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Reviews Digital Foundry || Portal Companion Collection - Nintendo Switch - DF Tech Review - Switch vs Steam Deck vs Xbox 360

I

ILikeFeet

Warpstar Knight

Two brilliant Valve games from days gone by turn out to be beautifully suited to Nintendo Switch - and it seems that Nvidia's Lightspeed Studios handled the ports. Join Oliver Mackenzie for a deep dive into what made Portal and its sequel great, why the titles are so ideally suited to Nintendo Switch and how the conversion stacks up against the Xbox 360 version - and of course, Valve's own Steam Deck.
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  • portal lacks normal maps, specular lighting, and environmental shadow maps
  • portal 2 uses the updated HL2:E2 which included shadow maps, particles, and hdr lighting
  • Nvidia's Light Speed Studios worked on the port, they worked on the game prior and did Quake 2 RTX
  • switch version is identical to the 360 release
  • 360 version runs at 720p with no AA
  • switch is 1080p with 2x MSAA
    • 720p and 2x MSAA
    • no AA in Portal 2 in portable mode
  • ps3/360 was 30fps with frame pacing issues
  • switch is 60fps with occasional dips
    • game doesn't like alpha effects or the portals
  • portals disable motion blur
  • portable mode clears up the performance issues
  • the gabe boy can run the games at 1080p with 4x MSAA at 60fps
  • at 800p, the SD gets 4h of battery life
  • gamma, texture filtering, and AA are the only differences
  • OLED is a good selling point of switch over the steam dick
  • on Series X and One X, the 360 version runs at 4K
  • Series S, 1440p
  • xboxes had higher res shadow maps
  • no xbox has stable 30fps
  • Switch/SD are the best consoles to play
 
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Best console port is nice granted there isn't much competition as DF pointed out due to Valve not really releasing updated versions on new hardware

I wonder if these ports were paid for by Nintendo given we heard some years ago about Nintendo offering cash for Half Life on Switch
 
I really really want Half Life 2 on Switch now.
 
Watched the video and not sure if I missed it. Is there a battery life comparison between Switch and Deck, or does it just mention the latter is 4h? I'd assume battery life is another reason to prefer Switch. At least Mariko Switch.
 
Serif said:
Watched the video and not sure if I missed it. Is there a battery life comparison between Switch and Deck, or does it just mention the latter is 4h? I'd assume battery life is another reason to prefer Switch. At least Mariko Switch.
Click to expand...
Switch bettery life is pretty constant
A youtber called Reviews 2 Go includes battery life analysis and you can look at those to get a general idea

OLED and V2 Switch and Switch Lites should beat the deck handily

Edit: speaking of the devil , the youtuber will have his Portal Switch review up soon. It will include battery life for sure
 
ILikeFeet said:
  • OLED is a good selling point of switch over the steam dick
Click to expand...

Oh... Oh my...

---

That said, seems a mostly competent port and expected results overall, which is good. The memory bandwidth issues make the most sense why it has issues compared to the Steam Deck, so that's no surprise there. I'm hoping with the eventual Drake* release, we'll see all these issues smoothed over. Still, happy with how things turned out.
 
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Lightspeed is my new remaster studio for Switch. cannot wait to see what they'll do next. Half-Life 2 sounds like the logical choice, but L4D1-2 and other Shield ports are good candidates. Maybe they could try perfect ports of MGS 2-3?
 
ILikeFeet said:
  • ps3/360 was 30fps with frame pacing issues
  • switch is 60fps with occasional dips
    • game doesn't like alpha effects or the portals
  • the gabe boy can run the games at 1080p with 4x MSAA at 60fps
  • on Series X and One X, the 360 version runs at 4K
  • Series S, 1440p
  • xboxes had higher res shadow maps
  • no xbox has stable 30fps
  • Switch/SD are the best consoles to play
Click to expand...
Am I reading that right? Switch/Steam Deck are running at 60fps, but the Xbox Series X/S are only hitting 30 fps?
 
9-Volt said:
Lightspeed is my new remaster studio for Switch. cannot wait to see what they'll do next. Half-Life 2 sounds like the logical choice, but L4D1-2 and other Shield ports are good candidates. Maybe they could try perfect ports of MGS 2-3?
Click to expand...
Only if Konami cares enough for them to try porting MGS anything to the Switch.
 
9-Volt said:
They're giving their IP's to indie studios. I don't think they'd reject if Lightspeed requested. I mean, they'd ok'd Nvidia Shield releases of the games.
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They are not giving their IPs to indie studios. They are letting indie studios work on them. So far we really haven’t seen anything related to MGS being released from Konami. It seems for now they are not interested even in low-level ports of these games.
 
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9-Volt said:
Lightspeed is my new remaster studio for Switch. cannot wait to see what they'll do next. Half-Life 2 sounds like the logical choice, but L4D1-2 and other Shield ports are good candidates. Maybe they could try perfect ports of MGS 2-3?
Click to expand...

L4D 1 and 2 are not on Shield as far as I can see and the first would would never be okayed by Valve regardless as those campaigns are in the sequel anyway.

HL2 and ep 1 and 2 are the only Valve Nvidia shield games left.
 
fantomena said:
L4D 1 and 2 are not on Shield as far as I can see and the first would would never be okayed by Valve regardless as those campaigns are in the sequel anyway.

HL2 and ep 1 and 2 are the only Valve Nvidia shield games left.
Click to expand...
I didn't say L4D games were on shield. I just said they can work on other Shield games, non-Valve stuff. They're not done by Lightspeed either.
 
9-Volt said:
I didn't say L4D games were on shield. I just said they can work on other Shield games, non-Valve stuff. They're not done by Lightspeed either.
Click to expand...

Okay, I misunderstood then.

Portal games happened because most of the work was already done on Shield, so I imagine HL2 and ep 1 and 2 will be next if Portal games are not a one-off thing from Nvidia and Valve.
 
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Brofield said:
Am I reading that right? Switch/Steam Deck are running at 60fps, but the Xbox Series X/S are only hitting 30 fps?
Click to expand...
The label in the DF comparison is X360 not One S/X they just used the console in place for actual 360 hardware
 
JRPGHurtsWallet said:
They’re running in backwards compatibility mode with a locked framerate. That’s why they’re only hitting 30fps.
Click to expand...

Dekuman said:
The label in the DF comparison is X360 not One S/X they just used the console in place for actual 360 hardware
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Thank you both for the clarification! I knew I must have been missing something because that seemed like a hella weird limitation to me ahaha
 
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Dekuman said:
Best console port is nice granted there isn't much competition as DF pointed out due to Valve not really releasing updated versions on new hardware

I wonder if these ports were paid for by Nintendo given we heard some years ago about Nintendo offering cash for Half Life on Switch
Click to expand...
Hmm I don't think so. Valve probably saw this as a easy port (with Portal 1 already made for the Tegra X1) and saw there is Sales Potential on the Switch.
 
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ILikeFeet said:
  • OLED is a good selling point of switch over the steam dick
Click to expand...
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Going from 720p/30fps on Xbox 360 to 1080p/60fps with added MSAA on Switch is an impressive step up and much more than we usually see in ports from the 7th generation to the Switch.
Lightspeed Studios have gone above and beyond here, most would have settled for retaining 30fps.
Nice to see.
 
curl-6 said:
Going from 720p/30fps on Xbox 360 to 1080p/60fps with added MSAA on Switch is an impressive step up and much more than we usually see in ports from the 7th generation to the Switch.
Lightspeed Studios have gone above and beyond here, most would have settled for retaining 30fps.
Nice to see.
Click to expand...
Also kinda expected they would since they are Nvidia.
 
Hermii said:
Also kinda expected they would since they are Nvidia.
Click to expand...
Surprised we haven't seen more from them on Switch to be honest. You'd think they'd be a natural choice for porting games to Nintendo's hybrid.
This is their first project for it, right? It's a strong debut effort, hope we see more.
Their work on the Shield TV was a bit hit and miss, but a lot of that is probably down it not having a dedicated low level API.
 
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ILikeFeet said:


  • portal lacks normal maps, specular lighting, and environmental shadow maps
  • portal 2 uses the updated HL2:E2 which included shadow maps, particles, and hdr lighting
  • Nvidia's Light Speed Studios worked on the port, they worked on the game prior and did Quake 2 RTX
  • switch version is identical to the 360 release
  • 360 version runs at 720p with no AA
  • switch is 1080p with 2x MSAA
    • 720p and 2x MSAA
    • no AA in Portal 2 in portable mode
  • ps3/360 was 30fps with frame pacing issues
  • switch is 60fps with occasional dips
    • game doesn't like alpha effects or the portals
  • portals disable motion blur
  • portable mode clears up the performance issues
  • the gabe boy can run the games at 1080p with 4x MSAA at 60fps
  • at 800p, the SD gets 4h of battery life
  • gamma, texture filtering, and AA are the only differences
  • OLED is a good selling point of switch over the steam dick
  • on Series X and One X, the 360 version runs at 4K
  • Series S, 1440p
  • xboxes had higher res shadow maps
  • no xbox has stable 30fps
  • Switch/SD are the best consoles to play
Click to expand...


It's been forever since I booted up my orange box portal but...... seriously? It didn't have any of that?

Damn.
 
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Those ports are a miracle. So awesome to have classics like Portal and Portal 2 in the palm of your hands.
 
Is there a physical for this? Noted on eshop store page its #1 downloaded for all formats, but missing under digital.
 
Dekuman said:
Is there a physical for this? Noted on eshop store page its #1 downloaded for all formats, but missing under digital.
Click to expand...
There has been no official (or even rumored) confirmation of a physical release existing, it might be just be a mistake
 
@Serif asked about battery life, the reviews 2 go youtuber has finally posted their review


Timestamped here
OG Switch 3:20 to 3:56 (max to min settings)
RedBox V2 Switch 6:09 to 6:50
Lite 3:45 to 4:44
OLED 6:33 to 7:44
 
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