By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Slownenberg on 06 August 2023
Edit Thread
Pemalite said:
Chrkeller said:

Lol, ray tracing (on consoles) is a gimmick. Games get framerate cut in half and there visually isn't any difference. 

Developers haven't even started to cut their teeth on the Playstation 5/Xbox Series X hardware and you are already calling it? We are still in that cross-gen period.

Ummm we're 3 months away from Xbox Series and PS5 being 3 years old. Saying developers haven't even started (lol) to cut their teeth on the hardware yet is beyond ridiculous. These systems are probably 40% into their lifecycle. You could have made this claim TWO years ago, definitely not now.

Soundwave said:

Ray tracing can help the Switch 2 a lot ... just not in the way you would think. 

...

Well ray-tracing is your perfect solution. Instead of pushing the PS5/XBSX versions to their theoretical limit and also ballooning your budget to get there, what you can do is simply turn on the ray tracing for the PS5/XBSX until the point where it maxes out the system's performance (which shouldn't take a lot as full blown ray tracing will cripple any PS5/XSX).

And then you just turn that off for the Switch 2, maybe focus a little bit more of getting the pre-baked lighting to match the ray traced version more closely ... and voila. You've got yourself a game that maxes out the PS5/XSX but is still playable and enjoyable (well assuming your game is enjoyable, ain't no lighting effects helping a game that isn't) on the Switch 2 also.

...

It's not even a "slash the frame rate in half!" thing ... it's worse than that. PS5/XSX can't even run last gen games (PS4 titles) at 4K resolution + 60 fps. The resolution has to be brought down to like 1440p on top of the frame rate being slashed to 30 fps. It's honestly great for Switch 2 ports, lol, because you effectively can just flip a switch and max out your PS5 performance even with old PS4 tier titles. 

Exactly. NOT having ray tracing is going to be a big feature for Switch 2 in terms of getting ports. Console games with ray tracing won't be nearly as maxed out graphically as they would be without ray tracing. Thus you turn off ray tracing for Switch 2 and you immediately close the power gap between Nintendo's handheld and the consoles. You then combine this 'anti-feature' with DLSS so you can drop the console resolution from 4k or whatever it is down to like 540p or 700p or something, then jack it back up on the cheap to some higher resolution.

Having DLSS and not having ray tracing would be a great combo of features for Switch 2 in allowing current gen console games to potentially be ported with much less downgrading than it took to get last gen console ports on the Switch, which means much greater likelihood of ports. And of course DLSS also just means more powerful non-ported games on Switch because resolution takes fewer resources so those resources can be used for other things in the game.

Pemalite said:
Chrkeller said:

I'll care about RT as soon as it does something other than cut my fps in half. Personally I'm more interested in 120 hz, until a developer demonstrates RT being something other than a gimmick.  Either way I'm excited about Nintendo's next hybrid.  I'm sure it will be a good jump against their current.


However, Switch 2 needs hardware feature set parity with the Xbox Series X/S, Playstation 5 and PC, because that ultimately ensures cross-platform ports... And lets be honest, the Switch's 2 hardware is going to be portable and low-end, so it needs every little bit of help it can get in that regard.

Uh what??? That makes no sense. You say Switch 2 is going to be low-end (of course because its a portable) but it "needs" to have hardware feature set parity with the consoles...that doesn't make sense. Those two things are contradictory. Especially when what we're talking about is a special effect that can easily just be turned off without affecting the game play.

Kakadu18 said:
Pemalite said:

Some of the best games on Switch are 30fps experiences like... Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, Luigi's Mansion 3, Xenoblade, Animal Crossing, Monster Hunter, Octopath, Links Awakening, Mario Odyssey and more, which are all 30fps experiences and sold amazingly well.

Super Mario Odyssey runs at 60 fps.

Regardless of that, raytracing would lower the framerate and not provide any gameplay improvement to any of these games or their sequels. Making a specific type of game slightly more immersive is not worth implementing raytracing. It's drawbacks are a 100 times bigger than those that DLSS could have. DLSS can make games run and look better throughout. Raytracing only makes the lighting and shadows look better and needs way more powerful hardware. After like 10 minutes I'd literally stop noticing it.

Yeah that bolded part. A handheld system can't afford to put in features that put a significant strain on its resources all just for a cool special effect. Ray tracing sure looks cool as hell, but it is not remotely worth it if it makes the entire rest of the game have to be pared down. Should the Switch 3 have ray tracing...by then yeah probably. Should the Switch 2 have ray tracing...hell no!

I think permalite just bought hard into the marketing hype of the current gen consoles that was trying to sell ray tracing as this generation defining thing to get people excited about another generation of consoles in which the graphical difference is obviously shrinking between generations (as it naturally will over time). With PS4 Pro and Xbox 1X you had realistic looking games at 4k (or I think maybe they were just upscaled to 4k and not native but whatever the average person doesn't care about that), now with PS5 and Xbox Series you have moderately more realistic looking games at 4k....but we have this really cool new lighting effect so everyone get suuuuper excited for cool lighting this gen and start believing it totally changes games! haha. This is what permalite clearly bought into and is sticking with even 3 years later.