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Anyone else wish Nintendo would commit to just a little more power to allow their bigger IPs have better image quality?

cormack12

Gold Member
Was reading this about XC3 from DF and for most of their stuff it isn't really an issue. For context, when I do break out the switch I'm usually a docked player for 95% of playtime. So mario games are generally fine, animal crossing is ok, stardew valleys etc. all great. But when you break out the 'big guns' despite the artstyle I just feel they would really benefit from a bit of extra oomph. I know we're probably not far from a Switch 2 replacement but I hope they do have a little more headroom for those games that want to stretch their legs.


The game will render at 1080p docked and 720p in handheld mode, which is a jump from the previous entry in the series, Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Digital Foundry has even gone on to say that this game delivers "one of the sharpest images from all the high-end titles we've seen on Switch", even if the resolution can slip to lower levels at times.

There are, however, some constraints to environmental rendering. The level of detail pop-in is mixed when transitioning between quiet and busy environments, with trees, rocks, and other background details appearing. But this doesn't diminish from the majesty of the world.

Performance, while having seen a bit of a bump, is still hit and miss says Digital Foundry. While the game maintains a steady 30 fps throughout the environment, it varies on what's going on at any one time, as well as the size and scope of the area. But the game is much more mixed when it comes to combat, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 introduces a seven-character party system. So all of the effects and animations on screen are multiplied compared to previous entries.
 

Aldric

Member
Yes, that's why I've been hoping for a DLSS Switch for a while. I don't really care about the photorealistic trend followed by the rest of the industry and enjoy Nintendo's more stylistic approach to visuals but there's no denying the Switch is an obsolete hardware and that some games performance simply isn't acceptable anymore, Age of Calamity for ex is a legitimately good game hampered by catastrophic framerate.
 
Switch was released before it's time due to WiiU debacle.

Nintendo never planned to have PS3 level hardware in PS5 era. They are usually just one generation behind.

It's selling so well though, it will come back to bite their ass.
 

MrA

Banned
Was reading this about XC3 from DF and for most of their stuff it isn't really an issue. For context, when I do break out the switch I'm usually a docked player for 95% of playtime. So mario games are generally fine, animal crossing is ok, stardew valleys etc. all great. But when you break out the 'big guns' despite the artstyle I just feel they would really benefit from a bit of extra oomph. I know we're probably not far from a Switch 2 replacement but I hope they do have a little more headroom for those games that want to stretch their legs.
Funny Nintendo could make enthusiasts happy with a use at your own risk overclocked mode, original model running 20% faster docked and the updated version running like 75% faster docked, but Nintendo would never do anything Ike that
 

Ellery

Member
I really don't mind Nintendo games looking the way they do from a design decision, but in 2022 where we all have 4K televisions it is quite annoying to look at the jaggies on from those games being rendered at 720p.

A little bit more power would go a long long way for Nintendo.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Nintendo games tend to go for a cartoonish style, no so much for realism and high detail. So I don't think Nintendo games are that very limited by the hardware.
But when third parties try to bring their modern games to the Switch, it becomes a big problem. Sometimes the result is cutbacks in almost every graphics setting. And problems with performance. Or studios just don't even bother releasing their games for the Switch.
I think Nintendo should try to be more competitive with graphical power.
Maybe I'm just too old, but there was a time when Nintendo was a graphical powerhouse and had great success.
 

CJ_75

Member
Switch games would look a lot nicer if it had HDR support.
The Tegra X1 is fully capable to support HDR but the HDMI 1.4 specification on the Switch is holding it back.
Switch is fine as it is. For other bells and whistles, we have to wait for the Switch 2.
 
Everyone would like the Switch to have better hardware.

I bough every Nintendo console but the switch because the power jump is not compelling marred with the price that I feel is high for what it is. (also the joycon fiasco)

But it doesn't, so games have to make the best out of it. I think we would be stuck with X360-era things if not for really clever dynamic resolution shenanigans so in a way it is impressive they came along this far.
Only the SNES, that was countered by the Megadrive though.
N64 and Gamecube as well
 
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BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Sure, I've said it many times. I love Nintendo and the games they've published for the Switch but there comes a point in which relying on archaic and limiting hardware begins to aggressively and negatively affect the quality of product for your customers.

A recent example: I started playing Fire Emblem Three Houses and for the first few hours I loved it. Then it expanded its scope and the textures in the backgrounds and characters started looking like a mobile game from 2016. Load times became a problem - another relic of a bygone era. Then there's the fact that it still relies on external sources for things as simple and now twenty years old as multiplayer voice chat. I mean, cmon.

At some point Nintendo needs to move on - not to just avoid being the one publisher-slash-developer who always seems two generations behind, but also to throw their fans a bone.
 
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RoboFu

One of the green rats
People excuse Nintendo because of the "gameplay",I can't remember the last time a Nintendo game had genuine gameplay innovation and wasn't just an iterative improvement.
Wow what a dumb statement. Even if you are just talking Mario and Zelda it’s still dumb. 🤣

Mario sunshine had flood, Mario galaxy was motion controlled and had the planet gravity system, Mario odyssey has the hat system. Plus they all have tons of different gameplay ideas throughout the games .

Zelda botw .. I mean come on how different can you get?
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
I'd take it but I really don't care and neither does Nintendo. They haven't chased power for over 20 years and they likely never will.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
If there was more power Monolith Soft would do the exact same thing. Lower resolution than all the other Switch games while pushing graphical features and scale to its limits. There is a reason they are the only first party developer at Nintendo that are using temporal upsampling in their own in house engine. If we had a Switch 2 and all the other games were 1440p native, Xenoblade 3 would have been 1080p or lower upsampling to 1440p and people would still be complaining about image quality.
 

Caio

Member
nah. i care about gameplay. i'm perfectly happy with the image quality on switch. i don't buy nintendo consoles for graphics (or any console for that matter.)
sadly, you being happy means nothing. Graphics on Switch is utter garbage, compared to current standards. Everybody does care about gameplay, but why not to have great graphics combined with great gameplay/controls ? I hope Switch 2 will be released in 2024 with DLSS 3.0 or whatever it will have, so it could deliver much better graphics/performance. Art design is another story...we shouldn't use it as an "excuse" and/or "extenuating" to crappy graphics, in general. Low geometry, low res textures, lower resolution is a fact, together with an very weak CPU. Nintendo is one of the most talented developers on this planet, just imagine what they could do with more power available, on their bigger IPs.
 

ParaSeoul

Member
Wow what a dumb statement. Even if you are just talking Mario and Zelda it’s still dumb. 🤣

Mario sunshine had flood, Mario galaxy was motion controlled and had the planet gravity system, Mario odyssey has the hat system. Plus they all have tons of different gameplay ideas throughout the games .

Zelda botw .. I mean come on how different can you get?
I don't think you understood my point.
 

Robb

Gold Member
Sure, I’d love a stronger Switch and would’ve bought a Switch Pro day one.

Hopefully they have some clever solutions for ‘Switch 2’ when in comes to performance.
 

Kupfer

Member
cormack12 cormack12
You mean something like Sony did with firmware 3.5 for the PSP, where they removed the clock frequency limit of 222mhz and developers could suddenly use the full 333mhz processor? God if War did benefit from that, but I'm not sure if the Switch has a reserve like the PSP had, although I've read that you can overclock your switch with a custom firmware and games run better. Of course this would lead to a higher power consumption and therefore more heat.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
sadly, you being happy means nothing.
But it does, outside this gaming forum, not many people that obsess with high tech graphics and it has been proven many times.

Heck Horizon series which one of its big selling point was its graphics got overshadowed twice by both BotW and Elden Ring which didn’t have high tech graphics compare to Horizon games.

Also Switch selling amazingly well despite not being as powerful as other consoles but in gaming forums people love to pretend graphics are the most important thing.
 

ParaSeoul

Member
cormack12 cormack12
You mean something like Sony did with firmware 3.5 for the PSP, where they removed the clock frequency limit of 222mhz and developers could suddenly use the full 333mhz processor? God if War did benefit from that, but I'm not sure if the Switch has a reserve like the PSP had, although I've read that you can overclock your switch with a custom firmware and games run better. Of course this would lead to a higher power consumption and therefore more heat.
The Shield tablet that uses the same chipset is clocked higher,maybe they could introduce some kind of boost mode? Nothing too crazy and not for too long just to squeeze everything out of that hardware for when its needed.
 

ParaSeoul

Member
But it does, outside this gaming forum, not many people that obsess with high tech graphics and it has been proven many times.

Heck Horizon series which one of its big selling point was its graphics got overshadowed twice by both BotW and Elden Ring which didn’t have high tech graphics compare to Horizon games.

Also Switch selling amazingly well despite not being as powerful as other consoles but in gaming forums people love to pretend graphics are the most important thing.
I think a Nintendo system having high end graphics is out of the question given their current strategy but the games made for it should at least be able to run well.
 
I really don't mind Nintendo games looking the way they do from a design decision, but in 2022 where we all have 4K televisions it is quite annoying to look at the jaggies on from those games being rendered at 720p.

A little bit more power would go a long long way for Nintendo.
Yep, it's the reason why I use my Switch only undocked now. Both the bad image quality and the usually 30 fps are only bearable on the small screen. Doesn't help that I have an OLED tv, where 30 fps looks like shit.
 
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Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I think a Nintendo system having high end graphics is out of the question given their current strategy but the games made for it should at least be able to run well.
Currently I’m way more happy with Nintendo than I’m with Sony this gen. PS5 is powerful system but what the use when Sony completely stopped supporting first party Japanese games.

they currently only interested making first party western games, so if have to choose between more powerful system or first party Japanese games then I choose first party Japanese games.
 

cireza

Banned
nah. i care about gameplay. i'm perfectly happy with the image quality on switch. i don't buy nintendo consoles for graphics (or any console for that matter.)
Personally I would enjoy it more if it was just a little worse.
 
If there was more power Monolith Soft would do the exact same thing. Lower resolution than all the other Switch games while pushing graphical features and scale to its limits. There is a reason they are the only first party developer at Nintendo that are using temporal upsampling in their own in house engine. If we had a Switch 2 and all the other games were 1440p native, Xenoblade 3 would have been 1080p or lower upsampling to 1440p and people would still be complaining about image quality.
I really don't think that would be their ethos on a properly powerful platform, not that the image quality hit would be that noticeable even if they did.

The issue here is the Switch, and it's kinda remarkable that they managed to improve the image quality this seriously after launching a 720p docked predecessor. I don't get just what is there to complain about? They're delivering a functional/perceptible 1080p for the most part this time around, in a console where even first party heavy hitter titles are skipping that mark since launch.

IMO the game looks like a generational leap from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 which is impressive. In fact I only remember leaps like this on PS2 albeit the graphic style they chose also helps and is reflective of the kind of graphic direction change that happened mid gen with the PS2.

BotW 2 will probably pull the same technique, and Mario Odyssey only didn't because it wasn't a possibility at the time, they still did similar things with the docked version running with vertical intepolation/jittering, rendering 640x720 per field. if they could have used temporal, it would have been an improvement. And perhaps the docked game could have pulled 1080p instead of 900p. Same for the Breath of the Wild on the Switch while doing away with the slowdowns, in fact.
The Shield tablet that uses the same chipset is clocked higher,maybe they could introduce some kind of boost mode? Nothing too crazy and not for too long just to squeeze everything out of that hardware for when its needed.
They could. They added a boost mode for loading screens a few years back where they boost the CPU when the GPU is not being used.

I doubt they'll add a GPU boost for developers, but it could be done, yes.
 
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GymWolf

Member
Absolutely, i stopped caring about nintendo hardware since past gamecube era when they started with the fucking gimmicks.

All the people who pretend to not care about the hardware are probably still wanking off on that zelda vs ganon trailer with great graphic from like 10 years ago...
 
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KungFucius

King Snowflake
People are nuts when they claim it is good enough. If you really want to watch a movie and you only have a phone available, that is good enough, but who wouldn't prefer to watch it on a big screen? Quality is important. XC3 is engaging but it makes the switch feel like I dug something out of the closet to play some old game with. It has pixelated filters and very meh textures and the load times are a joke. The game would be so much better on decent hardware. It doesn't need to be PS5 level, but a game like this begs for more competent hardware.
 
They have quality in spades, a great brand appeal, and some of the most recognizable characters ever. What I would love them to do, is expand the genres they invest in...
The same thing applies to Playstation as well! 😀
 
People are nuts when they claim it is good enough. If you really want to watch a movie and you only have a phone available, that is good enough, but who wouldn't prefer to watch it on a big screen? Quality is important. XC3 is engaging but it makes the switch feel like I dug something out of the closet to play some old game with. It has pixelated filters and very meh textures and the load times are a joke. The game would be so much better on decent hardware. It doesn't need to be PS5 level, but a game like this begs for more competent hardware.

I hear you, my friend. It seems to me, however, that most people care about convenience first, which explains the success of streaming at the detriment of higher quality consumption (Films, music...). Videogames look to be headed in the same direction.
 

McHuj

Member
Yes, absolutely.

I’m satisfied with the graphics level of Switch with everything except image quality. I want just higher resolution to increase the pixel density and better anti aliasing.

Shimmering jaggies really bother me.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Not in the slightest. Chasing image quality quality is for studios that don't know other ways to make a good game.
While you are not wrong, Nintendo could do a lot more in that department. They don't need to be cutting edge, but at least target 4K 60.
 
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