The Outer Worlds – Switch Patch Adds Half-Resolution SSAO, Improves CPU Performance

As promised, Obsidian Entertainment’s The Outer Worlds has a new patch live for Nintendo Switch. It improves the visuals by a fairly decent amount, implementing a half-resolution SSAO, clouds in the skybox and so on. There are also a number of changes and fixes that help improve CPU performance and optimization.

For instance, the max instance count for sounds has been limited while their volume threshold has been adjusted. Textures have also been packed to save memory while world buildings have received added details. Some buildings have been re-designed entirely and more vegetation can be seen in the world as well.

A more detailed side-by-side comparison is required but judging by official images circulating a few days ago, there should be a fairly big jump in visual fidelity. The Outer Worlds is also available for Xbox One, PS4 and PC but will also be coming to Steam today. Stay tuned for more details on the Steam version when it goes live.

Features included in this update:

• Implemented a half-resolution SSAO
• Implemented Clouds in Skybox
• Replace SSR with SphereReflectionCapture
• Disabled subsurface profile shading
• Added Depth of Field to Conversation Camera

Changes and Fixes included in this update:

• Limited the max instance count for sounds to improve CPU performance
• Adjusted the volume threshold for sounds to improve CPU performance
• Packed textures to save memory
• Optimized materials for the environment and terrain
• Optimized and added more vegetation to the world
• Added details to the world buildings
• Used normal map textures instead of triangles for objects
• Re-designed some buildings
• Meshes rebuilt for improved visuals
• Lightmap texture streaming rebuilt
• Fixed character AI issues
• Improved the streaming performance to fix the building dark issues players experienced and some texture blur issues