Panic Button Explains Low Framerate in DOOM Eternal Cutscenes, Plans to Improve
After so much speculation, Panic Button accomplished the near-impossible. DOOM Eternal released on the Nintendo Switch on December 8, 2020, and it is easily praised as one of the greatest ports on the system just by the simple reality that is was done. To make this a reality, Panic Button clearly has to cut some corners, and if you watch the cutscenes in the game on Switch, you will recognize that the frame rate drops to a stuttering 20FPS.
The lead engineer, Travis Archer, spoke with Digital Foundry in an interview recently, and he explained the need to preserve the high level of detail for the cutscenes, which he says are, “… sometimes the most graphically intensive scenes in the game.”
Archer also mentions the desire to improve the cutscene performance in the game, hope to get a patch out for DOOM Eternal to address the issue, and you can read the rest of his quote here:
As is typical of most games, the cutscenes are sometimes the most graphically intensive scenes in the game – lots of dynamic lights, lots of shadows, lots of animated complex geometry on screen, and so in this case, the importance to us was not losing that detail for the cutscenes. It’s kind of like a big payoff moment. It’s supposed to look really cool, and we decided it was better to run at a higher resolution in this case because it didn’t affect the gameplay – it doesn’t impact your ability to fluidly move around the game when you’re in the middle of a cutscene. It was less critical.
Now in terms of the end result, I think there are still improvements we can make towards those cutscenes, and we do intend to make some improvements to the cutscenes to improve the performance of those. But that was the decision mostly based on how high the quality bar is for those scenes.
Doom Eternal Switch: The Making Of An ‘Impossible’ Port – id Software/Panic Button Interview
If you have a moment to check out the full one-hour long interview with Travis Archer and id Software lead engine programmer, Billy Khan, please go ahead and watch Digital Foundry’s video below:
It is an amazing interview with a lot of insight, and we are at Nintendo Link are just thrilled that Panic Button was able to accomplish the truly impossible task. It is not only a testament to their ability but also to their willingness to see such projects through.
To learn more about Panic Button and what they are currently doing, follow them on Twitter!
Thank you for stopping by Nintendo Link for all of your Switch news and updates. What do you think of DOOM Eternal on the Switch? Can you believe what Panic Button was able to accomplish? Let us know what you think in the comments below! Happy gaming, everyone.
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