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Digital Foundry: Nier Automata for Nintendo Switch - DF Tech Review - Another Impossible Port?

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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
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Although it's hardly state-of-the-art in terms of its rendering, Nier Automata pushed the last-gen base consoles hard - so we approached a Nintendo Switch port with some trepidation. Has conversion house Virtous managed to deliver another 'impossible port' for the Nintendo hybrid? Just how did the developer manage to get the game running on Switch at all? Oliver Mackenzie has answers.
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Text Article:

www.eurogamer.net

Nier Automata's Switch port is very impressive - but not quite perfect

A game that struggled on PS4 and Xbox One transitions well to the Nintendo hybrid.
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net


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- Textures and foliage pared back compared to XBO version, lighting, volumetric and ambient lighting simplified, some geometric detail also reduced, particles also reduced
- But side by side it looks more or less similar
- Switch version has AA which PS4/XBO did not
- Docked: Dynamic 1080p/30 FPS
- Portable: 720p/30 FPS. Outside of resolution visually a match for Docked mode
- Stress areas in open world and larger fights can drop to mid 20s.
 
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Mr Hyde

Mr Hyde

Member
Watching it right now. Very impressive port. It's gonna look real sweet on the OLED. Thinking of double dipping but would probably be wise to hold off for the moment. Nier Automata was one of my favorite last gen games. I wonder if SE brings Replicant over too.
 
Fbh

Fbh

Member
Like all these Switch ports I guess it's good enough for people who only have a Switch or only like to play games on the go. Gimped Nier Automata is better than no Nier Automata
But "impossible port" seems like a stretch for a dated looking game that ran at 60fps on last gen consoles. Switch runs Bayonetta 2 at 60(ish)fps and Nier Automata doesn't look a whole lot better
 
Killer8

Killer8

Member
"In some areas the textures look kind of soupy"

Bruh that metal texture is unrecognizable:

rjM0PIG.png
 
Clear

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Automata is a lot better technically than most people give it credit for. Same deal to a large extent with the original Nier back in 2010.

The design demands an unusually large variety of presentational styles and scenarios, which is a big deal because what people forget is that the best results tend to come from iteration. Setting your parameters nice and tight and polishing the hell out of every happenstance within it.

When you have so many variants... your focus and work-time gets split up amongst all of them. So its harder to get everything looking and running right.

Another key thing is that you can design for optimal visual impact, by which I mean you can structure things in such a manner that as many resources are available as possible at any given time. In both Nier games -in his quest to continually surprise and engage the player- Yoko Taro does some things that create technical headaches. The most obvious one being to design boss-fights that happen in formerly "town"-like spaces, as opposed to specifically designed arenas where resources can be better controlled.

This is difficult from a resource balancing standpoint because you need to keep things visually consistent... its very easy to find yourself with less performance/resource headroom than you thought you had.
 
Patrick S.

Patrick S.

Banned
I can't shake the feeling that John Linneman is going to depart from DF soon, and they hired this new guy as an impersonator for him. His voice and delivery is veeeeery similar to John's... :pie_thinking:
 
U

UnNamed

Banned
Most of these "impossible port" are based on the simply fact that modern consoles have no problem to handle geometries of million of polygons. Since PS360, consoles are polygon eater monsters and Switch is no exception.

So the "only" difference between Switch and PS5 is mostly* how consoles handle complex shaders (pixel/vertex, geometry, compute, etc). Remove these features from games, and Switch can run Horizon Forbidden West.


*of course, CPU has is role. In CPU bounded games like Cyberpunk or Assetto Corsa, or other poor optimized games like Elder Ring, Switch will struggle even with flat shaded graphics.
 
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L

lostinblue

Banned
Physiognomonics said:
DF probably need clicks as this game could have easily run on XB360 at 30fps if optimized. It's just the PS4 / XBO version were badly optimized.
Click to expand...
hm, I "get" what you're saying because of some things in Nier Automata are indeed reminiscent of PS360 generation, such as evident texture tiling, a relatively simple lightning model, not a ton of color, the absence of PBR/PBS, no normal mapping, no parallax mapping everywhere, no AA, nothing "next gen" for 2014 standards.

But wile all that checks true, and it seems relatively simple... But it's actually not something that PS360 could run properly without cutting draw distance, light sources, cutting polygon throughput and shaders, downgrading textures and still experiencing low framerates (not to mention that some areas have a lot of enemies). You're right that you don't necessarily need 1.2 Tflops (Xbone) to 1.8 Tflops (PS4) to do it if optimization was higher (or that it could run at a locked 60 fps and 1080p and still look better than it does on those systems), but I don't think you can pull it on sub-240 Gflops specs either, not even at sub-720p resolutions.

Also, DF doesn't talk about it much, but Switch is supposedly using temporal frame reconstruction to achieve resolution as high as it is.

It's a good port, without a doubt. But not how I would like to play this game.
 
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remember_spinal

remember_spinal

Banned
devs trying to get games that struggled on last gen consoles in a playable state on the switch which is a gen behind that will always be funny. Then people get offended on behalf of Nintendo when current cross gen games skip the platform
 
JimboJones

JimboJones

Member
Fake said:
What a movegoal we have here sir. You reply was about PS4/Xbox One counterparts and got your answer.

Even on PC this game is a mess, but hey is a miracle.
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Look my dude no one is saying it's perfect port or anything so your Xbox and PS4 version is still good

I'm not sure how is it a move goal, you're the one claiming it's unoptomized.
It's a demanding game, the reason for why doesn't really matter because it's going to be a demanding unoptomized game on switch too.
That they managed to make smart nips and tucks and get such a heavy "unoptomized" game running in the state it is is fairly impressive for switch.
Most people would have wrote it off running at all in any playable state.
 
SlimySnake

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
remember_spinal said:
devs trying to get games that struggled on last gen consoles in a playable state on the switch which is a gen behind that will always be funny. Then people get offended on behalf of Nintendo when current cross gen games skip the platform
Click to expand...
the game didnt struggle to run on anything. It was one of the few 60 fps action adventure games on the base PS4 and managed to hit it consistently.
 
SlimySnake

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Dr.Morris79 said:
But thats the point.....

The Switch is a potato.
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you can port anything to ANY console if you bring the resolution to PS1 era resolutions or cut back enough settings where it barely looks like a video game as those screenshots show. There has to be some quality control. people are paying full price for these games.
 
Mr Moose

Mr Moose

Member
JimboJones said:
What are you talking about , the base Xbox one and PS4 ran like ass, sub 1080p with a wobbly framerate and no antialiasing.
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I don't think the resolution matters all that much in this case, it looks a lot worse on the Switch docked than a Xbox One (they were 900p right?).
 
L

lostinblue

Banned
SlimySnake said:
you can port anything to ANY console if you bring the resolution to PS1 era resolutions or cut back enough settings where it barely looks like a video game as those screenshots show. There has to be some quality control. people are paying full price for these games.
Click to expand...
No, you can be CPU-bound and when that happens porting down is harder or impossible.

The good thing for Switch is that PS4 and Xbox One were underpowered on the CPU department, so it's somewhat doable.

Otherwise no dice.
 
Mr Hyde

Mr Hyde

Member
newtypepilot said:
why would anyone play 3rd party titles on Switch? You know it's gonna look and run like horseshit because of the potato hardware.
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I play a lot of third party titles on Switch and I have a PS5. The Switch is excellent in what it does. The console experience on the go. And the games don't look like horseshit, quite the contrary, they do look quite impressive for being on a handheld device. It's just you pathetic little warriors who love to hyperbole and downplay the hardware that doesn't see the strength of the Switch hardware.
 
RobRSG

RobRSG

Member
I think that Oliver sounds overly impressed about the port. All I see it does is to cut everything to it’s bare minimum in geometry and textures, slap an serviceable temporal upscaling method, and even after this can’t lock at 30. There’s no miracle here, the guy even gets close to saying that this version looks better than Xbox One and PS4 version despite all severe cutbacks. Definitely his gobbly eyes need a pair of new glasses.
 
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Dr.Morris79

Dr.Morris79

Member
SlimySnake said:
you can port anything to ANY console if you bring the resolution to PS1 era resolutions or cut back enough settings where it barely looks like a video game as those screenshots show. There has to be some quality control. people are paying full price for these games.
Click to expand...
If it'd been £60 I wouldnt have bothered but 31 nicker was not that bad for a physical game not constrained by internet bullshit. True, it could look worse than console or PC counterparts, and lets face it, it will, the Switch is a spud.. but theres enough game here to warrant it so i'll happily have it.

Course it's not everyones cup of tea but to me, it's worth the punt..

In this current climate of not owning games, rentals up the wazoo and patches that 'make' your purchase viable it's nice to own a cart that plays okay and does what you expect of the hardware (y)

I dont think anyone of a sane mind expected it to have ray tracing at 4K.
 
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