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In 2016, Nintendo revealed that its new Switch hardware would be powered by Nvidia's Tegra X1 - a low-power mobile part. Would the machine have the required CPU and GPU horsepower to deliver great games? We had our doubts, but both Nintendo and a range of third-party publishers and developers delivered some exceptional results. In this second retrospective on the Nintendo Switch era, John Linneman and Oliver Mackenzie shift their gaze to the many and varied 'impossible ports' we saw on the system.

0:00:00 Introduction
0:01:30 Impossible ports: The Witcher 3, Nier Automata, Ace Combat 7, Dragon Quest 11, Hellblade, No Man’s Sky, Ark: Survival Evolved
0:28:49 Doom: Doom, Doom 2, Doom 64, Doom (2016), Doom Eternal
0:39:07 Crysis: Crysis, Crysis 2, Crysis 3
0:45:35 Miscellaneous games: Yooka-Laylee, Team Sonic Racing, Virtua Racing, Ori and The Will of the Wisps
0:59:34 Adding TAA: Alien Isolation, Metro Redux, Dying Light
1:11:16 Seventh gen ports: Burnout Paradise, Grid Autosport, Portal, Portal 2
1:19:37 Rebellion games: Sniper Elite, Zombie Army
1:21:53 Thoughts and conclusion

 

[Fake]

Ace Combat is one of the best in this case.

 

[Fbh]

Despite the low res, scaled back visuals and lacking performance, and despite knowing there are way more powerful handhelds now... Having growing up playing countless hours of Gameboy it still feels a bit surreal that a Nintendo handheld can run games like the Witcher 3.

 

[proandrad]

It’s impressive they got Witcher 3 to run but it looks absolutely horrid, even playing it on the small screen. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

 

[RoboFu]

Edit: I see " third party collection"

You win this time DF but I'll be watching...

 

[finalflame]

The Switch's performance and continued existence as Nintendo's primary home console in the year of our lord 2024 in honestly an insult. Nintendo needs to really hurry the fuck up with whatever the successor is, and not shit the bed this time.

 

[Zathalus]

No Luigi's mansion 3?

DF are hacks confirmed.

Title of the video explains why.

 

[Flabagast]

Weird that Kingdom Come is not here

 

[Mr Hyde]

The Witcher 3 was good in portable mode but looked like absolute shite on a big screen. Ran even worse in Novigrad. But overall, Switch has managed quite a few of these impossible ports, and managed to do ot quite well. I wonder if they will be boosted by back compatibility from the Switch 2.

 

[Futaleufu]

It’s impressive they got Witcher 3 to run but it looks absolutely horrid, even playing it on the small screen. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

It's like playing Doom on SNES, or even worse, buying a new version of it on 2024

 

[SHA]

Despite the low res, scaled back visuals and lacking performance, and despite knowing there are way more powerful handhelds now... Having growing up playing countless hours of Gameboy it still feels a bit surreal that a Nintendo handheld can run games like the Witcher 3.

I thought you would say my entire teen age on switch, anyone who says this is offensive, don't say my entire teen age on switch.

 

[The_hunter]

Ori is a nice port, 60 fps too.

 

[kevboard]

Doom 2016 being brought up as an impossible Switch port is just not right.

they didn't have it in that category technically, but they talked about it like it is an impossible port and clearly just wanted it to be in its own category for the meme... and yeah, it just isn't an "impossible port"

You can play Doom 2016 on similarly specced PC hardware and you will get a very similar experience to what you get on Switch. even tho such low end hardware was never meant to be compatible, and the game wasn't optimised for it

 

[adamsapple]

While Alien Isolation getting TAA on Switch is great for the image stability, I don't agree with John when he says it's the best way to play the game on console.

The Xbox version has FPS boost on both Series consoles and runs the game at a locked 1080p/60.

 

[AndrewRyan]

I feel like the SteamDeck is now where the Switch was around 2019. Newer games are 'playable' around 30fps but you need to be very careful before buying.

 

[amigastar]

Doom Eternal was on Switch? Never knew that.

 

[Xdrive05]

Nintendo made an uncharacteristically generous chipset decision going with the Tegra X1. And I understand they didn't really do it for "gud graphics!1" reasons as much as they did it for "these things are dirt cheap because Nvidia wants to offload their stockpile" reasons. And then they downclocked the crap out of it for battery life reasons, but still.

It was so smart to have a Maxwell chip with a Maxwell feature set.

If the rumors are true, the next Switch will follow the same approach of "modern feature set mobile Tegra" which should pay off even better the next time around (DLSS, Ampere, etc.).

 

[kevboard]

While Alien Isolation getting TAA on Switch is great for the image stability, I don't agree with John when he says it's the best way to play the game on console.

The Xbox version has FPS boost on both Series consoles and runs the game at a locked 1080p/60.

anyone who played Isolation on Switch and says it's the best way to play it has to have some weird preferences.

the Switch version has such an enormous amount of input delay that I think you can measure it in seconds.

the game in general is pretty bad, so I wouldn't play it on anything again, but the Switch is where I would play it the least likely. other systems 0% chance, Switch -50% chance

 

[adamsapple]

anyone who played Isolation on Switch and says it's the best way to play it has to have some weird preferences.

the Switch version has such an enormous amount of input delay that I think you can measure it in seconds.

the game in general is pretty bad, so I wouldn't play it on anything again, but the Switch is where I would play it the least likely. other systems 0% chance, Switch -50% chance

 

[MadchesterManc]

I usually try the 3rd party stuff when I can score a cheap enough key on somewhere like CDKeys as it's always a fun curiosity. The last time was The Outer Worlds, but man, that was horrid on Switch.

 

[Parazels]

I hope some of these games get patches for Switch 2.

 

[FreeY$L]

Imagine if all that developer talent was spent on proper hardware...

 

[kevboard]

hey, I know some people really like extremely simple and pretty much startegy free stealth.

and there are toddlers I've heard that like these things:

so if you combine said startegy free stealth with minigames where you press the thing the game shows on screen, then I bet that game is the perfect choice!