MGS 3D Issues Remains Unfixed In The Final Build

[ForteGospel]

What really matters in games is the harmony of all their elements. Sometimes people use retro graphics and retro music in their games, but that's stylization and a specific case, not the general rule. I know this is your opinion, however embrace the opinions of others aswell rather then dismissing them as Guild has alot of good points.

all i wanted to say is that graphics cannot be a selling point in any extent what so ever, and i think you got my message

also i was about to edit my post but ill just write this here

IMO (so no one will eat me alive)

music helps the immersion into the game

gameplay makes it fun to continue playing (and not actually frustrating you)

storyline helps you not getting bored of the game and gives you a reason to keep playing

graphics makes the game more beautiful and more authentic, its always good to have them, if they made games like chrono trigger with hi-res sprites and backgrounds no one would ever play the original one.
yet graphics will never be one of the most important selling points of a unique game (not a remake of w/e)


EDIT: @Foxi, i havent played to many indie games to actually name a few, only cave story, super meat boy and castle crashers i think those were the names >.>, but i still know that the good ones are actually popular

 

[DiscostewSM]

While I think gameplay tops everything, the rest like graphics, music, sound, story, etc all share the same spot.

 

[heartgold]

The screen actually does display more in 3D mode. The effective resolution doubles I guess.

The resolution of the screen remains the same, but the screen is cut in two halves that are then interlinked. It doesn't show "more".

Effectively this means that it runs in somewhat-800x240 (400x240, but made of rectangular pixels so hey - it's still crispier XD) in 2D mode and (somewhat-2x400)x240 in 3D mode. Seeing "more" or "less" is just an optical illusion.

Play any game, and turn 3D on. Your field of view will literal expand and you will be able see things that were outside the camera's range before. Maybe that's an optical illusion.

Edit: Foxi, I think you've misunderstood ForteGospel's. 'Good game' dies not necessarily mean 'game that sells well'.

Yeah even if it's an optical illusion, the screen looks wider than you play in plain 2D mode, I was testing it on the demo version, when you slide the 3D slider up, more images appear on both the left and the right side of the screen and not to mention the incredible depth you get too.

 

[Foxi4]

Yeah even if it's an optical illusion, the screen looks wider than you play in plain 2D mode, I was testing it on the demo version, when you slide the 3D slider up, more images appear on both the left and the right side of the screen and not to mention the incredible depth you get too.

It's due to the use of rectangular, wide pixels as I said earlier.

You see the same image, however your field of view narrows in 3D mode. In 2D mode, the whole pixel displays one uniform color, in 3D mode it is divided into two separate partitions, effectively narrowing th FOV and making you feel like you're getting deeper into the displayed image.

It's hard to describe it without drawing it lol.

 

[Deleted User]

I'm fucking disappointed, I hate everything about the 3d version, Controls suck, Camera FOV is bad, frame-rate is bad

 

[heartgold]

Yeah even if it's an optical illusion, the screen looks wider than you play in plain 2D mode, I was testing it on the demo version, when you slide the 3D slider up, more images appear on both the left and the right side of the screen and not to mention the incredible depth you get too.

It's due to the use of rectangular, wide pixels as I said earlier.

You see the same image, however your field of view narrows in 3D mode. In 2D mode, the whole pixel displays one uniform color, in 3D mode it is divided into two separate partitions, effectively narrowing th FOV and making you feel like you're getting deeper into the displayed image.

It's hard to describe it without drawing it lol.

Yep, I wouldn't say feel though, you do see the extra image outside the camera range that isn't visible in 2D mode.

 

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

A remake in substance, but an inferior port in essence. I never saw that coming.

 

[Midna]

Yeah even if it's an optical illusion, the screen looks wider than you play in plain 2D mode, I was testing it on the demo version, when you slide the 3D slider up, more images appear on both the left and the right side of the screen and not to mention the incredible depth you get too.

It's due to the use of rectangular, wide pixels as I said earlier.

You see the same image, however your field of view narrows in 3D mode. In 2D mode, the whole pixel displays one uniform color, in 3D mode it is divided into two separate partitions, effectively narrowing th FOV and making you feel like you're getting deeper into the displayed image.

It's hard to describe it without drawing it lol.

So what you're saying is that the pixels are split in half, effectively doubling the resolution
*runs*

 

[Foxi4]

LOL, oh, Midna, Midna... Okay, this is how it works on a more physical example. Imagine that you have two sheets of transparent plastic, you mark each of them with a marker - one with a horizontal and one with a vertical line. If you stack them neatly, the resulting image will be a cross. Now, if you take one sheet with one hand and the other one in your other hand and keep each sheet over one eye and hit the exact sweetspot of vision, you will see the exact same cross. The sheets didn't change their physical properties - it's just your perception that's a factor here. There is a fixed ammount of pixels on the screen, however those pixels may display the same image in two different ways. The rest is done by the brain. Having one pixel display the same image in 2 directions doesn't equal having 2 pixels, but it's close enough, I suppose... =P PS: Sorry for the lack of formatting in my post, I'm browsing on my psp.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

No, I see people saying that graphics doesn't matter to the point it is > gameplay, you just keep changing it to that.
People still go back to the past system games such as PS2 and ds, so why not?
It not like a devs always use the full power of systems now a days anyway.
Also, I'm pretty sure sometimes they can weaken or/and shorten games
as well.

I'm just saying that every game doesn't have to be high-end graphics to be a good/great game.

Games don't need great graphics but they help. Not to mention games for the PS2 and DS were designed with their system's limits in mind, as are games on the Xbox 360 and PS3. They won't design a major awe-inspiring moment in a game if the graphics can't handle it.

I'll take Red Dead Redemption as an example. I think the graphics are absolutely gorgeous, some of the best I've seen. And they use them well. They realized that the game relies a lot on "ambience". So you may find yourself in the middle of the plains only to find a beautiful sunset on the backdrop of an "endless frontier". Try doing that on a PS2.

Or another open world game like Skyrim. One of the coolest things about Skyrim was its world. Everything is there. There's no pop ins for characters or buildings, no fog so your line of sight is limited to a fuzzy wall of grey, it's all there. One time I was going up the Throat of the World or whatever it's called and I noticed this huge structure below. I checked my map and I realized it was a large crypt I visited earlier in the game. And that it was quite a ways away from where I was standing. And it hit me that, if I wanted to, I could run down that mountain to that crypt again without it magically popping in or stuck with texture pop ins.

Also, you're saying the power of systems "weakens and/or shortens" games? Are you serious? Correct me if I'm wrong but it's the exact opposite. Even the "5 hour Call of Duty games" still have thousands of hours of multiplayer opportunity. Single player games can now have larger worlds with higher graphics and more content with larger storage mediums. Plus with DLC, they can now add on to a game with additional content that wouldn't make the final cut on the actual game (if you're a good dev). Also, good devs use a system to its fullest. If you have a high budget and develop well then you'll be able to create something spectacular. If you don't, it'll be Duke Nukem Forever or something.

Graphics are a big point for me though. Any dev, regardless of budget, should be able to generate good graphics. If it's a lower budget game, then you make stylized graphics like Cave Story for example. If you have high budget then you make the Red Dead Redemptions or Skyrims of gaming. Gameplay, graphics, story, and sound are four parts of a game, and if you're lacking in one then your game is lacking, no matter how you look at it.

 

[stanleyopar2000]

dam...I was showing my friends this demo and bitching about the framerate and they said "meh, the final build will have better framerate. I's probably the old E3 version build demo blah blah"

wait until I tell them this...

there is no excuse for this, RE: Revelations had very little if not ANY FPS lag at all even on 3D.

 

[granville]

I haven't read the entire topic but i will add something in regards to this game-

I don't need great graphics to enjoy a game whatsoever. But i will say without hesitation that i expect a game like this to look and run at least as well as the original, considering that the 3DS is much more powerful than the original system. The fact that Snake Eater 3D is exhibiting framerate issues far worse than the original with graphics only very slightly better than the original (and in some cases, considerably worse) is just telling on how polished the effort was overall.

This game is held so accountable because it's essentially almost the same as the PS2 release. With a new game, the comparisons you can make to other games are more limited and less fair, due to various art style choices (Mario 3D Land for example, called for minimalistic graphics due to the design choices). But here, we've got a PS2 game made to function on the 3DS with little in terms of changes. People are going to compare the visuals and framerate, and there are valid complaints to make. Especially when you consider the 3DS version performs worse than the original, despite it running on more advanced hardware (with little to nothing in terms of visual improvements). People aren't being graphics whores for pointing out the flaws in this game. They're holding Konami accountable for a general lack of polish when they had more than enough time and hardware power to make this game at least run as well as the PS2 version.

 

[Deleted_171835]

I haven't read the entire topic but i will add something in regards to this game-

I don't need great graphics to enjoy a game whatsoever. But i will say without hesitation that i expect a game like this to look and run at least as well as the original, considering that the 3DS is much more powerful than the original system. The fact that Snake Eater 3D is exhibiting framerate issues far worse than the original with graphics only very slightly better than the original (and in some cases, considerably worse) is just telling on how polished the effort was overall.

This game is held so accountable because it's essentially almost the same as the PS2 release. With a new game, the comparisons you can make to other games are more limited and less fair, due to various art style choices (Mario 3D Land for example, called for minimalistic graphics due to the design choices). But here, we've got a PS2 game made to function on the 3DS with little in terms of changes. People are going to compare the visuals and framerate, and there are valid complaints to make. Especially when you consider the 3DS version performs worse than the original, despite it running on more advanced hardware (with little to nothing in terms of visual improvements). People aren't being graphics whores for pointing out the flaws in this game. They're holding Konami accountable for a general lack of polish when they had more than enough time and hardware power to make this game at least run as well as the PS2 version.

Except that the 3DS version looks noticeably better than the PS2 game.

Look at this.

This is from an old build yet it still looks significantly better. The textures aren't muddy anymore and Snake's character model looks great. It should also be noted that the PS2 version also had a lot of framerate issues (primarily in cutscenes). We've only seen a small part of the game so we can't exactly be sure as to whether the game is plagued by framerate drops. And even then, it only appears to happen in cutscenes. It's perfectly playable in the actual game.

As for the IGN videos, they only show cutscenes and have no gameplay footage.

Reviewers that have played through everything (including EDGE which is notorious for their strict reviews) have lauded the game and have said that most of the issues have been fixed. Unless Konami has been moneyhatting everyone, I'm inclined to believe them.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

This is from an old build yet it still looks significantly better. The textures aren't muddy anymore and Snake's character model looks great. It should also be noted that the PS2 version also had a lot of framerate issues (primarily in cutscenes). We've only seen a small part of the game so we can't exactly be sure as to whether the game is plagued by framerate drops. And even then, it only appears to happen in cutscenes. It's perfectly playable in the actual game.

As for the IGN videos, they only show cutscenes and have no gameplay footage.

Reviewers that have played through everything (including EDGE which is notorious for their strict reviews) have lauded the game and have said that most of the issues have been fixed. Unless Konami has been moneyhatting everyone, I'm inclined to believe them.

If you want to look at it in another light, the 3DS version also has much more jaggies. It's a pretty common pay off for portable games. Like I've seen some PSP games that look better than PS2 games but they're still filled with jaggies. And on that note, why is it such a heralding accomplishment for the 3DS version to look slightly better than the PS2 version when we know the system can make games that put PS2 ones to shame? Maybe I'm not the biggest cheerleader for the 3DS but Revelations looks pretty good and better than any PS2 game I've played. You want top notch? Look at the Naked Snake demo. That was exceptional. This is... this.

Back on the jaggies though, it makes some lines a lot more defined (which aren't always good). Look at his shoulder in the images. On the 3DS version it looks like a lot of stiff lines. If I wanted to make an exaggerated opinion, I'd say it looks like the arm on an action figure, connected but still with a noticeable gap. The PS2 version is a lot smoother. Maybe the textures blur together a bit more on the PS2 version but it still makes all those "hard lines" and polygons a lot less noticeable.

When the final build is out, then we'll know. It's the framerate that matters.

 

[Coto]

Hmmm... I tested the demo a day ago, and I have experienced worse framedrops in other games, like Zelda : OOT (N64) on dodongo cave (we're talking about 9-12fps) so it's not that bad anyway. This is the first time I put my hands on a MGS, and I liked it a bit.

Maybe a lot of you guys ask yourself, why X game run better on 3DS and Y doesn't? X games were developed from scratch, or the engine used was adapted/optimized to run under certain environment/arquitecture, while Y game I suspect was compiled using some SDK and the engine developed was focused on different/another/higher-end arquitecture, meaning it still needs some polishing for 3DS.

Nonetheless the game looks quite nice, even without 3D and the controls aren't as bad as I though they would be, except camera movement (why wasn't touchscreen compatible?)

 

[granville]

I would have to say those "improvements" are marginal at best. The face textures are better, but that's about it. Color contrast is what is causing the visuals to seem like they're better overall. And there's an area i'd say it's improved somewhat (though it's less noticeable on the 3DS screen than my laptop's). You're right in it being an older build, but i haven't even spotted many improvements on newer builds. Normal mapping probably being the most notable one, and that's only applied to characters (and not all of them). Just as many people who own the game are saying it's worse than the original as better.

You can see though that the character model in the 3DS version is built with fewer polygons. The shoulder, chin, and neck on Snake are more blocky than the PS2 version because it's a lower polygon model overall. Ingame, grass is much less dense and doesn't appear unless you're within about 5 feet from it (it pops into view because the game apparently can't render as much of the grass). And of course, the game cannot maintain a decent framerate. The PS2 had some minor choppiness as well, but it NEVER dropped nearly as bad as the 3DS version. The game was also pushing the PS2 pretty much to its limits, the weakest system of last generation. The 3DS is a far more powerful system, capable of graphics rivaling even the Wii and Xbox (and surpassing them in terms of shaders). Even with enhanced visuals it should be able to outperform the PS2 version by far. What good are slightly better visuals if the game performs like utter ass? And that's still the real problem, the framerate. The got a lot more out of the system with the Naked Sample, which ran at a buttery smooth framerate.

I assume you also know that the 3DS screen you posted is twice that of the actual game or what the 3DS can render. Doesn't matter though, the core assets are what i'm talking about.

@Coto

Ironically, i'd say MGS3D performs pretty similarly ingame to Ocarina of Time on N64, in terms of framerate. The issue with your comments about games needing to be coded from scratch to get the most out of the system is that Kojima claims that MGS3D is a remake, not a port, and is built from the ground up and optimized for the 3DS-
http://gbatemp.net/topic/314658-kojima-says-mgs3d-is-a-remake-created-from-scratch-for-3ds/

 

[Deleted_171835]

I would have to say those "improvements" are marginal at best. The face textures are better, but that's about it. You're right in it being an older build, but i haven't even spotted many improvements on newer builds. Normal mapping probably being the most notable one, and that's only applied to characters (and not all of them).

You can see though that the character model in the 3DS version is built with fewer polygons. The shoulder, chin, and neck on Snake are more blocky than the PS2 version because it's a lower polygon model. Ingame, grass is much less dense and doesn't appear unless you're within about 5 feet from it (pop in). And of course, the game cannot maintain a decent framerate. The PS2 had some choppiness as well, but it never dropped nearly as bad as the 3DS version. The game was also pushing the PS2 pretty much to its limits, the weakest system of last generation. The 3DS is a far more powerful system, capable of graphics rivaling even the Wii and Xbox (and surpassing them in terms of shaders). Even with enhanced visuals it should be able to outperform the PS2 version by far. What good are slightly better visuals if the game performs like utter ass? And that's still the real problem, the framerate.

I assume you also know that the 3DS screen you posted is twice that of the actual game or what the 3DS can render. Doesn't matter though, the core assets are what i'm talking about.

Yeah, Snake does appear to be made out of less polygons but he still does look significantly better. Even in the demo, I could notice that the environmental textures (such as the trees) looked much better than the blurry mess found in the PS2 version. And given that the demo was probably compressed to ensure a low file-size, the textures should look even better on the final game.

I do agree that the grass pop-in is horrible, though. I don't know why Konami took away the grass geometry from the original and replaced them with those ugly blades. I dunno, maybe that changes in the final build.

Given that the game was not built from the ground-up (regardless of all the crap Kojima said about it being a remake), it's not too surprising that it isn't a really large leap over the PS2 version. They have to deal with porting it over to a system with a different architecture and what not. Even so, I still think the game does look noticeably better than the PS2 version is practically all aspects.

The frame-rate is perfectly fine in actual gameplay, as I said earlier. Cut-scenes appear to run at ~25FPS which is probably all the more noticeable (than in the PS2 ver.) thanks to the lack of motion-blur. In some cut-scenes (forest ones in particular), it's been said that the 3DS version actually runs at a better framerate.

And yeah, I'm aware that the screens are at a higher res.

This is from an old build yet it still looks significantly better. The textures aren't muddy anymore and Snake's character model looks great. It should also be noted that the PS2 version also had a lot of framerate issues (primarily in cutscenes). We've only seen a small part of the game so we can't exactly be sure as to whether the game is plagued by framerate drops. And even then, it only appears to happen in cutscenes. It's perfectly playable in the actual game.

As for the IGN videos, they only show cutscenes and have no gameplay footage.

Reviewers that have played through everything (including EDGE which is notorious for their strict reviews) have lauded the game and have said that most of the issues have been fixed. Unless Konami has been moneyhatting everyone, I'm inclined to believe them.

If you want to look at it in another light, the 3DS version also has much more jaggies. It's a pretty common pay off for portable games. Like I've seen some PSP games that look better than PS2 games but they're still filled with jaggies. And on that note, why is it such a heralding accomplishment for the 3DS version to look slightly better than the PS2 version when we know the system can make games that put PS2 ones to shame? Maybe I'm not the biggest cheerleader for the 3DS but Revelations looks pretty good and better than any PS2 game I've played. You want top notch? Look at the Naked Snake demo. That was exceptional. This is... this.

Back on the jaggies though, it makes some lines a lot more defined (which aren't always good). Look at his shoulder in the images. On the 3DS version it looks like a lot of stiff lines. If I wanted to make an exaggerated opinion, I'd say it looks like the arm on an action figure, connected but still with a noticeable gap. The PS2 version is a lot smoother. Maybe the textures blur together a bit more on the PS2 version but it still makes all those "hard lines" and polygons a lot less noticeable.

When the final build is out, then we'll know. It's the framerate that matters.

I would say that the jaggies on his arm have less to do with aliasing and more to do with a low polygon count. It is an old comparison (June 2011) so this may have already fixed. And I don't really see anyone claiming that it's a "heralding accomplishment" that the 3DS ver. looks better than the PS2 game.

But yeah, the game is out tomorrow. We'll know about the final build, then.

 

[Foxi4]

The textures aren't muddy anymore

It was sort of charming... ;P He looked younger too, which made sense.

Snake's character model looks great.

It looks really jaggedy in my opinion.

Differences are to be expected though - the remake was made from the ground-up and some issues will surely be replaced by others. Truth to be told, I don't think slight graphical imperfections will not be all that aparent on the small screen - unsteady framerate is a good reason to worry though... That said, Peace Walker has framerate issues aswell and it's still enjoyable. If all the aspects of the game will be well-balanced and the experience will be enjoyable, I can overlook tiny issues.

 

[Coto]

@granville:

Then Kojima (and the 3DS MGS Team) didn't do a good job in the demo. How then did Nintendo manage to do a 60FPS Mario Kart 7 3D Mode? At least, SFIV engine was focused to the handheld market and to be frank, on 2D Mode it performs quite well except the background stages

I see they would call them a "remake" because the 3DS and the PS2 arquitecture are completely different, and this game had to be "remade" to fit on the 3DS hardware. But the engine isn't as good as it should be, or the MGS team doesn't have mayor experience with handhelds. They should polish the MGS engine on handhelds. Think about it, once it's done, you could tweak it, add features, etc. Gamefreak has been doing this for ages since the 1st gen Pocket Monster Series.. and it would sell pretty fine.

If the Vita manages to run fine this game, then we can all see it wasn't a hardware limitation, but developer laziness...

Anyway, the game's pretty nice and Nintendo's low hardware specs tradition could bring a lot of trouble to 3ds party developer... once again.

 

[granville]

To be fair, the Vita is notably more powerful than the 3DS. It would be even more pathetic if that handheld couldn't run the game (i dunno if it has any lag, if so then lame). However, the 3DS is by no means at a disadvantage in regards to MGS3. At the very least, the 3DS is far and above the PS2's power. In proper hands, the game could have run at least at a constant 30fps or higher, along with a massive improvement in visuals with nothing having to be cut. There is no excuse for it running the way it is.