17,9GB Predownload for 4/20 Update

[wefwq]

It's already tomorrow in Japan.

Also, I have a stinking suspicion we won't have english translation nor mods after that for a bit.

The precede will be available around noon or roughly 13.5 hours from now.

[Ziel]

But we are getting an engine update this time

Making everything pretty (as in making it extra brighter so you can see even less shit in TDs yayy!) and switching to a new engine are 2 different things, as in changes that would require how the game process stuff are engine, but loading a different texture over an existant mesh is meh, think how skyrim/fallout3-NV can be modded to have different (HD/4k) textures with no engine change just overwriting existant ones, same thing we're getting here.

Wish we could torrent this patch tho

[Shoterxx]

Making everything pretty (as in making it extra brighter so you can see even less shit in TDs yayy!) and switching to a new engine are 2 different things, as in changes that would require how the game process stuff are engine, but loading a different texture over an existant mesh is meh, think how skyrim/fallout3-NV can be modded to have different (HD/4k) textures with no engine change just overwriting existant ones, same thing we're getting here.

Wish we could torrent this patch tho

A: it's updating, not switching to a new engine;
B: it uses shader functions that are not present in the current engine version, therefore it needs an update to have them working;
C: higher resolution textures require more memory, and as it is right now, this engine can't handle much more than what we have so far, so work is required there if they expect the game to run properly.

[wefwq]

A: it's updating, not switching to a new engine;
B: it uses shader functions that are not present in the current engine version, therefore it needs an update to have them working;
C: higher resolution textures require more memory, and as it is right now, this engine can't handle much more than what we have so far, so work is required there if they expect the game to run properly.

all those baseless speculation, source?

[vbetts]

all those baseless speculation, source?

What makes you think it's a new engine?

[wefwq]

What makes you think it's a new engine?

i never said that the game will use new engine.

[Shadowth117]

all those baseless speculation, source?

It's actually not entirely baseless. The trailer shows all of it. New effects and things like nornal maps on terrain... it's not the biggest engine update, but you could call it that. This is just graphical updates though of course.

[Shoterxx]

all those baseless speculation, source?

Myself, my wits, the video, the benchmark, and some other stuff I found while digging around.

The game engine is old. I mean, REALLY old. According to this the game took over 5 years to develop, but according to this the engine's actually even older. Since it started development, it's been 11 years. Since PSO2's release, it's been almost 4 alone, but to be honest, back in the day, it was already old looking. So, no matter what, this game needs quite a buff in appearance to atleast pretend to look good. The solution?

So, 4 years after release, they decide to implement brand new graphics. What's new? Better shadows, Ambient Occlusion, some light effects (Global Illumination?)... Which fit right into the whole NVIDIA Gameworks API, which is meant to make the life of game developers easy by allowing them to do complex effects with ease, and which exists since 2014. And seeing the new logo, after 4 year of not caring, it pretty much confirmed it to me. Even better, because, due to the PS4 and PC sharing the same architecture now, it's pretty easy to apply to both, so it makes sense. It comes with a problem however. They are using code based on the same that had it's first game released in 2008, meaning that it's the Vista's Dx10 era that didn't get all that much attention (things changed with 10.1 a bit). So, odds are, they are sticking with old Dx9 API entirely, which Gameworks does not seem to support properly (the effects require DX11, according to what's stated in each of the effect's pages). While it's possible (but painful) to adapt the code that is missing, it should easier and better practice to just update the engine in order to match what they lack. However, that means older PCs might not work well, therefore being a whole new shader level, even though it's still Dx9.

On that note, may I add that the Z-buffer for NVIDIA's driver AO is actualy working in the benchmark? It's pretty broken in the current game, causing all kinds of bleeding and flickering in cutscenes, or simply not showing properly if your camera gets close to the ground. Fixing that AFAIK could be a pain, because messes with all scene renders, and yet, it's done.

They seem to be sticking with 32 bits for the moment, and not only that, the benchmark is not even Large Address Aware, which means pso2.exe can only store in RAM 2GB at a time. So, if the game is around 33GB already, and they intend to add more stuff and all... Yep, RIP HDDs and SSDs, getting read all the time (not that they don't do that in better games, but atleast it's less noticeable, on heavier games even). Hopefully, it won't be loading/stuttering hell now, if they wimp out on that issue. However, for that big of an update, they must've tried to address that. After that SSD ad, I'm pretty sure they know that this is an issue.

SO, here's my base. And you have my speculation. Am I free to go?
Also feel free to correct me.

[Zyrusticae]

I doubt Nvidia Gameworks was involved with any of the new effects. Their AO in particular is a pretty typical solution and does not in any way resemble HBAO+ (which, btw, can be implemented in DX9 just fine).

But yeah, they haven't changed the engine at all. Still DX9 with a 32-bit executable. All they did was throw in some new shaders (self-shadowing, new material shaders, terrain normal mapping + specular term, tons of new post-processing shaders). I imagine the new normal maps constitute the bulk of this patch (because there are a LOT of environments to cover).

I should note that they don't actually *need* to make the game 64-bit or large address aware, as the GPU driver handles VRAM management independently of the actual game, hence the ability to address far more VRAM than the 2GB limit. However, it would still be nice to have, seeing as how you still hit address limits in near-full lobbies.

At any rate... I'm looking forward to messing around with this. The improved lighting and shadowing is a pretty big step up, and looks good even next to some modern games, though obviously the asset quality is still not great overall. Something's better than nothing, at least.

[D-Inferno]

PSO2's engine looks -worse- than the Hedgehog Engine (the Sonic characters in the Sonic event lobby look low res compared to their Generations counterparts). I also don't think those Wikipedia articles are accurate (doesn't even have a citation for the pso2/hedgehog engine stuff). That said, PSO2's current engine is probably old as ass.