I played and completed the entire campaign with the steam controller. It was great! I feel like it would have been terrible with dual analog or at the very least, vastly more restrictive.
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DOOM (Holiday 2017) and Wolfenstein II (2018) Announced for Nintendo Switch
- Thread starter Cerium
- Start date
I played and completed the entire campaign with the steam controller. It was great! I feel like it would have been terrible with dual analog or at the very least, vastly more restrictive.
For a portable device that is a graphical marvel.Found this comparison pic with adjusted contrast on the Switch Version.
This on a portable device... Incredible.
If this game turns out to run very well on Switch. It maybe final definitive proof that Nvidia > AMD even when it comes to low power embedded console GPUs.
JonnyDBrit
Member
True, but the X1 was already rated for Vulkan and the like is more my point with regards to the choice of hardware. Nintendo went with something that had been built with modern rendering techniques in mind.
This is impossible, I have been told Switch could not handle current gen games. It will never get mature triple A third party support. GAF told me countless times! I've been parroting it everywhere as well Fake news! Nintendo will censor it. It won't be like PC version! Hey where did that goalpost go? Why are you giving me a burger? Is that a feather? I'm eating crow?
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Everyone would prefer Fallout: Any Other Fallout Game, Literally Any Other One over FO4, but here we are.
Valuable contribution, thanks
Zoloft Sonic
Member
Dat Nintendo magic: Make people happy to pay more for nerfed versions of old games that can be had for twenty bucks.
I mean, that it runs at all is a miracle, but still...
I mean, that it runs at all is a miracle, but still...
Found this comparison pic with adjusted contrast on the Switch Version.
This on a portable device... Incredible.
It's what I expected, but you'll never know if they truly had a switch version shown as it looks very similar also this isn't really ideal for comparisons. But it's true that the game had some gamma/contrast-issues in the stream -though there is very likely the stream quality itself to blame.
I never buy games twice but I understand why people would like this on the Switch none the less. I'm more hyped for the exclusive Octopath but I'm still curious about how well DOOM will run. We already know that the Tegra X1 is very capable and good at running Unreal Engine games from it's first presentation but this will be the test of tests
Nvidia always had the "better", more efficient design by cutting things you don't need for gaming here and there, AMD GPUs tend to outperform Nvidia GPUs in GPGPU applications, there's a reason why AMD GPUs have more Tflop, they truly are more powerful but that doesn't really show in games as much as in video editing...
EmCeeGramr
Member
It's not quite the same thing, but I love that Doom keeps up the tradition of being ported to every hardware imaginable.
One of my favorite subjects in games is the myriad ports and versions of the original Doom, and how every platform's version looks, sounds, plays, and feels very unique compared to the others.
One of my favorite subjects in games is the myriad ports and versions of the original Doom, and how every platform's version looks, sounds, plays, and feels very unique compared to the others.
Naked Snake
Member
I've had a capable PC since the GTX 970 launched... Guess how many games I played on it? Zero.
But give me the same game on a Nintendo portable, and I'll lap it up. Fully expect and don't mind a $60 price tag too. Truly can't wait for Doom on Switch, have been wanting to play it since last year, but I hate being tethered to couch/chair when playing games.
Curious to see if more CPU intensive games that barely run at 30 on other consoles are feasible. I imagine with enough development work, but would really like to see someone try.
The magic comes from the fact they're portable games. Portable. Games.
I'd be interested to learn more about this if you'd like to lecture on it for a bit, doctor
I only recently became interested in the series with the 2016 title. It was just something I admired from afar before then.
I did pick up the collection of the originals, though. Good stuff!
OrbitalBeard
Member
Wow, I didn't know the GBA version had 4 player deathmatch and 2 player coop, that's rad.
Hero of Legend
Member
Well not every, but Doom Resurrection was initially going to be a Wii game:
https://www.engadget.com/2009/06/29/doom-resurrection-started-life-on-the-wii/
MrCunningham
Member
The Switch's Tegra chipset uses an ARM Cortex A57 64bit quad core, that runs at 1.03GHz per core docked, and maybe sub 1GHz undocked? (Honestly, I don't know what the clock speeds are docked and undocked) with a 2MB L2 cache.
The CPU in the Xbox One uses an AMD Jaguar 64bit (do the math) eight-core in two four core modules, that run at 1.75GHz per core, with 2X2MB L2 cache. The PS4 is clocked at 1.6GHz per core, but otherwise, the CPU is identical.
Obviously, just by numbers, the Switch has a weaker CPU. But Cortext still might have slightly better performance per core, even at lower clock rates, but overall, it is not better than the CPU's found in either the XBox One or PS4.
EmCeeGramr
Member
Jaguar Doom: The basis for nearly every other port, identifiable by simplified geometry and texture variety (the telltale trait starting out is the second room on your left in E1M1. In the PC original, there's pillars here and a variety of textures; on most ports, it's a simpler, flatter room with a grayish look, and no pillars.) John Carmack headed this port up. Famously lacks any music at all, but it runs quite smoothly. Some missing or altered levels (this is standard) and a few levels of the original have been replaced with new ones.
Sega 32X Doom: A very divisive version that actually came out before Jag Doom despite being based on it. It features a far lower resolution, and control and gameplay simplifications. However, it actually runs very smoothly, one of the best ports of the 90s in that regard. So why is it divisive? The music is notoriously bad (some say the developers somehow messed up or weren't able to utilize the full sound capabilities of the system), and it's missing nearly half the game, with the entire third act missing. Instead it just abruptly cuts to credits after completing a not very climactic second act level, and if you used a cheat code... you get a C:\DOOM MS-DOS prompt text message.
SNES Doom: One of the oddest ports; it actually has more accurate geometry than the Jaguar-derived ports, but it has no textures on the ceilings or floors. It has many levels but things like shotguns being pellets, strafing, and monsters turning around (instead they just always face you) are gone. It runs at a super low resolution and molasses framerate, even for a SNES game. On the other hand, it's a technical marvel that it runs on the system and the soundtrack is a great rendition. Oh, and the programmer went on to create Bleem!
PlayStation Doom: Considered almost certainly the best home version of the time overall, but a weird one in some respects. It uses colored lighting and a completely different soundtrack and set of sound effects to make the whole game more gritty and ambient and atmospheric. It includes a bunch of levels from Doom II. If you bump up the difficulty, then Doom II exclusive enemies appear in some Doom I stages. It also has edited, changed, or replaced (with console exclusive) stages. That said, it has a staggering amount of content (much of Doom 1 and 2), runs fairly smoothly, and even supports system link for LAN play.
3DO Doom: There's an incredible interview and article about this. The programmer for this project, Rebecca Heineman (an industry veteran who IIRC worked on Wolfenstein 3D for 3DO) was tapped by a company that had gotten the Doom for 3DO license and was expecting a quick windfall. She soon learned that despite promises that the game was up and running, they had absolutely nothing, forcing her to ask John Carmack for the source code. The publisher made incredible promises about new weapons, levels, enemies, and FMV sequences (photos of these scrapped live action scenes recently emerged and they are INCREDIBLE). In short: they were the kind of guys who thought you just drew a level or gun and put it in the game, easy peasy, like an hour's work, right? At one point they even asked her to just download some fan levels from the internet and slap them on the disk to fill it out. The game runs like garbage in a tiny window, with options to enlarge or shrink it to balance the framerate (there's a secret code to make it fullscreen, which was put in in the hope's that the 3DO's successor, the unreleased M2, could use it). It's essentially the Jaguar version, but running like garbage in a tiny window. It has music though! She found a garage band that did a really kickass version of the soundtrack! That's about the only good thing about it!
Sega Saturn Doom: Imagine the PS1 version. Now imagine it has all the colored lighting gone. Now imagine that it has the most inconsistent framerate in the world. That's this game. The programmer has gone on record that they had a version running that used the Saturn's unique hardware to do hardware acceleration, but the visual effect it produces (textures warped due to affine texture filtering) made John Carmack give it the thumbs-down, forcing them to essentially run the game in software mode for a massive performance loss. It's also quite buggy and unoptimized, leading to a framerate with massive swings.
There's also the GBA version, the version included in Doom 3 on Xbox, and the XBLA version for 360, but I need to stop for now.
Oh, and Doom 64, but that's an entirely new game made by the PSX Doom people.
edit: also, these are only the general differences. there's a LOT of differences when it comes to level layout, which levels were maintained, which were altered or were completely new, which enemies were included and which were cut, enemy and weapon behavior, etc.
I don't think the Switch CPU changes speed when docked or undocked, only the GPU does.
MrCunningham
Member
Ah, I didn't know that. I thought the core's dropped to a lower speed when undocked. But I guess it is a mobile CPU to begin with, and all the power saving comes from the Nvidia GPU core.
AgentOtaku
Member
Sincerly hope Bethesda considers bringing over Doom 1 and 2 at some point. Games are infinitely replayable, ESPECIALLY on the go and i was always heartbroken that they never found their way to Vita like Duke Nukem3D did(awesome port btw)
Cow Mengde
Banned
Thank god for the PS4 and XO so I can play watered down PC ports.
MrCunningham
Member
ID Software already has a port of Doom 3: BFG for the Nvidia Shield, which includes both Doom and Doom II. It wouldn't take much to port that to the Switch. It is practically the same hardware.
It is a bit of a shame about that Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition port. It was delisted by Gear Box and replaced with World Tour on PC. I like the bonus content of Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour, but at the same time the game breaks compatibility with all old expansion packs and mods. And it is not available on handhelds.
shhh, let them have their fun
capylikesgames
Banned
Yet it's done fine on consoles with a twin-stick setup, which is less precise than a mouse for aiming. I can't personally attest to playing DOOM with gyro controls, but considering I've beaten the game on the hardest difficulty with the Steam Controller's trackpad alone, and had an experience almost indistinguishable from mouse-play, I'm sure gyro would work great.
Fantastic writeup — I really enjoyed reading this. Always a pleasure to read a passionate take on a fun topic.
(Although I'd need to see screenshots to picture certain details, like the colored lighting in the PSX version, etc.)
I seem to recall hearing that the very original DOOM, on PC, was freeware. How did the original team plan to make money off it? Did they monetize it by licensing out subsequent console versions? And what was the appeal of console versions? Were PCs pricey at the time, making the console alternative a good value?
wild wild rice
Member
DOOM makes every other fps feel like it's going in slow motion. It's super fast and totally exhilarating.
EmCeeGramr
Member
Fantastic writeup — I really enjoyed reading this. Always a pleasure to read a passionate take on a fun topic.
(Although I'd need to see screenshots to picture certain details, like the colored lighting in the PSX version, etc.)
I seem to recall hearing that the very original DOOM, on PC, was freeware. How did the original team plan to make money off it? Did they monetize it by licensing out subsequent console versions? And what was the appeal of console versions? Were PCs much more expensive than consoles back then, too, and so a console version was a more affordable way for some people to play the game?
DOOM wasn't freeware, it was shareware, a model that id had pioneered.
You could download the entire first 1/3 of the game for free, and then to play the rest you had to mail or call in an order for the full game, and id would ship you the floppy disks.
Eventually this lead to an unauthorized resale market where retailers and small stores would copy the full game, print up a cardboard box with a logo or artwork, and sell it on shelves, cutting id out. id eventually responded with The Ultimate Doom, which was a "definitive edition" with an extra fourth act (leading to Doom II, which was already out), which they shipped to retailers. There was also the practice of retailers selling disks full of fan-made Doom levels and campaigns, almost always without permission; in response, id released Master Levels for Doom II, which was fan-made levels they purchased [some of these appear in PSX Doom!], and Final Doom, which was two Doom II-length campaigns (TNT: Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment) created by a famous Doom mod team, Team TNT. Final Doom was also a bit controversial at first - Evilution was supposed to be a free MegaWAD (ie, a campaign length fan addon) before id swooped in at the last second and hired TNT to clean it up for a commercial release while also commissioning Plutonia Project.
And yes, a PC in the early to mid 90s would run you well into the thousands of dollars, and that's pre-inflation.
At some point they could just republish DOOM 3 BFG Edition on all next gen consoles and let the cash flow.
I still have my PS3 copy, but the console is unplugged and boxed, which makes it more attractive to just boot DOOM on steam. :lol
Skittzo0413
Member
I don't really like super fast twitchy FPS games either but I loved DOOM. I think the focus on movement and the glory kills sorta balance out the fast shooting gameplay fairly well.
Wait, retailers were creating bootleg versions of the full game and selling them? That seems pretty brazen. Did id take legal action?
EmCeeGramr
Member
I don't think any major retailers were that bold; most actually sold the shareware version because id totally told them they could do that, without having to pay id any royalties (id was hoping that people would get hooked and buy the whole game). But bootlegs and unofficial fan level compilations did get out there, and there were warnings that if you bought the full version of Doom in stores (or a CD version before they had released it on CD) that it was illegal and you needed to report the store to id.
TyMiles2012
Member
Correct. The cpu needs to stay at the same clock at all times because game logic needs to stay consistent.
jamonbread
Neo Member
Be interesting to see what approach they take if they did target 720p docked, will the portable mode then just reduce frame rate to 30fps? It will probably make use of dynamic resolution scaling like the other console ports.
Be nice if they included graphics options similar to Fire Emblem Warriors, and allow users to choose between resolution or frame rate for those who don't mind 30fps.
Be nice if they included graphics options similar to Fire Emblem Warriors, and allow users to choose between resolution or frame rate for those who don't mind 30fps.
CrashPrime
Member
This can't be targeting 60fps can it? My god even at 30fps its handheld demon slaying.
The port I never knew I wanted. Now I must have it.
The port I never knew I wanted. Now I must have it.
Nostremitus
Member
I wonder if iD is running Doom on actual Vulkan on the Switch and bypassing Nintendo's API.
plank
Member
Wasn't it mentioned that the API was Vulkan based?
MrCunningham
Member
I was just about to say that ID Software did not pioneer shareware... they pioneered many other things, but not that one. Scott Miller did contribute a lot to the shareware model though.
Though granted, Apogee was the premiere name in shareware developers on the DOS PC, and games like Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom all broke shareware sales records upon their releases. Commander Keen was the first real Mario like 2D platformer for the DOS PC, it was making Apogee and ID Software up to $60,000us dollars a month, which was unprecedented for a shareware game in 1990, everyone I knew who owned an IBM PC had Commander Keen shareware or the full game on disk. Before Commander Keen, Apogee was making about $7,000USD per month on their best selling games. Wolfenstein 3D shattered those shareware sales records by a wide margin, and Doom was unstoppable.
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