The Nintendo Switch has an ARM64 CPU, which means the biggest part of porting to that CPU is now done. Does it mean we can expect an Apple Silicon mac build some time soon(ish)?
It runs fine on the M1. iPad support would be the real winner.
The journey to Nintendo Switch
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Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch
#32This came as a total surprise... I'm impressed they managed to get the game running well on the Switch! Will I actually buy it again, just to have it on the Switch? ...yes. Yes, I will.
I would absolutely love an iPad version. Much more than the Switch version (which I am going to get anyway).
Might be the only thing that can utilize all the power of an M1 Pro!
Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
That jumped out to me too. I was hoping "let's not get ahead of ourselves" meant he'd explain why the startup time is so long but it's never mentioned again. I just timed Breath of the Wild (cartridge version), and from the time I launched the game from the Switch menu to seeing the game menu was about 16 seconds, and the time from selecting a save file to loading the game world was about 18 seconds. What exactly abo…
BotW got some after-launch patches that significantly reduced the launch time. They did this by overclocking the Switch during load. I didn't see any mention of boost/overclock in the Factorio writeup, though.
Interesting, I wasn't aware (or forgot)! I looked into it though, and it seems like it wasn't anywhere near the minute+ mentioned in the article.
I found a GameFaqs forum thread[1] from shortly after the game launched that claims it was about 20 seconds. And a US Gamer article[2] that says the update that came a couple years later only shaved off about 5 seconds (seems within the ballpark of what I measured)
[1] https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/189707-the-legend-of-ze...
[2] https://www.usgamer.net/articles/breath-of-the-wild-load-tim...
Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch
#34> Now, the final startup time when the game is installed on internal storage is 70 seconds, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Maybe I don't notice this with other games but that seems like a really long time.
Animal Crossing has some pretty long load times on startup or coming back from islands, but I'd still expect it's under a minute.
On the other hand, factorio is a load once and play for hours type game compared to something like mario which incurs loads on each level
Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch
#35> Now, the final startup time when the game is installed on internal storage is 70 seconds, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Maybe I don't notice this with other games but that seems like a really long time.
I’m kind of surprised (and bummed) that they ported it to the Switch and not the iPad. The Switch is a bit slow (can’t imagine big bases performing well) and I’m not convinced using a game pad will work well. By contrast, modern iPads are smoking fast and I bet an iPad touch interface would suit the game fairly well. Ah well, maybe some day.
Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch
#36> Now, the final startup time when the game is installed on internal storage is 70 seconds, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Maybe I don't notice this with other games but that seems like a really long time.
I’m kind of surprised (and bummed) that they ported it to the Switch and not the iPad. The Switch is a bit slow (can’t imagine big bases performing well) and I’m not convinced using a game pad will work well. By contrast, modern iPads are smoking fast and I bet an iPad touch interface would suit the game fairly well. Ah well, maybe some day.
I think you could say this about a lot of games. IMO, Apple doesn't make it easy to port a game from PC to iPad (app store guidelines in particular), and I doubt there are as many iPad gamers as there are other platforms.
Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch
#37> It allowed me to make many Nintendo Switch specific optimizations, and even some optimizations for the PC version
Are there significant CPU-specific optimizations that can be made for the Switch / ARMv8 that wouldn't apply to x86-64? I've never really dug into things at that level, I wouldn't know where to begin except for like vector instructions.
Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch
#38> Now, the final startup time when the game is installed on internal storage is 70 seconds, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Maybe I don't notice this with other games but that seems like a really long time.
Animal Crossing has some pretty long load times on startup or coming back from islands, but I'd still expect it's under a minute. On the other hand, factorio is a load once and play for hours type game compared to something like mario which incurs loads on each level
Civ VI can also take a while to load. Especially if you’re loading a game that’s already in progress. I haven’t timed it but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was over a minute.
Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch
#39> It allowed me to make many Nintendo Switch specific optimizations, and even some optimizations for the PC version Are there significant CPU-specific optimizations that can be made for the Switch / ARMv8 that wouldn't apply to x86-64? I've never really dug into things at that level, I wouldn't know where to begin except for like vector instructions.
I have no idea. But if there are, the factorio devs will find them and write an extremely detailed blog post about the entire process.
Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch
#40> It allowed me to make many Nintendo Switch specific optimizations, and even some optimizations for the PC version Are there significant CPU-specific optimizations that can be made for the Switch / ARMv8 that wouldn't apply to x86-64? I've never really dug into things at that level, I wouldn't know where to begin except for like vector instructions.
My understanding is ARM has less strict memory (ordering) guarantees, as well as the inability to explicitly trigger cache line flushes from user-space. That being said, I imagine most of the optimizations would come from the particular aspects of the GPU/graphics pipeline, which I imagine is substantially different from the standard PC structure.