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Digital Foundry: Crash Bandicoot's Xbox, PS4, PC and Switch ports tested.

Redneckerz

Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
Video:


Article: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-crash-bandicoot-nsane-trilogy-face-off
Console performance:
The Xbox One side of the situation can be covered very quickly. Playing the game on the base S model offers up an experience that is virtually identical to the standard PlayStation 4 game. The visual feature set is identical and resolution is the same at 1080p, with only the most minor fluctuations in performance setting it apart from its Sony counterpart. Put simply, base Xbox users can go in safe in the knowledge that they're getting an excellent experience - and that only ramps up on Xbox One X, where Crash retains its solid 30fps performance but ramps up the pixel count to a full 4K. That's an impressive 2.25x increase over the 1440p of PS4 Pro.
PC performance:
But the console builds are still pegged to 30fps - one of the only real disappointments we had with this remaster - and that's where the PC version can make a difference. GTX 960 or GTX 1050 Ti-class GPU hardware delivers 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second.
The Switch Difference:
Understandably, the first cutback comes from resolution, with the game running at standard 720p while docked, dropping down to 853x480 in portable mode - a proper, non-anamorphic 480p presentation, effectively. Performance in both configurations is much the same, with a matching 30fps target to the other console builds, but there's more variation in performance more often, both above and below the 33ms target frame-time. Overall, there's more wobbliness in the update here, which is in contrast to the rock-solid performance enjoyed on every other platform.

Visual cutbacks begin with the loss of the primary fur shader, impacting the look of many of the game's critters and even Crash himself (though he seems to have received some care in revamping his textures to provide a similar look). But that's just the beginning - depth is reduced from pared-back self-shadowing parallax occlusion maps. It's used extensively in the level design, principally on rocks and it's a relatively simple trick, but it looks great and it's missed on Switch. World geometry is also simplified in some areas, foliage is reduced, shadow quality and ambient occlusion are pared back and even some reflections - implemented on the original PS1 game - are removed.
More details (ones that you should read!) in the source link.

Personal thoughts:
It seems that all versions are pretty fine products overall, including the Switch. I always thought it ran on UE4, but its Vicarious own custom tech. For it to perform as it does, its good. Undocked resolution is slightly above Wii however, but on the screen you won't notice it that much, i reckon. Still, solid game conversion, but could use one more patch to get that rocksolid performance the other versions apparently have. :)
 

SegaShack

Member
Stuff like this is why I don’t use switch for my 3rd parties, even though I know it has the portability aspect.
 

ljubomir

Member
Stuff like this is why I don’t use switch for my 3rd parties, even though I know it has the portability aspect.

Likewise. Already have it on PS4, and really dislike input lag and juddery frametimes, so will probably skip it on Switch, at least at regular price. Eventually though, it might be nice for long trips.
 

radewagon

Member
The Switch's recent ports have me really wishing that Sony would have given the Vita more support. Games with Crossbuy/Crossplay were absolutely phenomenal. The Vita versions allowed for concessions to the game that were forgivable because they never hindered the core console versions. It seems like the Switch isn't fairing quite as well in that regard. Though the Switch's Portable nature is really nifty, I would have hoped that the Docked modes were not so negatively impacted by the Switch's roots as a Portable platform. Maybe this problem could have been eliminated if Nintendo had bothered to actually add hardware acceleration into the Switch's dock instead of just having it be, essentially, an HDMI-out/AC Adapter.
 

FranXico

Member
The Switch's recent ports have me really wishing that Sony would have given the Vita more support. Games with Crossbuy/Crossplay were absolutely phenomenal. The Vita versions allowed for concessions to the game that were forgivable because they never hindered the core console versions. It seems like the Switch isn't fairing quite as well in that regard. Though the Switch's Portable nature is really nifty, I would have hoped that the Docked modes were not so negatively impacted by the Switch's roots as a Portable platform. Maybe this problem could have been eliminated if Nintendo had bothered to actually add hardware acceleration into the Switch's dock instead of just having it be, essentially, an HDMI-out/AC Adapter.
In my opinion, the downfall of the Vita was primarily caused by internal SIE politics, more so than sales. SIEA seems to hate handhelds.

On topic, nice ports of a nice game. Will get it on my (base) PS4 when it hits a suitable price tag on sale.
 

nowhat

Member
Glad to hear they fixed the loading time issues on PS4 (just tried it, a game/level loaded very quickly and you can finally skip the intro when starting the game too). It took them their sweet time for sure, but better later than never. I think I'll try to finish Warped now - this is most certainly #firstworldproblems, but the loading times were why I hadn't touched it many months.

But the HDR, meh. Given that buying an HDR-compatible display can be a bit of a minefield at the moment, at least the content should be up to snuff. If you're going to add HDR support to your game, do it properly or don't do it all. Well implemented it can look fantastic, but here, they might as well have not added HDR at all (and it can't be disabled if you have a compatible display).
 

nowhat

Member
In my opinion, the downfall of the Vita was primarily caused by internal SIE politics, more so than sales.
I think a major reason why Vita didn't really make it, or have a chance to do so even, were the outrageously priced memory cards. But refresh my memory - by the time Vita came out (late 2011/early 2012), were commonly available SD cards so much slower than the proprietary ones Vita uses? If they were, then at least there was a technical reason for them. If not, then it was very much a case of SIE (or SCE at the time) shooting themselves in the foot.

(They could have added a hardware revision later on that'd support SD cards too though, current speeds are definitely enough for a handheld console. The fact they didn't is a boneheaded move by SIE.)
 
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Battlechili

Banned
If a GTX 960 can run the game at 60fps, shouldn't a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X be able to as well? I don't understand the 30fps lock when such consoles are on par in power.
 

Codes 208

Member
If a GTX 960 can run the game at 60fps, shouldn't a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X be able to as well? I don't understand the 30fps lock when such consoles are on par in power.
Gpu is only part of the equation. The pro and x hqve the horse power for graphic fidelity and rendering, but framerate is also dependant on cpu, which the two systems severely lack. Its not to say they couldnt have done it, but i imqgine it'd take a hit in resolution.
 
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arhra

Member
Gpu is only part of the equation. The pro and x hqve the horse power for graphic fidelity and rendering, but framerate is also dependant on cpu, which the two systems severely lack. Its not to say they couldnt have done it, but i imqgine it'd take a hit in resolution.
Except DF tested it on a quad-core desktop Jaguar system overclocked to match the One X, and it ran at 60fps easily:

So we undertook an experiment, lashing up a PC based on the same AMD Jaguar CPU cluster as the consoles, overclocked to the same 2.3GHz as Xbox One X. Even lacking the 2.5 extra cores available to developers and even carrying the significant burden of the full-blown Windows OS, our system could run Crash 1 and 2 almost flawlessly at 60 frames per second at ultra settings with a GTX 960 (though shadows needed to drop to high)

The only reason it doesn't have a 60fps mode on at least the mid-gen consoles (although even the base PS4/XB1 could probably handle it if they pared back the graphical featureset so the GPU wasn't bottlenecking it, like they did on the Switch version) is that the developers decided not to.

I mean, it's a port of a PS1 game. It originally ran on a 33MHz MIPS R3000, it's not exactly got a lot going on. The original gameplay code would probably be lost in the noise of any debugging/profiling tool, so they only have to worry about the overhead of their rendering engine, and while it looks nice, it's not exactly blowing the doors off other games this gen that do run at 60.
 
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Codes 208

Member
Except DF tested it on a quad-core desktop Jaguar system overclocked to match the One X, and it ran at 60fps easily
True, but they did bring the resolution down to 1080p and dropped shadow quality from ultra to high to achieve this. So there were compromises even in a hypothetical.
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
True, but they did bring the resolution down to 1080p and dropped shadow quality from ultra to high to achieve this. So there were compromises even in a hypothetical.
But those reductions are not cpu-related. Which is what arhra's original point was.
 
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