don't click here

Sonic 2 HD General

Discussion in 'Fangaming Discussion' started by Lanzer, Jun 24, 2014.

  1. 360

    360

    Light Vision Overdrive Oldbie
    2,282
    1
    0
    United Kingdom
    Sonic Neon
    I've been looking forward to this and was super excited to play it. Tried to give you guys some extra promo by posting a thread on NeoGAF.

    So I played through the demo twice. Cross-posting my first impressions from NeoGAF:

    If it helps out the team, those graphical errors I'm referring to was this unexplained screen tearing like when we used to emulate the Sonic games on Genecyst back in the day. I have a quad-core i5 7300HQ with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050. No idea whether the game used my dedicated GPU however (I have Optimus so also have Intel Graphics HD 630 on-board). Hope that helps.

    To iterate however, fucking loved this. Sent me right back to my childhood like Sonic Mania did. Wonderful project with an incredible demo. Excellent work.
     
  2. winterhell

    winterhell

    Member
    1,165
    7
    18
    @360 Intel HD graphics in general struggle to run the demo. I'm on a Core i5 3.3GHz and GeForce 650 and it doesn't drop frames.

    This release was more focused on the features, the next one however is going to be fully optimized so it'll run on much lower hardware without compromise for quality.
     
  3. 360

    360

    Light Vision Overdrive Oldbie
    2,282
    1
    0
    United Kingdom
    Sonic Neon
    Ah, thanks for the input and insight dude. Appreciate it. You and your team produced a wonderful demo. Yeah I've no idea whether the game utilised my GeForce GTX 1050 or not. Games like the latest Steam build of Sonic Generations and most other games recognise and use it but unsure whether the Sonic 2 HD demo did. I'm pretty new to this Optimus thing (didn't even realise I had it until I ran DirectX and saw). With that said however, whatever GPU it was using whether dedicated or integrated, the game did run beautifully performance wise. It seemed fluid and responsive. Not sure what caused the screen tearing though it could have been my hardware since so far I've read very limited reports of people experiencing the same.

    Definitely looking forward to your next release however. Really enjoyed the demo and hyped to see more. As I said, stellar work here.
     
  4. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

    Professional Electromancer Oldbie
    4,811
    473
    63
    Just tried it on an Iris Pro HD 5200 and it runs well on my throw-down machine without hitches. Naturally my gaming desktop chews the thing up, too.
     
  5. Shade Vortex

    Shade Vortex

    The Black Vortex Member
    607
    56
    28
    USA, WA.
    YouTube Memes
    I don't know why I seem to be the unlucky bastard who seems to have a very uniquely annoying problem with this game. When I launch it, it says that the Index was outside the bounds of the array, then closes. So I can't even play the game at all because of this stupid error.
     
  6. winterhell

    winterhell

    Member
    1,165
    7
    18
    Thanks.
    Since you mentioned DirectX, the game is using OpenGL. I don't know if this affects Optimus. I know on some machines you can right click the exe and choose whether to run with the dedicated or the integrated card.

    @ Shade Vortex what are your Regional Settings: are they UK/US English or something else, and when does the error happen, when you get hit? We had a similar bug earlier on with Italian machines because they used decimal comma instead of a decimal point, but we fixed that.
     
  7. Shade Vortex

    Shade Vortex

    The Black Vortex Member
    607
    56
    28
    USA, WA.
    YouTube Memes
    It happens when I launch the game. My system locale is Japanese, that might be the problem. I play visual novels sometimes so. :V
     
  8. winterhell

    winterhell

    Member
    1,165
    7
    18
    Incidentally I'm on Japanese settings for VNs as well.. so its something else. If you can list which version of Windows you have, if its 32 bit or 64bit, and amount of RAM?
    My best guess is you are trying on a 32-bit OS, should be 64.
     
  9. DustArma

    DustArma

    Member
    1,342
    10
    18
    Santiago, Chile
    Learning Python.
    I got a 3.4GHz Core i3-4130 and a GTX 660 and I get dropped frames at times, it's pretty jarring to be honest considering that the previous demo ran fine on my old 2.7 GHz Athlon 64 X2 with a Radeon HD 4830

    As for the physics, I guess I'm gonna have to be the odd one out and say that the physics do not feel right to me, I missed a lot of jumps I could make before, jumping from a downward slope doesn't seem to give you speed, mid-loop jumping doesn't do anything and in general the gameplay just feels off. But I'm sure with more tweaking you guys will arrive to better feeling physics

    Those are my two cents, I have nothing to say about the art style or music that hasn't been said before and I'm glad development seems to be in a good path.
     
  10. Shade Vortex

    Shade Vortex

    The Black Vortex Member
    607
    56
    28
    USA, WA.
    YouTube Memes
    Actually I am on Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. So I have no idea then, if the locale's not the problem. :V
     
  11. Spanner

    Spanner

    I used to do things... Member
    3,364
    182
    43
    United Kingdom
    I wish I knew...
    I think Sonic 2 HD has redeemed itself from the last release. I enjoyed the demo and appreciated that there were three zones to play in this.

    My only real gripe I have at the moment is that the CPZ boss should have been slightly altered to accommodate the 16:9 screen. This could have been done easily through adding a few more flipping platforms or perhaps a barrier door on the sides.
     
  12. 360

    360

    Light Vision Overdrive Oldbie
    2,282
    1
    0
    United Kingdom
    Sonic Neon
    So inspired by the above I just fired up the game, right clicked the exe and selected the GTX 1050 (listed as "High performance Nvidia processor") and did a quick-run of both acts of EHZ - zero screen tearing. Not once. I also noticed that the Intel Graphics HD 630 unit was selected for Sonic 2 HD by default, so it was using the Intel integrated GPU in my previous full-run of the game hence the screen tearing. Looks like my GTX absolutely kills it but the Intel unit despite being quite modern struggles as your first post indicated winterhell. Hope this helps.

    And thanks for notifying me of that option under Optimus. I'm going to use that if I run in to any performance issues in the future.
     
  13. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

    sometimes the real thing™ Wiki Sysop
    9,122
    2,997
    93
    Northumberland, UK
    not making new christmas avatars
    I get less than 10FPS on this not-remotely-equipped-for-pc-gaming machine. Hilariously it doesn't render Sonic or Tails (just Tails' Tails) but I was still able to get through Emerald Hill Zone Act 1, which is probably good news for the physics engine. I was hoping to run it in less than 1080p but that doesn't appear to be an option... even though the menu seems to suggest it is.

    From a gameplay perspective it seems okay, so credit where credit's due, it seems to feel like Sonic 2.


    But

    The art direction is extremely inconsistent, particularly in Chemical Plant Zone, where you can have ultra-detailed tiles next to next to super cheapo gradients. Half the tiles stick to the source material, while the other half are liberal redesigns with varying degrees of success.

    I still think the colour is wrong, I still think using prototype concept art as a base rather than final in-game assets is the wrong way to go, and I'm still not amazingly keen on the music (and that damned misplaced note in Emerald Hill).

    I also think darkening Sonic and Tails when they enter the underground bits is misjudged. Mostly because nothing else gets darker, so they stick out horribly. Honestly for Hill Top Zone, I wouldn't bother.



    It's not terrible, but it needs improvement. Unfortunately I think I raised some of this with the earlier alpha and not much seems to have changed. Oh well!
     
  14. winterhell

    winterhell

    Member
    1,165
    7
    18
    @Black Squirrel video cards before 2010/ DirectX 11 couldn't handle textures bigger than 8K in one dimension, and Sonic and Tails's sprites sheets are like that, thats why black :/
    We'll try to fix it.
    And surprisingly, your performance might be so low because you've run out of video RAM and its piggybacking on the system RAM constantly.
     
  15. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

    Professional Electromancer Oldbie
    4,811
    473
    63
    You know, to decrease your texture resolution, you could always resort to tiled animation for Sonic and Tails, it would drastically cut down on the size of the texture you need for the sprite sheet, since so many animations reuse other tiles.
     
  16. ReL0aDed

    ReL0aDed

    Member
    9
    0
    0
    I loved this release of Sonic 2 HD. The aesthetics are spot on if you ask me, and I'm especially impressed how CPZ got translated into HD. At this point it seems like the game's engine can handle a lot of the physics and gameplay mechanics of the original game; I would not be surprised if somewhere in the near future after this game's full release, this game's engine and many of the game's assets would be re-used for making a Sonic 1 HD (and maybe in the end a combined effort of Sonic 1 and 2 HD).

    I have played through this demo 3 times by now, and an HD remaster really suits Sonic 2. Maybe there will be some kind of multiplayer-component in this game later on, like netplay/LAN or the good old split-screen multiplayer-mode (but with way more stages than the original Sonic 2 had in 2P mode)?
     
  17. Felik

    Felik

    Member
    1,928
    105
    43
    The demo looks beautiful.I fell in love with Chemical Plant. But the game runs at half fps it should on my pretty modern PC which is a shame.
    Hope dev team will optimize in the future.
     
  18. Covarr

    Covarr

    Sentient Cash Register Member
    4,233
    3
    18
    Trapped in my own thoughts.
    Two stageplays, a screenplay, and an album
    Boy, these physics are really good, except when they aren't. Jumps near the ends of quarterpipes consistently did not behave how I expected them to, and there were a couple places where Sonic's speed felt like it just suddenly changed, and I couldn't tell why. In HTZ I repeatedly had trouble getting enough height on running jumps to make it over ledges, but had no problem when I made those jumps standing still.

    I wish the game could make up its mind how detailed or how cartoony it wants to be. The simple, gradient-heavy simple Eggman looked good on its own, but really awkward against the gorgeous EHZ background.

    Overall, though, these are but mere nitpicks considering this is still a beta. I definitely enjoyed myself.
     
  19. Dude

    Dude

    Tech Member
    3,138
    0
    16
    Southbridge, MA
    Random VR/AR trash
    This is incredible, I love it to bits. It's mind-blowing that there isn't an official game like this.
     
  20. Lilly

    Lilly

    Member
    2,462
    268
    63
    United States
    Shang Mu Architect
    Despite some performance problems, I was in love with the team's hard work, art, and animations for this demo. :) It is a fascinating re-imagining of the original stages, as I imagined it would be, going the extra mile to animate things that were previously static. For the first time in a Sonic game, I stopped to stand around and admire the scenery; all the little details really bring the stages to life.

    I was also surprised to find that Tails couldn't fly when I played as him. It's fine if the idea was for Sonic 2 HD to be 1:1 Sonic 2, game-play wise, I'm simply surprised to see a Sonic game where Tails couldn't fly.

    Regardless, this demo was more than worth the wait! I like where this project is heading.

    This is interesting. I have a quad-core AMD APU, and it experiences constant frame-dips in the demo. (So it's hard for me to tell if the physics are 1:1 with the original.) I doubt it has much dedicated VRAM? Windows claims it has 1GB, whereas most modern cards have so much more than that.

    Seeing as 360's having no problems with his modern dedicated GPU, I'll assume that means my hardware is too old for the task. :specialed: Managing assets in an HD project must be a nightmare compared to games using pixel art.