I'm wondering which version ultimately looks and plays better. I'd like to use a controller, and if this version plays the best and has 4k support with the mod, I'd probably go that route, but would be fine playing on PS3 as well. Just wondering what people who've played both prefer.

well..... Nothing is a "straight road", in life.
Check here : Metal Gear Solid 2 | PS2 vs Xbox vs PC vs PS3 vs Vita vs 360 | All versions Comparison
[url=]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krH8d3spXbY&ab_channel=ElAnalistaDeBits[/url]
Do you really think that the PS3 compilation version is better than PC version (which was a port from the Xbox version ...) ?

I don't know..... check at 45 seconds ( a fixed portrait of Snake..).. PC version is less blurry ....
check at 1mn12s = again, it's less blurry on PC....
check at 2mn35s = shadow of Snake on the floor = again, it's less blurry on PC....
check at 3mn13s = it's a draw... PC = PS3
check at 4mn20s = more details on PC, for Snake (look at the hairs...) !
At least, we can mod the PC version, which is not the case for the PS3.
If someone can upscale the textures on the PC version, we can have the best version of this game !

As UltimateNova1203 mentioned on the V's Fix Github, it's just a matter of someone being able to implement the content - details below:
https://github.com/VFansss/mgs2-v-s-fix/issues/137

"[i]I have a repo open for this project already, however we have a hurdle to clear before we can even really bring the hi-res textures over. The engine has a lot of limitations inherited from the Xbox conversion. There is a limit to how many assets can be in active memory for each stage (everything is a stage, from the main menu, to the cutscenes, to the actual playable stages themselves), and the game streams in new assets as it needs them.

There is, from what I can see, about a 16MB limit on textures, audio and models. We can change the textures out with anything we want (to a degree, resolution has some nuance), however we quickly exceed that 16MB limit due to the DXT5 textures. It doesn't compress alpha that well, so we get very large texture sizes.

We can truncate textures in a similar way to how the original textures were done, so a 10242048 texture may only actually use 10241152 of that size, the rest being blank. We can truncate the remaining height (I believe it's intervals of 24px) to shave some size down, but to get anything really usable, we have to overcome the size limitations someway.

I can see using LUA to intercept the texture calls and storing the new textures elsewhere in RAM, kinda similar to some emulators with high res assets do. Another idea is to leave the game as it is for the most part, but where it stores the pointer for the texture, have that redirected to another point in RAM where our hi-res stuff is located at.

I'm not sure how familiar V is with doing stuff like this, or if nemesis2000 is even interested with it. It may be worth looking into how GTAIII/VC/SA handles their hi-res texture mods with their plugins, as the plugin system that is used here seems to be similar.

Tl;Dr, overcome the cap on how much all the assets can take in RAM, and it'll be relatively trivial to port or remake the textures in even higher quality (this is what is preventing me from finishing my repo).[/i]"

there is already "something" for the textures... here :

[url=]https://github.com/UltimateNova1203/mgs2-pchd[/url]

Sadly, I'm not sure if it's for the "physical" version or the gog version.
i assume it's for the DVD version....

Note : it's even more complicate.... The "engine" of the game is old with too much limitation...
Sounds that trying to use upscaled textures won't be like a "walk in the park"..... oh crap....

The big advantage with the PS3 version is that while it's not a perfect conversion, it retains a fair bit more of the original post-processing effects for cutscenes. Last night I did a comparison between the cutscenes and gameplay sections of the Tanker section between the PC port w/ patch and the PS2 release of Substance running on PCSX2. The only real difference I noticed is that the PC w/patch had less Post-fx in cutscenes. Otherwise, the gameplay portions on the tanker looked borderline identical.

The PS3 version does have improved textures, but IMO, it doesn't improve the visuals that much besides the HUD elements. As someone whose first experience playing MGS2&3 was through the HD collection, playing this port or PCSX2 at an increased resolution basically looks 90% the same to me.

The choice is yours. If the HD collection version were available on PC, I'd definitely buy that over this, but IMO, I prefer being able to run this at a higher resolution, even if the textures aren't quite as good. However, if you're perfectly content with 720p, the PS3 version is a really great port.