If you were hoping for a stable frame rate mid-heist from Payday 2‘s Switch port, well, then you can have it. One problem: the game’s stabilises around the 20-25 FPS mark.
Overkill Software’s long-running heist simulator hit the Switch recently. There’s been a bit of furore over the amount of content in the Switch problem, but the bigger problem – for any shooter, really – was always going to be performance.
The latest analysis from Digital Foundry found that more often than not, the Switch struggles to maintain a consistent 30 FPS. Frame pacing issues fortunately aren’t a major problem, but there is some regular stuttering related to textures streaming in.
Payday 2 also doesn’t utilise a dynamic resolution, meaning the game can’t drop the pixel count to keep the frame rate higher during the most intensive sequences. And perhaps worst of all: the game time is tied to the game’s frame rate, resulting in the game speed slowing down whenever the frame rate rises and falls.
If that wasn’t enough, there’s also an hitch whenever a grenade is thrown. It’s not a dealbreaker by itself, but on top of the other issues – the game time most of all – it makes Payday 2 a hard sell for Switch owners. Patches could always improve performance, of course, but for now, buyer beware.
Leave a Reply