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Digital Foundry: Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1 - DF Tech Review - PS5/Xbox Series X/Switch + PC Tested!

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?



Konami's collection of the Metal Gear series' early greats is an easy idea to get behind - but the execution leaves much to be desired. Between Metal Gear Solid 1, 2 and 3, plus the MSX and NES games there's a wealth of content here - plus extra. Except, the quality of the games themselves has not moved on substantially from previous releases, like 2011's HD Collection on PS3 and 360. Worse still - there are parts of this collection which run worse than that previous version, especially on Switch where the frame-rate drops to 30fps.

00:00 Introduction
03:36 Features
04:56 Metal Gear Solid 1 Tested
09:16 Master Collection vs 4K Emulation
10:25 Metal Gear Solid 2 +3 Comparisons
15:14 Frame-Rate Testing
18:58 PC 4K Mods
21:36 Verdict
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
- "Could and should have been much more"
- Limited enhancements only.
- MGS1 is emulation, MGS2/3 HD is Bluepoint Collection version with minimal differences.

MGS1:
- Emulation done by Developer M2. PS1 version running in software with the same quirks.
- Texture wobbling, 30 FPS cap and drops to 20 FPS and under.
- European Pal version is capped at 25 FPS.
- Master collection includes both NTSC and Pal version (why would anyone use Pal version)
- The other versions need to be downloaded.

- No visual settings, no filters, emulation doesn't scale image to 4K well.
- Core visuals are identical to PS1 but up-scaling is worse and muddies image in Vol 1 version. (JESUS CHRIST)
- Sound quality is also muffled compared to original PS1 version,
- DF compares with modern emulation via Duckstation to compare how good it could have been.


MGS 2 & 3
- Essentially same as Bluepoint's HD collection, even includes the logos for it.
- The codec delay the Bluepoint's version had has been fixed.
- Native 720p on both versions.
- In MGS 2 Anti aliasing is different on all platforms.
- Switch: No AA, Xbox: some kind of custom post process AA, PS5 has the best AA coverage
- MGS3 has the same AA coverage on all 3 platforms.
- PS5 has higher anisotropic filtering. Xbox has less and Switch has no filtering.
- Switch's texture filtering is same as Xbox on MGS3, PS5 has better AF there as well.
- Xbox has an odd lighting bug in MGS3's intro not seen on other versions.

- On Xbox, playing the Xbox 360 HD collection in BC mode provides better image quality.
- 360 HD collection has 16xAF, better anti aliasing coverage compared to Vol 1 version (JESUS CHRIST x2)

- Performance is essentially locked to targets on PS5/SX (some scenes are locked to 30 by choice)

- Switch version targets 30 FPS for game play and suffers some weird blurring in MGS2's tanker msision.
- The 30 FPS cap on Switch also suffers from bad frame pacing.
- Switch, for some reason, jumps to 60 FPS when inside lockers
- Portable performance is essentially the same with drops to 20's in MGS2.


PC version:
- Fixed native 720p rendering, no settings menu to change any visual setting.
- PC version of MGS2 has the same anti aliasing as Switch version, MGS3 is at least better.
- on Pc, you can at least brute force anisotropic filtering via the Nvidia control panel or AMD equivalent.
- Fan mods have been released to make the game run at native 4K already.
- Mod breaks the HUD and post process effects, however.
- Additional mods like texture upscale projects are also coming out.
 
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AnotherOne

Member
dj khaled sip GIF by Apple Music
 

proandrad

Member
It wouldn’t even cost that much to give us a remastered version of MSG1. They are doing it for Tomb Raider 1-3 and only charging half the price.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
The fact that they didn't include all MGS1 versions in a 50GB blu ray, and you still need to download them, is such a weird fucking decision.

You can't even accuse this version of being a good way to safeguard the releases, since you only get the 25hz version on disc.
 

violence

Member
MGS1 looks great at 4k and I'm sure the others do too. What a waste. I'm probably going to buy and refund on steam to see the extras and that's it.

"Better played elsewhere Collection Vol 1"
 
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dotnotbot

Member
It's funny how no one here is surprised by this.

adamsapple adamsapple You should also mention that it is possible to force 16xAF in the PC version which fixes the dogshit basic texture filtering.

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These publishers have no respect for their customers.

To be fair, DF glosses over it but increasing the resolution breaks post processing effects, HD Collection is considered as inferior to original because increasing it to 720p already made some of them almost disappear.

So not making sure this release is at least on par with old HD Collection is the biggest offence here. I don't get how did they overlook such an obvious thing as lack of proper texture filtering on most platforms.
 
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violence

Member
1080p turning out to be BS put a smirk on my face. 720p upscaled 1080p is kind of hysterical. The video didn't even mention it's the 50hz Pal version for certain languages.

I got to say, this guy was a real professional in the video. I would’ve been screaming. My reading would’ve been like a drama student taking a shit.
 
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Darsxx82

Member
MGS 2 & 3

- On Xbox, playing the Xbox 360 HD collection in BC mode provides better image quality.
- 360 HD collection has 16xAF, better anti aliasing coverage compared to Vol 1 version (JESUS CHRIST x2)

I said it in another thread. You have to be stupid to buy this collection on XSeries when you can play it better and cheaper via BC. And if you have developer mode and the emulators you play them in another dimension.

What Konami has done is embarrassing. It is not the law of minimum effort, it is the law of no effort and that each sale is beneficial without costs.
 
So yeah. Glad I never traded in my 360 Collection versions. You can’t buy that version on the Xbox store anymore, which was probably done deliberately by Konami to force this new collection as the only option on Xbox at least.

Guess I’ll just wait and see if Vol2 can offer MGS4 in a non-embarrassing Framerate/Resolution. At this point it’ll probably be 720p and 30 fps and MGSV will run worse than the original version lol.
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Why is there such a big difference in AF and AA in xbox vs PS5?

Either because Xbox and PC are sharing settings so some wires got crossed there, or sheer utter incompetence on the developers behalf, or both.

The 360 emulated BC version has 16x AF *AND* better anti aliasing.

The port budget for this conversion was probably a dollar and a hotdog.
 

Shifty1897

Member
Were they not given enough time then?
That's the million dollar question. M2 are top tier devs of video game remasters, so them messing up MGS1 is baffling. My guess is it was either a budget or time constraint, or both.

Either way, Konami messed it up again. These remasters, done right, could have sold 10 million copies over the lifetime of this and/or next gen. They should have spent whatever it took to properly remaster them, it would have paid off in the end both financially and in repairing their damaged relationship with their customers.
 
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Markio128

Gold Member
I’m keeping my fond memories intact and giving this a wide birth. GTA has already been tarnished by the shitshow remasters. Absolutely bobbins effort.
 
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