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bonzobanana on 16 September 2017
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Pemalite said:
bonzobanana said:
I'm just still interested to see what the retail level of performance will be in portable mode.

That is where the Switch has some shortcomings against last gen hardware both in cpu and raw GPU performance.

To be fair... The games generally speak for themselves that... Even in portable mode it is punching above the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

 

I honestly haven't seen concrete evidence of this yet although it may well be true but I think when we see how the retail version of Skyrim performs in portable mode that will be enough evidence for me if it runs well.  It may simply be that the frame drops of 360 and PS3 are replaced by a dynamic resolution on Switch but for me that still gives the Switch a huge advantage and the PS3 version of Skyrim had massive issues the longer you played 'rimlag' which for obvious reasons I'm not expecting to re-appear on Switch as that was due to limited memory. 

When you look at the spec's there are many shortfalls in the Switch, low CPU performance, limited memory bandwidth, low GPU performance in portable mode and a restriction on storage capacity generally that makes heavy compression and compression artifacts likely in many games. The function of instantly toggling between portable and docked mode and vice versa also places restrictions on assets which have to be shared between both modes. However the huge improvement in memory capacity over 360 and PS3 should not be underplayed plus the decent Nvidia GPU architecture and its much improved feature set.  

However I've seen too many games on many formats that look good running on development hardware but take a noticable nosedive for retail versions. Their so called final polish before release often just seems like an effort to optimise to get games to run as well on retail hardware as development hardware and it often fails. The thing with Skyrim in portable mode was the Switch's shown still had the cable coming out of the bottom which could have kept them running in docked performance mode. Looking at this video the cable was even secured with a screw to prevent removal. If nothing else showing the Switch in portable mode connected with a power cable means little regard for battery life and the retail version may be dialed back considerably to get decent battery life. So portable performance is my main concern. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxkE02Sc1Dw