Metal Gear Solid 4 Revisited at 4K 60FPS! Today's Emulation, Tomorrow's Remaster?

[@Dahaka27]

For the night/heat vision part in the bunker the reason you can only see Snake's head light up is because you had the camo active while on the PS3 version you didn't. You hide your heat signature when you have a camo pattern active.

[@rosado3D]

I was about to say. Yes this is the reason the heat was full body vs just the head, its tied to your camo and a mechanic of the game. But its also understandable since the controller didn't support resetting the camo

[@justjoe1071]

Glad to see the mgs fans picking this up.

[@SvenSvenApfel]

Ran down the comments section to say that :D

[@samw2670]

The dude wouldnt understand this since his pc superiority complex is getting in the way

[@ESENTE]

@@samw2670 what r u on about?

[@ReaverCelty]

Seeing stuff like this essentially "lost" due to the architecture of the PS3 is crazy. Glad emulation is keeping these things alive.

[@hardkoregamer1981]

It's mostly due to not having a proper sdk in the begging for 3rd party studios but that all changed soon after.

[@executable3]

Basically anything limited to a singular console will get lost in the same way. The needless complexity of the PS3 certainly doesn't help but what we really need is these games ported/remastered onto newer platforms (especially PC).

[@sovo1212]

@@executable3 In other words, we need the source code.

[@codybishop7526]

If Konami really cared, they make this work on the PS5. It’s doable, but maybe not financially risky worthy according to their projections. It’s a fairly old and obscure title in the series compared to MSG 1/2/3

[@ChrisKronk117]

@@codybishop7526 was certainly a very weird sequel for anyone who grew up with it!

[@rodylermglez]

The increased frame rate really makes you appreciate the animation job and camera direction way better. It really is transformative.

[@rodylermglez]

@LMFAO I'd argue that for MGS3, yeah, totally. For MGS4 one could make a case for high frame rates, that Kojima was aiming for something less cinematic (despite all the, well, cinematics) with the inclusion of so many drone/robot footage and a higher focus on action lalilulelo

[@SaberRexZealot]

@@rodylermglez pretty sure they were joking dude. 24fps and heavy motion blur would make the game look like shit

[@hellcatdave1]

@@SaberRexZealot Not for cinematics, not necessarily. But they'd have to be stable- unlike how it was on PS3. Movies are shot in 24 fps normally.

[@chrisjdgrady]

This game is one of my best gaming memories. Embrace the cutscenes and the insane story and characters. A masterpiece.

[@illwill281]

In a MGS game, gameplay to me has always been a mean to the next cutscene.

[@OPequeNiNo1]

yeah dude completely threw me off with the last comment. First because Phantom Pain exists mind he, second because the cutscenes are for the fans to enjoy, dont like it you can always skip it unlike TPP. Did He really had to end his video with that bullshit generic comment that people dont know what they are talking about often say?

[@ot9523]

Still looks amazing today way ahead of it’s time

[@Ayoul]

@@OPequeNiNo1 I really don't like people like John pushing that games should be any one thing just because they prefer other things. Not every game is for everyone. It's fine if some games are more cinematic than others IMO.

[@rgb1996]

@@Ayoul he mentions several times it's just his personal opinion

[@darkl3ad3r]

Huge shout out to all the extremely talented people out there making emulation a reality for us lucky masses. Without you guys, so many works of art like MGS4 would be completely lost to time.

[@draculathevampire934]

Np

[@uncleurda8101]

Np

[@alex.starostin]

No, it wouldn't. You can always buy a cheap PlayStation 3 in good condition and by the time it will not be possible to do PS3 emulation will be a lot easier to do on different platforms

[@dragonandavatarfan8865]

@@alex.starostin ps3 consoles have a lifeline and are dying slowly pal, whether you like it or not that's pretty much how it works. Also how are you so confident that all these greedy, disgenuious and incompetent companies would actually port all their old titles on modern platforms in good faith?? This is why Emulation is so essential and is here to stay.

[@alex.starostin]

@@dragonandavatarfan8865 thanks for the reply, but it seems you didn't read my post correctly as I meant different things. About what you've wrote I know all of this and not that dumb

[@Stout936]

The heat signature "glitch" you're referring to is actually a feature. When the octocamo is active, it masks Snake's thermal signature.

[@jon4715]

And later in the game he can use an active camo head sock mask

[@Jucelegario]

Ok, so I put my new rig to the test with this game and it ran perfectly fine on my pc until the raging beauty ending in which it crashed, so I used the cypherox custom build to go through the cutscene but it then crashed when trying to load what was next right after the plane mission briefing. Yes, I did follow what some user in the rpcs3 forum mentioned, I removed the shader cache, used my only monitor and on windowed mode and it still always crashes. I have tried everything and it doesn't let me continue. I have a 2022 6 core intel processor and 8GBs ddr5 and a 1650. I ran TLOU and Uncharted 1 without deactivating features and even with some crashes, I could finish both games but I cant continue (let alone finish) MGS4.

[@allanhuseyin6370]

@@Jucelegario sorry to say but pretty sure its your 1650, it just doesn't hold up. I have a 1070 and even that at some parts just, doesn't like Mgs 4. Especially when you get to big mama and have to ride the motorcycle. That shit was just barely running for me. I do remember there being one setting I had to change to keep it running but I don't remember exactly which one.

[@Jucelegario]

@@allanhuseyin6370 it played everything fine except the ps1 memory bit but I fixed it maximizing the power consumption on the nvidia control panel. I just wish rpcs3 devs put that part very clearly in the specifics for the game instead of a KZbinr telling us that.

[@allanhuseyin6370]

@@Jucelegario oh I never had an issue with that part. I did use a custom build for the game though. so they probably made it work on that version of the build vs the stock Rpcs3 Build.

[@parasolo89]

RPCS3 is probably the most impressive emulator ever made considering how complex PS3 architecture was to develop for.

[@NiGHTS1980]

It's definitely impressive. They are dumping a lot of hours into this and it's paying off.

[@Sora2314]

It’s amazing to see. I remember several years ago it could barely run a puzzle game.

[@ninemugetsu]

Seconded

[@LayerZlayer2000]

Actually ps2 emulation was way harder then this obviously

[@arronharrington4109]

@@LayerZlayer2000 PS2's GPU is harder to emulate than PS3. But overall, PS3 is worse in every other regard in terms of emulating it.

[@SlayerSeraph]

This game deserves 4K 60FPS Remaster or even full fledged Remake! My favorite MGS game! Also my first MGS.

[@Jay16872]

Nah. Konami doesn't deserve any more $$$ from MGS after what they did to Kojima. I would only be ok with it if Kojima got royalties on it, a LOT of royalties.

[@vergil_6707]

@@Jay16872 he doesn't need royalties though

[@wile123456]

13:30 Correction for you John: Camo hides the heat signature of snake in night vision (this goes for enemies that use night vision too) on the PS3 comparison you must have reset the camo with a controller shake like you talked about earlier. RPCS3 displays the night vision correct in this regard.

[@kreeperskid]

Actually he accidentally explained this in the prior scene. He can't reset his camo dynamically in game. The reason he glows on one and not the other, is because in the one where he doesn't glow, he actually had camo on. If he removed it, it'd fix it. Or on PS3, if he applied camo, he'd see his body no longer glow

[@BozQ]

Yup. This is correct.

[@drsparklagasm]

Yup, noticed this! You also don't see snakes head in all white when you have facecamo equipped.

[@MegaManNeo]

MGS4 was one of my highlights on PS3. Didn't mind the 30fps cap back then and just loved the atmo in the game.

[@lpnp9477]

I think most people were more okay with 30fps back then because the graphical leap was so large and many of us didn't understand frame rates. Now that we're more educated and graphics are good enough and we've suffered through multiple generations of poor performance people are demanding better performance and I love it.

[@Harry101UK]

@@lpnp9477 Yeah, I recently dusted off my PS3 to replay MGS4 and the drops to 10-15fps (and worse sometimes) were shocking. I definitely didn't remember it being that bad in 2008. We sure have moved on since then lol

[@TonyTonyRedgrave]

@Turkey Jeff you're really downplaying the importance of FPS in treating it as some kind of nice perk, it has a massive impact on how good a game looks and feels to play. Maybe it doesn't stick out much to you, but it does to a lot of us. No, low fps doesn't necessarily render a game invalid. I still love a lot of 5th and 6th gen games that will never run above 30fps, I'll even take the PS3 version of Shadow of the Colossus above PS4 because despite the option to go 60fps in the latter I find that they ruined a lot of the art design in that version. But downplaying the value of higher FPS and implying we all needed digitalfoundry to trick us into caring about it is just ridiculous. Also MGS4 on PS3 was a lot worse than just 30fps, tons of drops, but whatever.

[@lpnp9477]

@Turkey Jeff yeah I'm not gaming on consoles ever again. I know 30 fps is bad because I've played a game at 30 and the same game at 60 on multiple occasions and can feel the difference. It really does make a game better because get ready for the shocker, I'm a game developer. And in a game running at 30fps the game can only listen for inputs 30 times a second. At 60fps, it's 60 times. It's not a visual thing (though I would say 60fps does look nicer) it's a game feel thing. It's about responsiveness and 60fps+ makes all the difference in the world. True, games can be enjoyed at 30. Many of us did enjoy games at that and lower frame rates. But we should demand and expect better. For my part, no game I ship will ship at 30 unless it's a Switch downport sku and even then as a technical artist I cannot and will not let it go to market without doing everything in my power to get it running at 60, at least as a performance mode option.

[@jasonlobo2350]

@@lpnp9477 well good Luck with that

[@wile123456]

The art, especially the character models, hold up extremely well. It's mostly the textures and the brown/grey colours of that era that hold it back imo

[@tomasjanak4113]

PS3/Xbox360 era was time (at least for me), where graphics became good enough. I can still play COD4 and Uncharted 2 and be satisfied with visuals.

[@beardalaxy]

@@tomasjanak4113 there really only was a short time where graphics weren't good, really just the N64 era. Before that, 2d was fantastic. After that, graphics are good enough and artists were making lots of informed choices on making the games look good. You get stinkers in every generation obviously, but games like Wind Waker or FFXII still hold up easily and that's not even scratching the surface.

[@roberto1519]

Yes, most 7th gen A games look exactly like this, from Far Cry 2 and up. I'm happy this approach was left way behind now.

[@Abel-Alvarez]

@@beardalaxy I might add the 7th generation was kinda in a bad spot too especially when gaming was having a huge FPS craze so alot of brown/gray was used like battlefield,COD,gears of war, resistance fall of man,socom,killzone,farcry,assassins creed,etc.

[@adilator]

Yep agree, the brown military look is so 2008, I can't stand it.

[@luismartins3785]

What a beautiful game ! The character models and art still looks fantastic !

[@TheCloudyWolf13]

When you have the NVGs on, if the OctoCamo has a pattern active, it will not glow (this is how Snake's OctoCamo manages to hide him from Gekkos who use IR scanners). When there's no camo active, you'll see Snake's whole body glow. This isn't a graphical hiccup, its another drawback of not having the motion controls with an Xbox Controller.

[@whatisfzeroanymore2nd]

you can use a ps5 controller with rpcs3 though

[@Deadlyblack]

And when you wear the OctoCasmo mask with a camo active, it does hide the whole body in night vision, if I remember correctly.

[@Bestgameplayer10]

@@Deadlyblack Correct. Even then, you can see Snake's hair glow since it pokes out the back of the mask a bit.

[@cash78626]

Fun fact: The diarrhea scenes had a purpose. Johnny was the only one without any injected nanobots. It's why liquid can't control him, why he's so bad at shooting in sync with his teammates (no SOP), and why he gets the runs. The nanobots aren't syncing him up, or protecting him from diseases and issues that would otherwise be eliminated by them.

[@ethanwilliams2445]

Wow, lol. Never realized.

[@HUNFakeDeath]

I think there was a sequence in the game in the end when this got realized by Meryl I had to push X maybe to get them pictured :D Played this game through many times and a masterpiece for sure.

[@takehirotaniguchi6271]

I didn't realize this was a fun fact, I thought this was basic MGS knowledge.

[@squigpeels.1021]

@@takehirotaniguchi6271 be careful, he may respond with a NASA-like, brain buster like "fun fact: water is wet".

[@bandito241]

@@takehirotaniguchi6271 it is throughly explained in that shootout before the Psycho Mantis like female boss (forgot her name) in the last level. I think it was right before the walk where Snake gets burned by

[@MannequinSmiles]

active camo hides your heat signature when using night vision. this effect is intended. because you never reset the active camo its hiding your heat signature. later in the game you can use a face covering to hide the heat signature of your head too.

[@cookie_of_nine]

Also, when showing "Real PS3 Footage (TM)" that "glitch" is clearly visible when showing one of the small segments that the PS3 can hit 60 while using NVG.

[@alexandredossantos718]

One of the main reasons for hanging and crashing is due to an RSX error, and a way to mitigate this is by increasing Driver Wake Up Delay to around 200 us on the Advanced tab of the emulator. Some builds won't even go through the press start screen when this option is defaulted to 0 us. The problem is you trade reliability for performance, since frame rate decreases some 30%. Also, an 8/16 CPU with a strong IPC is highly advised, but without AVX 512 some areas will drop to less than 25 FPS. But if the anti aliasing setting "hack" does reduce crashing and hanging it is really an outstanding finding

[@joeamith838]

Thanks!! this(wake up delay) has it running like butter!

[@alexandredossantos718]

@@joeamith838 Hey no worries. After 3 playthroughs and maybe some 100ish hours tinkering with the emulator and this game this is one hint I am 100% sure that helps. I've the whole playthrough recorded on YT if you wanna check it out. Cheers and happy gaming. And BTW anti aliasing disabled at least on my rig didn't have an effect on hanging, so sad

[@Jucelegario]

Ok, so I put my new rig to the test with this game and it ran perfectly fine on my pc until the raging beauty ending in which it crashed, so I used the cypherox custom build to go through the cutscene but it then crashed when trying to load what was next right after the plane mission briefing. Yes, I did follow what some user in the rpcs3 forum mentioned, I removed the shader cache, used my only monitor and on windowed mode and it still always crashes. I have tried everything and it doesn't let me continue. I have a 2022 6 core intel processor and 8GBs ddr5 and a 1650. I ran TLOU and Uncharted 1 without deactivating features and even with some crashes, I could finish both games but I cant continue (let alone finish) MGS4.

[@alexandredossantos718]

@@Jucelegario Did you activate the Atomic Rsx option on the Advanced of the emulator? Atomic RSX + Driver Wake Up Delay at 200us significantly reduces crashes, and might help you go through that part. The latest build I tested was the 13600 and it was smooth, worth giving a try if newer builds still give you issues

[@Jucelegario]

@@alexandredossantos718 thank you for answering but those 2 options were part of the selected options I always used since before beginning the game, so they are not the reason why that part isnt working. I used previous builds, custom builds and the current one from a few hours ago, nothing works.

[@NotaSkeleton]

It's always interesting to see how emulation technology advances and seeing old games in a new light. So, yea, I'd be very happy to see more videos like this.

[@Dansg08]

I tried to get this running on my my PC 6 months or so ago and couldn't quite get it how I wanted, but I didn't come across that custom build which might have made the difference. Great to see MGS4 being covered, I agree with the general criticisms about cutscene:gameplay ratio etc but this game still has a special place in my heart and it has been way too long since I played through it last. Will be trying to emulate it again this summer to relive the memories

[@liamconverse8950]

What kind of hardware do you need to run this emulator at this resolution? Like in terms of CPU and GPU? I've heard that most emulators primarily use the CPU.

[@acwbit2368]

@@liamconverse8950 not true some emus are gpu heavy

[@liamconverse8950]

@@acwbit2368 Yeah that's why I asked

[@triggerhappymgo]

@@liamconverse8950 If you're aiming for console-like performance (20 to 30 fps), the lowest recommended CPU that I would consider playable is the Ryzen 3600. You can play at 4k 30fps with any modest GPU, such as a GTX 1660. If you're aiming for 4k 60 you will need a 12600k or better, but you will likely see drops in to the low 50s at times.

[@WockhartEnthusiast]

same, i played for a bit and the performance was abysmal. visuals were great, but very bad frames.

[@maxderrat]

Thank you for this video. Seeing this legendary game with 60fps made my week. I can't wait to get the game running like this on my PC.

[@null140]

(Thanks for *your* video work, Max. One of my fave YT video-makers.)

[@robertforster8984]

Me too. I hope my 2080 super is “beefy” enough.

[@Yuri-xx2gi]

@@robertforster8984 rpcs3 uses more cpu, your gpu would allow for higher resolutions, but wouldn't give high fps alone, but with that gpu you should have a good cpu anyway

[@silentobserver888]

We love you max!

[@Kuson2]

@@Yuri-xx2gi I wonder if my 8600K would be enough, its slowly starting to show its age.

[@shinramiddlemanager7949]

Still one of the greatest gaming experiences of my life. One of the last major games I completed on a CRT (in August 2009) before I finally got a HD set the following summer.

[@TheRedRaven_]

Wow that's crazy, I dumped my CRT shortly after Gears of War came out. But yeah, game is def a gem.

[@Nick930]

I considered using this emulation last year when I was capturing MGS4 footage - but that dumb 4th wall joke about the bluray disc convinced me that recording the original PS3 version was the right thing to do :P I do want to go back and replay this sometime through emulation though - it looks absolutely gorgeous! Urgh... I just want all these games in a collection on PC/PS5/XSX!

[@femto8402]

This game use a lot the pressure sensitive controls of the dualshock 3, I'm curious how those controls can be translated to current controllers.

[@Frank-vd1ml]

@@femto8402 No it didn’t only mgs3 and mgs2 used pressure sensitive buttons

[@murkser4149]

In the Xbox 360 port of the MGS2&3 HD Collection they used button combos in place of the pressure sensitive buttons. So instead of pressing down harder on the Circle button you would press LB+B.

[@WednesdayMan]

@@Frank-vd1ml the only pressure sensitive function in MGS4 appearently is in the D-pad, for zooming in during cutscenes. according to the internet, need a dualshock 3 to confirm this.

[@donkeykongisytpooping3002]

@@WednesdayMan Correct. It’s something that can easily be substituted on modern consoles.

[@you2be839]

I now remember MGS4 crashing on me in the exact same place back when I played it on the PS3 in 2009! Don't know which patch version of the game I played, or how many other patches were released after that, but it's not surprising to see the game crashing on RPCS3 if it's playing the vanilla, unpatched game. In fact, I think it crashed more times down the road, but after that first crash I started saving my gameplay every 5 minutes or so because I remember having to replay a lot of game due to the fact that the last autosave happens way before that point.

[@FluxStage]

So many fond memories with this. And the whole series. Greatness!

[@balazslevai7701]

Killzone 2 and MGS4 really feels like games that escaped from an alternate dimension because they have no rights to be on PS3 with this graphical fidelity. Probably this is the reason why the jump from PS3 to PS4 felt weak. Amazing video John, as usual!

[@jimengab]

Agree, same with Halo 4. Those games look so ridiculously good that Halo 4 on the MCC only had a resolution update and the game looks better than Halo Infinite lol

[@aninfinitemindofmusicandreams]

Add God of War 3 and Uncharted 2/3 to that list. The remasters for these games required nothing but a boost to resolution and they still look better than a lot of modern titles. I already thought Uncharted 1 looked insane when I got it with my PS3 in 07. The visual leap UC2 made was incredible and after that Sony kept on delivering monster exclusives with amazing visuals. 2009 to 2013 were great years to be a PS3 owner. Miss these days! By the end of the gen I could easily make the argument that the PS3 had better looking exclusives to my 360 owning friends without much response back, though the 360 also had some great looking titles that have aged nicely, like Halo 4 mentioned above and Gears 3.

[@balazslevai7701]

@@aninfinitemindofmusicandreams True. Also Heavy Rain, The Last of Us and Motorstorm 1/2 blew my mind when they were relased. Sony was killing with those exclusives!

[@godbelow]

Killzone 3 also had incredible fidelity!

[@maodijong3661]

I agree! Mgs4, heavy rain, kill zone 2 and 3 just looked spectacular and still do.

[@Storm23PS3]

I would honestly pay hundreds of dollars to have Metal Gear Solid 1-5 on PS5 at 4k and 60 fps. My favorite series of all time.

[@Storm23PS3]

I have zero knowledge on PC building and emulation. I have only ever played games on consoles. If I wanted a PC that could run Metal Gear Solid 1-4 on really well, how would you recommend I go about that? Again, I would not be able to build one myself I don't think...

[@RemixerUltimate]

@@Storm23PS3 buy a prebuilt. That’s the best thing to tell ya.

[@gaboz]

Konami is missing on so much money its not even funny. I saw the footage for the pachinco machine of mgs3 en it looked glorious. Remaster and have our money

[@chrisrichfield8906]

@@Storm23PS3 building a PC is not as difficult as it sounds, I built my first one on my own shortly after getting my first job. Just follow a video tutorial. Tbh though its probably cheaper to just buy a really good gaming laptop right now.

[@WH250398]

@@Storm23PS3 If you consider yourself capable of building a pc with a youtube guide, go for it. If you don't feel comfortable about it, then get a prebuilt pc.

[@GarionOrb]

This game was such a masterpiece.

[@farmerpandasyoutube4800]

It was a pretty good film

[@mrsatangto]

@JackBauer137 I replayed it a few years back. It is still one of the best stealth games ever made. The ending is fucking amazing.

[@gabeznl3591]

@JackBauer137 your opinion

[@zubiecup]

@Bry Zeer I went back early last year and actually timed the gameplay and cutscenes with a first-time player (my cousin). He maintained a brisk pace and ended at 8 hours of gameplay and 8 hours of cutscenes. So, honestly, there's still more gameplay in it than your typical linear 3rd person title. It just has a ton of cutscenes, which might make it feel like there's not much gameplay. I suppose it all comes down to one's tolerance of cutscenes.

[@zubiecup]

@Bry Zeer I finished the game in 3 hours and 52 minutes on the hardest difficulty. That was after I had already beaten a few times, though. So, what's your point? Nobody beats it that fast the first time through. Hell, it took me 90 hours to beat Elden Ring, but others have beaten it in 20 minutes. That's just how it works. People shorten their times after they learn how the game works and where the shortcuts are. The average playtime for MGS4 according to howlongtobeat is 18.5 hours. And all the cutscenes together WITH story codecs still doesn't exceed 10 hours. What you said is just incorrect. Why are you using some Reddit post as evidence? Lol.

[@wixxzblu]

YES! more rpsc3 content thank you. This is so interesting to watch, and there are more titles stuck on the PS3

[@scottylans]

Def more RPCS3 - it's amazing work and I want it to only get better.

[@arcadealchemist]

it's the only key game in the franchise i've ONLY watched be played though (10 hours + cuts) really shame we won't get more of this franchise

[@martincamilocanceladoruiz3099]

Same Here

[@GizouGitai]

13:27 The reason is your difference in Octocamo state. The suit in-lore and in-game modifies the heat signature of Snake's body, where it covers it anyway, when a camo-pattern is active. If you went into the pause menu and equipped "Default" as your camoflage, you could have avoided the differences you noted in the video because of your choice of controller. Shoulda coulda woulda. Keep up the fine work, John.

[@SHGames97]

12:09 "Hiding amongst the statues with, SOLID Snake, I suppose?" ;.D John, my goodness that was the best part of my week so far and it was already damn good.

[@GURken]

I would like to see a Czech chase part, it was the most demanding part of the game with framerate close to single digits

[@gc3k]

The beginning of Chapter 5 with the multiple Gekkos was a slideshow

[@davidbanner9001]

I have been using RPCS3 for a few years now and it's amazing how it has improved. Especially when you consider the complexity of the PS3's Cell processor etc.

[@manzoman96]

I'd definitely be interested in more RPCS3 updates! This was really cool to see.

[@UberNoodle]

The funny thing about these old games is that when I remember them, I remember them "in 4K" with the highest fidelity graphics. So sometimes the best remaster is in your memories. Lol.

[@amnottabs]

I played it on a CRT and if I'm not mistaken the stress % is not visible at 480p so I had to control myself (no trigger happy, avoid using cold parchments, the cigar and that aim drug) to keep Snake from throwing up or start hallucinating from stress, it was quite the experience

[@dormanthero]

I personally love RPCS3 updates. I find it a little frustrating comparing RPCS3 donations for 2 devs full time of £2.2k to other emulators. Yuzu patreon £17.2k. I guess the demand is not there, but I feel RPCS3 may be the more difficult project. I really appreciate what they do and how it has helped progress one of my favorite games (MGS4). I think majority of these issues could be solved by the end of the year with any luck. It is definitely close now.

[@kicapanmanis1060]

Yuzu is to emulate Switch games including new releases even if the game hardware limits the game fidelity. RPCSIII is to emulate PS3, a system that no new games are made so of course there will be more limited demand. Everybody has their own preferences although I like you prefer RPCSIII. And yes I agree that RPCSIII is the way harder project but it also has less appeal to the mainstream even if it's still fairly appealing.

[@dormanthero]

Click my channel to play MGO if you like with Cipher emulator. Eventually we will move to custom official emulator as we can see improvements.

[@Jucelegario]

I have a Core5 i12400 and a gtx 1650, will MGS4 run at 4K 60fps using RPCS3?

[@devilmikey00]

I feel like it comes down to exclusivity. A lot of the PS3's library was 3rd party so it's available on PC already and a lot of it's exclusive library has official ports or remasters on PC or newer playstation hardware. Nintendo is a completely different beast with the vast majority of it's library stuck firmly on it's original hardware. The demand from the outside world just leans to Nintendo and also Yuzu is emulating a current relevant system vs one that's now two generations old, I'm sure that plays a part.

[@-aexc-]

it's not like the yuzu money would go to rspc3 if it wasn't for yuzu. I think it's better to just appreciate the fact that emulation projects are being funded well

[@firestorm517]

I remember MGS4 very fondly. I had a blast playing it and even enjoyed the cutscenes and story. I was just that into it. I realise tho that back then and especially now most people wouldn't like how cutscene heavy it is, and as you mentioned trying to answer way too much. I also have extremely fond memories of MGS Online which I was very sad when it died. It was so much fun and something I got very good at which made me enjoy it all the more.

[@SadThrash]

I really enjoyed this episode! I’d love do see Heavenly Sword get the same treatment. That was an excellent game marred by hideous performance.

[@derptyderp5287]

It's the only game I've played all the way through with RPCS3, it's a much nicer experience than on original PS3. Just have to watch out for that VRAM usage on the picture in picture segments.

[@terogamer345]

@Man of the Rain Both are considered Playable on the compatibility list i think.

[@scottylans]

Game is so under rated.

[@jamescampbell8482]

An AI upscaled texture pack for this game on RPCS3 would be insanely awesome. I've always loved emulation for its ability to show what might have been.

[@BBWahoo]

Sounds like more slowdown...

[@TheLucasbuck]

I've just got back into RPCS3 since getting my beefier PC and I'm loving it! I've got tons of new games to play but have no interest in them. This era of gaming is sorely missed. Tight, narrative based action adventure games. I'm currently replaying God of War 3, Metal Gear Rising, Heavenly Sword and Lollipo Chainsaw all at 4K60FPS and they look stunning! The RPCS3 team as well as Yuzu team for Switch emulation are absolutely amazing! Glad you're highlighting their great work here, John.

[@gui2peg]

mgr is available on pc

[@beardalaxy]

@@gui2peg I was gonna say, definitely give it a go on PC because it's certainly better there :)

[@Abel-Alvarez]

Nintendo and playstation have been getting a good treatment on emulation, hopefully with Xbox (CxBx-Reloaded,Xemu,and Xenia) they'll get the same treatment. 😉🙏

[@Legion849]

MGR is available on PC you don't need an emulator.

[@miguelfcp1993]

Love this game so much! A proper remaster of this game (and the whole series as well) should be made. Metal Gear is the best gaming saga ever made!

[@Fallen608]

Nice to see John at least partically embracing emulation. PS3 games really shine this way as the original form was often so cripled by the hardware.

[@kicapanmanis1060]

My understanding is John has always been pro emulation.

[@Rebelscum264]

@@kicapanmanis1060 no he’s always been against emulation

[@samw2670]

But real playstation fans dont want to play on a pc my guy, it takes away the full experience and the whole point of these games is the use of the controller.

[@Gravy1255]

It really wasn't the hardware. If devs had actually utilized the cell games would have been 60fps a lot of the time,but they didn't take the time to figure it out. TheCell had cores that were specifically meant for vector calculations (aid in graphics rendering and physics ect.) Which would have greatly increased performance and a like, but developed didntcare to learn it.

[@toomuchstarbucks6787]

@@Gravy1255 find it hard to believe one of if not the largest first party developers of the time didn't take the time to try and utilize the cell processor. You certainly have a point when it comes to bad third party titles, but Kojima Productions? After they hyped up the cell to kingdom come?

[@hash-slingingslasher1374]

ive been playing mgs4 on ps3 recently and was blown away how modern it still looks and feels. cant wait to see what modern hardware could add to that experience.

[@DDRMR]

Played 4 and 5 back to back during a series replay, and apart from the 60fps the graphical jump was minimal. That's not saying anything against MGS5 but more a testament on how ahead of its time MGS4 was merely held back by hardware.

[@PlasticSorcererTheOriginal]

Wow, this is perfect timing. I literally got into small scale emulation by playing MGS1 on my phone today, I'm getting a PC within the next two months

[@rx10]

How is it perfect timing? It's just a video slightly related to what you're doing

[@william41017]

@@rx10 wow

[@PlasticSorcererTheOriginal]

@@rx10 directly related to what I am doing my son

[@rx10]

@@PlasticSorcererTheOriginal and why is it perfect timing? Would it be perfect timing too a month from now?

[@uncleurda8101]

@@rx10 Well it depends on one's own idea of "perfect timing." You're splitting hairs about a fundamentally subjective idea, and also putting the burden of proof on OP when he's already expressed his opinion in enough detail to not warrant a philosophical conundrum. Stop thinkin so hard bb.

[@mikem2253]

Game still looks fantastic. The upgrade in framerate and resolution alone makes a massive difference. Great video that sadly reflects what could be for emulation on Ps5 for Ps3 titles.

[@RegalPixelKing]

This is why I LOVE emulation! You basically get damn near native level PC ports/remasters via Emulation. I first played Zelda BotW in 2017 on a Wii U, it was still an outstand experience even when I ran in to situations like Korok Forest running around 10fps. But playing that game at 4k 60fps with improved shadows and mod support on Cemu makes that game so much better in pretty much every way. You basically get the remaster that was never made with emulators.

[@Deadlyblack]

I love these type of videos talking about emulation from DF. It's really fascinating to hear John talk about it.

[@iceveiled]

I love MGS4, it's my favorite MGS game. It's not perfect but it just captivates me. I'd welcome any development that would free it of being stranded on the PS3 platform, but I'm just glad it's getting some recognition on DF. This game really is special.

[@joeyxl3456]

I love it too

[@captainkrk88]

That games weapons system blew my mind. It was amazing to see magazines come out with bullets in them and weapon actions actually doing things. I loved that game.

[@ashleythomas4112]

Yep, that was incredibly impressive. I would often just go to the virtual range to try out all the different weapons and observe all the incredible reloading animations.

[@yewtewbstew547]

One cool detail there that a lot of people miss with MGS4's reloads is that, for whatever reason, Snake will always rack the slide/charging handle to chamber a new round even if there is still an unfired round in the chamber (that happens if you reload without fully emptying the gun). If you look at the round being ejected in that case, it is visibly unfired. So whoever did the models for all of that stuff went out of their way to model not only spent casing for when the gun is ejecting them normally, but also unspent rounds of every ammo type in the game for when Snake ejects them manually. What makes it funnier though is that the act of manually ejecting an unspent round like Snake always does in MGS4 is precisely the thing that Big Boss berates Ocelot for doing in MGS3. That's why Ocelot's Makarov jams, he tries to rack the slide and manually eject a round, I guess just to make doubly sure it is loaded and ready to fire, but he doesn't pull it back far enough and it gets stuck on the way out.

[@VexAcer]

The Infamous games are some other PS3 games that come to mind in terms of also running unlocked with a double buffer V-Sync setup. Not sure why devs went this approach, but it's definitely appreciated since its essentially future proofed some of these games.

[@pablomercaderalcantara5740]

Thank you! I was locked by the crash you mention at 16:00 and disabling anti-aliasing helped me get through. Thanks for sharing!

[@Tails7212]

This game was one of the most impressive uses of a console's limitations.. up there with A Link to the Past, Gran Turismo 4 and Crash Bandicoot 1

[@alsopsarchive5384]

Wait, where’s the Motorstorm video? That’s the one I’ve been most excited for.

[@BolognaLover]

I've been playing MGS4 on PC with shaders for a while now and I love it. Glad to see the team make so much progress on the emulator. Used to barley run or not at all

[@dr.loomis4221]

What's a barley run?

[@BolognaLover]

@@dr.loomis4221 you know what I meant ooooh sorry I didn't type barely

[@thedarkriddler7318]

Whats the best iso/rom for it

[@BolognaLover]

@@thedarkriddler7318 not sure. I dumped the game myself

[@lukkkasz323]

@@thedarkriddler7318 There is no best, there are only 2 main differences, PSN and Disc, language version doesn't matter and both PSN and Disc should work for this game.

[@roberto1519]

I'm not sure if it makes sense, but maybe, glitches like that cutscene where the guy is shot, he stands up and run into the wall, means the cutscene is tied to the original PS3 framerate? As the emulation smooths it out, it probably ends the scene earlier than it should and the game misbehaves. That's just a guess, though.

[@Roruoni]

I bet it's related to a floating point drift with Nvidia hardware. It could also be related to the fact that the RSX actually had a predictable error in its floating point values between -1 and 1. Modern Nvidia hardware is more accurate though still has a drift away from whole number values. AMD hardware does not have such a math error. We could test to see if this oddity happens on a computer with an AMD GPU.

[@pgxgamer]

The Metal Gear Solid franchise is one of my favorite series. And I loved MGS4 when it came out, I cried when I finished it. Seeing this emulated at such resolution and frame rate is amazing.

[@solidpat221]

Great video! I play a lot on the EMU to play MGO2, and its definitely come a long way in just a years time. Definitely excited to see what the future brings, and hopefully some more MGO2 players too!

[@dormanthero]

A man of culture I see.

[@alolanstarboy]

Omg yes I've been waiting for this video ever since it was mentioned in a DF direct. The PS3 is my favorite console due to its weird hardware and architecture choices among other things so any content on that generation of consoles is quite exciting to watch

[@orrino]

Perfectly timed video for my purposes! Spent awhile last week trying to get this game running on my 5900x. Tried multiple builds including the main RPCS to no avail. Framerate would consistently drop below 20 and spike all over the place, and it made the experience too rough to want to push through. I guess the one build that I missed was the one that you used, the Cipher XOF. Just gave it a shot and I'm getting a constant 60 fps the vast majority of the time. I have no idea why this build works so well for me while the other, more popular builds run terribly, but I'm not complaining.

[@BBWahoo]

Disable Multithreaded RSX for a nice perf boost 👆

[@Visuwyg]

You are really cranking these out, John! I just got done watching the Gran Tourismo episodes. Good work, love everything DF Retro!

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

This video was awesome, I love hearing about this PS3-era stuff. I really hope that Motorstorm video isn’t paywalled on Patreon and eventually gets a KZbin release because I can’t wait to see it.

[@jovanzeng]

Such a wonderful game. I've enjoyed every second of it.

[@pherd-0884]

I didn't even know that MGS4 was playable. I never really took the time to check it except here and there. This is great news. I'd love to hear more RPCS3 content in the future.

[@lagginswag]

It's not officially listed as playable yet

[@Cory_]

I think the PS5 is DEFINITELY strong enough to emulate the PS3's CPU, at least in most games. I emulated all of Lollipop Chainsaw on my 6600k and had zero slowdown.

[@aninfinitemindofmusicandreams]

Three years back I emulated Ninja Gaiden Sigma on a gaming laptop with a 3550H CPU and with just a bit of resolution scale tweaking the game ran nicely and was most definitely playable. Years earlier when the emulator was just starting to become good I played Persona 5 on a rig with an i5 7500 and that too ran quite nicely. The PS5's CPU is a hell of a lot stronger than any of these CPUs and your 6600k. Local PS3 emulation is absolutely a possibility on the system, it's just a matter of when Sony will finally decide to do it properly.

[@CODMWX]

Please make more videos with RPSC3, the Motorstorm one was amazing!

[@SuperKhalid95]

A huge props to the emulator developers for caring and preserving this game's legacy 🙌, something that Shitnami would never do.

[@Mr_APeezy]

"Possibly the nanomachines in action? It's unclear." This line is so good! lol😆

[@noodlezeep5159]

Great stuff! Would you consider doing a follow up on how it performs on midrange hardware for mere mortals?

[@tovopro]

This game was gorgeous for its time and graphically, it was definitely a console gen. ahead of its time. I don't normally play remakes, but I would certainly mess with this again!

[@zinho_84]

This is by far, a Masterpiece...What a great game.

[@visceraeyes525]

lol no, its the worst mgs game

[@lightweaponx]

@@visceraeyes525 MGSV is the worst and it's not even close, 4 has its issues especially with the story but its core gameplay is top-notch.

[@lightweaponx]

@Man of the Rain The idea sounds great on paper but it's just embarrassingly easy. I think the series was far better when the environments were more tightly controlled and then let the player overcome that anyway they want. Getting an S rank on any mission was as easy as bringing in a tranq sniper and keeping a little distance in V. The moment to moment stuff was great, I will give you that, but the actual act of tackling an new area was just not all that thrilling to me. Even with the enemies adapting to my previous approaches the game was just not that interesting to play.

[@lightweaponx]

@Man of the Rain I had Foxhound rank most of the game 🤷‍♂️

[@lightweaponx]

@@p.staycalm Oh I don't remember exactly. I think a few missions after the fight with Quiet they were mostly Foxhound after that point with a few Octopus in there as well.

[@babakazi808]

Welp. Don't know how i found this video, but I've been looking for a custom side by side comparison for a while now. Subbed.

[@soapa4279]

I think I've beaten this game maybe 5 times now on the PS3. It's actually amazing looking back now, how they were even to pull this off on the PS3.

[@fillerbunnyninjashark271]

Not really, many games look significantly better on the hardware and you can see all the texture limitations

[@soapa4279]

@@fillerbunnyninjashark271 right let me rephrase, it has a lot of issues. But I mean from the story telling perspective and gameplay it did things you wouldn't imagine even being done on the PS3 at that specific time, early in the lifecycle. Of course we had better games that completely blew our doors off graphically (thinking of Uncharted 2 and 3)

[@fillerbunnyninjashark271]

@@soapa4279 after the shit I saw them pull off on the ps2 it's not too surprising... Now if they pulled it off without those 15 minute long install/load times it would have been a lot more impressive

[@RemoG0915]

@@fillerbunnyninjashark271 significantly? Idk about that. All the games I can think of that look better came out much later. Mainly the naughty dog games from UC2 onwards

[@fillerbunnyninjashark271]

@@RemoG0915 the only thing that looked great in mgs4 was the character models. The texture work and stage architecture was very last gen in quality

[@EwokEight]

This was the fist MGS I ever played (apart from the MGS1 demo), and I loved it.

[@frogery]

I never had a PS3 and didn't want to buy one just for this game, so I waited for a PS4 rerelease or good emulation for a literal decade before deciding to just play it on PS Now. Let's just say I would have liked the game a lot more if I had played it 10 years ago..

[@philipford6183]

Enjoyable video. More emulation coverage generally (across multiple platforms) from DF would be a good addition to your portfolio of offerings. Always interesting, always informed.

[@maineman5757]

This game looked like real life back in the day.

[@jazzman7320]

Absolutely, man. One of my favourite gaming experiences of my life was sitting next to my MGS superfan cousin and passing the controller between us as he served as Loremaster and pointed out cool connections and details that I might have missed otherwise. By the time you’re crawling through the microwave machine at the end, we were almost in full tears. What a hero. Will remember this game until the day I die!

[@AgentSmith911]

My favorite MGS games are MGS1 for the PS1 and MGS2:SoL for the PS2. The attention to detail in the MGS games, especially in MGS2, is incredible and shows the talent and dedication of Hideo and his team.

[@silentobserver888]

GLORY TO THE GREATEST GAME SERIES EVER MADE!

[@RomWilds]

Nah.

[@kitn6894]

Easily the best, pound for pound, changed the industry over multiple decades without being a first party studio

[@silentobserver888]

@@RomWilds it’s okay not everyone understands the story. You can play Nintendo games rated e for everyone.

[@infinitysynthesis]

Glory to Mass effect i agree.

[@ocelot-sensei4384]

@@infinitysynthesis Only if the first game didn't age so badly, lol

[@caioferreira4986]

Yes! I would love to see more of this. It's really cool seeing what was considered impossible to emulate, a reality.

[@infinitysynthesis]

This game went full kojima. That's both a good and bad thing.

[@Tclbmx_]

13:27 its not a glitch, your octacamo was probably not active when you were playing the section of the game on ps3. The octacamo also hides your body temperature.

[@sdo1840]

One of the absolute greats. Up there with playstations all time best exclusives

[@necrojustice]

Looking unbelievable! Thanks for the comparisons and for saving me the trouble of having to having to set it up myself.

[@Varmint260]

John, do you have any plans to continue this series, for example with Insomniac's PS3 games? I'm currently playing through Ratchet & Clank Tools of Destruction at 4K60 on my RPCS3 (R7 5800X) and I am impressed how many of the game's assets hold up, especially considering the original sub-720p resolution running on PS3. I'm around half-way through the game and have only experienced minor graphical glitches and no crashes thus far using a dump of my own game disc. I'm planning to try Resistance and Motorstorm Pacific Rift next!

[@captainhook3962]

Wow beautiful editing on that opening 🔥🔥🔥

[@LRon-ef7ni]

When someone asks what my favorite game ever is, it’s between MGS 4, 3, and 1. I wish for a day this becomes backwards compatible or remastered, not remade. Considering Konami vs Kojima, I think BC is the closest to being real.

[@PlasticSorcererTheOriginal]

True bro The best I can get is MGS3 and MGS2 on Xbox series X, which is probably the best way to play BTW. And MGS1 emulated or Vita. Mgs4 is the forbidden fruit unless you have a PS3.

[@LRon-ef7ni]

@@PlasticSorcererTheOriginal yeah. My PS3 is still hooked up cuz of MGS collection, but now I’m contemplating buying the Xbox version.

[@guitarspud1723]

@@LRon-ef7ni it runs beautifully.

[@VariantAEC]

No love for MGS:PW?

[@PlasticSorcererTheOriginal]

@@VariantAEC Peace Walker is great, typically people who loved MGS3 can't get enough of it

[@llkobe]

I would really like to see a DF retro episode of MGS3 !!!!

[@bluedragon219123]

Fun fact: the game takes place in 2014 and the first stage is about "rebels" trying to overthrow a Middle Eastern government. In hindsight you start the game helping the bad guys. I'm sure Kojima didn't intend for that but it's funny how life works out. :)

[@visceraeyes525]

yeah but kojima promised that you were supposed to be able to help both sides out or side with one over the other

[@bluedragon219123]

@@visceraeyes525 You can still become enemies of the "rebels" and kill them but you can't help the PMCs or the government true. :)

[@mikemiles2241]

He did intend for that

[@Argedis]

One of the best looking games on the PS3 and one of the few that upscaled the game to 1080p. Many games at the time ran at 720p

[@BigLadGreen]

So basically the ps3 when used properly was way ahead of it's time.

[@josephmccartney2071]

Great video, love seeing these looks at older titles, especially PS3 exclusives since I never owned one myself.

[@SirDragonClaw]

Holy crap! Was the game actually this brown and desaturated? This game truly embodies "Next-Gen-Brown" from that generation.

[@andree1991]

The good ol piss filter.

[@lpnp9477]

It was the epitome of that era's prevailing 'art' direction.

[@nametbd2885]

Only the first chapter looks this desaturated, not that the other chapters are super vibrant or anything. They talk about how they wanted a different color palette for each of the five chapters in a behind the scenes video for this game.

[@shophet125]

13:58 Drebin was partially inspired by Frank Drebin from the Police Squad tv show (which eventually became the Naked Gun movies)

[@ps3wizard45]

I'd argue mgs4 is the best in the series. Best gameplay, most entertaining cutscenes. Sure they're long, but they're long in 2 and 3 too and half as entertaining imo (I'd rather watch Raiden fight gecko in that breathtaking scene than Peter Stillman talk about the history of Fatman for 20 minutes). Its a shame there will probably never be another game with such an ambitious story and a cool concept like sneaking through a dynamic battlefield.

[@xxx-pliskin-sniper-xxx8538]

Has to be Snake Eater for me, but 4 was a masterpiece and definitely in my top 10 (maybe even 5) PS3 games. Loved every minute of it and even MGO had me hooked for god, must’ve been years 😂. Such an amazing franchise.

[@chrisrichfield8906]

Ya I don't understand the complaints about long cutscenes. Even MGS1 had fairly long cutscenes for a PS1 game, and codec calls that went on forever. That's what I like about the games though, its like an interactive cinema experience.

[@chronicmids6642]

Beat Asura's Wrath on my steam deck through rpcs3. What a ride! PS3 emulation is only getting better by the day, so I'd love to see more from you guys on this subject.

[@tomb4250]

PS3 is the only console that plays every MG directed by Kojima

[@MechaSalesman]

I recorded and beta tested the entire 4K run of this game 2.5 years ago on a specific custom dev branch, working and beta testing it with the dev directly for a few months as it progressed. I was even one of the first players to ever beat the game fully emulated. (albiet not without 'serious' glitches and gameplay problems) Nice to see how it's progressed since my 2019 recordings. (Also, good luck when you get to the second half of Chapter 3 and near the end of Chapter 4. They push even the best of hardware to the extreme if you want 60FPS.)

[@Shezmen88]

The video was great! I have a question, do you guys think there's any way to remove the bleach-pass filter? I refuse to believe that the game was created with textures this brown, they must have used some type of filter on the camera, so maybe it's possible to "restore" the color grading to its original form....I wonder.

[@Dorraj]

You could probably use a filter destroying program like reshade. They were made like this, you seem to forget that that was around when *every* game was some shade of brown.

[@ndr2q]

Back when this came out, it was the industry standard to make all games look brown. I don’t think it’s just a filter. That’s how most all games looked during that generation. Your only option that I’m aware of would be cranking up saturation on your display, or something like reshade maybe.

[@usernameRika]

This is one game where the grey-sh filter actually makes sense. This is not a case where they thought..."ok, let's use a filter 'cose it's all the rage right now" Having vibrant colours and happy flowers on a battlefield, would not set the mood very well... I wish that the slight bloom from the original trailers could be implemented via shader or other method.

[@TheSliderW]

You can play around in the graphics settings of rpcs3. There is a slider to adjust gamma and the rgb values makimg the game more colorful. Might be an OpenGl exclusive option though . With Vulkan you can run Reshade to add the same filter or add others including SSAO and such.

[@datruth4766]

@@usernameRika I remember saying this exact thing at the time in N4G threads. It's not fighting monsters on the rolling plains of Japanese RPG!

[@LogainAblar]

This video brought back some memories. For me, MGS4 is one of my favorite MGS games, my least favorite being MGS 2. I didn't mind the cuts scenes at all especially after I saw the ending. Each time this game comes up, "End of an era" comes to mind because of the ending. I never played the newer MGS games because the ending of MGS4 brought everything that really mattered in the main story to a close. The final scene in the cemetery is one of my favorite end scenes in gaming bar none. That says a lot considering how incredible the ending to Snake Eater is. I held off buying a Xbox 360 in part due to MGS4. Say what you will about the MGS4's performance by today's standards, yes, the game struggled but when it debuted on PS3. But no one was running 4K/60 or anything close to it in that generation and sub optimal framerate was so constant that it was almost a feature instead of a limitation.

[@discobobo]

This is the only time I've ever disagreed with you in a video, Johnny and his long-running intestinal issues is still hilarious all these years later And the way it all gets explained because of his lack of nanomachines for being scared of needles just ties at all with a bow

[@Ayoul]

It's the kind of detail that gets over their head since they're just taking it at face value. I quite like the contrast between the serious tone of the story and setting with the silly jokes that MGS has always had.

[@nathan386dx40]

Wish you could've made it to the Shadow Moses bit where it uses the PS3's built-in PS1 emulator, it would have been very impressive if RPCS3 managed to get through that without crashing. But still a good, thorough, informative video!