Bayonetta Origins director explains why that game isn’t 60 FPS (this can reasonably be applied to Paper Mario TTYD as well)
I can empathize with the devs of Paper Mario: TTYD on Switch wrt the whole 30fps vs 60fps situation.
We tried for a long time to get Cereza and the Lost Demon running at a stable 60fps. (1/7)
— Abebe Tinari (@Bebetheman) April 28, 2024
by Asad_Farooqui
31 Comments
How can I read the whole thing without a Twitter account?
(The whole thread for people that don’t want to go on Twitter)
I can empathize with the devs of Paper Mario: TTYD on Switch wrt the whole 30fps vs 60fps situation.
We tried for a long time to get Cereza and the Lost Demon running at a stable 60fps. (1/7)
Bayonetta Origins is a true hidden gem. One of the best games of 2023 easy, it’s amazing.
And yes, the visual fidelity is clearly too high to maintain 60, that game is beautiful and nothing else looks like it.
I’m happy we are getting the game.
TLDR: the Switch couldn’t handle it.
The new model cannot come soon enough. Absolutely 0 reason a GameCube remake shouldn’t be able to run at a stable 60 (in the case of TTYD)
I wish Nintendo games had performance modes. Those can be difficult to implement too but damn I’d sacrifice some visual quality for a consistent 60fps, or even an unlocked framerate mode that just gives me the dips. For Paper Mario I really wouldn’t care about drops in fps.
I replayed Paper Mario 64 and Origami King last year, and not *once* did I think about the framerate.
This is a non issue to me. All I can suggest to anyone who cares enough is to either and wait and see if they add a performance mode for the Switch 2 (unlikely) or just emulate the original game.
this thread made me realise that reddit mfs really have 0 knowledge about how games even work.
Obviously different users and all, but it’s interesting that to some here, the visual upgrade doesn’t matter. But when Skyward Sword doubled its framerate, top comments were like “this shit dont look hd” and “I could barely tell this was HD at first” because of the modest visual upgrade outside of being 1080p.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/s/Dh0nQG8Z17
I’d much rather have stable 30fps than unstable 60fps, I really don’t understand what people are complaining about.
As long as the 30 is a STABLE 30 I’m fine with it, the issue is when it’s an unstable 30.
Man I just don’t care. The difference is so meaningless to me.
Action/shooter/fighting/racing games all benefit tons from 60fps. Playing at 30 just feels awful, steady or not.
It’d be nice if atleast battles were 60 fps
For non-Twitter users, here’s what he said…
I can empathize with the devs of Paper Mario: TTYD on Switch wrt the whole 30fps vs 60fps situation.
We tried for a long time to get Cereza and the Lost Demon running at a stable 60fps.
We were able to maintain 60fps inside the Tír na nÓg stages, but it just wasn’t possible to keep the same visual fidelity and hold 60fps in the forest.
My choice was either to have an unlocked framerate with frequent dips to 30~50 fps, or cap it and hold a stable 30fps.
The most difficult part of game dev is making choices about what to prioritize. Everything has a cost, both in terms of dev time to implement it, and in terms of processing time when the game is running…ultimately you simply cannot have everything.
CatLD may not look visually complex, but there is actually a ton of post-processing going on under the hood: the colours fading in like ink as you move through the world, the shading patterns on objects, the way the world curves to allow you to see further into the distance
All these visual effects have a processing cost. I felt the picture book look was integral to the overall experience, so it was not worth throwing it away to hit 60fps.
I imagine the team making Paper Mario faced a similar dilemma.
It would be one thing if this were an enhanced port of the original game (i.e. the version of Pikmin 1/2 for Switch), but this is a full rebuild of the game.
I am sure they wanted to use modern techniques to really make the paper aesthetic shine…and these have a cost.
All I can say for certain is that the team made the choice that they felt would lead to the best overall experience for players.
I promise you, it was not a decision made lightly or out of “laziness”.
I missed out on the original, so I’m looking forward to playing it on Switch!
Side note: Bayonetta Origins might be the best looking game on Switch
I understand the trade-off, it’s just a little disappointing when a remake of a 20-year-old game that is going to be sold at full price runs at a worse framerate than the original.
Also, why tf does anybody still post on Twitter, let’s leave that garbage platform in the rearview mirror already.
Gosh, I just love to read someone actually being fair, professional and informed. Even if it comes from the dev himself.
Console limitations got it!
Yeah, that was my guess. They chose visuals over framerate.
I understand their situation, but I still disagree with their choice.
I would have preferred some sections being gutted visually and kept the 60FPS target.
At the end of the day, the game absolutely could run at 60, they just prioritized visual fidelity.
The whole thread for people that don’t want to go on Twitter:
—-
I can empathize with the devs of Paper Mario: TTYD on Switch wrt the whole 30fps vs 60fps situation.
We tried for a long time to get Cereza and the Lost Demon running at a stable 60fps. (1/7)
—
We were able to maintain 60fps inside the Tír na nÓg stages, but it just wasn’t possible to keep the same visual fidelity and hold 60fps in the forest.
My choice was either to have an unlocked framerate with frequent dips to 30~50 fps, or cap it and hold a stable 30fps. (2/7)
—
The most difficult part of game dev is making choices about what to prioritize. Everything has a cost, both in terms of dev time to implement it, and in terms of processing time when the game is running…ultimately you simply cannot have everything. (3/7)
—
CatLD may not look visually complex, but there is actually a ton of post-processing going on under the hood: the colours fading in like ink as you move through the world, the shading patterns on objects, the way the world curves to allow you to see further into the distance (4/7)
—
All these visual effects have a processing cost. I felt the picture book look was integral to the overall experience, so it was not worth throwing it away to hit 60fps.
I imagine the team making Paper Mario faced a similar dilemma. (5/7)
—
It would be one thing if this were an enhanced port of the original game (i.e. the version of Pikmin 1/2 for Switch), but this is a full rebuild of the game.
I am sure they wanted to use modern techniques to really make the paper aesthetic shine…and these have a cost. (6/7)
—-
All I an say for certain is that the team made the choice that they felt would lead to the best overall experience for players.
I promise you, it was not a decision made lightly or out of “laziness”.
I missed out on the original, so I’m looking forward to playing it on Switch!
Just wanna quickly hop in and say thanks to everyone who’s copy-pasting the post in the replies in case the original tweet gets deleted for whatever reason.
I think it could still be possible for TTYD to hit 60 fps, but it would most likely require giant amount of time to find techniques to make that work while keeping the same visual fidelity.
Switch is old weak hardware.
That is why it is 30fps.
This is always the case.
Watch Nintendo make the Switch 2 “good enough” for a year or two before developers run into these same problems again.
I have a feeling it will only be 8GB ram, underclocked.
I think Cereza and the Lost Demon is a beautiful game regardless of fps.
bummer about the 30fps cap for TTYD tbh. i was expecting 60fps at the minimum given it is an old game now. This makes me reconsider my pre order.
I know i probably sound whiny but for a sidescroller game i think 60fps is a must in today’s era, vertical scrolling just doesn’t feel smooth at 30fps.
I don’t expect miracles with the switch hardware but it feel like TTYD should have been 60fps. The original game was. To me this is too much of a downgrade in performance.
Edit: i have cancelled my pre order. someone else can have it. It just doesn’t sit righ with me to have to pay 80$ cad and objectively losing 50% of the original performance
i really just cant wait until we hit our “visual fidelity” ceiling so this issue can just be over with. its bizarre to me that visuals are a priority over smooth gameplay for so many games these days. i understand it being an issue on switch when it comes to ports, but games designed for the hardware specifically is a different story.
Nah Taki Udon posted a video recently where he showed with an overclock to the memory and CPU that the Switch can run many games at higher resolutions and refresh rates.
Nintendo needs to allow people to do this with the Switch 2.
So many replies to that are just people screaming that a game director doesn’t know how game development works. So much ignorance and deep-seated denial on display