shmups.system11.org

I'm using the brook zeroPI pcb in my cab, video over HDMI>VGA.
I can tell you that DanmakuUnlimited3 wasn't terrible but it was a little laggy.
CC:WE I'm certain is considerably better, game feels responsive as hell to me.

I believe Danmaku Unlimited 3 is 4 frames on Switch so it's the same as most of the M2 stuff.

Execution and reaction heavy fighting games like Guilty Gear Xrd on PS4 also have 4 frames of lag, but it doesn't seem to hold high level players back or become such a focal point for the community. Granted there have been other fighting games in recent years that had real problems with input lag. 6 to 8 frames isn't so hot.

You could argue that in a game like GG split second reactions when it comes to blocking high/low and timing combo button presses make response time even more critical. In a shmup if you're having close shaves where a few milliseconds cost you a life then you probably really just need to work on your routing.

Shmup players over the last few years have become like the input lag police. The strategy forum seems to be more or less on life support, but people will rehash the same conversation about x or y Switch game having one extra frame of lag every couple of weeks.

Speaking of Guilty Gear, the Switch AC+R port has less than 4 frames of lag. However, the port of the original doesn't fare as well.

Interesting. I wonder what the original was like on PSX. I remember standing in a Walmart back in the day when it was released an aaaalmost pulling the trigger on picking it up. Of course who knew what the series would go on to become over the years looking at the original.

Another thing that I think gets lost in the whole debate about input lag is that most ports these days use emulation instead of source code ported over so this will add some lag barring some type of advanced solution. The Megaman Zero collection on Switch is a real port and proves that this approach can lead to an extremely responsive game on the system. Megaman 11 on Switch is actually faster than PS4.

So when M2 gets emulation running on Switch and PS4 at 3 to 4 frames this is totally acceptable if not somewhat amazing. If it was easy everyone would be doing it. And ACA stuff running at 5 or so is no big surprise. If you're going to look back at Saturn or 360 ports that were running source code and not emulated ROMs it's really not a fair comparison.

I've taken more of a glass half full approach this generation. When I fired up TFIV for the first time on Switch I was blown away that it was that responsive.

I try to appreciate the hard work of devs that are bringing us all these great games to console knowing that they are as optimized as they can reasonably be and just avoid the ones that aren't so great. Of course we can all just sit back in our armchair and expect devs to come up with magical solutions to difficult technical problems on limited hardware while we wait for them to drop the perfect product in our lap. All at a 7.99 price point.

I think it's simply called "D-Pad Controller (L)". Manufactured by Hori, it's an officially Nintendo-branded product, available in Mario-, Zelda- or Pokémon-themed versions. While it doesn't work when detached from the console and it supports neither rumble nor motion controls, the d-pad on this thing is good, and that's all I have bought it for.

A better option than above is the Split Pad Pro, also by Hori. It's the best possible way to play the system in portable mode.

https://www.play-asia.com/search/Split+Pad+Pro+for+Nintendo+Switch

So true!

Has anyone compared the input lag on the original switch (in handheld mode) versus the lite model?

I'm honestly not sure what my personal "notice point" is; I'm a special case where my neurology is exceptionally broken and my ability to do things changes wildly day to day. I know that the me of 20 years ago would have been a lot more sensitive to it but I can still definitely see it-- Mega Man 9 on the Wii on a HDTV was my first experience there.

I can play Ultra Street Fighter 2 on the Switch just fine, and that's one of the game series I'd notice lag most in along with shmups. I can feel it to a fair extent in the Capcom Arcade Stadium package, but the Arcade Archives and M2 packs all seem acceptable. I've been seriously hesitant on picking up the Psyiko titles for the latency.

And on that note, the Fighting Game Community is the other latency police. Those guys are easily as hardcore as the shmup community.

It's a weird thing, really. For many years, I didn't quite grasp how bad it was sometimes, where I'd be playing a shmup or action game for the first time on a laggy HDTV and not realizing how bad it was, and only doing moderately well at the game. When I'd go and play the game later at some point on a CRT or lag-free monitor setup, it was like night and day, and I'd be conquering games left and right and getting 1CCs or getting further into 1CC runs than I ever had before.

It still happens today, even. I've been going through a lot of games from the 360/PS3 and even the earlier shmups from the PS4/XB1 era after recently getting a virtually lag-free gaming monitor, and I'm just steamrolling a lot of games that used to kick my ass on a laggy HDTV.


I'd say for the most part, they're even worse when it comes to the "professional" players, since fighting games have a general sense of uber-competitiveness wrapped up into the package as well, not just the whole memorizing patterns and playing against programmed AI like shmups does. So, frustration and bitchy levels run high when "poor performance" happens and will often be chalked up to the monitor/platform setup the game is being played on.


Don't think this has been done yet. Few enough people in this community even have the technology or the means/knowledge to do these kinds of tests, and even fewer of them own Switch Lite models.

It may be slightly less laggy, due to the "always-connected" nature of the control scheme there, but also kinda sucks that the screen is smaller and not being able to detach controllers means no comfortable TATE mode is possible, so vert games tend to have to be played on about a 3-inch screen. The other major issue here, which ShmupJunkie and ElectricUnderground have both pretty positively identified, is that the lag issues often come down to the programming and the developers themselves in porting it to the Switch, not necessarily the hardware.

The nature of the base Switch model's "always wireless" controller setup definitely doesn't help, but they've pinned down that most of the releases that are handled with care by M2 or another dev who knows what the hell they're doing tend to have pretty acceptable base levels of input lag, where others are just painfully bad (Psikyo ones especially)

I believe (and may well be wrong) that the Lite is basically just two Joy-cons shoved into a fixed casing. I say this because the Lite models (at least early ones) still suffered from drift, just like the detached versions used on the base model. Given that, I would suspect it's identical.

Very interesting. I definitely noticed a night/day shift when I stopped using wireless controllers to play stuff like Super Mario Bros and went to USB wired where my muscle memory knows exactly how it should feel.

On a related note--what are some decent HDTVs or TV brands for shmups specifically? Anyone? I don't really have room for a separate gaming monitor unfortunately but I have been eyeing a new TV lately.

USB/wired controllers will always help the experience quite a bit as a general rule, but the monitor plays a pretty significant role as well.

Lets say that most HDTVs, especially ones over 32" are not going to be very good for shmups. There are a few exceptions, but they are truly rare exceptions. You're better off going for a gaming monitor meant for PCs, which usually have a few HDMI ports on them. I'm currently using a ViewSonic one, while some friends I know also have ones from ASUS or MSI, and I also have a very good Samsung one from several years ago.

The good thing is, with PC monitors that are actually marketed as PC monitors, there's pretty good documentation or inclusion of what kind of Response Time the monitor has, which makes a world of difference. Finding accurate documentation of these kinds of numbers with regular HDTVs is like finding a needle in a haystack, unfortunately.

With my main ViewSonic monitor, there's a mode where the response time is below 1ms, and it's absolutely fantastic. Especially if you go to a site like NewEgg.com, you can choose in the search options that you only want to see monitors that support these super low response times as well as size and several other features. Here's a link for a search with those parameters selected, and you can narrow down the results past that depending what you're looking for using the check boxes for filters on the left side: https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100898493 ... 0601341760

I think it's a miracle we are getting any sort of decent shmups on Switch to be honest. Nintendo consoles tend to be vehicles for their own output and are designed as such. The absence of a dpad for the first time is evidence of that. They are all about Mario Kart, Zelda, Mario 2/3D, Animal Crossing et al which all make a mountain of money for them.

It's only attracting shmups ports because it has done so well. So while I don't play lot of shmups on it (I have the Darius Arcade Collection), I like the fact that you can. And if it makes casuals more likely to try one out then great. But I don't look to it for shmups - I have my older consoles+CRT , emulation and a Steam account for that.

My honest answer is that the old saying of "ignorance is bliss" applies with me. I'm 46 and been playing games since I was 5 or so. Never been a tech savvy guy that knows all the fine details of how many frames per second or exact graphic output or 4 milaseconds of lag. Most of the time I can't even tell because I'm too busy playing and smiling ear to ear. Don't mean to sound dorky but it's true. Unless a game has massive slowdown, I won't even know. Also, I play my Switch shmups on a stick. I could not play on the joy cons and don't really play shmups in hand held.

That's my expectation as well. I was wondering/hoping that since the Joy-cons aren't detachable, the wiring might be different and thereby improved.

It may help a bit, depending how they handled it, but the controller is only about 1/2 of the problem, since the programming of the game on the hardware. Also, since the Lite can't output to a TV, you're stuck playing in handheld, so TATE mode would be really uncomfortable, and since the screen is smaller, if TATE isn't available, some vert games are literally being played on the equivalent of about a 4 inch screen. If you do TATE, you have to pretzel your hands around to play properly, OR play with the analog stick. And in the famous words of a forum member here, playing shmups with an analog stick is like trying to fill out the New York Times crossword puzzle with a can of spray paint.

I was interested in the switch controllers lantency/lag, to have an arcade stick with fastest response to use it also with the Mister Fpga

What I find is that Switch and Xbox One has a 8ms polling rate in usb controllers protocol and x360 and PS4 4ms.

https://www.consoletuner.com/wiki/index ... age_guides

From what I've read, the newer Switch Pro Controller builds have improved upon the d-pad to some degree. There's a bit of a hack for the original model, which I have, but haven't taken the time to do yet. Basically, open it up and put a thin piece of tape on the inside half of each contact point, minimizing the chance for bad directional inputs. I generally don't use the Pro pad for 2D games, so I haven't made it a priority. I usually use one of my 8bitdo pads, instead.

After playing a bunch of hours with the pro controller d pad I found I was able to eliminate the unwanted inputs by adjusting how I play. Most of the time it happens when changing directions like from left to right. As you slide your thumb across and put pressure towards the center of the pad that's where you're likely to get an accidental diagonal. Try thinking of the cardinal directions almost like separate buttons and instead of mashing down on the pad use less pressure and let the pad return to neutral for a split second between changing directions.

Ultimately I think this might be a slightly better way to play on any pad, using a lighter touch and tapping the inputs rather than sort of smearing your thumb around on the d pad. So yeah I'd rather just pay on a different pad, but if that's what you've got it's totally playable with practice.

I recently got a new Pro controller (Monster Hunter Rise version) and the d-pad is still trash with no center pivot. If I'm a mood to not break out my HRAP V, I just use the Retro-Bit Saturn pad.

Yeah making a center pivot that makes it so you can't depress the d pad in the middle would've been the best thing to improve that d pad. There are much better options, but playing with a lighter touch and not pressing the d pad down in the center does mitigate the problem.

It's sort of like how bc of the design of the pivot on an LS 32 you can push the stick even farther after hitting the gate and sort of pop the pivot out of place. It feels not so great and could be considered a design flaw, but if you're not mashing on the stick like a gorilla churning butter the problem goes away completely.

Fair point, but there are so many cheaper/better options. The Retro-Bit Megadrive and Saturn pads are in the $20 to $25 range, feel great, and have been shown to have very low latency. I don't see the point in trying to adopt specific muscle memory to make a bad d-pad viable.

I'm not sure about the newer ones being improved. The second Pro Controller I bought has a worse d-pad and, telling from the box, is newer. I found the Hori Fighting Commander and the 8-bitdo M30 to be among the better pads for the system. The 8bitdo 2.4G pad is also great to use wired with a USB cable on MiSTer.

The only thing I dont like about the retrobit pads, and it's not their fault, are that the buttons are in the wrong place so you have to remap for games. I'm getting an SN30 Pro 2 and hopefully that will solve all my problems. I share the same frustrations with the Pro controller as you guys.