I assume it's a budget thing. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to just use the existing LOD models and textures than to pay artists to go in and remake assets suitable to the platform.
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Digital Foundry: The Outer Worlds on Switch: an ambitious effort, but the compromises cut too deep
- Thread starter Dancrane212
- Start date
The biggest thing to me is that it actually maintains a relatively high rendering resolution for a game like this, higher than most demanding Switch ports from this gen. They probably should've lowered that and upped the texture resolutions a bit. They made a strange choice there.
Is the resolution that high when in docked they said it is usually 720p and 540p in handheld? How much lower would you like them to go?
Look at some of the other current gen UE4 games on Switch, 720p is rather high. Even TW3 doesn't maintain it that high on average I believe.
Keeping in mind those aren't the ceilings, it targets 1080p docked and 720p handheld.
That thing also exist on base Xbox One, not Switch specific. This game is meant to be played on Pro consoles, it also runs shit on base consoles.
The latter is a biggie, as it is, Switch is not a long life on battery. But I'd love to see this kickstart a mobile graphics revolution. Stuff like Oculus and Windows tablets would really benefit too.
This is very disappointing, I hope that there will be more updates that will improve performances and the image quality.
I deleted my preorder and I decided to buy GRID Autosport on the eShop because it was finally discounted. It's really an amazing product!
Yep and they said it never reaches those targets. You can't go much a whole lot lower than 540p dude.
They never said that at all. They said it averages 720p docked and 540p handheld, that doesn't say it can't get higher than that.
oh I've been waiting on a grid discount, thanks for the heads up :)
I'll be curious if the devs or publishers say anything about this port, especially since it was being hyped up by both parties.
I'm not saying there aren't hardware limitations, I'm saying high performance demanding current gen games require more resources to really bring over intact. Games like DQXI or TW3 are both good examples of those as they had extensive custom optimization and by-hand asset reconstruction (rather than preset scaling). That's expensive and might not make sense for every title but in the end you get a better, more customized version of your game on the system.
This port doesn't strike me as one that had the resources put into it that it really needed. I'm sure Virtuos did the best they could with what they had but TOW self-evidently needed more time in the oven and perhaps a different approach from the outset.
So, who's in charge or supposed to be setting up the OT? We can't rely on this thread, now that it's released.
Watching the DF video this really calls to mind the last-gen ports of Dragon Age Inquisition. Starting with assets designed for higher levels of quality than the system is capable of displaying gets you a blurry mess that ends up looking worse than the games that were actually designed for that hardware.
When the publisher isn't willing to make a proper version of a game, but instead sells an extremely stripped down and badly performing port like this, shouldn't they sell it for like 15-20 bucks instead of asking a full 60 bucks?
Sure, but the MX150 has like 50gbps of memory bandwidth. The latest Tegra Xavier has the same bandwidth using LPDDR4X. We're still slower than the Xbox one here but it's a handheld, and at 50gbps it doubled the current Switch. It's also very close to current DDR4 desktop/laptop ram using in these portables
That's actually not what they said, as I pointed out in the thread about that interview, but everyone chose to interpret it that way, to a point where I decided it's best not to argue. These results sort of speak for themselves, though.
I agree with you.
I don't think lowering the resolution would've helped in the case of texture resolution, because the game stutters and stops to load data. You are probably looking at a streaming limit here and thus they decided to lower the texture resolution so much.
The game has texture streaming issues on every platform and no one else received a discount at launch to make up for the technical issues. The problem is just far, far worse on Switch.
I didn't see any noticeable texture issues on PC playing from SSD and the models didn't look like batch processed, wonky polygon abominations that no human modeler would make. It wasn't a very good game, but that's a different issue. The Switch version is just decimated, and selling such a botch-job at full price doesn't seem right. If they had crafted a Switch version alongside the other versions, they'd probably have a game that they could proudly sell.
User Warned - Lazy Dev Rhetoric
Considering games like Doom, Wolfenstein 2, Alien Isolation, and Witcher 3 all run astronomically better on the Switch than this mess, we shouldn't be calling this port ambitious or blaming the Switch for its horrific shortcomings. This is, unfortunately, a very lazy effort.
It's like the developers just ported over the game with its LOD low detail models only and called it a day.
I wouldn't say is lazy, considering that Virtuos also made the Bioshock and XCom Switch ports that were released the same week.
Maybe... a bit too busy? Outer Worlds was delayed even.
Maybe they patched it then because it was a common problem across all platforms and PC configurations:
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They're not lazy at all, this is the only port that didn't work out well for them. Don't forget, they had to close their studios due to COVID, probably couldn't do the finishing touches to the product.
XCOM 2 is also by them and it's an excellent port, considering the game also runs shit on PS4/Xbox one. They're still magicians, I'm anxious to see what else they have in store.
Oh they did those? Strange. Thanks for letting me know. I guess they were busy, because this port is sadly disappointing. If those other ports are as good as everyone says they are, then I look forward to their future, less stressful efforts.
Gotcha, that's good to know. Hopefully future ports from them aren't as rushed/unfinished due to exterior circumstances.
Not every game can be afforded the same amount of time, money and resources for porting. It just wouldn't be financially viable.
The economics of that probably don't work out. This port job probably did not require much less effort than porting from, say, PS4 to Xbox One (or vice versa). With costs being split up even more with this version, it likely wouldn't have been possible to get all the stakeholders to agree to sell it at a lower price, even if most of them wanted to (and probably none of them wanted to).
I think it's important to note here: "ambitious" is not a positive word in and of itself. It can be applied as criticism. Trying to climb Mount Everest solo without any gear is ambitious, but that doesn't mean that it's a good idea or that people should applaud anyone who tries it and fails. Porting this game to Switch definitely was ambitious on the part of the developer, but saying that is not necessarily praise.
Hows performance like this? Is it equal to normal docked performance? Is it possible to overclock handheld performance and not increase the graphics for a higher frame rate?Hacked switch here, tried the game with OC (playing in portable with dock frequency) and with a mod to unlock some graphic feature
28/30 fps near the botanical area with the mod (the fan goes at full speed)
I think it's possible to reach stable 30fps in portable mode with OC
Either this port needed more time or it was just too much for the hardware to handle. Just because it runs doesn't mean it should be ported.
What the heck Virtuos? Why does this mod team have better UE4 profiles for stock docked clocks?
Bioshock is not a good example. It does not even have filtered textures. I got to test it and you have point sampled textures all over the place.