The mainline Pokémon series has finally made the jump to high-definition, so how does it hold up in terms of visuals and performance? The tech experts over the Digital Foundry found Sword and Shield to be a bit of a mixed experience.
The texturing is described as being on “the basic side” – with low-resolution texture mapping and there are various other issues here and there. The most glaring issue in this department, though, is apparently the character pop-in. While the draw distance in the game is generally fine, the characters have a very limited rendering range, meaning they appear out of nowhere at times.
As for the Pokémon designs and animations in Sword and Shield, compared to Sun & Moon, the models are “surprisingly” close. The lighting and material work on pocket monsters in the Switch release is also “clearly a step up” according to DF.
On the resolution front, Sword and Shield run at 1980×1080 dynamic resolution in docked mode. More complex areas in the game filled with NPCs and Pokémon will drop the resolution. The lowest figure DF recorded was 1536×864 (just under 900p). In portable mode, the game runs at a dynamic 1280×720 resolution and can go as low as 1024×576 from time to time.
The framerate for most parts in Shield and Sword is locked at 30fps, but the game can drop right down to 20fps during more intensive moments on-screen. Portable play is described as being “much the same” and holds up nicely. The performance on display here is said to be more on par with the previous Let’s Go entries on Switch, rather than the older 3DS titles.
Get the full analysis in the video above and tell us about your own experience with Sword and Shield so far.
https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/2019/11/...nd-shield/