportunity?
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Because it's not like the devs ignored it or we have to wait long. It comes out this week. I just hope the same amount of effort that went into getting this video out quickly can go into an updated video (assuming issues are fixed) letting people know it's a good quality port that should be purchased. A lot of people will watch this and won't purchase the game based off of it
 
catboy

catboy

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,322
mazi said:
video by o k




summary:
- there's going to be a patch coming next week. the game is available now for purchase tho and this is the performance of the launch version
- bug where it gets stuck on the loading screen
- native 720p in handheld mode, 1080p in docked mode, but a lot of jaggies
- unlocked frame rate, but it can't even maintain 30 fps
- fps can drop to as low as 13 in some instances. it can occasionally run at higher than 30fps but it's all very inconsistent.
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I love being right!
jYFj822.gif


glad someone else was able to get hard metrics on handheld performance!
 

Dark1x

Digital Foundry
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
3,530
Tron1 said:
Because it's not like the devs ignored it or we have to wait long. It comes out this week. I just hope the same amount of effort that went into getting this video out quickly can go into an updated video (assuming issues are fixed) letting people know it's a good quality port that should be purchased. A lot of people will watch this and won't purchase the game based off of it
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I think you're expecting way too much from this patch. If it's really good, though, I'll cover it. I don't believe it'll help much, though. The performance is just too bad.
 
9-Volt

9-Volt

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,869
ShinobiBk said:
I actually think Dragon's Dogma is a solid port all things considered. That game ran terrible on PS3.
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As someone who are playing both on Switch right now, I encountered similar amount of framerate dips on both. DD framerate is not stable but as you said, is much better than PS3 version. Boss battles still can become really tedious.

Saints Row is more or less same with the Xbox version but dips are less frequent. The thing is, there is no "good version" of SR to compare the Switch version to, Switch port could be the best version of the game as it has 1080p native advantage over last gen versions. DD is not native.

They really should put up an option similar to Darksiders to SR. People would choose between resolution and framerate. My opinion is native res is kinda useless for a game that can get busy as hell.
 
Eoin

Eoin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,103
Tron1 said:
Because it's not like the devs ignored it or we have to wait long. It comes out this week. I just hope the same amount of effort that went into getting this video out quickly can go into an updated video (assuming issues are fixed) letting people know it's a good quality port that should be purchased. A lot of people will watch this and won't purchase the game based off of it
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If publishers don't want sales of a game to be negatively affected by the fact that it runs like shit, then the solution is for them to do better and stop releasing games that run like shit.

It's not incumbent on Digital Foundry to hold off on criticising a game because it's shit but it might be better in future.

You already have an answer from Dark1x from Digital Foundry, by the way, written while I was writing my own post, saying that it was this or nothing. That's probably a better post for you to respond to than mine, although I am happy to reiterate that my opinion is that Digital Foundry should feel totally free to analyse and criticise retail releases from literally the second that money can change hands, with no regards whatsoever for promised patches.
 
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