blame space
Banned
yeah i just docked it in order to charge it up. horse + combat + forest is choppy as heck.
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DF on Zelda Switch: Docked has major frame drops, portable doesn't (no score talk)
- Thread starter Theorry
- Start date
The Futurist
Member
People who say they don't notice the framerate drops tend to oblivious about these things. It's not that it's not happening to you. you just don't know any better.
Ignorance is bliss.
With that said, it really hurts the experience. It's not a good sign when the framerate takes a dive during the very fist enemy you encounter.
It's not game breaking, but it's not something that should be happening in 2017 on a flagship title.
Then again, we are asking a lot from a $200 tablet.
I really hope a performance patch is released, but it's Nintendo, so I'm not holding my breath (sorry).
Ignorance is bliss.
With that said, it really hurts the experience. It's not a good sign when the framerate takes a dive during the very fist enemy you encounter.
It's not game breaking, but it's not something that should be happening in 2017 on a flagship title.
Then again, we are asking a lot from a $200 tablet.
I really hope a performance patch is released, but it's Nintendo, so I'm not holding my breath (sorry).
It's gonna be hard for me to come back to BotW when Mario Kart 8 Deluxe comes out, assuming that the latter runs at 1080p60 (or 60 fps at any resolution, really). I don't understand how people don't notice the performance issues in BotW at times. It makes using the bow very frustrating.
TheCongressman1
Member
Occasional drops are fine, but seeing how well the game plays in portable compared to docked, there shouldn't be any excuse.
Nintendo has to fix this.
Nintendo has to fix this.
I mean hell if you just go to
Korok Forest
C'mon now, it's impossible to not notice the drops. The game goes straight from 30fps to 20 thanks to the genius who decided that double buffering was acceptable, that's not something that goes unnoticed. The funniest part is that these drops wouldn't be nearly as severe otherwise (not to mention that it was easy to prevent them from happening at all, see down here).
It does, according to df. This should tell everyone that we aren't asking "too much" to switch. Dynamic resolution would've solved everything that they couldn't fix in time for launch, because that's what this is about. Rushed launch.
Aww man, I've only played portable mode, and the IQ and texture quality has bugged me (and draw distance)... Now I'm disappointed that I'm missing something playing portable only!
What's the benefit of double buffering? I feel like in this case it's just causing a lot of unnecessary harm.
molnizzle
Member
All they need to do is offer the option to render in handheld mode when docked. I'd rather take 720p at locked 30fps then 900p at 20fps. I played in handheld mode for the first time today during a break at school and it was absolutely blissful compared to docked.
Or they could change their Vsync implementation. I have no idea why some devs continue to use standard double buffer Vsync on consoles. Drops to 25-26fps would be a lot more tolerable than hard locks down to 20fps.
Agreed, I'd rather have a variable drop down to lower framerates than a hard drop. Slowdown is much easier on the eyes than hitching.
No tearing or uneven frame times, which is good if you have a locked frame rate. In this case they shouldn't have even considered it.
xenorevlis
Member
I'm really curious about the root cause. Shadows / shaders? The mobile mode apparently has almost no cutbacks to rendering settings other than resolution, so the fillrate is only going up about 50% when it gets docked and the system should have about twice as much rendering power when docked so... it should be something that can be patched, right?
Portugeezer
Gold Member
Handheld mode is really smooth, don't think I had any major drops at all. Played docked for a couple hours and the difference is noticeable in random places, mainly some spots in the over world. Still not a bad experience docked, gives my eyes a rest from portable mode.
Portugeezer
Gold Member
It drops to exactly 20 fps which leads me to believe it's more of a software issue than a hardware issue. In theory could be patched.
molnizzle
Member
That's just how double buffered Vsync works. The output will only ever be an even multiple of 60hz. For all we know the game might only be dropping a frame or two, but because it's double buffered it automatically outputs at 20fps.
SlaughterX
Banned
What does the wii u version run at, res and frame rate? Seems like it might be the best bet for playing it on a TV.
720p and 30fps. Dips as well just at completely different areas than the Switch
molnizzle
Member
It runs about as well as Switch docked but at 720p instead of 900p. So no, not the best bet for playing on a TV. Switch is still the best possible experience even with the drops.
Ive been playing the WiiU version and its pretty good, DF did a comparison and pretty much said there are hardly any differences.
Lights and Waves
Member
Those of you excusing occasional drops haven't reached the Deku Tree yet. Woah boy, the game is practically a slide show in those woods.
xenorevlis
Member
I mean, people are fine playing games on Xbox One that are 720p, let alone most Wii U games so it's probably fine on TV if you're okay with the softer image.
We all know the definitive TV experience will be CEMU emulator ;P
Still, with nearly double the processing power in docked mode it should be not experiencing the drops we are seeing. Patch please!
I keep reading these "wait to reach x place" and whenever i do nothing fucking happens lol
This must be a dense wood though, and i ran into drops in other woods, so maybe this time it might actually happen
Tom said they're identical, and i didn't get the impression that they downgraded anything from docked to undocked either tbh.
I'm thinking that's part of the inconstancy in frame rate between docked and handheld modes. I believe several aspects are higher quality when the Switch is docked.
CambriaRising
Member
Lost woods/Korok Village is shitty no matter which mode you play it on. Both have noticable frame drops and honestly it's a little unacceptable either way.
Yeah, I was thinking of how useful dynamic resolution could be for Switch a while back. I wonder if Nintendo could pull something like that off. I imagine that it'd be difficult with an open-world game like BotW, though.
sleepnaught
Member
Had several moments today where I was literally in the 1-5 FPS range, love the game. One of my favorites in years, but the performance has got to improve..
I was playing in docked mode yesterday and my wife insisted on trying the game. I create a new user for her to play on and she starts the game. She gets out of the cave and into the open world and plays for maybe around 30 minutes... and when the game slows down, she did notice it. She doesn't play a lot of games, maybe occasional Mario Kart 8 round or two with me, but that's the extent of it, so it was quite enlightening to see that even those who don't extensively play games take note of these issues.
Although I don't think this is game breaking it's still a blemish on an otherwise near perfect game. I really hope Nintendo finds a solution to this problem.
Although I don't think this is game breaking it's still a blemish on an otherwise near perfect game. I really hope Nintendo finds a solution to this problem.
Has it been confirmed that the Switch is having trouble pushing 900p when docked even with the GPU/RAM performance bump? Last I looked at one of the discussions there was speculation that it may be a streaming issue?
Hoping it gets patched to get it smooth. It's not game breaking, but really draws you out of the experience, especially during heavy action.
Hoping it gets patched to get it smooth. It's not game breaking, but really draws you out of the experience, especially during heavy action.
MikeHaggar
Member
I've played a mix of both modes and I think the game looks noticeably better in portable mode. Part of it is probably that the screen matches the game's native resolution and part of is probably the smaller screen and higher pixel density. It still looks great in docked mode for the most part. Either way, the game is so engaging I just get sucked in and lost in it within minutes. It takes me hours to get to a new location because I'm just exploring everything along the way.
The plateau has more fps drops than the rest of the game (except very dense areas) though
SlaughterX
Banned
I dunno, I think a more solid frame rate is better than a very slight upgrade in res. Either way I don't want a Switch so I guess it doesn't really matter to me, I'm just glad it runs better on the Wii U.
D
Deleted member 325805
Unconfirmed Member
I really can't play games at 20fps, it's just not enjoyable and makes me feel sick. Going from 60fps in every game to 30fps is hard, but 20fps is just impossible for me.
Lupin the Third
Member
Pretty sure draw distance is reduced in portable mode. Maybe not by much but there's definitely more visible pop-in in my limited play time.
Polygonal_Sprite
Gold Member
"Run game in handheld profile" should be in the docked options.
I'd wager if optimised Switch could run BotW at 720p/60fps in docked mode as it seems GPU limited at 900p. Fast Racing goes from 720/30 on Wii U to 1080/60 with better visuals in MP mode on Switch.
I'd wager if optimised Switch could run BotW at 720p/60fps in docked mode as it seems GPU limited at 900p. Fast Racing goes from 720/30 on Wii U to 1080/60 with better visuals in MP mode on Switch.
Nope, that's not what I experienced. That particular area with Lizalfos saw framerate drops of the same intensity in both docked and undocked modes.
From playing the game, there seem to be two types of frame rate drops. The first kind is due to streaming/memory bottlenecks, and tends to only happen in docked mode. The second is when there are tonnes of alpha effects on screen which happens on both docked and undocked modes (the Lizalfos shock arrows in the rain being a prime example). Also, there doesn't seem to be different intensities to the drops. It either drops to 20fps or doesn't drop at all.
I have a feeling that just removing double buffer vsync would greatly improve the frame rate overall, since most drops would likely only be a couple frames instead of 10 frames all the time.
Docked is baaaad, many open areas with more than 1-2 things going on drop pretty reliably. But I had my first major drop in handheld mode. I was fighting a guardian near Hyrule castle, shooting lightning arrows at it, and every time it shot at me while I was shooting, the game would literally just hitch for a half second, effectively 0-2 fps and then continue. It kept happening every time it shot at me while I was drawing. Even in handheld. pretty weird.
no way in hell it would ever run at 60fps even at 720p
Pop in is visible in both modes. Like the little grass/pebble details on the landscape would pop in as I walked.
Elfforkusu
Member
Seems like a simple "render in 720p" option would be enough to fix the frame drops. Would like to see them do that at the very least.
Conciliator
Banned
i honestly find kakariko more frustrating than korok forest in terms of framerate. But yeah, the towns in general is where it really is grossly apparent. It's there in combat but honestly never really bothered me. But it's real rough in some of the towns. It's such a shame because those towns are so cool and when you're looking out over them from a cliff and the framerate is like 12 it really distracts from the experience. Hope they find a way to fix it.
Dr_LucienSanchez
Banned
Just left Kakariko Village and it's pretty shocking how bad the performance is in the game. It's a testament to how good the overall game is that I can overlook that, but it's still very frustrating.
Zombegoast
Member
I don't know if it's me but I have notice fps in portable mode when cutting tall grass in the rain.
But then there are times when it did drop like burning thorns surrounding a shrine and when killing a moblin. This seems more of a game problem more than a hardware if those issues occured on the Wii U version.
But then there are times when it did drop like burning thorns surrounding a shrine and when killing a moblin. This seems more of a game problem more than a hardware if those issues occured on the Wii U version.
molnizzle
Member
It's not a more solid frame rate though, that's the point. Both versions have pretty bad drops. Switch is just a higher res.
It doesn't make a difference.
Metalingus5150
Member
I wanted Nintendo to take inspiration from the Souls series. The low framerate wasn't what I had in mind.