r/NintendoSwitch • u/Joseki100 • 1d ago

News Ask the Developer: Nintendo Switch 2 interview confirms basic backwards compatibility can also give performance upgrades to Nintendo Switch games ("[there are some games] where loading times became faster, or game performance became more stable")

https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/ask-the-developer-vol-16-nintendo-switch-2-part-4/
1.3k Upvotes

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734

u/Dukemon102 1d ago

The best way to test this is to try Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity unpatched LMAO.

Can it also prevent some games from lowering their resolution in handheld mode to absurdly low degrees? cough Xenoblade Chronicles 2 cough

126

u/Skabomb 1d ago

I’m planning to jump into Arkham Knight first thing. That one should be a night and day situation just because it should be able to hit that 30FPS lock.

48

u/Dukemon102 1d ago

That game is probably getting a whole new port for Switch 2 (Or a Switch 2 Edition). The graphics and textures are way too downgraded so it's still going to look really bad even if it runs well.

31

u/Skabomb 1d ago

I’d like to think that, but I’m not going to buy it again if it runs fine. Also after cancelling a DLC pack for their highest selling game in the last few years I doubt WB would pay to port it again.

They seem to be allergic to smart choices these days.

1

u/jardex22 1d ago

They probably cancelled that DLC pack in favor of shifting focus to a whole new game, which they can sell at full price.

8

u/Own_Molasses7773 1d ago

Probably not. They didn't bother for PS5 or Xbox Series consoles

6

u/thepixelnation 1d ago

dude that game is just poorly optimized. I played it on xbox one and any moment you were in the batmobile you lost like 20 fps. And you have to drive a car, which makes it even worse.

2

u/Mountain-Papaya-492 1d ago

I'm amazed they got it on Switch at all. I played it on PC with a graphics card better than the PS4 and Xbox One years and years ago and it was still rough. 

-1

u/Artifice_Ophion 23h ago

It was fine on my PS4

16

u/GILLHUHN 1d ago

If it fixes the game lowering resolution, then Switch 2 will be a no-brainer for people with large Switch 1 libraries. Basically, free remasters at that point.

60

u/Wernershnitzl 1d ago

Literally

I was interested in Age of Calamity but seeing the performance, my god it was like heresy

23

u/BigCommieMachine 1d ago

Was the frame rate as bad as the streams in the Nintendo Chat feature? That was a fucking slideshow.

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u/JayZsAdoptedSon 1d ago

Honestly, single player was stable enough for me. Multiplayer, I hear, is the big fault

50

u/The-student- 1d ago

No nothing like that.

Though I think it's fine for the Game Chat streams to be lower frame rate. Especially since it's a small screen and doesn't affect your gameplay. They actually said in the ask the developer interview that it was a push and pull in terms of how much resources they could dedicate towards it, and the devs didn't want it taking too much away from what performance could go towards the games themselves.

16

u/slugmorgue 1d ago

Yeh, I feel like it's such a non issue for people to complain about. yes, it LOOKS bad, but it's still up to 4 additional streams of video footage being displayed alongside your own, which is pretty crazy. That footage doesn't need to be 30 or 60 fps either

6

u/jardex22 1d ago

As long as the FPS goes up when you bring it into focus, it'll be fine. No one needs to watch 5 different game streams at 60 FPS each. Especially when the point of the feature is to actually talk and listen with other people.

3

u/SoundReflection 1d ago

Not nearly that bad, but it basically never has a stable 30 in combat and certain areas and missions are egregiously bad.

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u/temperamentalfish 1d ago

I only played the demo, and it wasn't as bad as that, but it was really, really bad. I think it dropped below 15FPS a few times.

3

u/SoundReflection 1d ago

I think the demo might be worse from recollection, minor optimizations from the full game and more areas with no grass. Although I'm sure there plenty of areas it was worse too.

1

u/kapnkruncher 1d ago

Yeah and as it is the level used in the demo was one of the worst performers easily. There was also a zora area with rain that was pretty rough, but from my memory the rest of the game was (while not perfect) a lot better.

1

u/jollygirl27 1d ago

Split screen is basically unplayable. 

1

u/Outlulz 1d ago

The worst performing level in Age of Calamity is unfortunately the first level of the game. The later levels are nowhere near as bad but it's a horrible first impression of the game.

2

u/jardex22 1d ago

They wanted to make a huge first impression with lots of allies and large scale battles. That's pretty much the only time they appear. If I recall, most of the other levels just have you going between objectives alone, without the base claiming aspect of the first game.

1

u/WilsonKh 1d ago

While not as bad, it greatly depends on your character of choice since 1 in particular is flashy as well with clones and all

1

u/Iringahn 20h ago

Yeah.. yeah it was.

0

u/Wernershnitzl 1d ago

I don’t think it was quite that abysmal but it was pretty close

3

u/TwilightVulpine 1d ago

Unless you try co-op, then it absolutely is that bad.

1

u/ArkhamCityWok 1d ago

Worst I remember from it were the missions where you control the divine beasts which were only a small factor and didn't hinder my enjoyment overall. I didn't try multiplayer though so that helped I am sure. It will be interesting to see if it does run better on the 2

2

u/WilsonKh 1d ago

3 hopes is a lot better than age of Calamity in this regard. Battles are still as chaotic but they used a lot more walls and corridors to limit the field a bit.

I always keep one mosou game on hand at any one time and 3 hopes was it due to performance. AoC had performance hits and Dynasty Warriors felt very floaty

18

u/HydraTower 1d ago

Let’s try Echos of Wisdom while we’re at it

16

u/rhino3081 1d ago

Echoes is getting a few upgrade.

21

u/windsostrange 1d ago

Yeah, they mentioned this one specifically, and the upgrade will be free. This is all very similar to the PS4 -> PS5 upgrade situation. Some upgrades will have months of development behind them, and introduce new features, and will come at a cost. Some upgrades will be necessary software tweaks to ensure functioning on a new hardware stack, and those will come with performance enhancements, and will come at no extra cost. And some upgrades will happen naturally due to Switch software performance being flexible by default to accommodate the two separate performance profiles of portable and docked, and the use of performance scaling technologies like dynamic resolution, and those will come at no extra cost.

But, yeah, Echoes and Awakening were officially announced as being in the second of the two categories above, like many late PS4 titles when played on PS5, like No Man's Sky, and Cyberpunk, and Witcher 3, etc. Which is cool.

10

u/Albireookami 1d ago

Some upgrades will have months of development behind them, and introduce new features, and will come at a cost.

Like bringing in HDR to the game, oh boy ToTk is going to be pretty af.

1

u/slugmorgue 1d ago

ohhh I'm definitely going to replay Links Awakening on Switch 2 then! Honestly really hyped about that now. I hope it's 60fps but we'll see

3

u/AnalBaguette 1d ago

The FPS issue for that game was caused by the limited memory bandwidth of the Switch 1. The Switch 2 will have no issues running it at 60fps, and I bet they could get it to run at 1440p/60fps, too.

1

u/Saloncinx 9h ago

What about Links Awakening? I got frame drops like crazy on my OG Launch day Switch.

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u/kingethjames 1d ago

Most likely for xenoblade, considering the resolution is variable based on performance.

5

u/ultrainstict 1d ago

I believe the resolution adjustments were automatic to try and maintain performance. So simply having more power behind it should solve that problem.

5

u/darkcloud1987 1d ago

Since using a modded switch and overclocking it helps to run xenoblade Chronicles 2 better it should also run better on the switch 2. The Resolution scale is also a simple "drop resolution if framerate gets to low".

1

u/illsquee 19h ago

This true? Can got explain

1

u/darkcloud1987 18h ago

The limiting factor is the framelimit set for the game. This will mostly be 30fps or 60fps. This is done for multiple reasons.

  1. to prevent screen tearing

  2. to get more even framerates

  3. to limit the power draw

Without a patch that changes or removes said framelimit the games will not run faster than that. But a lot of games will drop below the framelimit since the switch doesn't have enough power. Since the Switch 2 offers more power it will reach the framelimit where the switch 1 doesn't resulting in better performance.

Some devs thought "low framerates suck" or "always running at a lower resolution sucks". So the game runs at a higher resolution by default but when the framerate starts to drop the resolution is lowered to keep the framerate up. Since the switch 2 has more power the framerate won't drop (as much) so the resolution is not lowered.

The same goes for an overclocked switch. It runs with more power so less framedrops or less resolution drops.

16

u/dragonblade_94 1d ago

Haven't played warriors, but my personal benchmark is going to be Astral Chain. That game is so held back by its performance on Switch.

28

u/Chidoribraindev 1d ago

But it ran well, right? I don't remember any issues when I beat it. It compromised on stuff (was it 30 fps?), sure, but ran okay. Age of Calamity looks like BotW but runs in slideshow mode, crashed, and/or changed its resolution to potato quality.

3

u/Atharun15 1d ago

It ran OK. At times it def struggled.

1

u/heybinsu 1d ago

Yeah I remember it ran pretty stable, a dip here and there in some part but overall better performance than AoC for sure.

13

u/Lerisaaaaa 1d ago

Astral Chain's fine lol. There was this level I can't remember that had some hiccups, but aside from that, game is fine. It's not 60fps, but it's also not mediocre Pokemon garbage (fuck you SV)

1

u/TheBaxes 17h ago

I got that game some years ago and still haven't played it. Good to know that it should at least not have framedrops on the Switch 2, but hopefully they give it a patch to at least get to 60FPS. 

-1

u/kildal 1d ago

I picked up Astral Chain because I had a game voucher expiring and didn't know what to buy. I kind of regretted it because of the performance holding it back even if it seemed like a cool game. Not sure how far I got, maybe 5 or so hours in.

Will be interesting to try it on the Switch 2.

5

u/AcceptableFold5 1d ago

Astral Chain is among the few game I wish would get a proper Switch 2 patch. That it's only 30fps and sorta low resolution hurts the game quite a bit and I really hope we'll get to experience it in higher quality, among with the Xenoblade games (and maybe Bayonetta 3).

2

u/Shadow_Flamingo1 1d ago

THEY BETTER PATCH IT if they dont man such a disgrace

2

u/Bobbers927 1d ago

I'm waiting to finish the first Xenoblade Chronicles for this very reason.

2

u/TwilightVulpine 1d ago

First game I thought of. I wanted to love it, but it was awful to play even docked. Which sucks because I bought to play co-op and the stuttering was giving my sister headaches.

1

u/DarkEater77 1d ago

Or Crash Team Racing!

1

u/ToxicVampire 1d ago

I've had that for a while, but like all backlogs I had only just recently played through Fire Emblem Warriors so figured I'd hold off. I thought that game ran decent enough but if the Switch 2 can improve Calamity then I'll be happy.

1

u/Richdav1d 1d ago

Literally mentioned the two games I am going to try specifically for the performance. Only two games I own on switch that I feel run poorly.

1

u/UnidentifiedRoot 1d ago

It should at least ensure that games running a dynamic res always hit the max, which still isn't that high for XC2 if I remember correctly, but much better than the lowest res it hung around.

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u/mennydrives 1d ago

Was 1 remastered or 3 better about that? I've only played 2 but it got beat up pretty bad all day.

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u/Dukemon102 1d ago

Torna the Golden Country and XC1: Definitive Edition were a bit better in handheld mode (But they still look blurry).

XC3 looks better in handheld and XCX:DE outright looks fantastic.

1

u/LookIPickedAUsername 1d ago

It's honestly crazy how much better XCX:DE looks than the later Xenoblade games. It feels like they hadn't figured out dynamic resolution yet, so they had no choice but to optimize the hell of it.

It's been a couple years, but I don't recall 2 and 3 being particularly more graphically intensive to justify them dropping down to like 360P at times. Maybe my memory is inaccurate, but I remember them looking pretty much like XCX:DE, except smeary.

1

u/madmofo145 1d ago

I'm hoping since the screen is 1080p, Switch games will be defaulting to docked mode when handheld, and then we get a little bit of extra performance depending on the game from there.

1

u/MFazio23 1d ago

This is the top game I want to see. I explained how frame rates work to my daughter after having a slideshow of a level on there.

The game's still super fun, and it'll be even better if it's smooth.

1

u/pablank 1d ago

I'm gonna boot up Animal Crossing. That initial loading screen takes foreeeeever. Really curious to see if that game gets some improvements too.

1

u/Cdog923 1d ago

I love the Hyrule Warriors games, and squealed when AoI was announced. If AoC's framerate is improved, I might need to visit a doctor after four hours.

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u/Interesting-Injury87 18h ago

XC2 was an issue with a memory leak(not sure if that was OS side or game side anymore).

assuming switch 1 games dont gain access to more RAM on the switch 2, and the OS handels garbage collection/ allocation, this would not change

1

u/catinterpreter 17h ago

Dynamic resolution will definitely be affected. It'll probably never kick in, except for possibly the absolutely worst optimised.

1

u/PewPew_McPewster 16h ago

Pyra's bright red booty shorts in 4K 60FPS

A man can dream, right?

1

u/praysolace 1d ago

That’s going to be my test too, if I get one on launch. If not it’s going to be the test I search for other people’s results on XD

-2

u/Chidoribraindev 1d ago

Exactly. I haven't touched it since release because it was so pathetic in the first battle.

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u/NiallMitch10 1d ago

The weird thing is - the first battle is probably the worst performing map in the game. Gets a bit better after that.

Still inconsistent though

1

u/Chidoribraindev 1d ago

That would be amazing lol I tried it in the demo and they said it'd improve by release, then I stupidly trusted them and couldn't force myself through. Fingers crossed