With advancements and technology they should be much less faster than the N64, but the loading times are just horrible, sometimes even worse than the ps5. What gives?

Edit: this is not hate per say, this is confusion and a little annoyance

  • Adrixan@feddit.deEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I preface this with saying: I’m neither a developer nor expert on the Switch, but there’s some general things to consider:

    • The splash screen is probably mostly a (DRM) check of the cartridge and maybe initializes a few other things, especially the player selector.
    • The switch is essentially an aging Android tablet on steroids. The SoC used is the successor to the SoC used in Nvidias Shield gaming tablet. (By comparison, you could compare the PS5 to a current mid-tier gaming PC in terms of pure hardware specs)
    • Even if the Switch is small, games still run ideally at 720p up to FullHD resolution, this might not show on the small screen but it still means that character-, environment, etc. models all have a certain size.
    • The Switch is very limited on RAM so there is probably quite some swapping going on.
    • Especially since you compared it to the PS5, one important thing you have to realize is, that if you buy a game on BluRay for any modern console, they usually load most, if not all of the data to run the game onto internal storage, while the physical disc is basically only a hardware license key afterwards, to check that you still “own” the game. Therefore you must observe:
    • The switch has NAND storage, whereas the PS5 has enormously fast NVMe storage (and also way more RAM and VRAM) to load all game data way faster.
    • I don’t know which exact role patches play in this equation but you also have to realize, that the Switch, when running a game from cartridge is most likely pulling data from both the cartridge and internal memory or the MicroSD card, wherever patches are installed.
    • Finally, the Switch is a mobile handheld console, same as why a gaming laptop will never come close to the performance of a gaming (desktop) PC, the former is built with tighter TDP limits and considerations for battery life, whereas thermals are pretty much the only limiting factor for a desktop PC and those can be adjusted way easier by using a larger case.
    • If you look at simple 2D games, for the switch, take, for example, Crypt of the Necrodancer, or Dead Cells, you’ll see that they run and load about as fast as on any other console/PC, simply by everything about them being way less data and computationally intensive.
    • In comparison to older consoles (i.e. N64), you have to also appreciate the fact that many titles, these days, are written for some game engine like Unreal or Unity which then translates it with the click of a button to all the platforms a developer wants. While I’m sure they do the best they can to optimize their engines well for all platforms, there sure is a lot of performance left on the floor as compares to “the old ways”™ where games were “handcrafted” (as in written in the platforms Assembly language), for each platform they were released in.

    So, I hope I didn’t write any total nonsense amongst all these points, they are just a braindump of IT knowledge, compared with things I’ve watched/read/learned over time, so take them with a grain of salt. Still, I think it should give you an intuitive idea of why the Switch has those “horrendous” loading times. :)