Sonic Heroes Console Differences

I'm 99% sure the PS2 version isn't running in 320x240, as my HDTV is actually unable to display games of this resolution when using component cables. I have to switch over to RGB SCART for PS1 games, and Ico, as a result of this. Either that or use the homebrew program GSM to force another resolution.

If I had to guess, I'd wager the PS2 version runs at 512x448, which is a surprisingly common resolution for PS2 games. It blanks the top 16 and bottom 16 lines of the screen (which is covered by the overscan of most TVs), and lets the TV scale the 512 horizontal pixels to the correct size, something which CRT TVs of the time were very happy to do. Many of the better looking PS2 games ran at this resolution as a way of clawing back some render time, including Metal Gear Solid Three, Shadow of the Colossus, and Final Fantasy Twelve. I'd not be at all surprised if more than one multi-platform title also utilised this resolution on the PS2. I'll check for sure later when at my gaming PC using PCSX2, as that tells the user what resolution the selected game is internally rendering at.

 

One thing about running Sonic Heroes on modern graphics cards is that the effects of the energy paths in the second 2 stages (grand metropolis / power plant) and the smokey effects of the last bits of Mystic Mansion don't look right. I have no idea how to get it to look right (note also that, as mainmemory mentions, this also affects the water texture, though that's less obvious because the water doesn't really show up much outside of the first two stages)

See also: http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=8815&view=findpost&p=604031

 

Sorry if this feels like advertising or something, but I'm also a big fan of looking for differences between regions and code revisions in general and this has reminded me that I've had a project in the backburner for a while now which precisely consists on a wiki that's focused on just version differences and nothing else.

It's already been set up for some time now, but I haven't really had any serious time to spend on it after its configuration so it's closed at the moment (and if I remember correctly, still has none of the contents I intended to add myself)... In any case, if anyone's interested in starting to add stuff like the things in this topic so that this kind of documentation can be centralized as soon as possible, I could make it public right away.

 

Here's a comparison (I have modded character textures).
Left is PC and right is GC if that wasn't obvious.

It looks like it's missing the hexagon pattern under the distortion.

This is something I wanted to do too, so if you ever get it up and running again I'd be happy to contribute.

 

I'm certainly interested. I'm also wondering if anybody knows the differences between the versions of Sonic Riders.

 

I was actually just looking into that recently. As far as I can tell, the only major graphical difference between versions (ignoring some minor fog and lighting differences) is the very noticeable distortion used in hot levels. The factory and the desert in particular; I can never remember names. Here's a comparison of the PC version and the GameCube version (left is PC). I don't actually remember if they managed to get the distortion effect running on the PS2 version, but if I can find my disc I'll check it out. I'm not actually sure about the PS2 version of Riders, but the PC version surprisingly has a voice language option in the launcher unlike Heroes.

At the very least, I can tell you that there isn't a glaring quality difference like there was with Sonic Heroes PS2 compared to every other version. Couldn't tell you much about the Xbox version, although it looks like if there is any configuration, it's controlled by the console's settings as this video demonstrates briefly. Speaking of which...

Thanks! I was going to reply sooner, but then my browser crashed so I gave up.

 

Okay then, I've just opened it to the public: www.versionhistory.com

Please let me know if you miss any features when editing. It's been almost half a year since I installed it and I don't really remember if there was anything left to configure. =|

 

The main differences between the 360 and PS3 versions of Sonic 06 mainly consist of, I think, console hardware and how it interprets data.

The water in Kingdom Valley looks 'better' on the Xbox version and more washed out and greener on the PS3. The Xbox version has a clearer reflection and looks far more realistic.

Some distant level geometry likes to disappear on the PS3 version, on the 360 it does not.
Some distant shadows generated by level geometry disappear from time to time, on the 360 it does not.

Lighting effects, such as the red glow generated by a torch appears more often on the PS3 than it does on the 360. The green orbs' aura in Kingdom Valley always seems to appear properly though.

Dust in Kingdom Valley doesn't appear on the PS3 (Such as when opening a door in Kingdom Valley), it does on the 360.

Loading times are worse on the PS3 than on the 360, but that's because of the reading speed of the BD Drive. Installing the game on an Xbox 360 yields acceptable loading times.

Lag is lessened on the PS3 version, but again, that's because of hardware.


I believe Orengefox had a demo disc of some sort...I was hoping he could get it dumped, though it's been a while and I'm unsure of the status of that. I really do hope he gets it dumped so I could comb through more differences.


The 360 XBLA Demo has a few things that the final doesn't. It has wall jump (Sonic clings to a wall momentarily before falling unlike the final). Sonic's homing attack is affected by gravity, in the final it does not, and finally, if Sonic is upside down, he falls properly instead of sticking to the ceiling like he does in the final. The cave in the Kingdom Valley demo demonstrates this. There are other misc. level differences but that's just the general gist of it. Scoring is applied differently in the demo (ableit it's broken), few graphical effects are missing, doing a lightdash lags the demo and it doesn't in the final, few lighting errors in the demo, the two robots when you smash the bridge down clip through the bridge instead of being killed, wall crawlers don't pay attention to the walls and climb up forever.

If anyone wants, I could make some comparison videos to showcase some, any, or all of these things, as I have both versions of the game.

I literally spend all day and night combing through videos and footage. I'm obsessed. #Sonic06disease

tl;dr, Orengefox, dump the demo, I cry every night thinking about it :'(






On a related note, anyone know why the character Team Blast glitch doesn't work on PC? Was it patched or something?

 

Why did Sonic Team never carry over shader effects from the Gamecube releases to the PC releases? They noticeably did the same thing in Sonic Adventure DX. Not even the 2011 release has the shader effects.

 

Aren't shader effects one of the Gamecube's strengths? To me it would feel as if all of the Sonic games after the Dreamcast was discontinued in the US and European regions were primarily developed for the Gamecube; you have Sonic Adventure 2 Battle as a Gamecube exclusive and whatnot; it could be the case, or I must be over-thinking it.

Games like Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog seemed to play the best on the Gamecube; I have played the PS2 versions of both games and they suffer from some pretty bad slowdown at times. I can't speak for the Xbox versions, though; I take it they must be very similar to the PC version...well, Heroes anyway.

 

I think the game was developed on the Gamecube and then ported over to other consoles, iirc. It did run pretty well on the Gamecube.

Got review and demo mixed up =P. Still, would be nice to have a look at in game files. This game was a mess, a hot sticky mess.

 

Shader effects were one of the Gamecube's strengths. It had the TEV system which was a lot like nVidia's register combiners which made shader effects rather easy for the Gamecube to pull off. The thing is, the PC is obviously more than capable of doing this and it doesn't seem like it would be that hard for them to port over the shader effects in the PC releases. I guess it's just extra time and money they didn't think was worth spending. Thankfully, since Generations, this doesn't seem to be happening anymore.

 

Today I learned I was hardcore, and never knew it.

This post of yours has been amazing by the way. I've already saved a lot what you've said in a shoddy notepad file just for my own reference.

Now I'm guessing the Xbox 360 was 'the' console for Sonic games of last gen, muchlike the Gamecube was the previous gen's console of choice, as I remember Unleashed having an erratic framerate on PS3, and Generations had the odd bit of input/frame delay here and there (if a review of the Green Hill PSN demo serves me right)

On the flip-side, I also remember hearing that Sumo favoured the PS3 when they made the Sonic & SEGA All-Stars games, with the 360 version suffering as a result. Any confirmation of any of this heresay would be absolutely brill. :D

I mean, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm always a tad obsessed with always trying to get the best performing console release of any game (not counting being part of the PC Masterrace sadly..), ever since the dreaded Bayonetta on PS3 incident.
Metal Gear Solid V did a bloody brilliant job of comparing each console release before launch, and I wish more sites (like Digital Foundry) did in-depth comparisons for older games.
Anyways. enough rambling/personal blog from me now.

 

Because the 2011 PC version is an asinine port of the 360 version which is a port of the 2003 PC version.

 

Are we talking about stuff like that weird-ass-looking water effect? I remember that being there in the PC version but only when I had a PC with an AMD graphics card…

 

I'm talking about stuff like this. I have an AMD R9 290x and I don't see these effects on any version of the game. The game does not have these effects, at least not DX.

 

Oh. :B This being the Hereos thread, and not reading up on all of the conversation right after waking up way late, I guess it was my fault for assuming the PC version of Heroes was being talked about. Whoops. :P
Bloody hell, though, seriously? The later ports really were just treated as cheap shovelware, weren't they? How does one miss stuff like that during quality control?

 

Indeed, the 360 most definitely was the target console for Sonic games last gen. (Last gen? Feels wrong to say that somehow.) Sonic '06 has very rough performance on both machines due to being very rushed, mishandled, and Sega's first real attempt at making a 360 game. Everything Irixion mentioned about the game is true, although I would personally claim that the 360 version's loading times are still unbearable, even installed to hard drive. A brief analysis and screenshot comparison of the two versions can be found here (scroll down past the Splinter Cell comparison): http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/x360-v-ps3-multiformat-face-off-round-three-article?page=3

There is an additional issue with the game that I rarely see mentioned, mainly because it only manifests in the PAL PS3 version, and only when running in SD. For reasons that I cannot comprehend, PAL PS3s cannot be put into 60hz when running in SD, meaning that all games run in 50hz. Most use a form of frame-skipping (much like the Gamecube in 50hz) to compensate for this, including Sonic '06. However, something goes very wrong with the FMVs of the game. They skip, they stutter, they're near unwatchable. They play as if the disc were scratched. And yet they work fine in 720p. Which is annoying, as there is another issue with the game! One can make the game have a more steady frame-rate if one sets one's PS3 to be in SD. In the case of Sonic '06, setting the PS3 to 480p does actually cause it to only render at 640x480, rather than usual method of dealing with 480p, being to render full 720p and then scale down. Meaning that if you have the PAL version, you're stuck either playing with an acceptable frame-rate but broken FMVs, or working FMVs with a near unplayable frame-rate! As rushed as the game was, the PAL PS3 version doesn't even appear to have had quality control testing performed. :|

Sonic Unleashed faired a bit better tech wise, thankfully. Again, the 360 was the lead platform, and the PS3 version suffers, but nowhere near to the same extent. The visual effects are a near match, albeit with the PS3 version having lower resolution soft shadows, with worse filtering. I recall the water in the Adabat daytime level, which was absolutely beautiful on 360, being a little less impressive on PS3. Both versions run at a resolution of 880x720, scaled horizontally to 1280x720, which due to how the human eye seems to work, doesn't look nearly as bad as one may expect. The frame-rate has trouble keeping a rock solid 30fps on 360 during the more intense levels, especially when playing as the werehog, while the PS3 version has trouble keeping 30fps at more or less every part of the game. The final level, Eggmanland, is a technical mess on both systems, but is near unplayable on PS3. The PS3 version also has some quite long loading times, though nothing like as bad as Sonic '06. Though speaking of loading, when one transitions between day and night, 360 owners are treated to an animation of Sonic transforming into the werehog, and vice versa for night to day. These are completely absent for the PS3 version, instead showing a spinning day/night emblem.

Sonic Unleashed also had a PS2 and Wii version, but that's an entirely different game, sharing no assets or engine code whatsoever. It would be unfair to compare those versions to the PS3/360 versions, as they don't even have the same levels. Instead, have a brief video comparison of the PS3 and 360 versions, again courtesy of Eurogamer's Digital Foundry (scroll past the Need for Speed segment): http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/xbox-360-vs-ps3-face-off-round-18-article?page=3

As a side note, I can't help but think they were a little unfair with their assessment of the game. I remember finding it incredibly pretty at the time, with the lighting, water, and pixar-style humans being particularly gorgeous. But hey, opinions.

By the time Sonic Generations came about, Sega had seemingly optimised the Hedgehog Engine a hell of a lot more. I've played the game a great deal on 360, and it holds a 30fps refresh very well indeed, only dropping when there's too much Havok physics going on. I can't speak for the PS3 version this time, as I've only played the demo, but it certainly held up a lot, lot better than PS3 Unleashed.

Did Sumo really favour the PS3? I've not really touched the original All Stars Racing, but the Transformed sequel I've played a great deal of, and I much prefer the 360 version of it to the PS3 version. The PS3 version runs at a higher resolution (1280x720, as opposed to the 360's 1152x554), but has real trouble maintaining 30fps. I only played the demo, but it was rare that the game hit its target frame-rate. The 360 version meanwhile uses some very impressive anti-aliasing to mitigate the low resolution, and does a wonderful job of hitting 30fps. I'd be very surprised to hear that Sumo preferred the PS3, especially with it being well renowned as more difficult to make games for. There were also versions of the game for the Wii U, Vita, and 3DS, but I've barely touched those. Digital Foundry assures me that the Wii U version runs at 1024x576, but my memory of playing this version at a friend's house has the game with a frame-rate not dissimilar from the PS3 version. The Vita version has downgraded visuals, but still manages to look very nice, especially on the Vita's OLED screen, albeit again with frame-rate issues. The 3DS version meanwhile runs on a completely different engine, with different assets, so a comparison would be unfair.

I've gone back to the PS2 version of Sonic Heroes, incidently, and thanks to PCXS2 can confirm that it does actually run at a resolution of 640x447, NOT the 512x448 I assumed. I am quite unsure as to why my eyes assume it to be a lower resolution than the other versions, but oh well. PS2 Shadow the Hedgehog also appears to run at this resolution.

I think it's fair to say that I, too, would love to see more comparisons of older games. I've always loved seeing the differences between versions. Had I the means to capture lossless footage from my older consoles, I would surely produce such comparisons myself, creating a sort of retro Digital Foundry. Alas, emulation of those systems simply isn't good enough to perform a proper comparison, and I can't justify spending money on a retro capture device, ahaha. Maybe one day, however. One day.

 

Don't forget the surface level stuff, like Soleanna Castle Town on the 360 featuring gondolas and the castle in the distance. Both are noticeably absent on the PS3 version. The funny thing is, 06 was delayed by two months to get the PS3 version out and it features almost no fixes and several losses.

Unleashed is a delightful mess on PS3. Sometimes it runs at a wonderful 50-60fps (you see this most in Cool Edge/Holoska), other times the game wants to damn near kill itself (Adabat in one running on water segment--though this was actually IMPROVED when the DLC patches came out.) The most notable one for anyone playing the PS3 version, ESPECIALLY if you speedrun the stage, is Eggmanland. There are times the WHOLE LEVEL goes invisible while the PS3 attempts to catch up and load the art assets for the stage. If you don't pause and you don't have a good memory of the stage layout, chances are this WILL kill you. Music also seems to cue up on a bit of a delay too.

Generations is almost at parity with the 360 version. Load times are king once again in that they're a little longer on PS3 (that cursed blu-ray drive...) and the music also takes some time to cue up properly. Some modern stages actually start off completely silent for a second or two before their music kicks in. See Green Hill and Sky Sanctuary for example.

I know this is the Heroes thread, but I know very little of that one's development or process, and I wanted to contribute some of my useless wealth of knowledge on 06 and the other two PS3 titles.