I started playing through REmake a few days ago and with a decent SweetFX/Reshade config it looks much better, but I was disappointed at how bad the backgrounds look. I've taken a fair few screenshots already so I'll make a few comparisons once I finish downloading this on my shitty Australian internet.
Appreciate this post a lot (genuinely wanted to see the worst of it before I bothered downloading), but honestly if that's as 'bad' as it gets then I'm more than sold. I can deal with a little less wood grain considering the other improvements.
This mod is right on time, too. I'll get over RE2make sooner or later, but it's so good it definitely put me in the mood for more RE when I'm done with it (And classic RE is best RE).
Incredible. I was hoping that someone would do this, and I'm disappointed that I have played through about 2/3 of the game in its original state prior to RE2's release.
For anyone thinking about playing this, there are a number of other mods/tweaks that I recommend:
If you have a high refresh rate monitor you will need to use the SpecialK mod to override the game's refresh rate (I used 0.9.24). The game sets it to 60Hz, but will run at up to 120 FPS if your refresh rate is higher (or if V-Sync is disabled).
If you have a G-Sync monitor, I found that the game's mouse cursor was preventing it from activating. Having SpecialK hide the cursor fixed that.
The game only supports up to 2560x1440 officially, but even that was not an option on my 3440x1440 monitor for some reason; it only went up to 1920x1200. The game will support higher resolutions if you set them via the config file in "%LOCALAPPDATA%\CAPCOM\Resident Evil - biohazard@HD REMASTER\". I recommend sticking to 16:9 resolutions.EDIT: 3440x1440 native is working fine for me now. Not sure why it did not originally, but setting this avoids a mode switch.
Most of what you're seeing is a lack of oversharpened "detail" and sharpening/compression artifacts, not actual texture detail which is missing. These upscales look far more natural and faithful to the original source. The upscaling used in the HD release was awful.
I wish this shit started like... 2-4 years ago. We've gotten several HD Remasters which used basic upscaling techniques that look like trash, and not all of them are as "easily" fixed as a game like this. Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age for example literally used a photoshop action, which scaled up images, applied a sharpening filter, and then a grain filter. The textures in it look like trash. I dunno how possible it is for someone to update all the textures in that game like this, but I hope it happens. FFXII is a gorgeous game, and I hate seeing the textures muddied.
Not sure but I think some of the detail you mention isn't actually texture detail but black crush from heavy sharpening (and then filtering) the original source.
The game only supports up to 2560x1440 officially, but even that was not an option on my 3440x1440 monitor for some reason; it only went up to 1920x1200. The game will support higher resolutions if you set them via the config file in "%LOCALAPPDATA%\CAPCOM\Resident Evil - biohazard@HD REMASTER\". I recommend sticking to 16:9 resolutions.
Alas it seems the internal resolution is locked to 1920x1440 regardless of output resolution, though it's still worth doing the trick you mention for sharper scaling. Sucks to have GPU headroom wasted but it still looks quite nice on a 4k TV, if a tad soft.
But aye the list you've cultivated there is essential, the performance one in particular! Without that the game was constantly hitching for me, pesky D3D calls...
I've started it and it looks extremely good, far better than any of the other upscales with this tech I've tried (like FFIX). Once I've finished with RE7, I'll definitely give this a go since I never finished it last time.
To be fair, this is working from higher resolution assets than FFIX was, which is always going to be an advantage within the recommended ESRGAN range. I suspect FFIX can't look much better than the job they've done given the res
I don't HATE them, but the animation is too long for how frequently you're moving between rooms. ~7 second animation that could be accomplished in 3 or 4. I know that sounds nitpicky. But it adds up and just becomes kind of tedious after a while.
The ideal for me is having them play but be skippable with the press of a button. The DS port of RE1 lets you do this and it lets you keep them there for tension while still easing up the tedium backtracking (also having knife on you by default and not being part of inventory thank christ)
The mod for this is a fair compromise, playing them but then cutting them off a couple of seconds in. Though with it I do miss the sound effects
To be fair, this is working from higher resolution assets than FFIX was, which is always going to be an advantage. I suspect FFIX can't look much better than the job they've done given the res
Never played REmake, love the RE2 remake though. Because it's modernized just to the right degree. Don't know if I can stomach to jump into the "ancient" mechanics of the og REmake. But I'm tempted, it looks great.
Another possibility is that they don't have the means to easily re-render them anymore. REmake's backgrounds were made in Softimage, whereas Zero's were made in Maya (which is still an industry standard, iirc). It might be the case that they didn't want to spend too much money into setting up the licenses and equipment needed to use Softimage again, so they opted to just upscale the backgrounds. If you'll notice, Umbrella Chronicles made use of entire room models lifted directly from REmake, so they definitely have the files still stored somewhere.
It's pretty frustrating that they didn't give the same treatment to this game as with RE0. I love 0, but this one is the game that deserves the most care. Re0 looks and works beautifully, without bugs of any kind.
And you know the most frustrating part? REmake actually has completely re-rendered depth maps. A depth map wouldn't work with just scaling it and it's easy to see that they are actually rendered at high resolution. So contrary to popular belief, I think that they actually have the original assets and they simply didn't give a shit.
Back to the topic, those AI scaled backgrounds look really improved. Maybe I'll play the game again with them.
Not sure but I think some of the detail you mention isn't actually texture detail but black crush from heavy sharpening (and then filtering) the original source.
There's supposed to be 2 variants of this thing .. one which speeds up the door animation and one which straight up automatically skips them.
I would have loved to get the speed up thing working but for some reason I can't get it to work with my game. The straight-up-skip one works as intended.
I would have liked if the game supported being able to skip the animations by pressing A/X like the older PC versions of RE games did, so you can skip them if you want to or not.
I think you can get close with a denoiser and ESRGAN but I believe this is technically Topaz Gigapixel and not ESRGAN ... (even more "technically" gigapixel is prolly also a GAN I guess)
Incredible. I was hoping that someone would do this, and I'm disappointed that I have played through about 2/3 of the game in its original state prior to RE2's release.
For anyone thinking about playing this, there are a number of other mods/tweaks that I recommend:
If you have a high refresh rate monitor you will need to use the SpecialK mod to override the game's refresh rate (I used 0.9.24). The game sets it to 60Hz, but will run at up to 120 FPS if your refresh rate is higher (or if V-Sync is disabled).
If you have a G-Sync monitor, I found that the game's mouse cursor was preventing it from activating. Having SpecialK hide the cursor fixed that.
The game only supports up to 2560x1440 officially, but even that was not an option on my 3440x1440 monitor for some reason; it only went up to 1920x1200. The game will support higher resolutions if you set them via the config file in "%LOCALAPPDATA%\CAPCOM\Resident Evil - biohazard@HD REMASTER\". I recommend sticking to 16:9 resolutions.
Most of what you're seeing is a lack of oversharpened "detail" and sharpening/compression artifacts, not actual texture detail which is missing. These upscales look far more natural and faithful to the original source. The upscaling used in the HD release was awful.
3D elements still render at a higher resolution, and it isn't stuck at 30 FPS any more.
This looks extremely promising, even if it still has a long ways to go. Just like the RE4 HD Mod project, I'm sure it'll be finished one day in its entirety. Just checked out the thread and Bunny posted recently so it's still making progress currently.
Bunny's mod is probably going to end up looking the best if they finish it, but I wish the upscaling was a little more specific.
Like, I wonder what would happen if we took the GC backgrounds from Zero, and trained the upscaler using the high res versions of those from it's HD version as ground truth, and then used that AI to upscale REmake. I suspect you'd get even better results (unless that's exactly what they did).
Look up sharpness halo artifacts, and then see if you've still got them on your backgrounds. If so it hasn't worked. Artificial sharpening is evident almost everywhere in the HD 'remaster'.
Damn looks good but I borked my install with some other mod(probably just a reshade ) that toggles black crush, fog , grain , and bloom try to force a reshade on top all that and the door mod , i suck at dll chains, will try again with just the textures and reshade
Best quick place to check is the fireplace in the dining room. See the comparison shots in the OP. Without the AI-backgrounds, elements of the floor and fireplace will look noisy.
Man, I just wanted to buy it on the last sale but I keep forgetting about these thing because I'm trying to avoid the clusterfuck that is the Steam store as much as possible...
I played the game already on PS3 and loved it, but this should be something else, it looks great!
