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DF: WRC 10 on Switch: Is It Really As Bad As People Say It is? + PS4/PS5 Next-Gen Features Tested

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
- Base PS4: 1080p/30 FPS
- Game was released last Sep and got PS5 / Series updates.
- Switch port released in March, one of the most heavily cut back Switch ports.
- Comparison focus on Switch vs Base PS4.

Switch:

- Switch is Dynamic 900p docked but extremely rarely reaches it. Game play is mostly 648p.
- Portable typically runs at 480p with max of 720p.
- Very little AA to resolve the jaggies.

- Texture quality, asset quality is lowered greatly. Crowds look like PS1 era in close ups.
- SSR are removed. Shadows also look like a flickering mess.
- No AO, no shading on distant cars and generally terrain/foliage massively lessened and looks barren.
- Dust/mist effects also reduced/removed on Switch.

- Pop in a huge isue universally, geometry and baked shadows pop in meters away with bare minimum LoD.
- The game still has some of the better car models on racing games on Switch.
- Physics deformation is greatly reduced in game play on car bodies.

- Switch version also has multi player removed, both online and local.
- The controls also suffer owing to the controller options on Switch.

- 30 FPS performance is very solid outside of some stages (eg Japan) which drops to mid 20s for stretches, also causes frame pacing to become uneven.

- Portable has worse frame rates than docked with drops in more places where 30 is locked docked.


Next Gen (PS5 Tested):

- PS5 version targets 60 and 120hz modes.
- 30 FPS 4K, 60 FPS Balanced with 1600p~2160p with drops in shadow. 120hz mode dropping shadow even further and 1080p.
- 4K version upgrades mostly go on draw distances.
- PS5 loads a race in 7 seconds where PS4 takes 33 and Switch 42 seconds.

- PS4 ran at 1080p/30, practically perfect outside of some screen tearing.
- PS5 in 4K mode is locked 30 with no tearing.
- PS5 Balanced is practically rock solid 60 with no tearing.
- PS5 120hz mode is also practically locked at 120hz with some screen tearing.


"Is it as bad as everyone says on Switch ?"
"Yes."
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Now I understand why people hold onto the idea of switch pro cause yikes.......


NGL it reminds me of Rally Cross on the PS1 lol


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19lkac.png


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scydrex

Member
This is just a bad port .. there is no reason this game look and perform like this when Dirt 3 on a weaker hardware
look much better



To what the Switch compare spec wise? Sure more modern GPU and CPU with more tech. How much powerful is the Switch vs a PS3 or 360?
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
19lkac.png



colinmcraerally3_2560.jpg


WRC10 on Switch vs. Colin Mcrae Rally 3 (2003) on PS2/PC. This is insane :messenger_tears_of_joy:
What's insane about it? One is a game made to look great on those old platforms, the other one made for vastly superior specs that is hastily butchered to fit on a far lower end machine. That's how it's always been. The game wasn't even great on PS4/Xbone, aiming for 1080p/30fps, so, duh.


What do you find best on PS2, the Splinter Cell and RE4 ports or Metal Gear Solid 2/3? This isn't a defense of the game or Switch for you to go all "well what you get is what matters and it's shit", of course it's shit, it's the result of these common, rather than insane or surprising, shit practices.
 
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Fake

Member
WTf is this? Even Dirty 3 on Xbox 360 looks miles ahead.

To what the Switch compare spec wise? Sure more modern GPU and CPU with more tech. How much powerful is the Switch vs a PS3 or 360?

As someone here can say 'NS CPU has blablabla and that', is still a ARM cpu with mobile limitations. Probably the GPU is caring the CPU here.

NS GPU is far better than PS360 consoles.
 

Ceallach

Smells like fresh rosebuds
To what the Switch compare spec wise? Sure more modern GPU and CPU with more tech. How much powerful is the Switch vs a PS3 or 360?
A LOT more powerful. Lower clocked CPU but more cores with much more modern and faster infrastructure. You're talking 1.02Tflop vs 51.2Gflop. 4GB of DDR4 vs 512Mb of DDR3, etc.

This was just a quick cheap port. They did the minimum to get it running at abasically acceptable level.
 

TheTony316

Member
What's insane about it? One is a game made to look great on those old platforms, the other one made for vastly superior specs that is hastily butchered to fit on a far lower end machine. That's how it's always been. The game wasn't even great on PS4/Xbone, aiming for 1080p/30fps.


A brand new full priced game looking worse than a game from 20 years ago running on ancient hardware is kinda insane.
 

Fake

Member
A LOT more powerful. Lower clocked CPU but more cores with much more modern and faster infrastructure. You're talking 1.02Tflop vs 51.2Gflop. 4GB of DDR4 vs 512Mb of DDR3, etc.

This was just a quick cheap port. They did the minimum to get it running at abasically acceptable level.

Nintendo Switch is more powerful, but 'LOT MORE POWERFUL'? err, can't say for sure. GFLOP not always tell the tale as you can see here.

Native API, bottleneck, quality of port, etc... ARM CPU is still the problem of Nintendo Switch. I remember Xbox 360 having perfomances issues, but that cut back? Can't say for sure.
 
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Stuart360

Member
It looks a lot like one of 'LowSpecGamer' vids lol.
The game had 6 months extra work too so you cant just blame it on the game being rushed, the devs had too many versions to make at the same time, etc.

Still its a step up from the Switch version of Ark Survival Evolved lol.
 
19lkac.png



colinmcraerally3_2560.jpg


WRC10 on Switch vs. Colin Mcrae Rally 3 (2003) on PS2/PC. This is insane :messenger_tears_of_joy:
There's 2 reasons for this.

Number 1, wrc 10 is a chop shop port. They just stripped the real versions until it runs on switch ; never as good as software made from the ground up.

2. Though resources have gone way up compared to prior generations, a good deal of that extra power goes towards easier development, aka less optimization.

The man power and money needed to get the most out of the hardware relative to GameCube for example has vastly gone up, to the point it's usually not financially feasible.

Then there's the question, was wrc10 a benchmark title to begin with? Of course not.
 

CamHostage

Member
It looks a lot like one of 'LowSpecGamer' vids lol.
The game had 6 months extra work too so you cant just blame it on the game being rushed, the devs had too many versions to make at the same time, etc.

Basically, it is a low-spec conversion... it's almost not even a "bad port"; it's a "complete port" when it should be a reconversion to the Switch's capabilities. They just "ported" it, in the barest of terms. They brought the entire game over, as is, and expected scaling and low-setting assets to work, instead of redesigning elements and replacing or reducing assets for the specific platform. Some games, that works; this game, it didn't work at all. (Not that they had great material to work with in the first place? That PS4 version looks rough a lot of the time too, although I've heard some good things about KT Racing's WRC in the past, so maybe it has other qualities...)

It'd be one thing I guess if all the versions were cross-play, because you'd be limited in what you could cut when you need to achieve parity, but WRC 10 isn't cross-play, so no excuse there.
 
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Kilau

Gold Member
A LOT more powerful. Lower clocked CPU but more cores with much more modern and faster infrastructure. You're talking 1.02Tflop vs 51.2Gflop. 4GB of DDR4 vs 512Mb of DDR3, etc.

This was just a quick cheap port. They did the minimum to get it running at abasically acceptable level.
Switch is not 1 Tflop lol, but this is just a shit port.
 

scydrex

Member
A LOT more powerful. Lower clocked CPU but more cores with much more modern and faster infrastructure. You're talking 1.02Tflop vs 51.2Gflop. 4GB of DDR4 vs 512Mb of DDR3, etc.

This was just a quick cheap port. They did the minimum to get it running at abasically acceptable level.
This is in Gflops

Nintendo Switch393.2
Xbox 360240
Playstation 3230.4
 
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Ceallach

Smells like fresh rosebuds
Switch is not 1 Tflop lol, but this is just a shit port.
You right. I'm not mega-familiar with the Switch specific architecture(to be blunt I find the system very boring outside a few first parties) but had a general idea of Tegra X1 performance, I didn't do enough research and just went withreferences from an old tech radar article that I'm not sure where they got their numbers.

The general point still stands that I think this was a bare minimum effort and is trash.
 

nkarafo

Member
19lkac.png



colinmcraerally3_2560.jpg


WRC10 on Switch vs. Colin Mcrae Rally 3 (2003) on PS2/PC. This is insane :messenger_tears_of_joy:

WRC 10 on Switch still renders a LOT more things compared to CMR 3. The difference is that the art in the Switch port was completely ruined by the regressions and cuts, which makes it look unfinished.

Art direction in games must always take into account whatever resources you have. That's why you can have good looking games on weaker devices. But ports where their resources get significantly scaled down can look from ugly to downright wrong if new art assets aren't created to accommodate, like in the case of WRC 10.
 
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Umbasaborne

Banned
I dont get why more publishers dont port ps3 and 360 racing games to switch. They would run fine i imagine. I think blur or split second would be awesome on the go
 

TheTony316

Member
There's 2 reasons for this.

Number 1, wrc 10 is a chop shop port. They just stripped the real versions until it runs on switch ; never as good as software made from the ground up.

2. Though resources have gone way up compared to prior generations, a good deal of that extra power goes towards easier development, aka less optimization.

The man power and money needed to get the most out of the hardware relative to GameCube for example has vastly gone up, to the point it's usually not financially feasible.

Then there's the question, was wrc10 a benchmark title to begin with? Of course not.
WRC 10 on Switch still renders a LOT more things compared to CMR 3. The difference is that the art in the Switch port was completely ruined by the regressions and cuts, which makes it look unfinished.

Art direction in games must always take into account whatever resources you have. That's why you can have good looking games on weaker devices. But ports where their resources get significantly scaled down can look from ugly to downright wrong if new art assets aren't created to accommodate, like in the case of WRC 10.

You're both right but what matters most in the end is what you see on your screen and the Switch version just looks like a**. Even compared to 15-20 year old games.
 

UnNamed

Banned
I have WRC 8 and despite the graphics were shit , it's still the best in the serie. After that game, Kyloton went nosediving on Switch.

WRC9 is WRC8 with less details but a better framerate.

WRC10 is WRC9 with less details. Not an exaggeration.
 

justiceiro

Marlboro: Other M
I'm at the point where I want switch to keep getting all those ports not because I will buy or play, but because it always lead to amazing content like this video and this thread getting made.
 

MrA

Banned
I have WRC 8 and despite the graphics were shit , it's still the best in the serie. After that game, Kyloton went nosediving on Switch.

WRC9 is WRC8 with less details but a better framerate.

WRC10 is WRC9 with less details. Not an exaggeration.

here's wrc 8 and 9 for those interested, yeah 10 is a special type of train wreck
 
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