[muteKi]

Sonic Warrior TJ, on 17 November 2014 - 11:28 PM, said:

The Gamecube version only one voice-over language option, presumably due to disk space. I remember being sorely disappointed back at release when I couldn't change the English to Japanese (we all have/had the phase, shut up), but my friend who rented the PS2 version could. I have three of the four versions now (well, five versions if you count the PS3 download in Europe; is it just as bad as the PS2 version?), all but XBOX, and I've played through each. I couldn't tell you any major differences though aside from the fact the PS2 version is undoubtedly the worst, and I still prefer the GCN version to the PC version due to convenience. Heroes PC also stretched to fit my screen, which I wasn't a fan of. I don't remember being able to fix that, and my search for a widescreen mod, or the means to do it myself, turned up empty. It's been a while though, so maybe I'd have more luck now.

WSGF has mods for just about every standard fullscreen resolution you can think of. Minus the lack of repositioning of the score/time/rings, it's astounding how little would need to change for a "professional" widescreen release of the game

[SpeedStarTMQ]

Sir_mihael, on 20 November 2014 - 06:55 AM, said:

Quote

http://sonicheroessp...ion_Differences

>PAL60 runs at roughly 120% speed.

As a PAL Gamecube owner who always switches to 60hz when prompted, does this mean I've been playing the game 20% faster than regular NTSC players?
Am I hardcore now?

So I guess I should be playing in 50hz to match the speed of the NTSC/NTSC-J releases?
(I've heard of PAL releases being slower, but never the opposite /> )

This is quite a new twist for me. I wonder if Shadow the Hedgehog has the same effect running at PAL60?

There's an easy way to see the speed difference. Go and try Team Blast as Team Sonic on 50 and 60htz, and see the difference in the speed of the animation VS the audio. It cuts off about a second before it should on 60htz.

[Sir_mihael]

SpeedStarTMQ, on 20 November 2014 - 02:05 PM, said:

There's an easy way to see the speed difference. Go and try Team Blast as Team Sonic on 50 and 60htz, and see the difference in the speed of the animation VS the audio. It cuts off about a second before it should on 60htz.

Wow. That's actually kinda interesting. Might actually go back and do a 50hz run now to see if feels less, er, fast? Might be a good thing in Heroes' case. Carelessly running into pitfalls is what I do best in that game.

[Yalecsa]

I've always taken great delight in comparing multiple versions of the same game, and as such I played all four version quite a bit back in the day. While I didn't play them all start to finish, I noticed quite a number of differences. The Gamecube was the target platform for development, being that Sonic Team had more familiarity with it, and the PS2 and Xbox versions do suffer as a result.

The Xbox version is missing a few visual effects, mainly shader effects. The orange wibbly energy type stuff that's featured prominently in the power plant level is rendered as just a flat orange colour in the Xbox version. Likewise, the pathways in this level which propel your characters forwards are missing their animations, which were also a shader effect. Oddly though, the water in the first level is rendered correctly, and that is most certainly a shader effect. Why they were able to get that one working and not the others, I'll never know. There are also some sound irregularities in this version. Certain sound effects either don't play, or play at completely the wrong volume. The "ding" sound when a character connects with a spherical bumper in the casino level seems to be missing, for instance, and if memory serves, the ring sound effect when Tails throws a ring box plays so quietly that it may as well not be there. The game also suffers occasional frame drops here and there, but generally holds at 60 frames per second.

The PS2 version has all of the above issues, and many more. All shader effects are replaced with either animated textures or flat shading, including the water in the first level. Character shadows are now circular blob shadows instead of soft shadows. The game is locked at 30 frames per second instead of 60; still perfectly playable, but less pleasing to the eye. Loading times, while not bad, are significantly longer than the Gamecube and Xbox versions. I can't say for certain, but the game may even be running at a lower resolution; it just looks rougher, jaggier.

The PC version, due to the nature of PC hardware, is hugely variable in terms of performance. If your PC can't run the game at 60 frames a second, the game slows down rather than skipping frames. The user must manually enable an optional 30fps cap to make it run at the right speed. Fortunately, on modern PCs, this is rarely an issue. All in game visuals are a match for the Gamecube version as far as I recall, though I don't remember if all the sound effects play correctly. I seem to remember the FMVs being particularly low quality for this version however; I assume they had to be compressed to fit onto the two CDs the game was distributed on.

The Gamecube version really is the way to go, but as previously stated, PAL gamers beware! You MUST put the game into 50hz, or else it will run too fast! This stems from a silly oversight by Sega. Many Gamecube games get around the 50hz problem by simply playing the game as normal, but skipping every sixth frame that is displayed. This results in a game that plays at the correct speed, but looks and feels a bit stuttery. Sonic Heroes implements this, but due to an error, still performs this frame skipping when the game is set to 60hz. It's probably very easy to fix with a small patch, but when the NTSC version is so easy to get hold of, there's likely no demand for such a patch. So let's just think of it as a challenge mode, for the truly hardcore Sonic Heroes players.

***

While I'm dredging up memories of past Sonic titles, I also remember a number of differences with Shadow the Hedgehog, a game which had a similar triple format release (no PC version this time). Again, the Gamecube version was the target platform, but this time around, the three versions are much more similar to one another. The Gamecube and Xbox versions are actually near identical, with the same graphical effects and framerate. Any differences are so minor as to be inconsequential, and are likely just quirks of the different rendering hardware; the Xbox using an Nvidia GPU, and the Gamecube an ATI GPU. The Xbox version is, however, missing the co-op feature, for reasons that completely elude me.

The PS2 version fares better than the PS2 version of Heroes, but is still the version to avoid if you have the choice. I don't remember the differences in as great detail as I do Heroes, but there are a number of small visual differences (I seem to remember large rocks in the first level being grey in the Gamecube and Xbox versions, but red on the PS2?), and a very questionable framerate. It targets 60 frames per second if I recall correctly, but frequently falls well short of it.

I also remember a great deal of differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Sonic '06 and Sonic Unleashed. But I'm going to go ahead and guess I've talked enough. >.>

[GerbilSoft]

Yalecsa, on 25 November 2014 - 10:13 AM, said:

The PS2 version has all of the above issues, and many more. All shader effects are replaced with either animated textures or flat shading, including the water in the first level. Character shadows are now circular blob shadows instead of soft shadows. The game is locked at 30 frames per second instead of 60; still perfectly playable, but less pleasing to the eye. Loading times, while not bad, are significantly longer than the Gamecube and Xbox versions. I can't say for certain, but the game may even be running at a lower resolution; it just looks rougher, jaggier.

I wouldn't be surprised if the PS2 version was actually running at 320x240. If you have a CRT TV available, use composite video and check to see if there's any interlaced flickering. If there isn't, it's running at 320x240, aka 240p. (The GameCube version supports either 480i or 480p.)

[Yalecsa]

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.

[muteKi]

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.sonicr...ndpost&p=604031

[ICEknight]

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.

This post has been edited by ICEknight: 26 November 2014 - 10:58 AM

[Morph]

muteKi, on 26 November 2014 - 06:27 AM, said:

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.sonicr...ndpost&p=604031

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.

ICEknight, on 26 November 2014 - 09:02 AM, said:

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.

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

This post has been edited by Morph: 26 November 2014 - 05:12 PM

[XD375]

Yalecsa, on 25 November 2014 - 10:13 AM, said:

I also remember a great deal of differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Sonic '06 and Sonic Unleashed. But I'm going to go ahead and guess I've talked enough. >.>

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

[Morph]

XD375, on 27 November 2014 - 05:03 AM, said:

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...

SuperSonicRider, on 17 November 2014 - 05:23 PM, said:

EDIT: OK, @ Morph: just looked at your old thread and checked the Options menu - there's no language setting in-game for the Xbox version either, in case you were still wondering.

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

This post has been edited by Morph: 27 November 2014 - 07:34 AM

[ICEknight]

Morph, on 26 November 2014 - 05:11 PM, said:

ICEknight, on 26 November 2014 - 09:02 AM, said:

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.

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

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. =|

This post has been edited by ICEknight: 27 November 2014 - 11:39 AM

[Irixion]

XD375, on 27 November 2014 - 05:03 AM, said:

Yalecsa, on 25 November 2014 - 10:13 AM, said:

I also remember a great deal of differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Sonic '06 and Sonic Unleashed. But I'm going to go ahead and guess I've talked enough. >.>

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

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?

This post has been edited by Irixion: 27 November 2014 - 12:25 PM

[Jen]

Irixion, on 27 November 2014 - 12:25 PM, said:

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

Orenge doesn't actually have a Sonic 06 demo; he has a review copy, which I've played and is the final version from what we can tell. There's nothing noticeably different about it.

[IndyTheGreat]

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.

This post has been edited by IndyTheGreat: 27 November 2014 - 06:40 PM