MGS1 Input Lag Test: MC vs DuckStation

[Lethal Placebo]

I've heard a lot of people complaining that the Master Collection emulation of MGS1 has input lag, so I decided to test it for myself in this video. Surprisingly, while the Master Collection does seem to have input lag in the menu, it loads cutscenes faster and seems to keep up during gameplay. Do let me know what you think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4jg_V3Ztwo

[staticsnake]

I played the entire game numerous times streaming it across my house to a physical Steam Link box and never felt like there was any lag.

[Koivusilta]

Yeah, I did a similar test myself a while ago, and I can't really see any meaningful difference between MC and DuckStation in terms of input lag. MGS1 is just a bit sluggish game to control in general.

For the loading times, you could increase the disc read speed on DuckStation, and it will definitely perform faster than the MC for both cutscenes and codec calls, though the difference is still pretty neglible.

[Lethal Placebo]

Originally posted by staticsnake:

I played the entire game numerous times streaming it across my house to a physical Steam Link box and never felt like there was any lag.

Originally posted by Koivusilta:

Yeah, I did a similar test myself a while ago, and I can't really see any meaningful difference between MC and DuckStation in terms of input lag. MGS1 is just a bit sluggish game to control in general.

For the loading times, you could increase the disc read speed on DuckStation, and it will definitely perform faster than the MC for both cutscenes and codec calls, though the difference is still pretty neglible.

I'm glad you both came to the same conclusion I did. In my initial testing with the Master Collection I really couldn't see what input lag people were talking about and I'm pretty sensitive to stuff like input lag. Glad I'm not crazy!

Good to know about disc read speed for DuckStation, thanks. I purposefully left stuff like that default for this video because I figured it would mimic the speed an actual PlayStation would read discs, but I could be wrong on that.

[TideGear]

Are people playing the European PAL version and thinking the 50 FPS is input lag? Is that what the confusion is?

[Deathraven13]

Originally posted by TideGear:

Are people playing the European PAL version and thinking the 50 FPS is input lag? Is that what the confusion is?

Maybe, I mean some people think this is a remastered collection because they read "master" in it lol.

[Lethal Placebo]

Originally posted by TideGear:

Are people playing the European PAL version and thinking the 50 FPS is input lag? Is that what the confusion is?

For people in the EU this may legitimately be the case because the Master Collection defaults to the PAL version if you're in that region. You have to download the American pack to play the NTSC version.

[Persona Au Gratin]

Uh, no, I definitely had an astoundingly bad experience with MGS1 on the Master Collection's initial release just playing the NTSC version. It was noticeably delayed, but running an improvement patch helped. From what I can understand though, mileage always varies. I went to the heliport where the first Chaff Grenades are and it was like pulling teeth trying to orient myself.

At that, the way I normally fight Ocelot was just bizarre because the timing was off. You can shoot him through the gaps the pillars but all I can say is that before applying some improvement patch on Nexus Mods, the way I had to time running after Ocelot was just a feeling of being completely out of sync or rhythm.

Just gonna say, the conclusion of "It never existed", I beg to differ. I have a really burning impulse to just incredulously hurl insults, but I'm having to remind myself that mileage always varies on PC.

For me, that feeling was noticeable, at least on NTSC. Saw that someone did some kind of patch, tried it again, had a really good time.

[Lethal Placebo]

Originally posted by Persona Au Gratin:

Uh, no, I definitely had an astoundingly bad experience with MGS1 on the Master Collection's initial release just playing the NTSC version. It was noticeably delayed, but running an improvement patch helped. From what I can understand though, mileage always varies. I went to the heliport where the first Chaff Grenades are and it was like pulling teeth trying to orient myself.

At that, the way I normally fight Ocelot was just bizarre because the timing was off. You can shoot him through the gaps the pillars but all I can say is that before applying some improvement patch on Nexus Mods, the way I had to time running after Ocelot was just a feeling of being completely out of sync or rhythm.

Just gonna say, the conclusion of "It never existed", I beg to differ. I have a really burning impulse to just incredulously hurl insults, but I'm having to remind myself that mileage always varies on PC.

For me, that feeling was noticeable, at least on NTSC. Saw that someone did some kind of patch, tried it again, had a really good time.

There's also the part where this is emulated and not only can it vary by hardware, but software. Sometimes people have overlays like Discord, Nvidia Shadowplay. etc that really don't play nice with whatever game they're playing, and it can range from the game itself not booting at all, to showing only a black screen, to input lag.

But like you said, stuff like this can vary from PC to PC and based on this test I did against DuckStation, one of the best, if not THE best PS1 emulator out there, there really isn't any input lag in this version of MGS1.

[Deathraven13]

Originally posted by Lethal Placebo:

There's also the part where this is emulated and not only can it vary by hardware, but software. Sometimes people have overlays like Discord, Nvidia Shadowplay. etc that really don't play nice with whatever game they're playing, and it can range from the game itself not booting at all, to showing only a black screen, to input lag.

But like you said, stuff like this can vary from PC to PC and based on this test I did against DuckStation, one of the best, if not THE best PS1 emulator out there, there really isn't any input lag in this version of MGS1.

Indeed, if this version had input lag then everyone would have input lag, so it's on their part that something is wrong.

A common issue on PC since we all have different OS, hardware and such.

[curtisghall]

what about the GOG version? i'm thinking of getting that instead of this

[Blews]

Anecdotally, I have way worse input delay in fullscreen than I do in windowed.
This is the only game I own that does that.

[Crusta]

Originally posted by curtisghall:

what about the GOG version? i'm thinking of getting that instead of this

less input delay.

[Deathraven13]

Originally posted by Tatacaw:

less input delay.

Less content too and less stable too.

[Lethal Placebo]

Originally posted by curtisghall:

what about the GOG version? i'm thinking of getting that instead of this

Originally posted by Deathraven13:

Originally posted by Tatacaw:

less input delay.

Less content too and less stable too.

So I've actually played the GOG version all the way through, here's what you should know:

-there's no input delay, but there's no input delay here either as I showed
-the frame rate is rock solid, but also locked at 30 FPS, unlocking it causes issues
-many visual and post processing effects are missing
-all of the music and sound effects are lower quality than the PS1 version
-many areas have wrong music, and certain music transitions are completely missing and can't be patched in because of the way the audio engine was changed from PS1
-MGSI Launcher is a fan patch to correct the music, improve gamepad support with analog control, allow for proper widescreen, custom resolutions, and windowed modes, but even with this the music is still lower quality because of aforementioned limitations
-Psycho Mantis has had some features cut
-Despite being labeled the "Integral" version of the game, it doesn't actually have the content from the Japanese Integral version of the game

Overall I would not recommend the GOG version for someone who is trying to experience the game for the first time. I'd still recommend the Master Collection version with nuggslet's MGSM2Fix or emulating on DuckStation.

[Deathraven13]

Originally posted by staticsnake:

I played the entire game numerous times streaming it across my house to a physical Steam Link box and never felt like there was any lag.

Basicaly people lied to make the collection look bad, or they are too used to their pirated copies running a bit faster.