Note on the Classic Lighting for San Andreas: The lighting remains the same no matter the area you are in, unlike the PS2 original where it depends on your area.
That’s something the developers didn’t get, it’s not graphics it’s art direction. It’s crazy how much one change in the games lighting completely affects the atmosphere of these titles.
You forgot about the other cities in San Andreas. There were many climatic zones, and each of them had a unique atmosphere. San Fierro had a blue, hazy, mysterious vibe. Las Venturas seemed like a really hot place. Now all that uniqueness is gone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that they brought back the atmosphere in GTA 3, VC and in Los Santos in SA, but that’s just not enough, San Andreas is a legendary game, it definitely needs more.
On one hand, I can't blame the new developers they had to pick up Grove Street games's mess and fix it so I can see why everything wasn't perfect Glad those are free on netflix. $20 is still too expensive for those games, and only VC DE is worth buying (gta 3 has too much frame rate issues)
Not just in the cities also the countryside had that humid feel and the desert felt hot and dusty Those remasters and even the og pc and xbox version pared down those atmospheric effects.
Lmao why do you even bother. Do you have any "UNIQUE" color grading atmosphere in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco? It was just a thing in classic games. I played them 15 years ago and I enjoyed playing them in 2020`s, in new remastered release with common natural lightning effects. Yes, these versions got many problems on launch, but imo I never understood people arguing about new lightning.
@@maksim1415 Because if you go to these different places in real life they're not gonna look the same I've been to a bunch of places in California and I've gone to Vegas the atmosphere is just completely different and considering the original game had the different vibes to these places it's a downgrade. Also Los Santos in particular portrays a very specific time period before California went more eco friendly and you could barely even see the sky through the smog it just helps immerse you into that time period better cause California in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s basically looked like frickin Blade Runner with the amount of pollution over head.
I really hope they add these fixes to console, however it's still unacceptable that these games were treated with so little respect when even MAFIA got a full on remake
Nah, it’s only due to very low resolution. Everything looks soft and darkened which hides the imperfections in textures. Just run these titles with 4k on pc, and it’ll look very outdated, compared to ps2
@@farrajdaniel1blud that's exactly why it's good art direction, even though the textures may not hold up at high res they still look great when played on og hardware
I really hate Rockstar's inconsistent upgrades and fixes. For example, when they implemented ray traced shadows to GTA V, it was only for next-gen consoles. Not PC. And now, these mobile releases of the Definitive Edition trilogy fix several things, such as the unique lighting of each game, as well as the shadows from the sun moving smoothly as they should. But of course, these fixes are only for the mobile version. Not for PC or console. Really f*cking annoying, I gotta say. Side-note: Rockstar is so strange. They make these massive, complex, open world games that include lots of complex systems that handle AI, weather, physics, etc. That takes TONS of time and work to accomplish. But when it comes to literally ANYTHING ELSE, Rockstar is lazy as hell. They can make a massive open world game, but can't be bothered to port a few visual enhancements to multiple platforms. It's really is bizarre. I don't understand this company at all.
Thanks Oliver. I’ve been playing the def editions at 60fps on the current consoles and it would be nice if they’d add the classic lighting to those. I’ve learned to live with the missing songs. Otherwise emulate to play the original PS2 versions at 60 w original content.
@@kupokinzyt How does PS2 GSM work on original hardware? Is it like a modded console or a standard one? I'm curious. I just play my OG Xbox San Andreas and Vice City copies on Xbox 360. I have the original Xbox 360 that has backwards compatibility for Xbox games. It works pretty good actually. More stable frame rate. I don't think it has a higher resolution though. It also has the Xbox 360 driver MSAA 2x I believe.
I'm still so frustrated at myself for not back the back compact versions on Xbox when they were up. Rockstar removed them when they launched the DE. Yet it was learning about the definitive edition that made me want to buy the originals only to learn they had been de listed to prevent that exact outcome.
The yellow san Andreas atmosphere is spread in all the game map, desert, forest, and all 3 cities. But in the original ps2 game, each region has a special look to it, and different weather conditions.
Honestly you're still better off playing the PS2 versions on the PCSX2 Emulator with upscaling or the steam releases with community fixes especially the Granalan fixes. Those have been my go to for the past two years. Its nice they adjusted the lighting to be less crap but tbh its no where near enough.
This unstable framepacing at 30 fps is quite common on android aswell diablo, genshin inpact, honkai and gta sa also have it. They constantly switch to 30 to 31 fps with the up frame being 16ms
android cant run these games bro 😂 These are definitive edition versions, same like the re4 launch, android cannot run it, look up the benchmarks and get educated 😹
You forgot about the other cities in San Andreas. San Fierro had a blue, hazy, mysterious vibe. Las Venturas seemed like a really hot place. Now all that uniqueness is gone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that they brought back the atmosphere in GTA 3, VC and in Los Santos in SA, but that’s just not enough, San Andreas is a legendary game, it definitely needs more.
Excellent review as always coming from DF, but I think you missed to acknowledge how they completely failed to restore most of the weather types in GTA SA. There's a short video that shows it pretty well "The Atmosphere is STILL BAD in the GTA Trilogy Mobile Port"
I do hope they backport the improved lighting to console and PC versions of DE. I'm not hopeful however, since Grove Street Games seems to have been pulled from the Definitive Edition, and the mobile ports seem to not even been done by them.
Its nostalgia, the only thing that the ps2 has all the cutcorners they need it to do because of the hardware very well hidden inside the art style but the game is kind of lifeless by modern day the problem is they should have done a kind of remake and not only a port to unreal engine 4 because it just doesnt fit
@@allansolano5587 i mean i see no difference between ps2 and now The only diff is lighting and they're fucked up with that 😂 The scam trilogy definitive edition
When they released the GTA 5 'next-gen update' that included ray tracing and other small graphical enhancements, they didn't bother to bring these enhancements to the PC version of the game. Only next-gen consoles. So I doubt they'll do any work to bring these Definitive Edition fixes to console and PC. Rockstar is so strange. They make these massive, complex, open world games with tons of complex systems that handle AI, weather, etc. That takes TONS of time and work to accomplish. But when it comes to literally ANYTHING ELSE, Rockstar is lazy as fuck. They can make a massive open world game, but can't be bothered to port a few gameplay enhancements to multiple platforms. It's bizarre.
they should make a seperate versions for 15 pro and 15 pro max because the most powerful A17 pro cpu can handle same console versions in my opinion or at least 60fps
It's crazy how Rockstar puts such care into their titles, but let's a 3rd party totally butcher them in a remake. And 2 years later there's still no major improvement.
4:06 The fact that you can still see Mount Chiliad all the way from Grove Street triggers me. It just feels so wrong haha. Currently I’m playing the original PC version of San Andreas on my Steam Deck using the definitive edition project mods. I highly recommend playing it this way!
Spot on, that's the part that feels so off to me. I guess that says a lot about RenderWare that we still can't get fog on par with the PS2 era but still... it feels weird. I will say though, it's a good thing GTA is so much fun to play.
Why run the defective edition with mods? You can emulate the PS2 version or run the prior modded pc port, which are the better experience, no? Are you just married to the modern controls over classic?
@@bipbop3121Oh god no, I’m not playing the official Definitive Edition from Rockstar! 😆I’m playing the original PC Port using the Definitive Edition Project mod.
I downloaded that DEP mod for the GTA trilogy on pc, very good. I also applied their files for GTA LCS and VCS which made those games a better experience on the PSP emulator that I played them on. I beat both stories games last year, very fun (and tough at times).
The team that worked on this for months fixed the animations in San Andreas, improved the physics for objects like light poles in all games and restored the animated details for buildings and locations in San Andreas. Just to name a few, it’s definitely not perfect but there’s more to this than new lighting, which is horrible in San Andreas anyways.
The games need rebuilding in unreal from the ground up. Because of the way they hacked in the old engine and code to run inside unreal, essentially using it just for rendering, it's pretty much unfixable, any changes they make to the R2UE plugin (the plugin that runs the old code) to fix something will inevitably break something else.
If I had a nickel for every time the GTA PS2 trilogy was rereleased on mobile devices and looked better than the other ports released earlier I'd have two nickels Seriously, how is it that this looks SO MUCH nicer than the so called "definitive edition" for home consoles?
You would even get one nickle, since it's the mobile port that has been ported to consoles and then reported to mobile. Which is crazy as they now sell them for 20$ each.
@@rangokfunkazuul8344 I'd have two nickels because the 10th anniversary ports and the "Netflix" definition edition ports both look better than the x360 version of San Andreas and the DE collection released for ps4/xb1/pc
Double irony - the mobile versions the Definitive Edition is based on also looked better since they looked more like the PC ports just rendered at higher native resolution (plus the changes to gameplay like more frequent checkpoints and new dedicated control mappings)
I'll never forgive people for calling Deus Ex: Human Revolution's look the "piss filter", pressuring the devs into making Mankind Divided's art direction more bland (same for the Director's Cut). The atmosphere and the similarly coloured neon lights on skyscrapers in the distance give a very different feel. The aesthetics felt like a Blade Runner rival. Love that game. Can't have anything nice. *"Linear is bad" also comes to mind.*
@@idakev I mean... context is everything... HR piss filter is atrocious. Doesn't mean that filters and post processing is inherently bad. I hate chromatic aberration, but the original lords of the fallen looks terrible without it and there are sections of Bloodborne that I cannot imagine without it. They have over done it in HR and possibly over corrected in MD. Same with the "linear is bad"... How linear is it? What genre? Context matters. I think most open world games should be more linear, Elden Ring as great as it is, would benefit from it immensely... At the same time RE3 remake could be less linear (like village and RE4 remake), but I still love it. Every game should be considered on an individual basis as well as every tools application.
@@idakev Because it was a piss filter. I'm all for atmospheric colour grading and art direction over realism, but in human revolutions case removing the filter actually enhanced the atmosphere and took it closer to that blade runner aesthetic. Mankind Divided is the same. The change in atmosphere is down to art assets and lighting choices. Adding the piss filter back in would make it look even worse. As for "Linear Bad", if we'd listened to the "Linear Good" crowd, we'd never have gotten San Andreas. Or Dark Souls. Or Metroid. Or Thief.
My constant argument was the change in aesthetics of the original games and face models, they also removed half the soundtracks and cut missions. Fun fact, Rockstar reused assets from San Andreas for Manhunt 2. The cop making the racial slur ends up being one of the perverts tortured in Chapter 3.
An iPhone 15 is more powerful than an XBOX One, so the idea that they cut thing back just means this is just yet another lazy port, ie, cash grab. Man, they should have hired the people that did the Mafia remaster, that was spectacular - this is trash if it cost more than $5.
The zone specific color grading what makes the original PS2 version stand out. I can't fathom the fact that a newer version only good at texture resolution and in-game resolution and terrible at everything else
So, are they gonna Patch the new "Classic Lighting" into the PS/XB Versions at least? Eh, whatever 🤷♂️ I'll just play the PS2 Classics (on PS4) on my PS5 anyway if I want to revisit these games 😅
Lucky you. Unfortunately for everyone else those ports have been removed from digital stores, not to mention they missed several songs from the original PS2 versions
@@-PVL93- I know the songs were cut... Good thing I still have the OGs and my PS2. It sucks that the original versions got removed digitally, but in the case of the PS4 Ports specifically, they were all added in December of 2015 so there's no excuse to have gotten them by the point they were removed 🤷♂️ (should still be up though... PC it's a non issue, you've got "means" to acquire them 🤣)
These versions are still a complete abomination. Should have just kept the OG assets and made them widescreen and 60 fps. And with the right teams I don’t see why they couldn’t just have used the old PC versions as base, and then added all the missing stuff and ported them to everything else
@@michaelmoores2654 all of that have been re-added with mods. Should be pretty easy to do if you got an actual professional team(unless you’re Grove Street Games…)
Modern phone hardware is far more powerful on the cpu side and at least on par on the gpu side with pc’s and consoles at GTA V release (yes V, not IV). That these terrible ports can’t even manage a decent 30 fps on modern phone hardware only shows how ridiculously unoptimized they are. Phones could easily handle running GTA V nowadays.
Nice video! GTA Trilogy seems to have remained a disappointment even after patches. Still, I would have liked a comparison of the mobile version with the Switch, given that they're both mobile platforms. I think it might have been quite interesting.
I hope the open up more graphic options in the near future, give us the ability to tweak and turn on more settings, at least making the game more future proofed, as good as it looks, the lack of settings and lower resolution just won’t hold up as bigger better devices comes out, 1080p with metal fx would really sharpen it up, and I don’t think some of the assets left out would really effect iPhone 15 pro to have turned on, I think they tried to get a base level that every phone could handle then just gave us a resolution sliders
Honestly as much as people will hate to hear this, I think they wanting to support older iPhone held back graphics, they should have done the RE8 and RE4 remake approach and make it only available for iPhone 15 pro
@suwietch7783 tweak things on this game? I mean my buddy has an 11 pro max, and outside of issues they explained here, he can run these games at full settings and resolution, so I definitely feel like there’s a lot of room for improvement and hope they don’t just ignore these versions like the consoles versions.
So it appears they HAVE been working on these games, they just don't update the "Definitive Edition" and keep it for the Netflix stream version... Interesting.
Removing neon lights effects and volumetric lighting in Vice City destroys one of the big aesthetic elements of the game… classic lighting in San Andreas being the same across areas and not area specific is still bad, but bit as bad as the downgrades in Vice City…
R* removed controller support from the old mobile ports, as an F U to those who supported all this time or run older hardware. The old ports run 60fps vs defective edition 30 fps.
@@305SEGA305 Respect. Nice to see a quality XBOX version usually most PS2 to XBOX ports were pretty basic but I always appreciate when the effort is made.
I dont know, this ''Thing'' need to be erased, refund, source code need to be send to sun and they have to do it again. Its so disrespectful to original games that this exist.
The lighting in the original PS2 games were still different than the ones in the PS2 classics. (PS4) For example, Vice City has this hazy glow that was only available in the OG ps2 version and never showed up again on any other edition of the game, so these comparisons aren’t exactly the most accurate.
The PC and consoles have animation errors and bugs while Netflix verson has performance issues in some phone. The downside of being an classic gamers is that yoy can't just have nice things.
@matthewsmith3817 from what i seen from vadim m and another user there are ALOT of features striped out or simpled down from the newer ones. i will say the pc vanilla version has the best purple sky at night at the los venturas airport, ps2 has the best weather and country areas like rain and violent wind. i played all versions.
PC and Xbox version of San Andreas came out on the same day in 2005, so you can scrap Xbox to PC. 3 and Vice City also came out on PC before Xbox double pack came in Fall of 2003.
Sanandreas has had significant patches on Switch to bring the frame rate to an acceptable 30, the other 2 are not as solid and all of them have noticeable frame pacing issues making them stutter.
Mobile versions of games that were ported to consoles and now ported back to phones........ these versions should never have been used in the definitive edition!
Another friendly reminder Rockstar kindly delisted the backcompat versions (at least on Xbox) to force everyone to buy the "improved" definitive edition. I don't understand why developers and/or publishers refuse to understand video games are a work of art (like all entertainment content) and more matters than just realistic graphics. I wish we could go back to old lighting on consoles. I wish I could go back in time and just buy the back compat versions before DE launched.
Snapdragon GSR is something I want DF to explore and make a video about. As well as raytracing on snapdragon and apple. Also, A very quick campaaro with the switch and snapdragon 845 to 8-Gen 3 would be good. Instead of making another separate video about it.
For whatever it's worth, the 8-Ball Autos sign has always read "ACCESORIES" ever since the original release, so that is not a Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy: The Definitive Edition special. I suppose they could've fixed it, but... well... *gestures at the rest of this release*
I honestly still prefer the community modded PsVita Version of SanAndreas with the Ps2 aesthetics. Comes closer to how I remember it looking back in the day on Ps2. Unfortunately the framerate isn't as stable on the Vita.
If you bought original ps2 port on PlayStation are you playing the original version? I know they removed it from the stores but I bought it when it was available
I have to disagree that these are a success. While it's mildly interesting to see console release unreal engine code running on smartphones, it's still a horrible release at its core being miles away from the PS2/modded PC experience. There's improved lighting relative to the definitive edition, but it's only 3 out of roughly 16 or so weather conditions and color grading of the original, meaning you're missing all the variety and progression of all the different locations in the original. And even if it did have all the weather conditions accounted for, there's still a million issues left from this "definitive" edition. Assets being an undeniable sorespot as they are still a mess individually, and in context are incoherent and inconsistent artistically. It just looks worse than the original period, while also being way heavier on mobile which is obviously a waste of battery. The best mobile experience, or hell on any platform, is to just emulate the PS2 version or get a modded PC version running. I can attest that it's awesome on the Deck that way, and should be on any platform really. Only exception is maybe iOS where you obvs can't run the PC version but also where emulation might be difficult to get running I suppose, but pretty much anything else from Android to a high end PC, you really should ignore this release completely as it's still an insult to the original games and you have way better options available.
I tried to get this on Netflix when it dropped and for some baffling reason my REVVL 6 Pro can't run it. "Your device isn't compatible with this version." Weird.
Some of the characters still don't look right. For instance look at the old version of Sonny Forelli vs the Definitive Edition. The old version looked better. The new one they messed up his eyebrows and the looks he makes with this eyes and forehead don't look correct. Other characters have weird oddities too. I don't understand why they did that.
Treatment of the classic GTA installments (1->SA), by the publisher and developers is simply a disgrace, considering their importance on many levels. Including of courser being a foundation for a success that is still bringing them mountains of money. Decent devleopers would remaster and update all these titles couple of times already. Absolutely abysmal treatment, that 'Definitive' edition ought to be made by A+ internal team and spotless from the start.
I replayed the whole trilogy on IPhone and Ipad and later Android but was a bit obsessive back then and modded PC version and did my own edits and tweaks. Own the games on many platforms and the old ones KILLED it. Hoping the RTX 6090 is out by GTAVI PC. I don't know if 4090 will siffice.
Does the Steam version get a "classic lighting" option? Or just these mobile ports? Does anyone know? Because it would be *REALLY FUCKING SILLY* if only the mobile ports received this feature.
The game seems to have minor performance issues on current flagships, like iPhone 15 and Galaxy S23, but weaker Android devices are suffering with what seems to be shader compilation spikes. This new version is unplayable on my Poco F3, I prefer to play the original PS2 game using AetherSX2 emulator, it runs a lot at locked 30 FPS and with higher internal resolution.
R* literally removed controller support from the older mobile version (which still is @$$ ft to PS2) that ran the games at 60fps unlike the defective release. I was about to say how are you locking 30 fps, emulating, when my SD 888 dips from 60 fps to 15 fps, but then I remember I was trying to run 4k (5?6x), no settings dialed in at all. I expect you aren't trying 4k, since Poco screen resolution is more sensible. I actually haven't had any issues running the Netflix Defective Edition on my SD 888, so far. More with AetherSX2, tbh. The iPhone 15 Max Pro & 8 Gen 2 or 3 shouldn't be running worse with their more powerful chips, strange.
@@bipbop3121 I play the PS2 game at Full HD equivalent resolution (3x), no need to go higher than that on a mobile display. I'm not the only one with horrible stuttering problems with the new game, I heard other SD870 users are also having an awful experience.
