Digital Foundry: Donkey Kong Bananza - Nintendo Switch 2

Draugoth

Draugoth

Gold Member



​

Following up on Mario Kart World for the next big Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive was never going to be easy - but it turns out that Donkey Kong Bananza is nothing short of a triumph. John Linneman dives deeply into the game's technology, performance and handheld experience - and has much to say about the high quality of the gameplay.​
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00:00 - Introduction
02:14 - A Difficult Game to Make?
04:10 - Crazy Destruction Engine
07:00 - What Else Can You Do?
08:58 - A Beautiful World
09:35 - There Are Some Caveats
10:43 - Image Quality
12:13 - Frame-rate Analysis
15:15 - Let's Talk Music and Sound
18:55 - End of Music Demo
19:22 - Final Thoughts​
 
Donkey Kong Dance GIF
 
Robb said:
Wait.. Why would they use FSR1 when they have DLSS at their disposal?
Question Mark What GIF by MOODMAN
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Rendering cost could be one, DLSS is heavy to run on the Switch and could maybe drop the internal resolution too low. FSR 1.0 is basically free to run.

Or they didn't get time to implement TAA into the engine, and thus no DLSS.
 
I'm still excited to play this but shame that there's so many baffling technical decisions and about the performance but maybe it will get patched up! stay positive lol
 
I don't have a Switch 2 and probably won't for some time but seriously frame rate issues on launch window games is very annoying to hear.

I cannot take another generation where people are asking for a pro version of their console within months of the thing being released.

Nothing said here would personally bother me too much overall but I don't like hearing about performance issues on a console that's only feature is that it IS a more powerful version of the last. It's the only thing going for it.
 
If they insist on using double buffered Vsync, I'd rather be given an option to turn off Vsync altogether. Cap the game at 60fps and I'll gladly accept any screen tearing when it drops below that.
 
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Game was initially planned for NS1...still has technical limitations on the NS2 (this early in its lifecycle to boot).
FSR instead of DLSS, frame drops to 30 fps.

80 Eurodollars

Sorry gents but I just don't see the value in this, Nintendo can put its MSRP where the sun don't shine.
 
I don't think I expect pristine image quality in any first-party Nintendo game, even on a console that ships with DLSS support, as their developers seem to ignore basic features like 'anti-aliasing' and 'texture filtering' in favour of cheap post-process options but at least Donkey Kong Bananza looks acceptable on a 4K TV, at least from the YouTube footage I've viewed on my LG C3 OLED.

What really disappoints me though is that Nintendo always seem to take one step forward and two steps back when it comes to implementing any new technologies so VRR is supported, kind of, in handheld mode but is completely absent in docked mode. Personally, I am only interested in playing Switch 2 games docked as I don't particularly like the LCD screen - I don't care what anyone else says, it is a massive downgrade from the Switch OLED's screen - so it has been docked ever since the initial setup. That said, Nintendo still managed to mess up the handheld experience by not running the game in a 120 Hz container, so LFC is not supported, and also using double-buffer v-sync instead of triple buffering so the game hard drops from 60 to 30 fps when it dips to 59 fps or lower and VRR is completely disabled when the game dips below 40 fps (so it is S-S-Stutter City regardless of whether you are in docked or handheld mode) as shown in the DF tech video.

I am hoping these issues won't be too much of a distraction for me as this game is one that I have been itching to play ever since I saw the reveal trailer. It is exactly the kind of Nintendo game that I really enjoy and looks to be a spiritual successor to the awesome Super Mario Odyssey, a game which I have spent the most time replaying on my Switch 2 since I got the console at launch.
 
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nbkicker said:
Because the game was started on switch 1, prob got so far through development for switch 1 to change to much so they just carried on, another switch 2 game that a uprez switch 1 game
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I guess, they did show how the game looked on Switch 1 in their developer interviews. Mainly seems to be added density and lighting.
Switch2_DKB_AskTheDevs_Inserted_08_EN


It's very disappointing to see Nintendo themselves not use their own hardware to its fullest though.
 
Robb said:
Wait.. Why would they use FSR1 when they have DLSS at their disposal?
Question Mark What GIF by MOODMAN
Click to expand...
DLSS, FSR2/3/4, Checkerboarding and PSSR all have a big cost. 2ms out of 16 ms is the best case scenario. But i've seen it go as high as 4 ms in some cases.

So basically a 25% hit to GPU. If they are already running into issues hitting 60 fps then adding another expensive rendering technique will not help them.
 
Pretty great overall, but then Nintendo goes and pulls a Nintendo and completely ignores its own halo technical feature in DLSS. And while third parties (some anyway) are using it to excellent effect even at launch.
 
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It still looks pretty ugly to me. It's artstyle isn't very nice, a lot of the texture quality is poor, it's lighting is dated and looks bad and the shadows are low quality. Along with middling image quality it all makes for an unattractive game.
 
Zuzu said:
It still looks pretty ugly to me. It's artstyle isn't very nice, a lot of the texture quality is poor, it's lighting is dated and looks bad and the shadows are low quality. Along with middling image quality it all makes for an unattractive game.
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I think it looks worse than Odyssey. But the destructibility of everything has a huge performance cost, I'm sure.
 
Sebastian1295 said:
The fact that a switch 2 first party game is struggling technically when the system just launched is a very very bad sign for the rest of the generation.
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That's retarded

That like saying that PS5 was maxed out because From software Elden ring had shit FPS

Nintendo has never been a juggernaut of tech

Zelda BOTW day 1 had FPS problems

I'm sure you recall.
 
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Zuzu said:
It still looks pretty ugly to me. It's artstyle isn't very nice, a lot of the texture quality is poor, it's lighting is dated and looks bad and the shadows are low quality. Along with middling image quality it all makes for an unattractive game.
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They turned up the saturation by 9000 and destroyed any vibrant colors imaginable. Why is donkey kong in such a dreary and ugly world? I don't get it personally and i've brought that point up multiple times now.
 
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