By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming Discussion - How do the visuals on the Nintendo Switch compare to those of the Xbox 360 & PS3?

 

The Nintendo Switch hardware is...

A big leap over 7th gen 71 40.11%
 
A minor leap over 7th gen 72 40.68%
 
About the same as 7th gen 24 13.56%
 
Actually WORSE than last gen 10 5.65%
 
Total:177

Of course better. But I'm biased because of the games.



Proud to be the first cool Nintendo fan ever

Number ONE Zelda fan in the Universe

DKCTF didn't move consoles

Prediction: No Zelda HD for Wii U, quietly moved to the succesor

Predictions for Nintendo NX and Mobile


Around the Network

Given that the topic title is Switch, not Wii U, versus PS3/360, it really is the Switch version of Breath of the Wild we should be comparing. Can anyone name a single complex open world game on PS3/360 that runs higher than 720p?



I said "huge improvement over gen 7", but that is because I think it is on par with the gen 8 consoles.  Really though I don't think any of the gen 8 consoles are that big of an improvement.  Graphics have hit a point of diminishing returns, so that now it takes a ton of effort to see a small graphical improvement.

 

Mnementh said:

Ok, I'm a bit difficult in this regard. Because back then, I remember people drooling over the graphics of Doom. No, not 2016, they drooled over this:

I always thought the textures looked shitty and liked the graphics of Dark Forces a lot more, although it was technically barely a step-up:

Because the texture were more meaningful. With other words, technical stuff aside, the people on Dark Forces invested more time in art. And this is the main thing I see stays relevant over time. The most technical highlights of a time lose their charm as the technology advances, but the truly artistic games stay ahead. Sure, more pixels are always cool, but it isn't important in the long run.

So if asked about visuals, Okami on PS2 in my opinion beats about everything on PS3 (except Okami HD obviously), X360 and so on. So, difficult question.


I am very much in agreement on this.  For me it is funny in that I see an old Pac-Man arcade game in RGB and think, "Wow!  These graphics are amazing!"  The resolution is terrible, but the art direction is good even on this old primitive game.  Likewise I am messing with RGB on a Genesis right now, and I am really liking the visuals.  (I used a really crappy connection back in the day.)  Of course, the art direction in the game has to be really good.  There are plenty of games from this era that look terrible too.  I am just trying to get the best visuals from games that already look pretty good.



Solid-Stark said:
It's basically PS3 like visuals rendered at full 720p/900p/1080p, where the PS3 was usually sub 720p.

This is a good way of describing it. I'd still argue ps3 has the better visuals for now but as switch gets more games it will catch up in this department. 

Alkibiádēs said:
Kerotan said:

Yeah these graphics are really nothing to boast about. Great for handheld but already aged by this gens home console standards. 

Switch as the next generation to the Vita graphically or the same gen as ps3 is the same thing. Both things I've said. Glad you agree with one of them. 

Super Mario Odyssey runs at 900p and 60 fps, which is a rare thing on PS4 as most games opt for 30 fps and nicer visuals. Anyone can cherry pick pictures to make a game look good or bad. Super Mario Odyssey especially has many different visual styles within one game, some look really good, others look kind of bad.

Your pic is really blurry. Do you have another? 



Kerotan said:

Alkibiádēs said:

Super Mario Odyssey runs at 900p and 60 fps, which is a rare thing on PS4 as most games opt for 30 fps and nicer visuals. Anyone can cherry pick pictures to make a game look good or bad. Super Mario Odyssey especially has many different visual styles within one game, some look really good, others look kind of bad.

Your pic is really blurry. Do you have another? 

This is the area, though I couldn't find a good quality native res screen of it, so this is still a bit compressed:



Around the Network
fatslob-:O said:

Sure the GC may have had prettier textures but ports to it often ended up worse in terms of performance or graphical affects like reduced/missing post-processing and lower resolution meshes/alpha effects or god forbid absent mechanical features such as inverse kinematics like we see in SotC ... (TEV is also fixed function but it has an awful lot of states) 

GC is waaay overrated in terms of hardware capabilities ... (I would dare argue that each have their own advantages and disadvantages that even them out despite the fact that most ports ran worse on GC)

Same thing happened with the technically superior Playstation 3, the ports that came from the Xbox 360 often ended up with worse performance and graphics effects. - Many Call of Duty games operated at a lower resolution and/or with significantly paired down alpha effects.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-call-of-duty-black-ops-faceoff
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-face-off-modern-warfare-3

It happens regardless of hardware capability, some ports are just shit.

I'm not saying the Gamecube didn't have areas where it fell short, but the TEV did manage to pull it's own weight, ArtX did a pretty good job with it... And the games prove it.

Johnw1104 said:
I think people are beginning to forget how much the visuals have improved since the 360/PS3 days. I recall initially being underwhelmed by the leap from those to PS4/Xbox1, but going back to the previous gen now can be quite jarring.


Especially if you go back to the START of the 7th gen and play games like Kameo, Call of Duty 3, Oblivion... The difference is actually pretty jarring.

d21lewis said:

Again, I'm not the most tech savvy guy in the world but didn't the Wii U have certain amount of its power dedicated to its dashboard and os?

All consoles do. Well. The dash UI on older consoles would get unloaded due to limited Ram... Which is why the Xbox 360 could get away with only using 32Mb of Ram for the OS and background tasks.

quickrick said:

Wii U has a weaker CPU, and The GPU is about the same, maybe slightly more powerful, RAM is the major advantage, 512mb more.

GPU is a step up.
Ram is the biggest advantage, many developers were constrained with the paltry amount of Ram on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

CPU is the biggest point of contention. In allot of areas it is a more efficient design, but it would certainly loose against the Cell.
Against the 360 CPU however things get muddier.

The WiiU's CPU is a wider core, with a shorter pipeline, out-of-order execution and other enhancements, so it should be able to handle "dirty code" better than the 360... But thanks to it's lower clock, would likely mean it does come up short.

bonzobanana said:

Unless this has changed with a later firmware the Switch still caps its CPU's to 1ghz and only 3 are used for games and this applies to both docked and undocked modes and while these are more capable cpu's than in the 360 and PS3 they easily surpass Switch by the sheer speed they run at, 3.2ghz. While many have said the reason the Switch can't run LA Noire well is its optimised to utilise the PS3's cell processors the 360 did in fact run the game well too and I don't think its unfair to say both 360 and PS3 easily surpass Switch CPU performance.

Are you suggesting that clockspeed is all that matters to a CPU's performance?
Did you not learn a single thing from Intels Netburst or AMD's Bulldozer era?

The ONLY time clockspeed can be even remotely relevant in gauging a processors performance is when the architecture is identical, even then it becomes tenuous.

bonzobanana said:

Isn't it something like 9,000 mips for wii u, 13,000 mips for Switch (due to the 1ghz limit) but something like 20,000 mips for 360 and maybe 28,000-40,000 mips for ps3. PS4 and Xbone are up to 34,000 - 38,000 mips. If the Tegra CPU's were run at full speed of course it would be different but they aren't they are only run at about half speed in Switch but you can imagine if Nintendo released more cpu performance with a later firmware it would comfortably surpass 360 and be closer to the other consoles. Both PS4 and Xbone never pushed cpu performance in their consoles being only a mild jump from the last gen.

There are cheap octacore android tablets that exceed 30,000 mips for cpu performance but of course have much, much weaker gpu performance than Switch. For comparison the current AMD Ryzen CPU can exceed 300,000 mips. Cisc chipsets tend to get more work done per cycle as they have a larger instruction set (generalisation). 

However mobile chipsets tend to utilise the main cpu for secondary tasks too and don't have as many support processors as non mobile chipsets. So a comparison of mobile vs non mobile without factoring that in would not be fair. So a mobile chipset 10,000 mips is weaker than a non mobile 10,000mips chipset which again is weaker than a cisc 10,000 mips non mobile chipset. I'm just making the point the issues of LA Noire on Switch are extremely likely based on the weak cpu performance especially as the issue effects both docked and undocked.


MIPS is only relevant if the CPU's being compared are of an identical architecture.
Nor is it representative of a complete processors capabilities anyway.

I mean... There are soundcards with 10,000+ MIPS, you aren't running Crysis on them.

Last edited by Pemalite - on 27 January 2018

--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

Switch barely looks better than Wii U. That should be all you need to know.



01000110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01001001 01111001 01101111 01101100 01100001 01101000 00100001 00100000 01000110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01000101 01110100 01100101 01110010 01101110 01101001 01110100 01111001 00100001 00100000

Mnementh said:

PS3:

Switch:

PS4:

o_O

The Power of the Cell



THE POWER of 360!

 

The power of Switch!

 

I don't see a bunch of grey rock on Switch graphics so that is proof 360 can do more than Switch!



I find it funny how people like to compare games released like 5, 6 or 7 years into a consoles life to another consoles first year titles.

This same thing happened a few years ago when people were comparing late life PS3/360 games to first year PS4/XBO games and saying it was a lackluster jump.

Obviously devs will be able to get more out of hardware they have worked on for 6+ years and had 3-4 games on it vs learning new hardware with their first project.

Take the best looking games from these years and see how they compare.

PS3/360-2006/2007
PS4/XBO-2014
NSW-2017



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.