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The journey to Nintendo Switch

factorio.com

51–60 of 169 posts

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#51
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Switch got a touch screen as well?

A teeny tiny one in comparison.

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#52
post #47

> "This is the first time we had to make sure the game is deterministic between ARM and x86. We should be fine, C++ is portable, right? Just don't use undefined behavior. Turns out we use quite a lot of undefined behavior..." Hah

Would it occur had they used UBsan on debug builds?

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#54
post #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.

For anyone who wants a Factorio-like on iOS, there's a great game called Builderment. It's not as complex as Factorio but it does get rather involved. Works well with touch and even works well on the smaller screens of iPhones.

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#55
post #46
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you know if this technique is available for all games or just Nintendo's own? It seems like it would be easy to cause issues if games were allowed to mess with the clocking willy-nilly, so I assumed that it was only done on Zelda because it's a first-party title (and one of the biggest on the console).

I've used this technique in the past on various shipped Switch games. It's an API that puts the Switch into "CPU Boost Mode".

It overclocks the CPU at the expense of GPU. It's suitable only for loading screens or other areas of the game where you don't need to render at more than single-digit FPS, but can produce a 20-50% improvement in loading time.

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#56
If the switch proves anything it's that you don't have to pay $1600 for a GPU to enjoy amazing games. Or the other way round, if you pay $1600 for a gpu it does not mean that you'll be able to play any good games.

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#57
> Removing all uses of undefined behaviour is probably a fool's errand, as it would require significant changes throughout the code that would take time and come with a performance impact, all for no immediate practical benefit. So I just hunted down the undefined behaviour cases that actually broke determinism. This was easy enough, as we have plenty of tools we use to test determinism. By comparing the game state CRC for every tick of every test (we have 2,417 tests) between x86 and ARM, I believe I got a pretty good coverage of potential issues.

Holy hell.

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#58
post #56

If the switch proves anything it's that you don't have to pay $1600 for a GPU to enjoy amazing games. Or the other way round, if you pay $1600 for a gpu it does not mean that you'll be able to play any good games.

I mean that's always been Nintendo's thing, hasn't it? Cheaper, less powerful consoles, but focus on iconic gameplay

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#59
post #56

If the switch proves anything it's that you don't have to pay $1600 for a GPU to enjoy amazing games. Or the other way round, if you pay $1600 for a gpu it does not mean that you'll be able to play any good games.

Depends entirely on what you play. Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K with DLSS and raytracing is exquisite...

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#60

> 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 haven’t measured, but Subnautica (on Switch) takes forever to load a save when it starts. I would not be surprised if it takes more than one minute.
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