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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Digital Foundry Hellblade Switch port analysis- Really impressive port

 
HoloDust said:

As I said already, Hellblade is very, very confined game. if Rise of Tomb Raider on 360 looked quite good, Hellblade woulkd work as well.

Rise of the Tomb Raider had to strip out all the 8th gen rendering techniques of its big brother to work on 360. You'd pretty much have to do the same for Hellblade, hence fundamentally changing its core aesthetic.

Ultimately Switch is considerably more capable hardware than PS3 or 360 so if Switch can only just manage a reasonable approximation of the full fat version, PS3/360 are going to end up being rebuilt to the point where they look totally different.

Yeah, and Hellblade had to strip Enlighten GI, fundamentally changing lighting - I thought you've watched DF video - side by side, Hellblade on Switch and PS4 look quite different at times...no less than when you watch RoTR side by side on 360 and current gen consoles.

But ultimately, this is not question of whether or not Switch is more capable than PS360, because it is, but how demanding Hellblade is...and I don't think, due to its extremely limited level design, that is very demanding game that is not able to run on PS360 and retain most of its bling. If they managed that with RoTR, I'm fairly certain they would manage with Hellblade.



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It'll be interesting to see if Nintendo releases a Switch Pro, if devs will patch previous games to make full use of it's capabilities. Maybe something like this game holds at 720p all the time, maybe 900p docked.



curl-6 said:
HoloDust said:

Let's not get ahead of oursleves. Hellblade looks quite fine in its best version(s) and it's really good port, but besides quite substantial cut downs, its very confined game to start with that would've been able to run on PS360.

Not like this though. A theoretical PS3/360 port might be able to retain the core gameplay framework but it wouldn't even look like Hellblade anymore as you'd have to gut the rendering pipeline and crush its RAM footprint down to less than 1/6th the size of even the Switch version.

The switch has 4gb of DDR4 ram at 1600mhz in comparison to the Xbox 360 having 512mb @ 700mhz. That's 1/8th the capacity at leas than half the speed. I would contest that something like the sea of souls area later in hell blade would just simply not be possible on Xbox 360 hardware, there's far too much active 3d geometry around the area.

https://youtu.be/rTYQwXIoDJI

Last edited by Ganoncrotch - on 16 April 2019

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HoloDust said:

Yeah, and Hellblade had to strip Enlighten GI, fundamentally changing lighting - I thought you've watched DF video - side by side, Hellblade on Switch and PS4 look quite different at times...no less than when you watch RoTR side by side on 360 and current gen consoles.

But ultimately, this is not question of whether or not Switch is more capable than PS360, because it is, but how demanding Hellblade is...and I don't think, due to its extremely limited level design, that is very demanding game that is not able to run on PS360 and retain most of its bling. If they managed that with RoTR, I'm fairly certain they would manage with Hellblade.

Hellblade on Switch is technically much, much closer to the full fat version than RoTR 360. The former retains much of its PS4 standard rendering tech, the latter does not.

Bottom line PS3/360 could not handle the Switch version of Hellblade, and as such PS3/360 are not relevant to my original statement, which was simply that Hellblade shows graphical results unlike anything previously seen on the Switch, and thus future games on the system might also do so.

thismeintiel said:
It'll be interesting to see if Nintendo releases a Switch Pro, if devs will patch previous games to make full use of it's capabilities. Maybe something like this game holds at 720p all the time, maybe 900p docked.

Since a lot of games use dynamic resolution you'd just automatically get a boost from them sticking closer to their maximum res.

Ganoncrotch said:
curl-6 said:

Not like this though. A theoretical PS3/360 port might be able to retain the core gameplay framework but it wouldn't even look like Hellblade anymore as you'd have to gut the rendering pipeline and crush its RAM footprint down to less than 1/6th the size of even the Switch version.

The switch has 4gb of DDR4 ram at 1600mhz in comparison to the Xbox 360 having 512mb @ 700mhz. That's 1/8th the capacity at leas than half the speed. I would contest that something like the sea of souls area later in hell blade would just simply not be possible on Xbox 360 hardware, there's far too much active 3d geometry around the area.

https://youtu.be/rTYQwXIoDJI

I haven't gotten that far yet, but yeah, PS3/360 definitely don't have the capability to run the Switch version of Hellblade. In addition to the huge gap in RAM, Tegra X1 wipes the floor with the graphics chips in those consoles.



curl-6 said:
HoloDust said:

Yeah, and Hellblade had to strip Enlighten GI, fundamentally changing lighting - I thought you've watched DF video - side by side, Hellblade on Switch and PS4 look quite different at times...no less than when you watch RoTR side by side on 360 and current gen consoles.

But ultimately, this is not question of whether or not Switch is more capable than PS360, because it is, but how demanding Hellblade is...and I don't think, due to its extremely limited level design, that is very demanding game that is not able to run on PS360 and retain most of its bling. If they managed that with RoTR, I'm fairly certain they would manage with Hellblade.

Hellblade on Switch is technically much, much closer to the full fat version than RoTR 360. The former retains much of its PS4 standard rendering tech, the latter does not.

Bottom line PS3/360 could not handle the Switch version of Hellblade, and as such PS3/360 are not relevant to my original statement, which was simply that Hellblade shows graphical results unlike anything previously seen on the Switch, and thus future games on the system might also do so.

360 has 1/16th of current gen consoles RAM and less capable GPU than Switch...yet RoTR on it looks really, really good retaining most of artistic vision of its current gen counterparts.

But beside that, you're missing the point. Not once have I said that Switch is not more capable than PS360, because it is. What i said, and stand by it, is that Hellblade is not that demanding game, due to its extremely limited levels, and that it would be able to run on PS360...thus not making it THE showcase of some "untapped potential" that Switch might or might not have.



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HoloDust said:
curl-6 said:

Hellblade on Switch is technically much, much closer to the full fat version than RoTR 360. The former retains much of its PS4 standard rendering tech, the latter does not.

Bottom line PS3/360 could not handle the Switch version of Hellblade, and as such PS3/360 are not relevant to my original statement, which was simply that Hellblade shows graphical results unlike anything previously seen on the Switch, and thus future games on the system might also do so.

360 has 1/16th of current gen consoles RAM and less capable GPU than Switch...yet RoTR on it looks really, really good retaining most of artistic vision of its current gen counterparts.

But beside that, you're missing the point. Not once have I said that Switch is not more capable than PS360, because it is. What i said, and stand by it, is that Hellblade is not that demanding game, due to its extremely limited levels, and that it would be able to run on PS360...thus not making it THE showcase of some "untapped potential" that Switch might or might not have.

I'm not missing the point, as the point was mine to begin with. That point was that Hellblade on Switch shows a level of graphical accomplishment unlike any game on the system prior to it, as such demonstrating that the system could go further than shown before.

I was talking about graphical sophistication; you're talking about structural complexity, something totally different.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 18 April 2019

curl-6 said:
HoloDust said:

360 has 1/16th of current gen consoles RAM and less capable GPU than Switch...yet RoTR on it looks really, really good retaining most of artistic vision of its current gen counterparts.

But beside that, you're missing the point. Not once have I said that Switch is not more capable than PS360, because it is. What i said, and stand by it, is that Hellblade is not that demanding game, due to its extremely limited levels, and that it would be able to run on PS360...thus not making it THE showcase of some "untapped potential" that Switch might or might not have.

I'm not missing the point, as the point was mine to begin with. That point was that Hellblade on Switch shows a level of graphical accomplishment unlike any game on the system prior to it, as such demonstrating that the system could go further than shown before.

I was talking about graphical sophistication; you're talking about structural complexity, something totally different.

And I'm saying that Hellblade is not good example of that, since, while being a smart port that made much better balance of necessary sacrifices with assets and lighting vs resolution (unlike certain previous lauded ports), it is extremely limited game in scope that could be ported to PS360 while retaining most of its visual indentity.

But, I'm not seeing this discussion getting us anywhere fruther, so I guess we'll agree to disagree.



HoloDust said:
curl-6 said:

I'm not missing the point, as the point was mine to begin with. That point was that Hellblade on Switch shows a level of graphical accomplishment unlike any game on the system prior to it, as such demonstrating that the system could go further than shown before.

I was talking about graphical sophistication; you're talking about structural complexity, something totally different.

And I'm saying that Hellblade is not good example of that, since, while being a smart port that made much better balance of necessary sacrifices with assets and lighting vs resolution (unlike certain previous lauded ports), it is extremely limited game in scope that could be ported to PS360 while retaining most of its visual indentity.

But, I'm not seeing this discussion getting us anywhere fruther, so I guess we'll agree to disagree.

Yeah we're clearly on two different tracks here; you're looking at it from the perspective of structural complexity, I'm going by the technical sophistication of the actual rendering. Agree to disagree.



Good news for the port, now let it have good sales.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

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Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

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Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

HoloDust said:
curl-6 said:

Hellblade on Switch is technically much, much closer to the full fat version than RoTR 360. The former retains much of its PS4 standard rendering tech, the latter does not.

Bottom line PS3/360 could not handle the Switch version of Hellblade, and as such PS3/360 are not relevant to my original statement, which was simply that Hellblade shows graphical results unlike anything previously seen on the Switch, and thus future games on the system might also do so.

360 has 1/16th of current gen consoles RAM and less capable GPU than Switch...yet RoTR on it looks really, really good retaining most of artistic vision of its current gen counterparts.

But beside that, you're missing the point. Not once have I said that Switch is not more capable than PS360, because it is. What i said, and stand by it, is that Hellblade is not that demanding game, due to its extremely limited levels, and that it would be able to run on PS360...thus not making it THE showcase of some "untapped potential" that Switch might or might not have.

On this degree I would say Switch doesn't have a game that looks as good as UC2 or TLOU that run on PS3. But of course that is no evidence that PS3 is stronger than Switch.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."