Hogwarts legacy update size3/19/2024 ![]() It’s certainly weighed down by technical issues, a lackluster main story, and some poor enemy variety, but even those couldn’t come close to breaking its enchanting spell over me. Its open-world adventure captures all the excitement and wonder of the Wizarding World with its memorable new characters, challenging and nuanced combat, and a wonderfully executed Hogwarts student fantasy that kept me glued to my controller for dozens of hours. In nearly every way, Hogwarts Legacy is the Harry Potter RPG I’ve always wanted to play. All this, alongside the existing extra loading the last-generation versions added, means the Switch is competing with Starfield for the award of most Loading encountered in 2023. Entering shops in Hogsmeade used to be seamless, whereas now we are met with a load for each door you enter and the same for the way out. Entering Hogsmeade used to be an open stroll up the main high street, whereas on Switch this is around a minute or so to load. This impact is no more apparent than in the increased sector points exclusive to this port. Loading is long in the last generation versions and by and large this is the same here. The result is that the game has been redesigned quite extensively for this port. Video capture is disabled in the game, highlighting the choices made to use all the RAM possible. 4GB LPDDR5 RAM is all that's available, and the game likely gets around 3.5GB, which is half that of the Xbox One, at most. The single biggest challenge for this port is the tiny memory pool of the Switch. The average across 10+ minutes of tested sections is still 28.3fps with a 95% frame time of 50ms, which is not great but certainly far from the worst game on Switch, and the amount being pushed here is impressive considering the hardware. It’s worth noting that even the current-gen consoles and PC sometimes suffer from these same stutters and pauses, but the Switch is affected the most here, especially in dense areas, like among trees, in the castle, and when animating characters, with frame rates often below 30fps. Textures, objects, and walls pop in as you cut classes and explore the halls, causing stuttering and lurching. ![]() Hogwarts Castle itself is the biggest culprit of these. The biggest issues though come from general instantiation (creation) of objects and removal of others, which can cause huge 100-200ms spikes, resulting in lurching and pausing as frame rates drop into the low teens. That’s not great, and the sluggishness can be felt without a frame analysis. But during these moments it is often closer to the 50ms frame time, meaning we see frame rate around 24-25 fps for prolonged periods. The result is a game that can run pretty well at 30fps in non-stressful areas outside of battles and loading sectors. These mostly seem to be memory and/or CPU-bound sections of data streaming, keeping the world fed with data and cleaning up behind as it goes. On Switch, we have similar levels of performance to the Xbox One version, though some areas are worse. This already reduces the pressure on this Switch port, but further reductions are required in order to mitigate the drastic reduction in CPU and GPU power, as well as lower memory size and bandwidth. To be clear, this is a last generation game through-and-through, as we discussed in our original performance review. This is a step down from the Xbox One version, which has motion blur, film grain and even an unlocked frame-rate toggle. ![]() Hogwarts Legacy on Switch offers only a single performance mode, with few options to choose from. ![]() It manages to be better than feared, yet in places still rough as expected. Hogwarts Legacy is not a miracle port, despite squeezing onto the Switch (quite literally, with a 7.4GB install size compared to 22.1GB on the Xbox One version). With Hogwarts Legacy, now launching on the Nintendo’s Switch, it could be another time to wheel out those tropes… but not quite. The words impossible port, punching above its weight, and even black magic are thrown around often when it comes to games on diminutive hardware. ![]()
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