Optimized?

[VanillaDingus]

Ok this gonna sound weird but is this collection really well optimized? I’m looking at the system requirements and honestly can’t for the life of me figure out why it needs 8 gigs of ram and a gtx 960(which is exactly what I have) for a game with old ass textures etc etc like this. All they improved was resolution right? I’m most likely wrong about that but just curious anyway.

[DarkJuda On Deck]

Yes and no.
It's semi emulated and if you go below 60fps the game will slow down. Also, since some sequences like Jester bosses in DMC3 ask much more than the rest of the game, they are not taking any chances with the requirements.
But with a 970 I was able to play the three games at 4K without any issues, so I think your 960 will do fine.

[Lethal Placebo]

Originally posted by DarkJuda:

It's semi emulated

I'm not doubting you or anything, but I've seen that said a lot on these forums and I was wondering if you have a source? Not trying to be a jerk, legit curious if people know for sure that the game is partially emulated.

[VanillaDingus]

Thanks for the reply. I can’t really run most games these days and since I was born in 2004 and only really started getting into games around 2015 it’s safe to say I missed out on quite a lot. So I use the opportunity to catch up on older games that are easy to run or have aged well , like pretty much every 90s FPS lol. But either way getting to the point. The devil may cry series is a series I wanted to get into for so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ long and is one of the series I wanted to get into the most as well and never really got the chance too so with the recent release of devil may cry 5 (which I can’t run rip lol) I said why not. Ok that’s my life story thanks for comin to my ted talk.

[Space Coward]

Originally posted by Lethal Placebo:

Originally posted by DarkJuda:

It's semi emulated

I'm not doubting you or anything, but I've seen that said a lot on these forums and I was wondering if you have a source? Not trying to be a jerk, legit curious if people know for sure that the game is partially emulated.

Emulated wouldn't necessarily be the right word, but the games all operate on frame-by-frame logic-- no deltaTime involved.

In other words, it doesn't understand the difference between having 60 frames per second and 30 frames per second. The game speed will be the same interval per frame no matter what-- higher framerates increase the speed, lower ones decrease it. The specs are written for hardware that can consistently hold 60 FPS at 1080p.

If it's any consolation, I played the game on a mid-range PC from around 2015. I tweaked the settings to run at 1440p and don't remember a single framedrop.

On the bright side, if you do need to wait a bit, you can. Unlike before, where the DMC HD Collection was stuck on 6th-to-7th gen consoles and kind of lost to time, we actually have a modern version of the games to play. You can now actually find them digitally. For some classics, like Star Wars Battlefront, we've had to wait 15 years for them to resurface.

That's not even mentioning the countless games that are stuck on physical discs with no digital release in sight.

[Lethal Placebo]

Originally posted by Dingus:

Thanks for the reply. I can’t really run most games these days and since I was born in 2004 and only really started getting into games around 2015 it’s safe to say I missed out on quite a lot. So I use the opportunity to catch up on older games that are easy to run or have aged well , like pretty much every 90s FPS lol. But either way getting to the point. The devil may cry series is a series I wanted to get into for so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ long and is one of the series I wanted to get into the most as well and never really got the chance too so with the recent release of devil may cry 5 (which I can’t run rip lol) I said why not. Ok that’s my life story thanks for comin to my ted talk.

lol I was born almost a decade before you and still never got into the DMC series until the past 8 months. It's never too late! Have fun with the collection.

[Lethal Placebo]

Originally posted by Comradicale:

Emulated wouldn't necessarily be the right word, but the games all operate on frame-by-frame logic-- no deltaTime involved.

In other words, it doesn't understand the difference between having 60 frames per second and 30 frames per second. The game speed will be the same interval per frame no matter what-- higher framerates increase the speed, lower ones decrease it. The specs are written for hardware that can consistently hold 60 FPS at 1080p.

If it's any consolation, I played the game on a mid-range PC from around 2015. I tweaked the settings to run at 1440p and don't remember a single framedrop.

On the bright side, if you do need to wait a bit, you can. Unlike before, where the DMC HD Collection was stuck on 6th-to-7th gen consoles and kind of lost to time, we actually have a modern version of the games to play. You can now actually find them digitally. For some classics, like Star Wars Battlefront, we've had to wait 15 years for them to resurface.

That's not even mentioning the countless games that are stuck on physical discs with no digital release in sight.

Thank you for clarifying, that's way, way different from emulation. Yeah, a lot of games during the PS2 era were programmed like that to make it easier for the devs. It's the reason why ports like Okami still run at 30FPS, all the logic was hardcoded at 30 and it would've been too difficult to rewrite it all (well, depends on the game and willingness of the publisher/developer, I guess).

In any case, that's a lot easier on an any PC system than emulation, I'd say. Thanks again!

[DarkJuda On Deck]

Originally posted by Dingus:

with the recent release of devil may cry 5 (which I can’t run rip lol) I said why not.

Hem.... Why? DMC 5 runs alright with a 960. What kind of CPU do you have?

[DarkJuda On Deck]

Originally posted by Lethal Placebo:

Originally posted by DarkJuda:

It's semi emulated

I'm not doubting you or anything, but I've seen that said a lot on these forums and I was wondering if you have a source? Not trying to be a jerk, legit curious if people know for sure that the game is partially emulated.

If by sources you mean data sheets or a dev statetement then I don't think you would ever get something like that.
Just simple deductions.

Originally posted by Lethal Placebo:

In any case, that's a lot easier on an any PC system than emulation,

Whell, that's the issue, it's not. It asks about the same if not more power than the emulated version on PCSX2.
Also, even if the 2007 sourcenext's port was atrocious, not only it could run at 120fps without getting double speed, but it didn't ask that much at all (even more considering that most of its perfomances issues are now easily fixable). Actually, if you compare with actuall PS2 ports on pc like Max Payne, GTA III or Splinter Cell, none ask as nearly much as DMC HD Collection to run, even at 1080p 60fps.

But here, you need what, a 760 GTX get a solid 60fps at 1080p and without to much issues. It's not a matter of compatibility.

My guess is that the ones that made this HD Collection port on PC did what they could, but Capcom, knowing that it wouldn't sell a lot, asked them to simply port the 2012 version of the HD Collection that came out on PS3 and this one was already an emulation.
Source? What for? They went from a PS2 to a console that's easily height times stronger in every way (it's difficult to be precise here considering that flops don't mean everything but the power gap is still huge) and yet they barely manage to get a PS2 game display at 720p insted of 480p?
Most PS3 games already ran at a native 720p (including DMC4), so how is it possible that a PS2 game just barely matches that? Emulation.

Considering they didn't plan to sell millions, emulation is at the same time the cheapest and easiest way to port the games on PS3. Even more if we take into consideration two things:

-Some DMC1 effects were heavily dependant on the PS2's emotion engine processing unit, making some effects really hard to port on another hardware (same issue than Silent Hill 2).
-They didn't save a final build of DMC1 in 2001 and they had to put those pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, making an emulation much more reliable.

[Lethal Placebo]

Originally posted by DarkJuda:

Originally posted by Lethal Placebo:

I'm not doubting you or anything, but I've seen that said a lot on these forums and I was wondering if you have a source? Not trying to be a jerk, legit curious if people know for sure that the game is partially emulated.

If by sources you mean data sheets or a dev statetement then I don't think you would ever get something like that.
Just simple deductions.

Originally posted by Lethal Placebo:

In any case, that's a lot easier on an any PC system than emulation,

Whell, that's the issue, it's not. It asks about the same if not more power than the emulated version on PCSX2.
Also, even if the 2007 sourcenext's port was atrocious, not only it could run at 120fps without getting double speed, but it didn't ask that much at all (even more considering that most of its perfomances issues are now easily fixable). Actually, if you compare with actuall PS2 ports on pc like Max Payne, GTA III or Splinter Cell, none ask as nearly much as DMC HD Collection to run, even at 1080p 60fps.

But here, you need what, a 760 GTX get a solid 60fps at 1080p and without to much issues. It's not a matter of compatibility.

My guess is that the ones that made this HD Collection port on PC did what they could, but Capcom, knowing that it wouldn't sell a lot, asked them to simply port the 2012 version of the HD Collection that came out on PS3 and this one was already an emulation.
Source? What for? They went from a PS2 to a console that's easily height times stronger in every way (it's difficult to be precise here considering that flops don't mean everything but the power gap is still huge) and yet they barely manage to get a PS2 game display at 720p insted of 480p?
Most PS3 games already ran at a native 720p (including DMC4), so how is it possible that a PS2 game just barely matches that? Emulation.

Considering they didn't plan to sell millions, emulation is at the same time the cheapest and easiest way to port the games on PS3. Even more if we take into consideration two things:

-Some DMC1 effects were heavily dependant on the PS2's emotion engine processing unit, making some effects really hard to port on another hardware (same issue than Silent Hill 2).
-They didn't save a final build of DMC1 in 2001 and they had to put those pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, making an emulation much more reliable.

I guess all that is pretty true. I just wanted a source so that maybe we'd know for sure. The 2007 DMC3 port may not ask much, but it also just doesn't run for some people, even with all of the fan patches.

Porting games from PS2 to PS3 isn't as easy as it should have been though. That's why lots of early PS3/360 era games ran better on 360, it was easier to code for. In fact, the PS3 version of DMC HD Collection is actually the most broken, with missing enemy tells in 1 and a broken attack in Gunslinger style in 3.

Stuff like Silent Hill HD was rebuilt using old code for PS3, and that poor performance was the result of shoddy code, not emulation.

It doesn't quite make sense in the case of DMC1. If parts of that game were emulated, the effects wouldn't be as broken as they are now. Which is not even to say they're terrible now, but they're definitely not the same as they were on PS2.

[DarkJuda On Deck]

Originally posted by Lethal Placebo:

I guess all that is pretty true. I just wanted a source so that maybe we'd know for sure. The 2007 DMC3 port may not ask much, but it also just doesn't run for some people, even with all of the fan patches.

My point is just that even if the 2007 game has loads of issues, it still asks way less than the DMC HD Collection one performance wise at its core, because it's an actual port and not an emulation.
But these issues are the reason most people prefer play the HD version know, even if it asks much more than what it's supposed to.

Porting games from PS2 to PS3 isn't as easy as it should have been though. That's why lots of early PS3/360 era games ran better on 360, it was easier to code for. In fact, the PS3 version of DMC HD Collection is actually the most broken, with missing enemy tells in 1 and a broken attack in Gunslinger style in 3.

Indeed, and I haven't said otherwise.

Stuff like Silent Hill HD was rebuilt using old code for PS3, and that poor performance was the result of shoddy code, not emulation.

Which was not my point at all. All I was trying to say is that some effects (like fog in Silent Hill 2) heavily depended on the emotion engine and they are not easlily portable, which is why emulation is often easier. I wasn't talking about Sillent Hill HD's performance specifically. I don't even know if it's emulated.

It doesn't quite make sense in the case of DMC1. If parts of that game were emulated, the effects wouldn't be as broken as they are now. Which is not even to say they're terrible now, but they're definitely not the same as they were on PS2.

When I said "semi emulated" it doesn't mean some parts of the game are emulated and some aren't. It's more like the DMC HD Collection emulates the games internaly, but the port of the HD Collection itself isn't emulated.

And if we search a little bit, we notice that some effects like the motion blur during the "dark soul with light" scene are present on the PS3 version, but not on the 360 version, and we may guess why.
To emulate those effects, which are dependant of the emotion engine of the PS2, they had to use code from the PS3's own method to emulate PS2 games (because aside from the very first PS3 version, none had the actual emotion engine PU to render PS2 games effects). This way to do things was acceptable in that time, because they only used it on the PS3 version and not on the X360 version.
The thing is that this method is still very complicated and developping two different emulations methods for two different plateforms was totally not worth it considering it was just a mere compilation of games.
And they decided to take the 360 version as a starting point to develop the 2018 HD version, making the ports cheap and fast to produce, which is understandable, considering the very low sales it got.
I know, this is just a guess, but think of it another way: why would the 360 version lose those very important effects while the PS3 one doesn't? If they managed to reproduce and port those effects correctly at that point, not only there would be no reason the X360 wouldn't have them, but there would be no reason we wouldn't have them today.

So my guess is that they didn't want to invest a lot of money for the HD Collection on 2012, making emulation the cheapest and the fastest way to go. Still, some effects needed the emotion engine or its code to be properly emulated, both of which are owned by Sony. Either they manage to find a cheap workaround or they directly use Sony code/emulation method. But using the second option on the X360 is pretty much illegal. So they did both.
The 360 version may be lacking some effects, but it doesn't depend on anything Capcom don't own to run, and it had less issues, like you said, which is why they used this version as a starting point to develop the 2018 version which goal was still to be cheap and fast to produce, which is why it also added his own share of issues and incompatibilities.

But anyway, the DMC HD Collection still asks wayyy too much power to run than any game from the PS2 era (ported or pc genuine), and the biggest proof of that is that DMC5 itself runs at (most of the time) 60fps 1080p on the PS4. So if they barely managed to make DMC HD Collection run at 1080p 60fps on that same PS4 (which is what, easily 40 times stronger than the PS2?), no doubt there's emulation at some point.

[VanillaDingus]

I looked at the requirements for dmc5 and saw a 1060 and instantly went “oh hell nah” cpu is core i7 2.6ghz

Originally posted by DarkJuda:

Originally posted by Dingus:

with the recent release of devil may cry 5 (which I can’t run rip lol) I said why not.

Hem.... Why? DMC 5 runs alright with a 960. What kind of CPU do you have?

[Lethal Placebo]

Originally posted by DarkJuda:

Originally posted by Lethal Placebo:

I guess all that is pretty true. I just wanted a source so that maybe we'd know for sure. The 2007 DMC3 port may not ask much, but it also just doesn't run for some people, even with all of the fan patches.

My point is just that even if the 2007 game has loads of issues, it still asks way less than the DMC HD Collection one performance wise at its core, because it's an actual port and not an emulation.
But these issues are the reason most people prefer play the HD version know, even if it asks much more than what it's supposed to.

Porting games from PS2 to PS3 isn't as easy as it should have been though. That's why lots of early PS3/360 era games ran better on 360, it was easier to code for. In fact, the PS3 version of DMC HD Collection is actually the most broken, with missing enemy tells in 1 and a broken attack in Gunslinger style in 3.

Indeed, and I haven't said otherwise.

Stuff like Silent Hill HD was rebuilt using old code for PS3, and that poor performance was the result of shoddy code, not emulation.

Which was not my point at all. All I was trying to say is that some effects (like fog in Silent Hill 2) heavily depended on the emotion engine and they are not easlily portable, which is why emulation is often easier. I wasn't talking about Sillent Hill HD's performance specifically. I don't even know if it's emulated.

It doesn't quite make sense in the case of DMC1. If parts of that game were emulated, the effects wouldn't be as broken as they are now. Which is not even to say they're terrible now, but they're definitely not the same as they were on PS2.

When I said "semi emulated" it doesn't mean some parts of the game are emulated and some aren't. It's more like the DMC HD Collection emulates the games internaly, but the port of the HD Collection itself isn't emulated.

And if we search a little bit, we notice that some effects like the motion blur during the "dark soul with light" scene are present on the PS3 version, but not on the 360 version, and we may guess why.
To emulate those effects, which are dependant of the emotion engine of the PS2, they had to use code from the PS3's own method to emulate PS2 games (because aside from the very first PS3 version, none had the actual emotion engine PU to render PS2 games effects). This way to do things was acceptable in that time, because they only used it on the PS3 version and not on the X360 version.
The thing is that this method is still very complicated and developping two different emulations methods for two different plateforms was totally not worth it considering it was just a mere compilation of games.
And they decided to take the 360 version as a starting point to develop the 2018 HD version, making the ports cheap and fast to produce, which is understandable, considering the very low sales it got.
I know, this is just a guess, but think of it another way: why would the 360 version lose those very important effects while the PS3 one doesn't? If they managed to reproduce and port those effects correctly at that point, not only there would be no reason the X360 wouldn't have them, but there would be no reason we wouldn't have them today.

So my guess is that they didn't want to invest a lot of money for the HD Collection on 2012, making emulation the cheapest and the fastest way to go. Still, some effects needed the emotion engine or its code to be properly emulated, both of which are owned by Sony. Either they manage to find a cheap workaround or they directly use Sony code/emulation method. But using the second option on the X360 is pretty much illegal. So they did both.
The 360 version may be lacking some effects, but it doesn't depend on anything Capcom don't own to run, and it had less issues, like you said, which is why they used this version as a starting point to develop the 2018 version which goal was still to be cheap and fast to produce, which is why it also added his own share of issues and incompatibilities.

But anyway, the DMC HD Collection still asks wayyy too much power to run than any game from the PS2 era (ported or pc genuine), and the biggest proof of that is that DMC5 itself runs at (most of the time) 60fps 1080p on the PS4. So if they barely managed to make DMC HD Collection run at 1080p 60fps on that same PS4 (which is what, easily 40 times stronger than the PS2?), no doubt there's emulation at some point.

Yeah, that's all pretty true.

[DarkJuda On Deck]

Originally posted by Dingus:

I looked at the requirements for dmc5 and saw a 1060 and instantly went “oh hell nah” cpu is core i7 2.6ghz

The game has some issues CPU wise on some missions, like mission 13 but to be simple, if you don't have a trash tier cpu, you should be fine most of the time.