8 ms·
I've been playing Skyrim and Portal 2 on the Switch Lite and it keeps amazing me that games that my PS3 struggled with are now perfectly playable on a handheld
by drewzero1 3y ago
I've been playing Skyrim and Portal 2 on the Switch Lite and it keeps amazing me that games that my PS3 struggled with are now perfectly playable on a handheld device that has pretty good battery life and doesn't burn my hand. A device like this would have blown my mind 10 or 15 years ago (even more than the original PSP did the first time I saw one).
- fishtacos 3y agoThe PSP was amazing. The PS Vita - on a whole 'nother level, both performance-wise and controller improvement. It wasn't until the Switch came around in 2017 (purchased in 2018) that we realized HD (720p) gaming on a handheld machine. The fact that so many AAA games have been ported down to it is a testimony to its capabilities. Not a fan of nVIDIA in general, but they did an amazing job with this unit. If one wants real PC gameplay without porting down, the Steam Deck starts at $400, add a MicroSD card for more storage.
- hypercube33 3y agoWhat really blows me away is stuff like the z1 extreme and a laptop I have that is two generations behind that but has a 130w power envelope pushing 60-100fps AAA titles at 1440p - runs super hot but in a few years we may have handhelds doing something similar which I'm super excited for.
- fishtacos 3y agoThere is nothing that can be encompassed by a 220-300+ power envelope into a handheld for the next several years. Still, downgrading visual FX is one doable. Steam Deck 2 and Switch 2 are in the horizon. AMD v. Intel, as far as I'm concerned.
- zeusk 3y agoWait till you see what Apple's Vision group has in store.
- graphe 3y agoThe vita sucked with no homebrew and the switch is another psp. You could run games off the pro duo or a microsd adapter but vita was locked down, slow and a bunch of lame remakes and psp titles. The PSP emulated up to the PS1. By the time the switch was around people had been emulating on Android for a long time. They can do better graphics but there hasn’t been a game that made me feel like I needed 4K on handheld. The switch really is another golden age for gaming with the switch being hacked so quickly and having such good homebrew.
- fishtacos 3y agoThe PS Vita predated the Switch by 6+ years... by the time emulation and CPU speed to match its requirements, it was already discontinued by Sony. It fulfilled its purpose.
- graphe 3y agoThe vita was a direct downgrade from a PSP if you valued fast loading times, emulation, homebrew and piracy. Even if you didn't pirate you gained the ability to rebuy your PSP games, and new expensive games with an OLED that had less battery life.
- fishtacos 3y agoA downgrade from UMDs? Perhaps you're referring to the density of textures and newer, more demanding game engines, because the UMDs were such a pain. Trying hard not to get hyperbolic here.
- graphe 3y agoNever touched a UMD. With the microsd loading or memory like PSP go it was instantaneous especially at 333mhz.
- danhor 3y agoAt least regarding the homebrew, I disagree completely. While it took a while for the vita to be thoroughly hacked, it has been thoroughly hacked. And the benefits are numerous: Using normal SD cards, expanding the the integrated psp hardware into a virtual psp, reformatting of the internal storage, extending it by replacing the 3G modem. Meanwhile the switch had the big bootrom usb stack exploit, but everything apart from the original SoC doesn't have a publicly known easy exploit (there are mod chips, but nothing like the 3DS/PS3/Wii U/Vita/PSP/...). There also wasn't that as much "cool" stuff to do as on older consoles with homebrew due to the hardware simply being an android tablet with controllers (which doesn't make a difference as a console, but makes it more boring homebrew wise). So there is the usual stuff (savegames, different controllers, piracy, themes, overclocking), but nothing unique to the switch.
- Grazester 3y agoThose games ported to the switch are severely downgraded graphically compared to their other consoles counter parts.
- drewzero1 3y agoI'm sure they are, but it's much less noticeable than the handheld ports of things used to be. Having played many hours of Star Wars Battlefront II on PS2 and original Xbox, the PSP versions of Battlefront (II, Renegade Squadron, Elite Squadron) had some obvious compromises but were at least very similar to play. Then I tried the DS version of Renegade Squadron and the gameplay was almost unrecognizable from the others, which still disappoints me to this day. Granted, I'm playing Skyrim and Portal 2 on Switch Lite so I can't see them on the TV and compare them at the same size as the PS3 versions of those games, but Skyrim at least seems to suffer much less lag and visual glitching than the PS3 version. I don't have any newer console to compare with so I'm happy!
- fishtacos 3y agoMy laptop runs Kbby Lake and Intel HD 620 and can't match the Switch's 30 fps perf. It's incredible what it can do. The 3070 that runs 220+W on my desktop is hard to replace ore minituarize.
- Grazester 3y agoEhh one is a gaming machine the other a general purpose machine with a really weak GPU.
- Wytwwww 3y agoThere is a lot of space between a 3070 and a Switch. e.g. a few (I'd guess ~5) year old iPhones/iPads are considerably more powerful than the Switch. Unfortunately, it's just not a great platform for gaming.
- eru 3y agoAlso keep in mind that iPhones and iPads were a lot more expensive than the Switch. (Of course, Nintendo still sells (nearly) the same switch for nearly the same price, but a five your old mobile device would go for a lot less nowadays.)
- bigstrat2003 3y agoFrankly, we still have nothing providing HD gaming on a handheld. The switch is way too big to be considered a handheld. I can't slip one into my pocket and go, like I could with a DS or 3DS. It's frustrating, because I love my 3DS for gaming on the go but there is still nothing which can replace it. Nintendo just gave up on the handheld market.
- ThatPlayer 3y agoThe lifetime sales of the Vita and 3DS combined don't even beat out the sales of the Nintendo DS. The dedicated handheld market was killed by the same killer of portable media players and point-and-shoot cameras: the smartphone. Like the other markets, not by the smartphone being better, but by being good enough and always in your pocket.
- Moldoteck 3y agoImo for your case, maybe try gaming on the phone with a grip adaptor? Should be both powerful &pocketable
- glhaynes 3y agoA Switch Micro would be pretty cool.
- whynotminot 3y agoI was just thinking that I’d love it if Nintendo made a Micro console again. I don’t feel like the Switch Lite was actually small enough to justify as a companion to the full-sized Switch. More just an alternative for those who don’t care about docked play. But a pocketable Micro console would be awesome for those times I don’t want to have a full backpack with me, which the regular Switch requires.
- fishtacos 3y agoThe GBA micro was about as small as a usable console could get. The older I get, the less accepting of these limitations I've become. The Vita and PSP was a good median in twrms of practically.
- xgkickt 3y agoI have some great memories working on the PSP. While you could get some FP precision issues if you weren't careful, I really liked being having BVH testing as part of the command buffer.
- hbn 3y agoThe true testament to what can be handled on a mobile device these days is showcased on iOS devices. The iPhone 15 Pros can run a port of Resident Evil 7 at supposedly a pretty stable 30fps. Unfortunately all of Apple's chips are stuck in Apple devices, where they're still struggling to incentivize developers to do ports as standard. So they're pumping out beautiful graphics to beautiful displays for games with shitty touch screen controls that are riddled with ads and/or are just glorified virtual casinos.