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bonzobanana on 25 November 2017
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Miyamotoo said:
bonzobanana said:

By chance this video came up this morning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ljTX9R5QhA

Again it shows the Switch have limited draw distance with lots of popping compared to ps3. From what I understand there is a CPU component to animated objects in the distance and both portable and docked Switch cpu performance is the same and have the same issue. So in this one regard it does look like the Switch's limited cpu performance is having some effect. GPU can't be a factor because surely docked is comfortably stronger than ps3 by some margin. Memory bandwidth is another possible cause but I'd go with cpu myself although it could be a factor. On paper though the Switch cpu performance always looked a bit weak and was much reduced compared to the Tegra's maximum mhz. However as that video states there are few games of that era that required such high CPU resources.

It doesn't detract from the great overall package the Switch is becoming and I still feel there is a possibility of unlocking some cpu performance with a later firmware as later Switch revisions are using improved fabrication. I use PSP as an example of this. They improved the mhz in a later firmware that had a knock on effect to the earlier PSP's battery life in some games but by that time developers were needing a bit more performance to handle more ambitious games. I think originally locked at 222mhz but went to a 333mhz speed for some games with a later firmware revision. It would be nice to see a docked cpu speed increase anyway.

It's likely a later Switch will have a dedicated customised Tegra chip unlike the current off the shelf chip and will see many background improvements I'm sure. One likely improvement is wifi that doesn't tax the console as much to allow improvements in multiplayer frame rates. 

I honestly feel some of these games like Skyrim and LA Noire could be improved with time as Nintendo improves the firmware to unlock some more performance.

Talking about LA Noire port, DF stated that LA Noire was built specifically with PS3 Cell CPU on mind, so basically LA Noire engine and hole game was built to take most of PS3 Cell CPU, and only around 8 months later game was ported to Xbox 360, and that's actually one of only few multiplatform games that runs better on PS3 compared to Xbox360 from same reason. So when you port game that's specifically made just for one type of hardware on mind, you will hardly use most of that other hardware. I mean this is only Switch multiplatform game that has some drawbacks compared to PS3 version of same game, and that because reason I mentioned.

Also keep on mind that this Switch version will probably have further patches and optimisations while PS3 version was with all patches, and of course we still talking about 1st year ports, future ports will be better and more optimised in any case.

Saying that, Switch CPU is bottleneck but is not big problem (CPU is bottleneck also for PS4/ XB1),  but things would be even better if CPU is for instance 1.5GHz instead of 1GHz, but that would definatly effect battery life in curent Switch model.

They could tweak it for docked mode though. Going from 1ghz to 1.5ghz is a huge increase that would remove many of the issues seen in docked Switch performance in theory.  For Skyrim I think the draw distance is worse on Switch compared to Xbox 360 at times from what I can see, on the open plains close to the central castle I forget the name of. I personally don't think the Switch has comparable CPU performance to PS4/XB1 but accept those consoles didn't push the envelope when it came to CPU performance. 

Surprised to see it is passable on humble budget windows tablets with intel atom processors. Such windows tablets may have greater cpu performance than Switch but much weaker graphics hardware.

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

Looking at the draw distance on Xbox 360 looks pretty good but animated objects i.e. other cars looks cut back significantly to me. Which again would indicate CPU more than memory bottleneck I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NPoiykMH5o

It gives an idea of overall performance of Switch and as you say things may improve with developers getting more familar with the Switch hardware and the development software and Switch firmware both improving and becoming more optimised.

I'd love to see Fallout 4 come to Switch. It's seems quite possible now. I'd prefer they dial back the graphic quality in order to try to improve draw distance though.