Props to your deep understanding of the human psychology around bare-bones reissues of old games. Yes, I have this game on Xbox 360. Yes, it's in the spare bedroom closet. Yes, I will buy the PC port anyway.

Live Wire are fantastic they improved the Switch port a lot since launch (upd 1.3 I think was the one that fixed everything) and even pushed another update to DDP resurrection the other week. In the case of RS it perhaps should have been better day 1 but they really fixed it up very nicely.

Back in the Saturn era, I had a friend stationed in Japan telling me how shooters were a lot better over there than the states and that Radiant Silvergun was the one to import. Like a fool, I thought that for sure it was going to be released in the States on the Saturn. It was a Treasure game and they always had big releases come out here. It never happened. By that point, I wasn’t able to play it until the 360 era.

Another great analysis. I really wish more developers would focus on input lag, even outside of the shooter genre. Giving players simple options like vsync toggle on consoles would go a long way.

Beetle on Retroarch supports runahead/preemptive frames now, so I could get RSG down to 2 frames of input lag on that. Steam port feels about the same to me after using dgVoodoo and Special K (don't use the in-game fullscreen on the port). Also you didn't mention this, but this port IS actually better than the 360 port. Since they fixed a bunch of bugs that the 360 port had, like sprite warping and the bug with the 4D boss where it starts in the wrong position and awkwardly teleports to where it needs to be.

Congrats on the 20k bro. Movin' on up

I was SO ready for this to be covered, I'm glad it happened so fast :D

Thanks for the review Mark, I just had a friend who was lurking through the steam version of R-S. It still serviceable and opens up for the general public to try out.

Maybe you could try enabling the high DPI scaling override under properties for the executable to reduce lag. You could also try forcing off any buffering or vsync the game could have in the control panel. That could maybe reduce the lag by a frame.

Hey just wanted to say I've been binging your channel, love your idiosyncratic gaming takes and you got me buying some new shmups, a genre I enjoyed in the past but never followed up on.

Now we wait for more info on Ubusuna, the spiritual successor to RS and Ikaruga, from M2. Hopefully it finally releases next year.

My copy of radiant silvergun for switch has been sitting in Limited Run Games limbo for over a year

Interesting that you changed your mind on the slowdown. I can see where you're coming from, I think. Great work on the port review and congrats for the top spot on the multiplayer leaderboards 🤘

Consistently one of the best channels on youtube - ty.

Thanks for the review!

Of course it's worth it, back then it earned the title "king of shumps" for a reason. Switching between 6 different weapons on the fly to score against a very precise chaining mechanic, it was innovative for it's time

Runahead for Beetle Saturn is enabled in latest RA again! Maybe others complained! Incredible! I just set it to a runahead of 2 frames. I let all controls go for a few seconds, no movement, no firing. I then pressed pause emulation. I then held move right on dpad. I then pressed K to advance frame by frame One press and screen started to shift, 2 presses and ship jumped a whole ship's worth of width to right! 2 frame input lag! If you have a powerful PC, do it before they change their minds again, it feels wonderful to play this way.

I don't have a 360, nor a Saturn, so I plan on getting this port. I'm not at the point where I'm really sensitive to input lag, but I still appreciate that you point that out. I'll turn off vsync too once I get the game. Cheers.

So, I actually learned about this game in a funny way. I was at home playing Touhou, and a technician was coming over to fix the laundry machine. He brought his son, who was actually a retro game fan, and he was like "Woah you ever play Radiant Silvergun?" and the rest is history. This happened like 5-6 years ago

One of my favorite shumps of all time. As technical as this game is if you stick with it and play it the way it’s meant to be played it becomes something really special and unique to anything else in the genre( besides Ikaruga it’s sequel which is similar but RS this applies even more so imho). Start with the story mode and slowly power up your weapons and learn the mechanics and chains in the different stage’s through repetition and you will see how rewarding this game can actually be & the you will eventually be ready for the arcade mode!!!😉🙏🙏.

Just bought this last week KICK ASS GAME and very challenging at least for me

is there any more input lag on the 360 version when playing it on a xbox one or series x?

For me, Radiant Silvergun is the absolute height of video games. Stanley Kubrick level.

Great video. I think to be fair to the porting the same game issue, in this case I think bringing an already awesome port to another platform is good on it's own compared to the crappy ports we've been getting lately that don't even compare to emulation haha. I would KILL for a simple re-release of that Guardian Heroes 360 port on Steam. 😢

Been waiting for this. Have it on the xbox already and thought, wait and see what Mark has to say.

Does G-Sync and Latency Mode in Ultra in Nvidia Control Panel makes a difference in the input lag results? I was wondering that as there are good monitors that claims 1ms response time and with G-sync compatible monitors possibly there could be better results in the input lag tests even for emulators.

The artstyle on the thumbnail looks good.

Iv always wondered how the input lag compares to the STV board. Ugh I guess I gotta break out the STV and lag light

What about Xbox 360 backwards compatibility with Xbox Series X/S?

Never expected that! That´s some news!

This looks awesome

I think testing the 360 version of the port on Xenia is still a good idea to attempt to do. Sometimes the input lag on Xenia is very close to the original hardware version in terms of input lag becuase it has vsync on out of the box on Xenia. It makes me think you may be able to get 3 frames of lag on Xenia with vsync off. The problem is that sometimes the game speed is tied to the framerate so you may have to use a frame rate limiter with vsync off on Xenia.

Thanks for the heads up on input lag in this port! And yeeaaahh, it'd be nice to not get ports of ports these days, heheh

Excellent! Thank you for the analysis! Lo res 1 4 lyfe.

Have you been able to test this on Variable and High Refresh Rate (G-sync/Adaptive sync) 144Hz monitors? Wondering how that affects performance. I often find for games that normally cap out at 60fps, If I turn off V-sync, enable G-Sync (VRR), then check the monitor input I'm getting a slightly slower signal (maybe 57-59hz variable input, just let the monitor dynamically adjust to whatever it's geting without v-syncing) that syncs perfectly on my monitor (no tearing) but also eliminates a frame or two of input lag as a result.

Anyone have a good link to really learning how to play this game? I have no idea what I'm doing in it.

Playing on a 4:3 crt I get borders top and bottom that force it into 16:9 which kinda blows if anyone was wondering

Hey Mark. So, I picked this up and I think I'm missing something here. When I'm shooting the bosses why are they flashing but their life bar does not go down? They are all self destructing on me and I don't know why. Also, how do I activate the big sword? I am mashing the right trigger but all I get are little swipes, or there is an outline of the sword on the screen if I hold the trigger down, but it just sits there and does not swing. Do you have a video that is more of a tutorial rather than a 1cc playthrough? Clearly this is not a straight SHMUP. I hate SHMUPS that put special mechanics in them and then don't have a tutorial that explains them. Thanks.

RSG still needs more Justice, but it’s understandable if Treasure couldn’t port this game like Ikaruga, but at least Livewire tried to put the game on steam so their effort is commendable. What they could do right now is update the games issues like the rebinds and bugs then I could see this game in a better spot on Steam, but they really need to do better, since this is one of the most important Shmups in Japan.

I took a chance and purchased this game to see if a can bring the input lag down a frame or two with other programs or mods. Ive done this with other retro-ish games ive purchased in the past with some good results. With Radiant silvergun, out of the box, i did get 5 frames of lag with the left-right movement test. After using a couple tweaks, i settled on a dxvk 32bit directx9 dll and a dxvk.conf file that forced vsync off, force a single frame to be back buffered, and limited the max frame rate to 61 per second (might not be needed). I also used my amd control panel per this game and made sure amd freesync was applied to the game with anti-lag on. (61 was running well below the nominal 120hz of my monitor) Also, I changed program properties to run as administrator and created a regedit line to force the game to run in realtime. The game now run close to a 2.25 frames of lag with the left-right test. I spend a bunch of time optimizing games for lag so i am a little surprised at the results becuase i thought i was going to reduce 1 frame at best and 2 frames buy extreme luck. So getting close to 2 frames makes me think im testing wrong. Do you think you can try using the dxvk wrapper with modified dxvk.conf settings to remove vsync, reduce prerendered frames to one and limited max frames to 61 to see if you can get at least around 3 frames of lag? Im kinda surprised by these results. Maybe i should upload my video of this. Edit: I retested to make sure my camera was in sync well enough. I could have gotten it down to 2.5 and 3 frames of input lag at max but no longer than 3 frames of lag.

This is on sale right now for $9.99. I went ahead and picked it up. The lag isn’t an issue for me but we’re talking someone who doesn’t really mind Redream that much so I’m not terribly sensitive unless it’s very blatant. I don’t love the visual options. I’d hoped it was actually rendering at 1080p but it seems it’s more of a “high res w/ effect filter” with no resolution options available sadly so filter off on a CRT is still is the best way to play this version technically which is a bit unfortunate for such a recent port. edit: “high res” isn’t so bad on an hd screen, it’s reasonably crisp

Does it have the anime cutscenes from the Saturn version?

What controller do you use to play the game?

Looped the Saturn version via save option into oblivion until all my weapons got maxed out. For me the best way to play it, even with its training flaws, is on the Saturn on a CRT. One thing people tend to forget or mention not often enough, the Saturn controller (not the horribel V1 western ones of course) has the best d-pad ever created. I actually prefer to play shmups with this thing over any arcade stick. But that's just me:)

I've known of RS as another shooter in a sea of shooters, played it a few times, died and moved on, though the Final Fantasy Tactics style soundtrack always intrigued me. It wasn't until I started watching this channel that I started to pay attention to its mechanics. I had no idea how deep it was. I bought the Steam release yesterday and come to find out there is an RPG level up system on top of the chain and weapon combo system. The biggest draw for me is switching weapons on the fly based on enemy type and their position. As a fighting game player, this really resonates with me in a huge way. Treasure was really ahead of their time.

Wow watched the rest of the vid. 4 frames with v-sync off I can handle. Will buy it (for the third time LOL, series x, switch, now PC. still a lot less money than the Saturn version). Is it 4K by any chance or capped to 1080P? Just that my panel is adaptive sync 4K.

Reason why the Xbox 360 version was used for all future versions was due to it been the only one in HD. No reason to port the Saturn version or else all the graphics would look super ugly without any upscale or filter been used. Also I think both the Switch and PC versions actually run better than the Xbox 360 one now thanks to all the patches those received.

Immediately wishlisted. I love all smups that i can get my hands on :)

Thanks for the great info as usuall. Well I just decided to dust off my old modded 360 to play Eschatos after your OST podcast, and loving that, so maybe it's time to seriously try RSG for the first time. Thing is, do I play that version, or the Saturn version on ODE first? Or even with the new Saturn MiSTer core.

Unfortunately, I don't have an Xbox 360. I noticed some people said that the Switch port got patched. Does that mean they reduced the input lag on it?

I currently have a Saturn copy I managed to find complete for under 200 (which I got wothin the last year or so), and I am waiting on my physical Switch version.

The whole LiveWire catalog is perfection on Switch. I wish they could've published Ikaruga too, rather than Nicalis. Both games are the pinnacle of shmups IMO, no overly dense and obtuse like a bullet hell, easy to pick up and learn like a good game should be. The ceiling level for both is insane, though.

I guess I can say that the Saturn port of Radiant Silvergun is still the definitive port.

Wow. I did not know this got a steam port. Well time to buy it again and test it out of Steam Deck.

Unless I'm missing something, I'm a little shocked that you can't save your weapon load outs for different stages considering how crucial the leveling system is. Other shmups have been doing it like Crimzon Clover and Akai Katana and they need it less than Silvergun.

I don‘t own a console, so the pc version is very welcome for me. Never played RS before. I am looking forward to giving this a try.

is ketsui deathtiny on the ps5

on the sega saturn x + y +z + start will instantly put you back on the main menu

Mark I found an arcade game you NEED to review, and this time I'm being serious, Llamatron, it's a robotron clone with llamas, it's one of the best. PLEASE REVIEW IT IM SERIOUS

the most dynamic shooter you will ever play. Great game

Would it be possible for you to do a guide specific to psykio games? I can 1cc retro shmups and danmaku games, but Psikyo games, for some reason, are a huge problem to me. Judging by forums and reddit, I don't think I'm alone lol.

Haven't tried this steam version yet, but I have it on Switch. A great game with a unique concept, as Treasure knows how to do so well. A title that requires a certain investment to see the end of it (and to appreciate its true value), because not only is it not obvious, but also very long for a shmup.

Def makes it more accessible for PC players. Love the soundtrack!!!

The things that bother me the most with the PC version of Radiant Silvergun from what I've been hearing is that the game is locked to 720p internally, so regardless if you have 1080p, 4K, or even 16K display (Jesus...), the game is limited to only displaying the amount of 1280x720 pixels internally which is baffling to me that a PC port of Radiant Silvergun in 2023 can't go beyond 720p quality graphics. The 2014 PC version of Ikaruga, despite having limited resolution options at least for Windowed mode is also limited to 720p, _but_ for Fullscreen mode it can support up to native 4K visuals and possibly beyond (along with MSAAx4, Anisotrophic Filteringx16, and per-pixel lighting for Ikaruga's case) by the game's display resolution to Desktop via the in-game graphics settings and it looks and runs beautifully even on my aging obsolete gaming PC. Not to mention the PC version of Ikaurga also has a configurable *.ini file that lets you turn off V-sync indirectly from the configuration file without having to do that through your video card's control panel among other tweaks like loading everything into RAM if you wanted so can get less input delay and possibly better performance depending on your system. Speaking of performance issues, I heard that people are having problems with the menus running badly for whatever reason, like when they go into the Game Screen or HUD options the frame-rate just tanks for no good reason when there are no graphics being displayed unless they were already in a game (a pet-peeve of mine since the Xbox 360 port). Other issues include laggy FMV playback for the Story Mode cutscenes that often desync with the FMV's audio, people cannot use the Arrow Keys for keyboard players which goes against the developers advertising the game supports full keyboard support for those who prefer using the Arrow Keys for their shoot 'em ups (which baffles me that this can't even use Arrow Keys when many, MANY PC shoot 'em ups can), Esc key can't be used to pause the game like basically every other PC game past the mid-2000's, and some sound effects appear to be missing or not playing correctly for some people in the Steam forums. The worst problem with this PC port is how this game does not like AMD graphics card users since some Steam forum users either run into graphics problem of varying severity, poor performance (especially on integrated graphics cards), or the game straight up not working at all if they have an AMD GPU which to me is not acceptable as a PC port. These are the kind of problems that I expect from Inti Creates in how they hastily cobble together their PC ports of many of their earlier games up until Luminous Avenger iX 2 where they have problems like these, game-breaking glitches, or refuse to function properly (if at all) on an AMD system. At the risk of sounding like a PC elitist, but we should expect _better_ PC ports as time goes on, not quick and lazy port jobs that may not even work properly and give companies a gold star every time they port a "good" game to PC with glaring problems. That being said, I would like to get Radiant Silvergun on PC, despite how bad I am at the game, I really love Treasure's work and want to support them however I can, but at the current state it is in right now, I'm not in a rush to get it unless it can get it soon so it can help me help Live Wire get their act together and do this game justice on PC. I'm really hoping that there will be patches for this PC port, because to me I feel like a game like Radiant Silvergun deserves a better PC port than what it has currently. Also for the love of God please Treasure bring Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun to GOG so we can preserve these games more easily for the future.

Cool port but im sticking with my SS one eheh...w Radiant Silvergun...i also prefer it over Ikaruga, somewhat!

Why do some of these devs insist on default vsync? Are there shmups that actually screen tear bad enough it benefits from the setting?

I wonder how does the Mister FPGA Saturn core performs.

You should check mister's input lag too. Saturn core runs radiant Silvergun. I'm curious to see how it performs compared to real hardware

Oh so it wasn't only me, who lives under the rock, thought that they shadow drop the game on PC lol. Tbf was already hoping it to come over since the announcement of the Switch version. Glad it's a good port.

I'm curious if the Steam Deck adds another frame of lag. I plan to train on the deck and finally smash that 1cc on my ridiculously priced Saturn copy from Japan.

I really hope that Treasure tries to push forward a port of SaP 1 and 2 one day

Playing on both pc and Steamdeck has been great. Performance on both systems has been solid. I also have the 360 version running on my crt monitor, I'm one of the multi buy people, bought it on Saturn, xbox and now pc.

I really wish game studios were better about keeping backups of their original source code so we wouldn't end up with these "port of a port of a port" situations where we have almost the exact same game except for the four hardware iterations worth of input lag and in a lot of cases weird quirks that were originally due to hardware limitations but now are just part of the game because the versions of it that existed without those quirks were lost. I understand that sometimes the source code gets lost for more practical reasons like outages or hardware failures but it's still a shame more isn't done to preserve it, if for no other reason than because it's part of our cultural history at this point.

It's on steam!????

So basically, EVERY time this game gets ported, more input lag occurs? Will modders likely fix this issue in case Livewire doesn't patch this?

The extra frame seems like a very easy fix for Live Wire to implement, I hope they do so..

How's it work on Steam Deck?

Cool, glad to know, now all I gotta do is get out of the FATAL ERROR box. Cannot play this port at all, and I’ve tried everything.

Initially i think RS isn't game for me since its pretty lenghtly and too challanging for my shmuping abillity. but im also wanted to love this game since i love the aestethic on the game (especially the ship and yea im agree Red ship is so rad!). hopefully this Steam port turn me to enjoying this game more than before.

At this point in time, it might as well be an “unspoken” law of the internet “if you can help it, avoid the switch version and wait for a better port”

Part of the reason Nintendo Switch games have extra lag is that Nintendo forced devs to use VSync- it cannot be disabled. So i wonder if vsync could be disabled if the switch version could perform the same as Saturn.

What would make this port worth buying is if LiveWire added a GREEN ship. Oh and if it was on GoG.

Whole reason why I have been keeping my xbone around is because this game is on it.

Don’t think that live wire will hear you. I told them so many times that they fucked up the ddp dfk port because you can’t change the music in the 1.51 mode unlike in the 360 version where you could change it and after months of waiting they didn’t implement it. It’s such a shame. That makes it worse than the 360 version

The saturn version isn't a "port", the arcade version runs on s-tv arcade hardware which is identical to a saturn. The only difference is the media the game comes on, rom cartridge vs cd-rom

I know you are a "little" focused on frame lag so please do take into account improvement made by the devs on the games you go back on (like the switch port for this review) if not too much work, it will help us in purchasing decisions after the game is released. I for one would be interested in knowing how it runs now.

The fact we have it on pc is quite great. Buy it and felt like the last time i played more than 20 years ago. The game is good but the fact it has so many buttons and combinations is a major turn off for me and also a rpg leveling weapon system that i hate (would prefer that weapons had always the same level). Defnitly to complex for me, but i will still give a shot. hellsinker, radiant silvergun and malicious wake probably the shmups that i was never able to get into for similiar reasons.

I just want an option for unlimited continues from the start can't be the only one i just think it's not worth it.

Algorithm boost comment

meh, will just save my $ and wait for the MiSTer Saturn core to get perfected to play on that via CRT

Either spend one kidney for the original console port or get an Xbox. At least it's not a Cave level bullet hell.

See ya next time.

>It's red. I think that's the only difference. Doesn't that mean it's 50% faster? :P

20 dollars to not hook up the Xbox 360 is actually a steal really.

less lagg on emulator with nvidia ULMB super close to saturn, steam bad for hard and very hard modes i try its bad

first

If you have a powerful enough PC you can run beetle Saturn at 2 frame lookahead and run it like original hardware. Issue is, newer versions of retroarch have removed run ahead capability for certain cores, so you'll need a last year RA release and Beetle Core. With an 11800h at a locked 4.3ghz on all cores, even one frame look ahead on beetle Saturn was touch and go. With some games, rock solid 60, others would hover between 58-59 but you could really feel it like they weren't running properly. Now with a 13980HX at all cores 5.2ghz, and when retroarch is running it's never using all cores so is more like 5.5ghz, 2 frame look ahead on Beetle is fine. SO I am not sure why they removed it when some of us can handle it. Weird. I would say any modern processor 4.8ghz+ could do it, and they need to bring that option back. You can't even runahead on bsnes anymore, I have been using bsnes with 2 frame runahead for 3 years! They nuked it! I don't know why they have gone backwards like this and punished users. Now unless I want to play a mode 7 game in HD, I use snes9x core so I can use runahead. With one frame of runahead on genesis cores I can attain 1 frame of input lag total, but I think they removed that from pico core for 32x games as well now. Older RA, older core.

shut up and TAKE MY MONEY !!

eeeeeh, 5 frames is quite a lot...

Here is a question. Do you think most people can tell a difference between 1 frame of lag or 2 frames? If you say yes, you're lying