17,9GB Predownload for 4/20 Update

[Raujinn]

Want to point out that PSO2 is not confirmed to be using Hedgehog engine. There are claims that it's a derivative of the PSU engine (which itself is dubious) but there is as far as I know little in the way of evidence to support either claiim.

That said, judging by the capabilities of the Hedgehog engine the prime features it has are its light-mapping and light-field technology; both of which are things that PSO2 lacks. Let's cut them some slack and assume for technical reasons light-mapping would be impossible to incredibly impractical for use with levels built from randomized blocks, it still seems safe to me that if it was the Hedgehog engine the lighting in PSO2 would be significanty better than it is. This does not 100% rule out that it uses Hedgehog engine, mind. For that, we'd need to compare tokens between PSO2's exe and either Unleashed or Sonic Generations or some other Hedgehog Engine game to be sure.

[Shoterxx]

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).

Again, they can, but need to implement stuff that does not exist, and therefore my point (and yeah, HBAO+ is not a good example, but it seems to be HBAO+ IMHO, except exagerated and fully set to performance or something, because the resolution is pretty low [reminds me of my attempts to increase performance with ReShade]. That, and supposedly HBAO+ has way better performance than SSAO or HBAO). GI and shadows however, that's different, even though it's still doable.

It's not Hedgehog engine.

Hedgehog engine or not, the point was in telling how old it is, how bad it needs an upgrade, and that's probably the likeliest (and potentialy worst case) scenario.

[Shoterxx]

That said, judging by the capabilities of the Hedgehog engine the prime features it has are its light-mapping and light-field technology

If that's what I think it is, that's mostly pre-baked renders. What it means is that the shadows are rendered on compile (either models or map textures themselves, like Source engine does it), then are used just like any other texture.

EDIT: Accidental double post.

[Sora3100]

There are videos up on how PSO2 looked before it even launched, which imo is enough proof that it runs on the PSU engine. (there's at least 1 video which shows it even more since it uses a PSU-like UI, albeit I couldn't find it anymore, it's the one with the old city look)

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[Batty]

anyone knows if the patch will be available for download on tweaker or it will have to be pre downloaded with the jap launcher only? ive never touched that launcher before and i would rather prefer not to

[Shadowth117]

There are videos up on how PSO2 looked before it even launched, which imo is enough proof that it runs on the PSU engine. (there's at least 1 video which shows it even more since it uses a PSU-like UI, albeit I couldn't find it anymore, it's the one with the old city look)

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The basic resources in this are actually still in the game by the way. Not all of them, but the textures for that city are sn010 prefixed or something. Interestingly, they lack features later texture packs have like RGB based specular with a standard grayscale specular instead.

And of course, it obviously has much less smooth movements with the characters. The early cutscene even looks psu style. It could just be styling or writing similar code to what they used to, but it does definitely have similarities to psu. The music is also from psu aside from the unused ragne theme (which I'd kinda like to hear in full). The hud has psu elements as well, but that says little in my opinion.

[Keilyn]

PSUs engine had elements from PSO1s Engine, meaning that there are pre-millennial components in the Engine used for PSO2. I do not know if I should feel happy or sad in knowing this.

[Shadowth117]

PSUs engine had elements from PSO1s Engine, meaning that there are pre-millennial components in the Engine used for PSO2. I do not know if I should feel happy or sad in knowing this.

Well of you want to put it like that, Halo 5's devs claim that game still uses code from the first game as a basis, which also started pre millenial and looks loads better than pso2. Pretty sure that COD is similarly related to Quake's engine to this day. Point is, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

You get Theseus's paradox in any case and so it doesn't technically matter how it started.

[NephyrisX]

Early Early PSO2

The basic resources in this are actually still in the game by the way. Not all of them, but the textures for that city are sn010 prefixed or something. Interestingly, they lack features later texture packs have like RGB based specular with a standard grayscale specular instead.

And of course, it obviously has much less smooth movements with the characters. The early cutscene even looks psu style. It could just be styling or writing similar code to what they used to, but it does definitely have similarities to psu. The music is also from psu aside from the unused ragne theme (which I'd kinda like to hear in full). The hud has psu elements as well, but that says little in my opinion.

And of course the video itself have comments going full rose-tinted glasses and declaring that the old PSO1/PSU looked better, etc.

Also, Dark Ragne looks funny without the armour plating on the legs like we have now.

[SteveCZ]

2 hours until the sick patch, folks.