How powerful is the Vita really?

Chief Malik · Jul 31, 2018

Dusted off my launch model and booted up virtual tennis. I'm in shock RN, this shit is insane. Can't believe it's been like 7 years, where did the time go? Where did this thing rank in terms of power? A quick look at virtual tennis and killzone had me thinking it was a PS3 lite but a quick Google search looks like it's closer to the original Xbox in terms of specs. I'm no expert but that seems off to me. The CPU being clocked at like 333 MHz is just crazy to be, a measly a9 at that.

GhostTrick · Jul 31, 2018

Faster than original Xbox but with better shaders tech available.
Killzone looks good but performance is terrible and runs at low res with dynamic res engaged.

SRO7 · Jul 31, 2018

It's not that powerful. Doesn't a lot of the more demanding games run at sub-resolution?

Deleted member 8001 · Jul 31, 2018

PC with GTX 1080 = Teen Gohan Super Saiyan 2
Xbox One X = Super Vegeta (Cell aka muscles form)
PS4 Pro = Super Namek Piccolo
PS4 = Super Saiyan Trunks (Android saga, when he gets his ass beat by the Androids)
XBO = Piccolo before fusion with Kami (Android saga)
Switch Docked = Mecha Frieza
Wii U = Frieza 100% Full Powered (muscles form)
Switch Handheld = Frieza's Third Form
Playstation 3 / Xbox 360 = Frieza's Second Form
Playstation Vita = Frieza's First Form

leng jai · Jul 31, 2018

The frame rate in Killzone was terrible. I'd like to see the percentage of games that were actually native resolution, it seems like most weren't. The IQ for every high end game like Golden Abyss was bad.

blizzardjesus · Jul 31, 2018

It's a bit stronger than a toaster, but it can't make toast.

Replicant · Jul 31, 2018

It's about on par with an iPhone 4s in specs.

Wander_ · Jul 31, 2018

around 16gflops while using wifi

Kokonoe said:
PC with GTX 1080 = Teen Gohan Super Saiyan 2
Xbox One X = Super Vegeta (Cell aka muscles form)
PS4 Pro = Super Namek Piccolo
PS4 = Super Saiyan Trunks (Android saga, when he gets his ass beat by the Androids)
XBO = Piccolo before fusion with Kami (Android saga)
Switch Docked = Mecha Frieza
Wii U = Frieza 100% Full Powered (muscles form)
Switch Handheld = Frieza's Third Form
Playstation 3 / Xbox 360 = Frieza's Second Form
Playstation Vita = Frieza's First Form

what, no Lol. switch is much more capable than wii u even in portable mode

TheMisterManGuy · Jul 31, 2018

Sony really oversold the capabilities of the Vita early in its life. It's not a PS3 lite, it's a souped up Xbox with better shaders and more RAM. More powerful than the 3DS, but not the complete generation leap that the PSP was compared to the DS.

Lelouch0612 · Jul 31, 2018

I just added Switch undocked boost mode that is used in demanding games like Zelda.

Kokonoe said:
PC with GTX 1080 = Teen Gohan Super Saiyan 2
Xbox One X = Super Vegeta (Cell aka muscles form)
PS4 Pro = Super Namek Piccolo
PS4 = Super Saiyan Trunks (Android saga, when he gets his ass beat by the Androids)
XBO = Piccolo before fusion with Kami (Android saga)
Switch Docked = Mecha Frieza
Switch Handheld Boost Mode = Frieza 100% Full Powered (muscles form)
WiiU : Frieza's Final Form
Switch Handheld = Frieza's Third Form
Playstation 3 / Xbox 360 = Frieza's Second Form
Playstation Vita = Frieza's First Form

Dranakin · Jul 31, 2018

I though the Switch is more powerful than the Wii U, docked or undocked.

Deleted member 8001 · Jul 31, 2018

Wander_ said:
around 16gflops while using wifi

what, no Lol. switch is much more capable than wii u even in portable mode

"Much more" in handheld?

Switch (handheld): 157 GFLOPS, 197 GFLOPS boost mode
Wii U: 176 GFLOPS
PlayStation 3: 192 GFLOPS
Xbox 360: 240 GLOPS
Switch (docked): 393 GFLOPS

It requires boost mode to achieve that and most games do not use this feature. It's docked mode that has all the power.

SRO7 · Jul 31, 2018

TheMisterManGuy said:
Sony really oversold the capabilities of the Vita early in its life. It's not a PS3 lite, it's a souped up Xbox with better shaders and more RAM. More powerful than the 3DS, but not the complete generation leap that the PSP was compared to the DS.

The OLED screen is also really oversold. It's actually quite shitty compared to modern OLED/LCD screens. Even the 2000 screen is superior in some ways.

AlexBasch · Jul 31, 2018

I was pretty happy with portable MK9.

Kuro · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
"Much more" in handheld?

Switch (handheld): 157 GFLOPS, 197 GFLOPS boost mode
Wii U: 176 GFLOPS
PlayStation 3: 192 GFLOPS
Xbox 360: 240 GLOPS
Switch (docked): 393 GFLOPS

It requires boost mode to achieve that and most games do not use this feature. It's docked mode that has all the power.

Nvidia flops different tho

Anyways Vita definitely did not have enough power for its screen res but it was still pretty darn good for a $250 handheld.

Wander_ · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
"Much more" in handheld?

Switch (handheld): 157 GFLOPS, 197 GFLOPS boost mode
Wii U: 176 GFLOPS
PlayStation 3: 192 GFLOPS
Xbox 360: 240 GLOPS
Switch (docked): 393 GFLOPS

It requires boost mode to achieve that and most games do not use this feature. It's docked mode that has all the power.

gflops absolutely do NOT tell the whole story. switch is 2015 tech with a CPU wich destroy the wii u one. also has 3,25x more RAM and a much better GPU too. yes is way more powerful.

or do you really think xbox 360 is more capable than switch undocked? Lol

Instro · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
"Much more" in handheld?

Switch (handheld): 157 GFLOPS, 197 GFLOPS boost mode
Wii U: 176 GFLOPS
PlayStation 3: 192 GFLOPS
Xbox 360: 240 GLOPS
Switch (docked): 393 GFLOPS

It requires boost mode to achieve that and most games do not use this feature. It's docked mode that has all the power.

Comparing flops across differing architectures and generations is nonsense.

duckroll · Jul 31, 2018

It's powerful enough to play PS1 games and that's all I need it for.

Gamer @ Heart · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
"Much more" in handheld?

Switch (handheld): 157 GFLOPS, 197 GFLOPS boost mode
Wii U: 176 GFLOPS
PlayStation 3: 192 GFLOPS
Xbox 360: 240 GLOPS
Switch (docked): 393 GFLOPS

It requires boost mode to achieve that and most games do not use this feature. It's docked mode that has all the power.

Your comparing gflops across different architecture over 10+ years of systems

These numbers are not comparable at all.

Oniletter · Jul 31, 2018

SRO7 said:
The OLED screen is also really oversold. It's actually quite shitty compared to modern OLED/LCD screens. Even the 2000 screen is superior in some ways.

Preach it. I'm genuinely annoyed by people who don't know what they are talking about who parrot on about "dat OLED".

As for hardware power, the 3DS was a Dreamcast + , the Vita an Xbox + .

Fularu · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
"Much more" in handheld?

Switch (handheld): 157 GFLOPS, 197 GFLOPS boost mode
Wii U: 176 GFLOPS
PlayStation 3: 192 GFLOPS
Xbox 360: 240 GLOPS
Switch (docked): 393 GFLOPS

It requires boost mode to achieve that and most games do not use this feature. It's docked mode that has all the power.

You kind of showed everyone that you have no idea and don't understand what you're talking about

Strike · Jul 31, 2018

iPhone 4/iPad 2 iirc.

kaf · Jul 31, 2018

I remember working on one of the big FPS projects for the VITA. It's not as powerful as many people at the time assumed, and a lot work had to be done to bring it down to work on the device. Would probably pin it as a bit below a PS3, but you also had to worry about battery life

UsoEwin · Jul 31, 2018

Wander_ said:
gflops absolutely do NOT tell the whole story. switch is 2015 tech with a CPU wich destroy the wii u one. also has 3,25x more RAM and a much better GPU too. yes is way more powerful.

or do you really think xbox 360 is more capable than switch undocked? Lol

Destroy is going a bit far. Switches CPU in handheld mode gets pretty handily served by the PS3 CPU, as seen with things like LA Noire that are very heavy on CPU processes. Wii U CPU was weaker than PS3 and 360, but not massively. Aside from the bandwidth, the CPU is the Switches choke point.

Tagyhag · Jul 31, 2018

I always saw it as a PS3 0.8. It's interesting how it was closer to the OG Xbox in specs.

Shame we never saw its full potential.

Kokonoe said:
"Much more" in handheld?

Switch (handheld): 157 GFLOPS, 197 GFLOPS boost mode
Wii U: 176 GFLOPS
PlayStation 3: 192 GFLOPS
Xbox 360: 240 GLOPS
Switch (docked): 393 GFLOPS

It requires boost mode to achieve that and most games do not use this feature. It's docked mode that has all the power.

Never never ever compare AMD FLOPS to Nvidia FLOPS, they're completely different.

Deleted member 721 · Jul 31, 2018

i was amazed with trails of cold steel 2 on vita,

IsaacC · Jul 31, 2018

Kokonoe said:
"Much more" in handheld?

Switch (handheld): 157 GFLOPS, 197 GFLOPS boost mode
Wii U: 176 GFLOPS
PlayStation 3: 192 GFLOPS
Xbox 360: 240 GLOPS
Switch (docked): 393 GFLOPS

It requires boost mode to achieve that and most games do not use this feature. It's docked mode that has all the power.

Yes much much more in handheld.

Additionally, you must know the comparison you are drawing in GFLOPS is utter nonsense right? The variance in architecture alone makes it impossible to draw a clear parallel. But nice try. Unless you were being funny...were you being funny?

Ghos · Jul 31, 2018

Just found this Digital Foundry article on Killzone Mercenary again.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-inside-killzone-mercenary

Ghos · Jul 31, 2018

SRO7 said:
The OLED screen is also really oversold. It's actually quite shitty compared to modern OLED/LCD screens. Even the 2000 screen is superior in some ways.

I remember the splotch and saturation issues. Splotches were native to the hardware but I'm not sure about the saturation.

SinCityAssassin · Jul 31, 2018

Halfway in and we're already at the DBZ-based discourse.

AmFreak · Jul 31, 2018

Only Sony console where Sony didn't reveal it's specs ...

Mr G · Jul 31, 2018

UsoEwin said:
Destroy is going a bit far. Switches CPU in handheld mode gets pretty handily served by the PS3 CPU, as seen with things like LA Noire that are very heavy on CPU processes. Wii U CPU was weaker than PS3 and 360, but not massively. Aside from the bandwidth, the CPU is the Switches choke point.

The cpu was also stronger than the x1 and ps4 cpu if i remember correctly.

Wander_ · Jul 31, 2018

UsoEwin said:
Destroy is going a bit far. Switches CPU in handheld mode gets pretty handily served by the PS3 CPU, as seen with things like LA Noire that are very heavy on CPU processes. Wii U CPU was weaker than PS3 and 360, but not massively. Aside from the bandwidth, the CPU is the Switches choke point.

sry but what are you talking about? :P the Wii U CPU is garbage 2002 tech. Ps3 does not overtake anything, Dark Souls runs much much better on Switch for what we've seen for example. Skyrim too

also Switch CPU works on the same clock speed both docked and undocked.

Bran Van · Jul 31, 2018

As powerful as two PSPs duct taped together

nogoodnamesleft · Jul 31, 2018

Viita was already outdated in terms of mobile tech when it came out, unfortunately.

Re: switch, paper specs be damned, i dont care if its from 2015 tech, 2018 tech, whatever. All i know is what i see on my tv is only barely better than the best looking wii u games.

And no i do not count Doom running in lower than low settings with bad framerates and sub hd "substantially better" than what i saw from my Wii u either.

Heres hoping Metroid Prime 4 can dazzle.

VanWinkle · Jul 31, 2018

Virtua Tennis 4, Killzone Mercenary, and Tearaway and positively incredible looking, as were Rayman Origins and Legends. The power level was disappointing because of how many games were sub-native, but man were there some super impressive looking games on there. The ones I listed would all look right at home on Switch, and all but Killzone were native res (though Killzone WAS native res in multiplayer).

passing breeze · Jul 31, 2018

nogoodnamesleft said:
All i know is what i see on my tv is only barely better than the best looking wii u games.

Most of the games we've gotten so far are either Wii U games or were probably Wii U games at some point in development.

Wander_ · Jul 31, 2018

nogoodnamesleft said:
Viita was already outdated in terms of mobile tech when it came out, unfortunately.

Re: switch, paper specs be damned, i dont care if its from 2015 tech, 2018 tech, whatever. All i know is what i see on my tv is only barely better than the best looking wii u games.

And no i do not count Doom running in lower than low settings with bad framerates and sub hd "substantially better" than what i saw from my Wii u either.

Heres hoping Metroid Prime 4 can dazzle.

mario Odyssey and splatoon 2 are only barely better than 3d World and Splatoon 1?! check out your eyes man. or just get mario & Rabbids and compare it to captain Toad Lol

ps Doom is not running at lower setting than low settings. that's just a fake info. it's mixed. also frame rate is perfectly fine most of the Time.

Deleted member 8112 · Jul 31, 2018

nogoodnamesleft · Jul 31, 2018

Wander_ said:
mario Odyssey and splatoon 2 are only barely better than 3d World and Splatoon 1?! check out your eyes man. or just get mario & Rabbids and compare it to captain Toad Lol

ps Doom is not running at lower setting than low settings. that's just a fake info. it's mixed

Dude, yeah, Mario oddysey looks like mario 3d world engine with a higher resolution and of course, more open levels. But does it look SUBSTANTIALLY better? Not at all, imho.

Have yet to try captain toad. Its on my to get list.

UsoEwin · Jul 31, 2018

Wander_ said:
sry but what are you talking about? :P the Wii U CPU is garbage 2002 tech. Ps3 does not overtake anything, Dark Souls runs much much better on Switch for what we've seen for example. Skyrim too

also Switch CPU works on the same clock speed both docked and undocked.

The only thing we have seen from Dark Souls, is the trailer that was analyzed, and it was dropping frames. Second hand comments from play at events isn't analytical. Skyrim, I never played on consoles so I have no clue if the framerate is better, but resolution being boosted doesn't have much to do with CPU.

werezompire · Jul 31, 2018

The Vita is significantly weaker than most gamers realize. When I first tried running Cosmic Star Heroine on my Vita devkit, it was running at around 10 fps and crashed due to running out of RAM quickly. It took me months of extensive optimization to get it to run well. Now admittedly, Unity adds a lot of overhead, but the fact that devs managed to get games like Gravity Rush & Killzone running on the thing boggles my mind.

Deleted member 8112 · Jul 31, 2018

Wander_ · Jul 31, 2018

UsoEwin said:
The only thing we have seen from Dark Souls, is the trailer that was analyzed, and it was dropping frames. Second hand comments from play at events isn't analytical. Skyrim, I never played on consoles so I have no clue if the framerate is better, but resolution being boosted doesn't have much to do with CPU.

no we have handheld gameplay. that trailer was a first footage.

Skyrim drops constantly in the 20s on ps3. On Switch is a solid 30fps.

duckroll · Jul 31, 2018

werezompire said:
The Vita is significantly weaker than most gamers realize. When I first tried running Cosmic Star Heroine on my Vita devkit, it was running at around 10 fps and crashed due to running out of RAM quickly. It took me months of extensive optimization to get it to run well. Now admittedly, Unity adds a lot of overhead, but the fact that devs managed to get games like Gravity Rush & Killzone running on the thing boggles my mind.

Don't you think a significant part of that is how bad Unity support was for the Vita especially back then? If you look at games like I am Setsuna and SaGa Scarlet Grace, the performance on Vita is unacceptable too. Also Unity games. Not very complex games either.

LuigiV · Jul 31, 2018

Trying to pin an exact point on a continuum of consoles is pretty difficult, especially as the exact point a system sits can vary quite drastically depending on what spec you're actually comparing.

The fairest thing to say would be that the Vita sits somewhere between the OG Xbox and the PS3, but a bit closer to the former in most regards. Perfectly reasonable by 2011 specs. You weren't going to get much better than that for a device of that size without sacrificing battery life and clockspeed stability (like the iPhone 4s did).

For what it's worth I'd say the Switch sits in roughly the same spot between the Wii U and XBone as the Vita does between the OG Xbox and PS3.

Wander_ · Jul 31, 2018

nogoodnamesleft said:
Dude, yeah, Mario oddysey looks like mario 3d world engine with a higher resolution and of course, more open levels..

sorry but no, hell no.

KillerMan91 · Jul 31, 2018

Problem with Vita wasn't so much the parts but how much Sony underclocked them. CPU had clockspeed of 333MHz Wifi on and 444MHz Wifi off. Sure multiple cores but still laughably low.

werezompire · Jul 31, 2018

duckroll said:
Don't you think a significant part of that is how bad Unity support was for the Vita especially back then? If you look at games like I am Setsuna and SaGa Scarlet Grace, the performance on Vita is unacceptable too. Also Unity games. Not very complex games either.

I think the main issue is that developers are used to a certain baseline of power & RAM these days & when their game runs fine on other platforms, they don't even realize it'll be a problem on the Vita until it's too late to make significant scope changes and so they're stuck trying to optimize as best they can. And if it's a low-budget game (like your average indie or the SE portable division) then they may not have the time & resources to do heavy optimization so they just get it up to the bare minimum that be considered playable and ship it or just give up and cancel it. But yeah, going from PC & home consoles these days that have 4-8GBs of RAM or more to <0.5GBs of RAM is quite the eye opener.

Drain You · Jul 31, 2018

However powerful it is it still impresses me every time I play it. I got it late into its lifestyle but still really liked it. Beautiful handheld just overall anyways.

How powerful is the Vita really?

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