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Digital Foundry Takes on Star Fox Zero's Technical Performance


Hope(N Forever)

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Euro Gamer's Digital Foundry has recently taken on the technical performance of the finalised commercial version of Star Fox Zero. Basically, they confirmed without a shadow of a doubt, that the game does indeed run at 60 frames per second on a native 720p resolution, in addition to streaming to the largely required use of the GamePad's 854 × 480 resolution display. Unfortunately, PlatinumGames' graphics engine does not hold out well in many instances on the Wii U's hardware, with the frame rate dipping to about 50 and even 40 frames per second in some cases, especially during the most particle or effect intensive moments. Check out their analysis video below, or read the full article here for the complete details.

 

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Framerate spikes are something of a series trend at this point. Only game to not have them is Adventures. Heck, you can get Assault down to less than 1 FPS with a bit of work.

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2 hours ago, That Ain't Falco said:

Framerate spikes are something of a series trend at this point. Only game to not have them is Adventures. Heck, you can get Assault down to less than 1 FPS with a bit of work.

Tell me how! It's been a while since I played it!

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Okay, so during the ApQueen fight, get hyper lasers, point at her, brake, and spam fire while she spins. On original GameCube hardware, you can kill your framerate goodbye.

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19 hours ago, Hope(N Forever) said:

with the frame rate dipping to about 50 and even 40 frames per second in some cases

Well, that's still higher than most AAA titles on XBone and PS4, which max at 30FPS so...

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Nintendo has been shooting at 60FPS/720p hard with the Wii U, and Zero seems like despite some dips it certainly gets close to it; I can forgive the dips considering that the game is rendering two separate perspectives (TV/Gamepad) simultaneously. Platinum also struggled to keep a constant 60 in Bayonetta 2 if I remember correctly.

Hopefully the rumors of 60FPS/900p target for most games on the NX are true. Nintendo knows how to keep people happy. Despite the /r/pcmasterrace anti-console circlejerk, any time someone tries to shit on the Wii U those dudes will actually defend Nintendo to the death. 

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/r/pcmasterrace doesn't like Nintendo per-se. They just don't hate Nintendo because the Nintendoshpere doesn't run around making factually incorrect statements about their hardware compared to PCs.

Also, that resolution rumor is a bit disappointing, honestly. With 4K displays starting to get relatively getting cheap, and with rumors of upgraded PS4 and Xbox One that can push 4K coming, it will make Nintendo look behind again if Sony and MS are pushing 4k (though probably more realistically 2560x1440, but still...) when Nintendo can't even hit 1080P.

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Since the GameCube, Nintendo's been in an odd position with graphics, though. They're updated enough to be fairly current, but nothing cutting edge, or incredibly new. They don't seem to like to place any risks on newer display trends. Zero in at least 1080p would be really nice, though.

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GCN was a competitive system, specs-wise, with the Xbox and both were significantly more powerful than the PS2 (which didn't stop it from becoming the best-selling system of all time). It wasn't until the Wii that Nintendo said "fuck it" to competitive hardware, probably because they saw Sony's success with lesser power.

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On 4/14/2016 at 9:32 PM, DZComposer said:

It wasn't until the Wii that Nintendo said "fuck it" to competitive hardware, probably because they saw Sony's success with lesser power.

Um, no! Satoru Iwata always believed that games sell systems, and the PlayStation 2 had quite the large library of far more appealing titles than its competitors, especially of Japanese origin. What really killed the GameCube was that third-party supported began waning as games got bigger, and it was hard to release them on the console's awkward proprietary 1.5 GB optical disc format, and then there were other factors, such as online gaming, which barely ever took off on the GameCube, and the PlayStation 2's ability to play DVD movies, making the console the cheapest DVD player in the market at the time.

The Wii Remote was originally going to be a GameCube accessory, designed to expand the console's lifespan. Of course, that idea was dropped, and switched to be in favour of its successor, the Wii. The idea behind the Wii's lesser technical performance was Nintendo's way of using old, tried-and-true tech to innovate, rather than push forward with problematic cutting-edge tech. It worked for the Game Boy, and lo and behold it worked again for the Wii as well, especially with its pack-in title Wii Sports which attracted a lot of people to get the console, even though they are not usually into gaming. Additionally, during the early years of the PlayStation 3, which was supposedly the most powerful console at its time, it faced a lot of technical problems.

Unfortunately, Nintendo couldn't have foreseen the rise of touchscreen smartphones and tablet PCs, much thanks to Apple's success with its iPhone and iPad lines, which totally changed people's perspective on cheap, casual gaming, and most likely contributed to the problem with the Wii U's supposed touchscreen controller innovation on lesser tech. Nintendo confirmed they had this Nintendo DS-inspired concept for the Wii U long before the rise of mainstream tablet PCs. In fact, if it weren't for the most wanted exclusive games on the Nintendo 3DS, the console would have been still in a messy situation like it did in its launch year, and the PlayStation Vita is even worse off, despite it being more powerful tech!

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I didn't mean to imply Nintendo made that decision because the PS2 was underpowered, only that Nintendo saw Sony get away with it and felt they could, too. And they largely did with the Wii. Yeah, sales tanked badly by the time that generation was done, but the PS3 and 360 never caught up to it.

I think the Wii U's biggest problem wasn't the controller, but rather that Nintendo didn't know what to do with the damn thing for like 2 years, and SFZ is the first game that actually fully uses the gamepad in a manner other than being an inventory screen or allowing off-TV play. You could argue for Splatoon, but said controls were optional.

Nintendo didn't have anything compelling for over a year, and by then the 3rd parties dropped the Wii U like a hot potato. To this day people still say the Wii U has "no games," which really is the the wind of death for a game console.

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