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Forums - Nintendo - Different settings for docked / portable Switch modes spotted in Unreal Engine 4

Wyrdness on 21 December 2016
Jranation said:
Wyrdness said:
Basically for anyone who doesn't understand it means that the engine does the scaling itself, if you have a game using UE4 and it runs in docked mode the engine itself already has the coding for portable mode for your game saving developers any hassle, so developers only have to focus on getting it to run in docked mode.

Does this go back to the rumor of how games can easily be ported to the Switch? 

This is probably part of what they meant, QA still needs to be done but this takes off quite a significant amount of work as these are the base settings.

Darwinianevolution said:

Will all the APIs and engines the Switch support do this? Because this seems it can save a great deal of time and efford.

Don't know but it's possible it may be the case.



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potato_hamster on 21 December 2016
Wyrdness said:
potato_hamster said:

It isn't that simple. Both modes will have to be QA'd still, both by pre-submission tests and by the QA team. There are going to be mode-specific bugs that will need to be addressed. There are many aspects of console game development that will now literally be twice the amount of work. You cannot just assume that because one mode works the other will work fine as well.

QA still has to be done yes but it was a quick summary of what people are seeing with the two settings, it can't be argued that this move this saves developer a lot of time tinkering as the is already a base setting for them to look at rather than create the game and try to scale everything themselves. This shows the engine has base settings for each mode for the platform for performance much like high and low settings on a PC to make things easier for developers as then they can adjust portable base settings accordingly if the game requires it.

Ehh... yes and no. If you actually think these are the only settings that need to be adjusted in order to properly optimize the engine for each mode, then you're kidding yourself. But it's an extremely basic start to help developers.



Frogger on 21 December 2016
potato_hamster said:
Wyrdness said:
Basically for anyone who doesn't understand it means that the engine does the scaling itself, if you have a game using UE4 and it runs in docked mode the engine itself already has the coding for portable mode for your game saving developers any hassle, so developers only have to focus on getting it to run in docked mode.

It isn't that simple. Both modes will have to be QA'd still, both by pre-submission tests and by the QA team. There are going to be mode-specific bugs that will need to be addressed. There are many aspects of console game development that will now literally be twice the amount of work. You cannot just assume that because one mode works the other will work fine as well.

I don't think that's what he was saying.



dahuman on 21 December 2016
potato_hamster said:
Wyrdness said:

QA still has to be done yes but it was a quick summary of what people are seeing with the two settings, it can't be argued that this move this saves developer a lot of time tinkering as the is already a base setting for them to look at rather than create the game and try to scale everything themselves. This shows the engine has base settings for each mode for the platform for performance much like high and low settings on a PC to make things easier for developers as then they can adjust portable base settings accordingly if the game requires it.

Ehh... yes and no. If you actually think these are the only settings that need to be adjusted in order to properly optimize the engine for each mode, then you're kidding yourself. But it's an extremely basic start to help developers.

QA in the gaming industry unfortunately doesn't get paid for shit so the cost won't be too bad, time wise though, will be interesting depending on how big the game is, but for the most part, it'd just function like PS4-PS4 Pro mode or PC presets, only easier to work with since it's literally just 2 settings instead of a whole list of shit.



superchunk on 21 December 2016

Exactly what I've been saying.

Middleware reduces the effort for porting to NS making 3rd party ports a low-cost alternative for devs. With NS supporting every middleware there is, we'll see a good stream of support. It makes sense for a dev to spend a token amount of dev cost for something even if it may only sell 500k units as that will still be profit earned.

NS docked will be lower resolution, similar tech settings as XB1. While NS portable will be lower resolution and lower tech settings, but on the smaller 720p screen most won't notice.

Yearly iterations of games like madden/fifa/cod are incoming. It will be the larger one-off games that will be questionable, especially the likes of Rockstar or other devs who produce a lower number of game at higher quality.



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burninmylight on 21 December 2016

I was about to start a thread posting the same info, but I'm glad I found this one already.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/5jk2ic/different_settings_for_docked_portable_switch/

Also, here's an interesting thread on Reddit saying devs are very pleased that the Switch will support Vulkan and OpenGL 4.5.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/5jcwz5/game_developers_over_at_rgamedev_are_very_happy/



potato_hamster on 21 December 2016
dahuman said:
potato_hamster said:

Ehh... yes and no. If you actually think these are the only settings that need to be adjusted in order to properly optimize the engine for each mode, then you're kidding yourself. But it's an extremely basic start to help developers.

QA in the gaming industry unfortunately doesn't get paid for shit so the cost won't be too bad, time wise though, will be interesting depending on how big the game is, but for the most part, it'd just function like PS4-PS4 Pro mode or PC presets, only easier to work with since it's literally just 2 settings instead of a whole list of shit.

They might not get paid for shit, but believe it or not, it's still one of the biggest costs of console video game development.

Hilariously, it's actually far more complicated than the PS4 pro mode as developers don't really have to do any extra work to ensure the game functions properly on the PS4 Pro, nor do they have to do any additional QA. Sony does not require developers to take advantage of the additional performance, whereas a Switch developer won't have the opportunity to prevent their games from running in a portable mode.



Wyrdness on 21 December 2016
potato_hamster said:
Wyrdness said:

QA still has to be done yes but it was a quick summary of what people are seeing with the two settings, it can't be argued that this move this saves developer a lot of time tinkering as the is already a base setting for them to look at rather than create the game and try to scale everything themselves. This shows the engine has base settings for each mode for the platform for performance much like high and low settings on a PC to make things easier for developers as then they can adjust portable base settings accordingly if the game requires it.

Ehh... yes and no. If you actually think these are the only settings that need to be adjusted in order to properly optimize the engine for each mode, then you're kidding yourself. But it's an extremely basic start to help developers.

Who said these are the only settings? Seems to me you're adding words in people's mouths just to argue.



potato_hamster on 21 December 2016
Wyrdness said:
potato_hamster said:

Ehh... yes and no. If you actually think these are the only settings that need to be adjusted in order to properly optimize the engine for each mode, then you're kidding yourself. But it's an extremely basic start to help developers.

Who said these are the only settings? Seems to me you're adding words in people's mouths just to argue.

Why woudln't we assume these are the only settings? You do realize the OP actually lists all of the settings in question, right? This is article is about discovering that there are two different preset profiles within Unreal 4.14 that contains seven settings to apparently differentiate between Switch and SwitchHandheld profiles. It doesn't say this is a snippet. It doesn't say this is a small portion of a larger profile. It says this is the profile.

You're the one that's extrapolating from that and assuming that these seven settings is a small representation of something that ensures  "the engine will do the scaling itself" and thus, this means the engine has the "coding for portable mode for your game saving developers any hassle, so developers only have to focus on getting it to run in docked mode."

Those are your words. That's what you took from the discovery that there are two profiles in UE4.14 that affects seven engine settings. Why are you assuming there is more to this? Why are you assuming that this means that developing Switch games on UE4 .14 is suddenly significantly easier than expected for developers as a result of this discovery?



fatslob-:O on 21 December 2016

Games will still have to compensate for the platform regardless of middleware support ...

An engine will not automatically scale the assets for you ...