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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Digital Foundry: Best graphics on Nintendo Switch

curl-6 on 02 August 2024
Chrkeller said:
curl-6 said:

If everything on Switch automatically looks bad to you, then you're entitled to that opinion, but in that case do you actually have anything constructive to add to this thread, or are you just here to further derail discussion?

Just giving my opinion, no different than you. 

And I didn't say it looked bad, I said switch games are clearly low resolution....  and they are.  Facts are facts.  

I think one of the reasons LM3 looks good is it targets 1080p.  I didn't see it drop to lower resolutions like a lot of the bigger switch games.  

I mean it depends on what standard you want to hold it to; personally, I think Digital Foundry's approach of judging the software according to the hardware it is running on makes the most sense. As a 7 year old mobile device, Switch obviously isn't going to be trading blows with PS5 and Xbox Series.



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Chrkeller on 02 August 2024
curl-6 said:
Chrkeller said:

Just giving my opinion, no different than you. 

And I didn't say it looked bad, I said switch games are clearly low resolution....  and they are.  Facts are facts.  

I think one of the reasons LM3 looks good is it targets 1080p.  I didn't see it drop to lower resolutions like a lot of the bigger switch games.  

I mean it depends on what standard you want to hold it to; personally, I think Digital Foundry's approach of judging the software according to the hardware it is running on makes the most sense. As a 7 year old mobile device, Switch obviously isn't going to be trading blows with PS5 and Xbox Series.

I agree with this.  For a 7 year old device it does well.  But it is a 7 year old device.  For me it's age is showing.  And a lot depends on how someone plays.  Low resolution on a small screen (e.g. portable) isn't a big deal at all.  A 30 inch TV, not a major deal.  It only becomes a problem on large screens.  I've played switch a lot on a 65 inch screen...  720p is awful.  

Edit

Part of the issue is the switch isn't even trading blows with the ps4, much less the ps5.  The hardware has aged, like all hardware does.  It doesn't help that TVs just keep getting bigger and bigger.  My next set might be a LG OLED 77 inch.    



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Pemalite on 02 August 2024
Chrkeller said:
curl-6 said:

I mean it depends on what standard you want to hold it to; personally, I think Digital Foundry's approach of judging the software according to the hardware it is running on makes the most sense. As a 7 year old mobile device, Switch obviously isn't going to be trading blows with PS5 and Xbox Series.

I agree with this.  For a 7 year old device it does well.  But it is a 7 year old device.  For me it's age is showing.  And a lot depends on how someone plays.  Low resolution on a small screen (e.g. portable) isn't a big deal at all.  A 30 inch TV, not a major deal.  It only becomes a problem on large screens.  I've played switch a lot on a 65 inch screen...  720p is awful.  

Edit

Part of the issue is the switch isn't even trading blows with the ps4, much less the ps5.  The hardware has aged, like all hardware does.  It doesn't help that TVs just keep getting bigger and bigger.  My next set might be a LG OLED 77 inch.    

You also need to put into context it's form factor and internals.

It's a mobile device first and foremost that can output to an external display... Mobile devices also have compromises to performance to hit power targets... And tend to use lower-precision rendering (FP16) to save on power costs... That doesn't always translate well to a big canvas.

As a handheld with an OLED display, the Switch is an amazing device.



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

Chrkeller on 02 August 2024
Pemalite said:
Chrkeller said:

I agree with this.  For a 7 year old device it does well.  But it is a 7 year old device.  For me it's age is showing.  And a lot depends on how someone plays.  Low resolution on a small screen (e.g. portable) isn't a big deal at all.  A 30 inch TV, not a major deal.  It only becomes a problem on large screens.  I've played switch a lot on a 65 inch screen...  720p is awful.  

Edit

Part of the issue is the switch isn't even trading blows with the ps4, much less the ps5.  The hardware has aged, like all hardware does.  It doesn't help that TVs just keep getting bigger and bigger.  My next set might be a LG OLED 77 inch.    

You also need to put into context it's form factor and internals.

It's a mobile device first and foremost that can output to an external display... Mobile devices also have compromises to performance to hit power targets... And tend to use lower-precision rendering (FP16) to save on power costs... That doesn't always translate well to a big canvas.

As a handheld with an OLED display, the Switch is an amazing device.

Fully understand and fully agreed.  My OLED switch plays and looks great.  I hope the dock via the switch 2 makes it more of a real home console. 



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Mar1217 on 02 August 2024
Chrkeller said:
curl-6 said:

I mean it depends on what standard you want to hold it to; personally, I think Digital Foundry's approach of judging the software according to the hardware it is running on makes the most sense. As a 7 year old mobile device, Switch obviously isn't going to be trading blows with PS5 and Xbox Series.

I agree with this.  For a 7 year old device it does well.  But it is a 7 year old device.  For me it's age is showing.  And a lot depends on how someone plays.  Low resolution on a small screen (e.g. portable) isn't a big deal at all.  A 30 inch TV, not a major deal.  It only becomes a problem on large screens.  I've played switch a lot on a 65 inch screen...  720p is awful.  

Edit

Part of the issue is the switch isn't even trading blows with the ps4, much less the ps5.  The hardware has aged, like all hardware does.  It doesn't help that TVs just keep getting bigger and bigger.  My next set might be a LG OLED 77 inch.    

I've got a solution for you there, why not go for a smaller screen size if you're that adamant against Switch usual input resolution ? 

This would inherently produce a better looking picture, especially if you're standing up close to it.

For example, my setup since 2017 has been pretty simple with a 32 inch 1080p TV in my bedroom where my gaming is done. Even a game that could output sub HD resolution wouldn't look too out of place there. 

And I'd imagine a LG 42inch OLED screen would have the benefit of being more presentable for the sucessor than a 77inch display except if you were to stand further from it to game.



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Tober on 02 August 2024
LegitHyperbole said:
h2ohno said:

Load times are pretty bad on Switch and are more frequent as well, though they don't seem to be as long as you say the PS4 Pro loading screens can be.

WOW, I wasn't expecting it to look THAT bad. Looks atrociously bad. They shouldn't have bothered with it, part of the game is enjoying the world. That'd really hurt the games enjoyment. And ouch, you have to load into buildings. Oof. 

But the Switch version sells like hotcakes. That's why they bothered with it.



LegitHyperbole on 02 August 2024
Tober said:
LegitHyperbole said:

WOW, I wasn't expecting it to look THAT bad. Looks atrociously bad. They shouldn't have bothered with it, part of the game is enjoying the world. That'd really hurt the games enjoyment. And ouch, you have to load into buildings. Oof. 

But the Switch version sells like hotcakes. That's why they bothered with it.

Poor saps, that's the worst port I've ever seen. 



zeldaring on 02 August 2024
Pemalite said:
zeldaring said:

The only one frustrated is permalite, and what does it matter if the final results are superb, and among the best looking games on switch. let's use a example crysis 3, if the the 360 port of the game was 60fps/900p that would not be using switch capablites? it would by far switch's techically most impressive game, same for rdr 1080p/60fps i think we should worry more about the final results then say's it's using poor man's GI that most people won't even notice.

Please don't make blatant and false allegations. - I am not "frustrated".

Again. Red Dead Redemption has a clean presentation, but it's using last-generation visual feature sets. It's not pushing "graphics".

Crysis 3 is doing more, CryEngine is a very flexible and scalable engine... Which is why us PC gamers love that game engine.

zeldaring said:

Ok explain to me why xenoblade 3 being mentioned? it even lacks features that were basic during the 360 era, like dynamic shadows and for a open world game that's one of the most important graphical feature, and it just looks like crap over all, and most likely when DF makes best looking thirdparty games they might mention RDR and crysis 3 then what. RDR looks a switch game while xenoblade 3 looks like a early ps3 game. 

Switch's advanced graphical features could come at cost, like lower resolution, less stable framerate so there are tade offs. again BOTW is on wiiu its not using switch's advanced feature set , so does that not count as well? how about mario rpg which looks like a small indi game. What about mario wonder, it's not using those advanced graphical features but still mentioned why aren't you not questioning why DF mentioned it. like i said it's all bout someone not accepting being wrong,

Xenoblade 3 is using a ton of stylized visuals... But you are also forgetting something.
Scale. Xenoblade has more.
And yes... Red Dead has a "ton" of vegetation, but keep in mind how that vegetation is actually rendered, it's essentially 2D pictures stuck together in various directions to simulate complexity.

Also... The WiiU and Switch share more hardware similarities than the Xbox 360 and Switch.
More modern Radeon architecture with compute makes a helluva difference... Which is why Breath of the Wild translated over so well.

h2ohno said:

In my opinion, the best-looking 7th gen open world game ported to Switch is Assassin's Creed Black Flag because its environments, the foliage especially, is much better. I find the grass in RDR to be really low quality, and in the 2 comparison pics that are constantly thrown about in this thread, the Xenoblade 1 looks much, much better than the RDR right above it to my eyes, both in terms of art and in looking like a more modern game.

Need to give a nod to Metro, it's turning some brilliant results for a 7th gen title.

zeldaring said:

Am I supposed to know every single game that using some advanced feature I usually just watch the games that have the features and actually look nextgen. For the most part the game are really low resolution. 

If you wish to be informed... Then yes.

zeldaring said:

Oh man i just connnected  my laptop to the TV 42 inch to play botw and red dead. I'm shocked how bad they looked compared to my 14 inch laptop, on my laptop red dead looked stunning like real life and zelda BOTW like a painting. on the 42 inch they both looked dated and ugly, did not expect that. I can't even imagine what 540p would look like.

Breath of the Wild is 900P and Red Dead is 1080P when docked.
To say it's "dated and ugly" is a lie when comparing them both on the Switch.

Breath of the Wild scales up on big panels really well thanks to it's stylized visuals.

However... And again, it baffles me that I need to reinforce this intrinsic fact...

The impact of resolution is entirely determined by panel size and the viewing distance from the display, at a certain distance you will not be able to discern the difference between 900P and 1080P on a 42" panel.

Again, just resolution alone is a useless metric... Especially in the era of temporal up-scaling.

curl-6 said:

It's not the sharpest looking game on Switch, but it's a lot better than just "540p" alone might suggest. Raw pixel counts aren't as telling as they once were now that we live in the age of DLSS, FSR, and other reconstruction methods.

That and not everything in a games world is rendered at the output resolution anyway.

A game that outputs at 720P with 720P shadow resolution will have better looking shadows than a 1080P output and quarter-resolution shadows. Aka 540P, the shadows will look more blocky and aliased on the 1080P output.

It's the same issue with "bits" and "gflops". - People see a number and automagically assume bigger is better, which is often the case, but not always.

The Switch also has an OLED variant which looks positively brilliant in games designed to leverage those high contrasts and inky black levels.

I'm sorry  but ill judge console with real world results wiiu had 30 plus ports almost every single one was one was worse or at best then 7th gen consoles and even the ones with that were touted to use the GPU, you would never spot the differnces  in screen with out someone telling you what they real a meaningful differnce with the switch it proved itself the superior hardware from day one. beofre you tell well look botw, many on beyond3d  including mods believe 360/ps3 had the more techically   impressive games so it's subjective. Also asked the guy at beyond3d who is extremely technical proficient, he was the guy that looked at the gpu die and figures out the specs of botw he said I would imagine it would get pretty close. I will add that it would probably run better since every open world game on wiiu ran worse then 360.

As for red dead and botw i was playing both of them on 14 inch laptop and they honestly looked  amazing, so i decided to see how they would look on 42 inch and they both looked super dated when i connected my laptop to hdmi, and i play 4 feet away. yea i know i probably should have known that but i just got my latop and never played game in 14 inch screen and boy does it hude all the flaws.

Last edited by zeldaring - on 02 August 2024

Leynos on 02 August 2024

I have a 43-inch 4K TV. I use a Mclassic. Some games clean up fairly well. Not a miracle device but things look cleaner. Bayonetta 3 looks nicer. Tho I also adjusted things on the panel itself.



Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

curl-6 on 02 August 2024
Chrkeller said:
curl-6 said:

I mean it depends on what standard you want to hold it to; personally, I think Digital Foundry's approach of judging the software according to the hardware it is running on makes the most sense. As a 7 year old mobile device, Switch obviously isn't going to be trading blows with PS5 and Xbox Series.

I agree with this.  For a 7 year old device it does well.  But it is a 7 year old device.  For me it's age is showing.  And a lot depends on how someone plays.  Low resolution on a small screen (e.g. portable) isn't a big deal at all.  A 30 inch TV, not a major deal.  It only becomes a problem on large screens.  I've played switch a lot on a 65 inch screen...  720p is awful.  

Edit

Part of the issue is the switch isn't even trading blows with the ps4, much less the ps5.  The hardware has aged, like all hardware does.  It doesn't help that TVs just keep getting bigger and bigger.  My next set might be a LG OLED 77 inch.    

Viewing distance makes a big difference; my Switch is hooked up to a 42 inch 4K screen, but I sit a good 3 meters back from it so it looks fine.

LegitHyperbole said:
Tober said:

But the Switch version sells like hotcakes. That's why they bothered with it.

Poor saps, that's the worst port I've ever seen. 

As someone who owns the game on both Switch and PS5, I found it serviceable. It's not pretty, but its playable. There are much worse ports out there; the launch version of Ark Survival Evolved on Switch, Arkham Knight on Switch, Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor on PS3, Borderlands 2 on Vita, etc.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 02 August 2024