Digital Foundry: Donkey Kong Bananza - Nintendo Switch 2

LordOcidax said:
After 3 hours playing… Like DF said , the game is 99% 60 fps and the map runs at 30fps, i would like to see some comparisons day 1 patch vs no patch, to drops are not intrusive at all, almost imperceptibles to this point. BTW, the game is a fucking blast, Steamworld dig level of addiction X 100 + BoTW + Mario Odyssey.
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Most games get performance patches so I fail to see why this will be any different. And some on here seem to overlook it's not just Nintendo games that have slight hiccups.
 
PeteBull said:
Yup, but where current gen stationary consoles got 60fps target, even if fps dips to say low 50s in most cpu heavy scenarios, switch2 port of same game cant hold stable 30 even, and dips under 20(i linked cp2077 switch2 footage, difference in cpu performance is massive).
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I don't thinks it's as massive as some are making out. Well in terms of sales etc at least.
 
Mozza said:
I don't thinks it's as massive as some are making out. Well in terms of sales etc at least.
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Cpu performance gap is massive(over 2x difference in favour of stationary consoles), in terms of sales we dont have data yet, but its DF topic, and u try to talk about sales? Come on bro ;)
 
PeteBull said:
Cpu performance gap is massive(over 2x difference in favour of stationary consoles), in terms of sales we dont have data yet, but its DF topic, and u try to talk about sales? Come on bro ;)
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We do have sales data the Switch 2 sold 5 million consoles in just 24 days... Or are you talking about the game?. The DF review stated it was a great game with the occasional performance stutter so not sure what you are suggesting here. As well as the fact the game has just launched and could get a patch... Like most gmaes that are released.
 
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Mozza said:
We do have sales data the Switch 2 sold 5 million consoles in just 24 days... Or are you talking about the game?. The DF review stated it was a great game with the occasional performance stutter so not sure what you are suggesting here. As well as the fact the game has just launched and could get a patch... Like most gmaes that are released.
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I think not much point talking about switch2 sales in dkb DF topic, rather i wanna talk about technical aspects of the game, like framerate or graphical fidelity.
 
PeteBull said:
I think not much point talking about switch2 sales in dkb DF topic, rather i wanna talk about technical aspects of the game, like framerate or graphical fidelity.
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I have no issue discussing these aspects. But it does seem many are taking a tiny bit of criticism about the games performance and then suggesting the whole game is broken. Which is simply not true. Not suggesting you are doing this. But it's low rent trolling and bait from some.
 
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PeteBull said:
Gpu in base ps5 is only around 6x stronger from ps4 gpu(1,8 vs up to 10,2 tf), switch1 to switch2 difference is bigger gpu wise, and cpu in both cases allows for flawless 30 to 60 fps jump.
Big drops in dkb while running 1080p60 fsr point to game being way too heavy to even run in 800p30fps on first switch, simply it would be much harder to run than both big zeldas, which already dont run great on switch1 and have pixels the size of fists on that machine- yet on switch 2- flawless 1440p60 without much effort.
We got dev from virtuos saying it openly, cpu in switch2 is bit better from ps4 cpu, thats not a praise in my book coz even back in 2013 when last gen console launghed their jaguar cpu was considered as extremly weak- thats why we got so many 30fps games last gen, compared to this gen when many(not all but a lot) of games got either 60fps or at least variable target 60 fps modes(keeping 60 stable is whole other story).
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The point remains regardless, if you believe this game is definite proof that the hardware is weak that's plainly not going to hold up (already doesn't, with Cyberpunk of all things running on it with zero compromises in settings over PS5's perf mode), unless you are backtracking that claim. It carries so much technical debt from the Switch 1 that it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it was limited to three cores utilization only with all the others just idling in the background, the technical choices made paint a very grim picture behind the scenes.
 
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Mozza said:
I have no issue discussing these aspects. But it does seem many are taking a tiny bit of criticism about the games performance and then suggesting the whole game is broken. Which is simply not true. Not suggesting you are doing this. But it's low rent trolling and bait from some.
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People had high expectations from Nintendo.

"They were able to get TOTK running on Switch 1….. imagine what they could do with better hardware…."

Turns out they ran into other sets of issues.
 
vaibhavpisal said:
People had high expectations from Nintendo.

"They were able to get TOTK running on Switch 1….. imagine what they could do with better hardware…."

Turns out they ran into other sets of issues.
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If only that were true. Many on here just want Nintendo to fail... pure and simple. They dress it up in all these faux technical concerns etc. But the sheer amount of drive by comments and salt is just amazing. And we are only a month or so after launch lol.. This will be a lot of fun though.
 
Mozza said:
If only that were true. Many on here just want Nintendo to fail... pure and simple. They dress it up in all these faux technical concerns etc. But the sheer amount of drive by comments and salt is just amazing. And we are only a month or so after launch lol.. This will be a lot of fun though.
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Paranoid-meme.jpg
 
damidu said:
it doesn't dip nowhere close often enough to justify something like that. feels 60fps for %99 of the time from what i played.
but yeah when it dips, instant change to 30 and back, makes your eyes bleed.
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I was basically mocking people. People will see a dip to 50fps and think its the end of the world. I was a big PC guy growing up, I finished Dungeon Siege 2 at maybe 18fps average lol. People need to get over it dips that aren't that bad.
 
Inanilmaz said:
Paranoid-meme.jpg
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😆

Mozza said:
If only that were true. Many on here just want Nintendo to fail... pure and simple. They dress it up in all these faux technical concerns etc. But the sheer amount of drive by comments and salt is just amazing. And we are only a month or so after launch lol.. This will be a lot of fun though.
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There are some drops here and there from what little I've played. It's no way as smooth or crisp as astrobot was even on the base ps5. But there is more going on with the level design and hell this is a tablet. All things considered I'm ok with it, but it is noticeable. It's nothing like oblivion remastered bad or anything.
 
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RodriGames40 said:
The point remains regardless, if you believe this game is definite proof that the hardware is weak that's plainly not going to hold up (already doesn't, with Cyberpunk of all things running on it with zero compromises in settings over PS5's perf mode), unless you are backtracking that claim. It carries so much technical debt from the Switch 1 that it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it was limited to three cores utilization only with all the others just idling in the background, the technical choices made paint a very grim picture behind the scenes.
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Switch2 launched already 1,5 month ago, we got tons of vids from its games, including multiplats, we all got access to actual hardware specs, for a handheld its top of the pack, for stationary console its even below xss(dlss can for the most part cover for its weak gpu, but nothing can cover forits weak cpu unfortunately).

We all are gamers here, we know how important stable framerate is, game can look 5 or even 20% worse but as long as it has stable framerate it will be fine, no matter how good game looks graphically, with unstable framerate/fps dips thats big flaw/weakness.
Another proof of weak switch2 cpu- SF6 port, 30fps(or variable 30 to 60fps) in world tour mode:

While series s thx to stronger cpu runs that at 60(not perfectly stable 60, has small dips from time to time, and has tons of visual cutbacks too coz of its much weaker specs vs 2 big stationary consoles- gpu power/bandwith/vram).

There is too many "coincidences" on top of actual dev grading switch2 cpu as bit above ps4 to not admit/see the truth.
 
PeteBull said:
There is too many "coincidences" on top of actual dev grading switch2 cpu as bit above ps4 to not admit/see the truth.
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Cause you see what you want to see.

Street Fighter 6 is the proof that visually it can match or even surpass Series S, but you decide to ignore that to focus on the story mode's 30fps to say it's super weak.

Cyberpunk can run at 40fps, something last gen consoles cannot even do, with better image quality than Series S at some instances, but since there are drops in the 30fps modes, you focus on that to say it's super weak.

So basically the truth is out there, you just want to see what you want to see.
 
I love that people are comparing games running at 1080p/30 consisting of corridors on the PS4 to Donkey Kong Bananza. I am 99% sure Metroid Prime 4 will look better than Donkey Kong Bananza and run at 1440p/60 on the same hardware. How does Last Us 2 run so well on the PS4 yet Just Cause 3 runs terrible. Its the same hardware. Any games with any kind of destructibilty ran absolutely terrible on the previous generation. Its why Crackdown 3 was completely nerfed. Would have ran at 10fps. If a gane running at an unstable 60 is enough to write of the hardware, how did any over you guys manage with the early years of the PS3.
 
Baemono said:
Cause you see what you want to see.

Street Fighter 6 is the proof that visually it can match or even surpass Series S, but you decide to ignore that to focus on the story mode's 30fps to say it's super weak.

Cyberpunk can run at 40fps, something last gen consoles cannot even do, with better image quality than Series S at some instances, but since there are drops in the 30fps modes, you focus on that to say it's super weak.

So basically the truth is out there, you just want to see what you want to see.
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cp2077 does have 40fps mode but almost never keeps stable 40fps, especially in much more cpu demanding expack, here again timestamped DF vid, where u see prolonged dips in docked performance mode under 30fps, while lowest being 23fps...


Its all coz of weak cpu unfortunately, no matter how much u downgrade resolution u need cpu strong enough to keep 40fps possible, and we got dips durning normal play(altho outside, where its more cpu heavy) to under 30, regular prolonged dips, not 1 frame here and there.
 
PeteBull said:
Ps4 had jaguar cpu, with such a weak cpu ofc most of its games, especially demanding ones, gonna be 30fps only, hell the top3 graphics fidelity i gave as example- they could look this good coz they were 30, the order 1886 wasnt even full hd coz had black bars,
Switch2 is definitely stronger from ps4, no questions about it, it launched almost 12years later tho ;)

I compared game vs game, aka ones on ps4 had higher graphical fidelity from dkb, and yes, it was only possible coz they were 30fps, and 1080p or less, while dkb targets 1080p60(and fails to reach that target, hence my critique).

My critique is about DKB looking like its looking(below top ps4 games in graphic fidelity) and still not keeping stable 1080p60(with fsr1 at that) on switch2.

I guarantee u once we get switch3 in dunno 2032 and DKB port/bakcwards compatible on that, game suddenly gonna keep flawless 60 and look crisper too, will be same game but difference will be- it will finally run on capable enough hardware.
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Well, yes, those are static theme parks with no environment dynamic interactions, they're just dead meshes with pretty materials that do nothing. But whatever, I'm not even trying to convince you since you don't care about reasoning, just shitting on Nintendo because Nintendo lol
 
I'm pretty happy to report that almost ALL of the frame drops I experienced were in that first level/world.

I'm currently on the third level/world/whatever, and I think I've seen two, maybe three frame drops in the last few hours of world 2.

So I'm pretty hopeful that the rest of the game will remain this stable (aside from that upcoming boss fight… shudder)

Still doesn't forgive the frame drops in the opening world, especially since that's a player's FIRST IMPRESSION OF THE GAME. It was egregious enough for me that I stopped playing last night. But thank goodness things have been buttery smooth since then.

Edit: It's also worth noting that 90% of the frame drops I saw were during some type of transition. Like if you talk to an NPC, when you quit talking and the camera pans back, it can drop a few frames. (This is all in world 1.) I almost never saw any during gameplay, fwiw.
 
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Dacvak said:
I'm pretty happy to report that almost ALL of the frame drops I experienced were in that first level/world.

I'm currently on the third level/world/whatever, and I think I've seen two, maybe three frame drops in the last few hours of world 2.

So I'm pretty hopeful that the rest of the game will remain this stable (aside from that upcoming boss fight… shudder)

Still doesn't forgive the frame drops in the opening world, especially since that's a player's FIRST IMPRESSION OF THE GAME. It was egregious enough for me that I stopped playing last night. But thank goodness things have been buttery smooth since then.
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And this is in docked mode?
 
MSduderino said:
And this is in docked mode?
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Yep. So far world 2 and 3 are waaaaay smoother. Even pulling up the big zoomed out map stays at 60 mostly on those levels. (And I wouldn't care if that was 30 anyway.)
 
Dacvak said:
Yep. So far world 2 and 3 are waaaaay smoother. Even pulling up the big zoomed out map stays at 60 mostly on those levels. (And I wouldn't care if that was 30 anyway.)
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What are the chances that this is because of the day 1 patch some were mentioning?
 
Kataploom said:
What are the chances that this is because of the day 1 patch some were mentioning?
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I doubt it. I installed the patch and world 1 still has just as many frame drops as it did when I played at midnight last night.
 
Kataploom said:
Well, yes, those are static theme parks with no environment dynamic interactions, they're just dead meshes with pretty materials that do nothing. But whatever, I'm not even trying to convince you since you don't care about reasoning, just shitting on Nintendo because Nintendo lol
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Im shitting on a weak specs console/badly optimised game yeh, its like back in the days ppl called out xbox one being weak af, were they wrong or right?

Here its even worse coz internal nintendo devteam with stellar record and tons of devtime cant make exclusive run in proper 1080p60, its not some low effort downport of an ubisoft multiplatform game(which we gonna get, sw outlaws gonna be dreadfull on switch2, we can tell already from that short trailer, sept4 launch date if it wont get delayed, who knows), game is fricken exclusive with 7years of devtime so what we should expect is at least proper optimisation to acomodate hardware weakness(which switch2 has plenty of, if we judge it as 2025 console, not portable device).
Hey who knows, maybe in few months that dev studio patches the game properly, if it happens it means only one thing- game was far from ready at launch and only logical move was to delay it those additional 2/3/4 months till it isnt technical mess anymore- but till it happens i gotta go with weak cpu of switch2 narrative, since game is exclusive with tons of effort put from devs.
 
PeteBull said:
cp2077 does have 40fps mode but almost never keeps stable 40fps, especially in much more cpu demanding expack, here again timestamped DF vid, where u see prolonged dips in docked performance mode under 30fps, while lowest being 23fps...


Its all coz of weak cpu unfortunately, no matter how much u downgrade resolution u need cpu strong enough to keep 40fps possible, and we got dips durning normal play(altho outside, where its more cpu heavy) to under 30, regular prolonged dips, not 1 frame here and there.
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I play it on 40fps mode, and I'm in act 3, runs super smooth.
 
Baemono said:
Well same for your video with specific cases, means nothing compared to my 20+ hours experience
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What u feel isnt real tho, we can measure the performance, we dont have to base results on any1 "feeling", coz we see it on the graph :)
Same way u can feel as a rich guy when u can afford a car and rent an appartament, but are u really? Not at all unfortunately. Ur bank account/private jet makes u rich, not "feeling" of being rich.
Hell ur gf "feels" u are yelling at her and tells u to stop yelling, but in reality u talk normally- happens a ton irl, we all experienced that many times :P
 
MSduderino said:
Ya, he isn't having fun. He just convinced himself it was fun. Quit trolling the damn thread. These technical threads deserve a bit of nuance and you just came here to shit all over the game.
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Bro, im fully aware he is having fun, cp2077 is great game, and even with prolonged dips under 30, which 40fps mode has, many ppl dont "feel" framerate going down, many ppl, especially not tech savy ones, arent prone to feel framerate dips.

Its DF topic tho, we discussing technical aspecs of the game, and we got proof of cp2077 dropping frames in any cpu heavy scenario(open areas, heavy fights vs many npcs/fast driving etc), even in base game and even in docked performance mode, it is what it is, yes, some (many) ppl "feel" game still runs smooth then, same way like back in the days ppl didnt mind 20fps(not dips to 20fps, actual constant 20fps all the time) in n64's ocarina of time :)
Or even better, classic from n64, golden eye:

I bet u for some ppl that 20fps feels alright/smooth enough and they only start feeling "weird" at under 15fps, to some of us tho (i agree its relatively small minority of ppl) even slight dips under 60 will be fellt right away.
 
PeteBull said:
I bet u for some ppl that 20fps feels alright/smooth enough and they only start feeling "weird" at under 15fps, to some of us tho (i agree its relatively small minority of ppl) even slight dips under 60 will be fellt right away.
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S0ULZB0URNE said:
Trolling the thread?
This thread is about the graphics and performance.
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This is a DKB tech thread and we are talking about a single frame dropping during cutscenes and item interaction. There are so many posts talking about it being unplayable or switch 2 underpowered. That's not criticism or tech analysis that's just saying it's shitty product and not responding to anything DF said.
 
MSduderino said:
This is a DKB tech thread and we are talking about a single frame dropping during cutscenes and item interaction. There are so many posts talking about it being unplayable or switch 2 underpowered. That's not criticism or tech analysis that's just saying it's shitty product and not responding to anything DF said.
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Dropped frames not durning gameplay- 0 problem with that, but we do have video, and again timestamped, where its prolonged 30fps durning gameplay, thats im not ok with:

As we can see in the vid, thats prolonged drop to 30fps durning a bossfight, not some blip here and there durning a cutscene.
 
MSduderino said:
This is a DKB tech thread and we are talking about a single frame dropping during cutscenes and item interaction. There are so many posts talking about it being unplayable or switch 2 underpowered. That's not criticism or tech analysis that's just saying it's shitty product and not responding to anything DF said.
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Dip in gameplay are present it's distracting but not a game breaker
 
PeteBull said:
Dropped frames not durning gameplay- 0 problem with that, but we do have video, and again timestamped, where its prolonged 30fps durning gameplay, thats im not ok with:

As we can see in the vid, thats prolonged drop to 30fps durning a bossfight, not some blip here and there durning a cutscene.
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We know and have mentioned the 30 fps boss numerous times. The rest of the game isn't like that. You are just looking to shit all over this game at every opportunity.
 
MSduderino said:
This is a DKB tech thread and we are talking about a single frame dropping during cutscenes and item interaction. There are so many posts talking about it being unplayable or switch 2 underpowered. That's not criticism or tech analysis that's just saying it's shitty product and not responding to anything DF said.
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You forgot dropping to 30fps in boss fights.
This is in fact a unplayable scenario.
 
MSduderino said:
We know and have mentioned the 30 fps boss numerous times. The rest of the game isn't like that. You are just looking to shit all over this game at every opportunity.
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Lets give the talented devteam benefit of the doubt then and wait for patch, i got no problem with that, wont praise game's technicaly with such a big flaw even tho game looks very fun :)

If u saw me shit all over the game in previews/reviews/official topic and mention that 30fps bossbattle, then yeh, i agree it would be uncalled for, but its DF topic about dkb after all, we can discuss and call out game's performance here(performance in terms of framerate, not its sales performance ofc, which i posted 10-15m in dkb sales prediction topic btw - am i really a hater if i wish the game to sell 10-15m ? ;)
 
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Jeez, I have no problems with the framerate drops but that image quality, graphical assets, shimmering etc... Yikes. This just looks very, very dated and I definitely expected more. Oh well, I'm very excited to play more!
 
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