You misunderstood him. He said that it was superior. In fact, Sega's own last batch of DC 2K sports games showed that well since they had PS2 versions as well. Soul Calibur and Tekken TT are good comparisons too.
Should the SEGA DC and Saturn have launched with these alternative designs?
- Thread starter Secessionist
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You misunderstood him. He said that it was superior. In fact, Sega's own last batch of DC 2K sports games showed that well since they had PS2 versions as well. Soul Calibur and Tekken TT are good comparisons too.
If you'd decided that "good comparisons" included Resident Evil: Code Veronica, or Crazy Taxi, or F355, or Soul Reaver 2 (canned on DC despite its beautiful textures) you'd have the DC beating out the PS2 in terms of texture quality.
The reason the DC had an advantage with texture quality was because it had about 5.5 MB of memory that was pretty much only used for textures, and 2bpp compressed textures that looked better than 4bpp palettised textures. Trying to match the DC's texture fidelity was difficult for the PS2 and it would have been silly to waste half of the PS2's main memory trying when there were better uses.
Things got even more desperate for PS2 textures when the Xbox came out, and multi platform games squeezed the memory available for textures in the PS2 down to about 64 KB. But while PS2 might have had hands down the worst textures last gen, the Dreamcast had hands-hands down the worst poly counts.
Which is why they should have run the CPU faster, and used bump mapping. This should make DC fanboys weep bitter dot3 tears into their Shenmue 2 cases:
http://halo.bungie.org/misc/mc2xray/
DC didn't need more processors, it needed ZBrush.
Because there was better things to do with main memory, than like actually store stuff used in the game?!
The memory is there to be used and in PS2s case it's clear that at least part of the VRAM texture pool was meant to be replaced/reloaded every frame.The 2bpp mode is just like the 2bit palette "trick". Ie. only meant for specifically suited textures. Remember there is only 4 2x2 texture quads to do the whole texture with, that's pretty limiting. With 2bit palette textures you at least have 4 completely separate colours, that you can still palette shift/animate.
In a realistic case, you will never need substantially more texture memory for a single frame of game than what the backbuffer takes up (when I say substantially I'm taking into account buffered large textures that it doesn't make sense to throw out of the buffer even if they aren't strictly visible), and in most cases you¨ll need less. So as said, with even a coarse virtualization scheme, the PS2 should have been fine.
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I referred to the examples I mentioned because the texture fidelity was greater than anything on the DC. One early on from the same developer, and another at the end of the DC's life cycle. There were plenty of examples of sub-par DC ports to the PS2 (even Soul Reaver 2) like the one you mentioned earlier on, add DOA2 to your list. CODE: Veronica came with a DMC demo incidentally, and despite running at 60fps and of similar design scope, it had better poly count, texture variety and fidelity overall.
Then there is MGS2, RR5 etc.
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So really, just adding more RAM would've been a nice improvement. Of course RAM costs money and that's why it didn't have more RAM in the first place.
But there were some pre-PSX console 3D games that I did get a lot of fun from. I remember spending a lot of time with Stunt Race FX even though it has a nasty frame rate. It didn't bother me at the time, probably because it was still a massive improvement in gameplay over the typical SNES 2D racer.
3D games were very popular on computers many years before game consoles were doing it significantly. There were a lot of flat-shaded 3D games from the mid '80s onward that were not novelties.
But there were some pre-PSX console 3D games that I did get a lot of fun from. I remember spending a lot of time with Stunt Race FX even though it has a nasty frame rate. It didn't bother me at the time, probably because it was still a massive improvement in gameplay over the typical SNES 2D racer.
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That doesn't explain why the DC was still better at textures with 16Mb of main mem,
It had PS2 beat maybe not in variety but in size and texel to pixel ratio.
What would have been better without any revisionist hardware tampering, would be to "simply" find out how to utilize the IPU to decompress stuff. That would have effectively doubled memory and made streaming easier.
They were novelties in the sense that the framerates and polycounts were so low that only certain kinds of games were suited and even then it was a challenge to play them.
I too played Starglider, Castlemaster and Sentinel and such games. They were very good games, but they were all one trick pony's and they didn't represent the general way in which games were made.
That's exactly what I'm talking about. A more well integrated, more refined and optimised 3D chip would certainly have been able to deliver comparable or most likely better performance than what the Super FX did five or seven years later. Esp. coupled with a non borked CPU, like a 8 -10Mhz 65816 (splashing out for a $1 heatsink wouldn't have tipped the budget over Nintendo). Most importantly as a standard feature, not as an expensive addon that added significant cost to each game, not just in hardware but in learning to program it too.
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This is about where DC threads start to turn bad (assuming they weren't started by Texan)!
I'll explain what I mean as simply as I can:
- The PS2 stored textures in main memory
- How much main memory you use to store textures and "other stuff" is a balancing act or tradeoff
- You are aiming to get the "best results"
- The PS2 needed significantly more memory than the DC to match (or exceed) the DC's texture quality
- Even though this could be done ...
- ... it was not normally (understatement) the way to get the "best results" from the system
Opinion-as-fact alone isn't going to advance the discussion very far! For example:
We've not really got any further wrt discussing making the DC more competitive; all we've done is reference our opinions as supporting evidence for our opinions.
I think another 8 MB of vram would have been great, and it would have been cheaper than another 16 MB of main ram, but as you say it would still cost. The payoff of even higher res base textures and normal maps (where appropriate) would have been pretty huge though.
Because there was better things to do with main memory, than like actually store stuff used in the game?!
I'll explain what I mean as simply as I can:
- The PS2 stored textures in main memory
- How much main memory you use to store textures and "other stuff" is a balancing act or tradeoff
- You are aiming to get the "best results"
- The PS2 needed significantly more memory than the DC to match (or exceed) the DC's texture quality
- Even though this could be done ...
- ... it was not normally (understatement) the way to get the "best results" from the system
Opinion-as-fact alone isn't going to advance the discussion very far! For example:
Me said:
We've not really got any further wrt discussing making the DC more competitive; all we've done is reference our opinions as supporting evidence for our opinions.
I think another 8 MB of vram would have been great, and it would have been cheaper than another 16 MB of main ram, but as you say it would still cost. The payoff of even higher res base textures and normal maps (where appropriate) would have been pretty huge though.
You can't downplay textures when talking about the technical impressiveness of a game. Arguably and depending on the scene, they are the most important aspect. Saying it's a balance is making a virtue out of necessity. You'll always want to have as great textures a possible.
Not true with regards to resolution (the real problem of PS2 textures) and only partially true with regards to colourdepth. 2bpp textures on DC was limited to very plain homogenous textures, with not too many shapes (it's essentially a variant of ordered dither). With PS2 2bpp palette textures you might have only four colours, but you can place them however you want, cycle animate them and have alpha of any degree. Fine for for example cartoony, artificial looking or tarmac textures.
If MPEG compression had been imployed on textures, PS2 would have had a significant advantage over DC with regards to space available for textures and be matching or exceeding xbox.
I've spent most of this thread arguing that textures are so valuable that Sega should have added more memory for textures as their first port of call if they were to add more silicon to the machine.
But just because textures are important, it doesn't mean PS2 developers should have thrown all their memory at matching or beating DC texture quality. They could have done this, but they didn't.
It's true for resolution because colour depth is an issue.
You can't seriously be suggesting 4 color textures as a general case substitute for VQ compressed textures.
Over ten years of development and the most successful console ever - if it's not being done there's got to be a reason.
Fair enough, even with your last "checkmate" opinion (SH2? SH3? lots of example so you're right, it's pointless). I'll just respectfully disagree. I'm just not seeing it, and I've heard some similar arguments points 10 years ago.
The truth to the matter is, the discussion should have ended with Eastmen's post. There was nothing technically wrong with the DC, and time after time, we've seen weaker hardware lead the market.
The Saturn on the other hand, even Yu Suzuki had a few suggestions. The obvious one being the bad dual CPU choice, even for its time. Going with quads instead of triangles, the choice for the sound chip and how it was under-used. RAM was the only thing that was competitive, especially via the expansion pack but it only benefited 2D games.
Ironically, the system was successful in Japan so even then, it's really all about marketing.
A much newer machine that costs the same should beat or at least equal the old one in all regards. That's why developers should have done more if possible to do higher resolution textures on PS2.
You are talking as if 2bpp VQ textures were the norm/general case on DC. Lets just recap: That's four 2x2 quads with your colours of choice (minus alpha and cycling, that palette textures can do) to do a picture. That would either be a pseudo noisy texture or a texture with lots of lines or angles. NOT the general case. And in most cases less useful than 2bpp palette textures, where you still have full control over the individual texels placement.
When something becomes the norm, or the norm not to do, most people will follow. Double so if you are pressed for time and money, as most developers are. For other examples of underutilized hardware, think of the SNES soundchip or the Saturns or even think of the wiimote, which could have been the world greatest fps. controller if imployed in a mouse style setup, but now wastes its potential as a half-hearted cross between a limp springless joystick and a crippled light-gun, in all Wii fps. games, just because "that's the way everybody does it".
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Yeah, between the lack of cache memory for the CPUs, non-existent libraries/tools, and better/easier options out there (PSone), I'm not surprised with the development issues on the saturn. I'm not even sure how the VDP chips measured up for 3D rendering outside of missing support for even the most basic 3D effects.
Like you mentioned though, there were still plenty of great looking games on the system though. VF2, Last Bronx, Nights, Sonic Jam's 3D level, Scorcher, Panzer Dragoon Trilogy, Fighters Megamix, Burning Rangers, Burning Rangers, Duke 3D, PowerSlave, Quake, Daytona CE, Sonic R, Virtua Cop 2, Shenmue demo, and plenty other games proved that good looking 3D could be done with the saturn.
I imagine it was easier to just use the Fighting Vipers engine for Fighters Megamix instead of remodeling all of the Viper characters in high res.
If only the DC launched with the Naomi-2 board specs, then I wonder how well it would have stacked up with the PS2
Yeah something along those lines
I'm sure there are cost-cutting measures sega could have done to make the Naomi-2 DC manageable if sold at $300.
In my opinion N64 was the first console to do generally "good looking" 3D. Clean 3D. Even back then I couldn't really stand the pixelated, skewed messes that PS1 and Saturn put out. PS1 and Saturn 3D reminds me of Matrox Mystique actually but I think that Mystique is actually superior to the consoles (perspective correction?)
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Not sure about specs, but I think those were released sometime in 96 then 97, so they should be more capable.
In regards to the looks, even with the N64, I think the ones that aged well enough (retro-wise anyway) kept a good distance between the camera and texture work. That and use of pre-rendered backgrounds in some cases. The games released in 98 and 99 saw a considerable jump in quality incidentally.
Yeah something along those lines
I'm sure there are cost-cutting measures sega could have done to make the Naomi-2 DC manageable if sold at $300.
Was the Naomi 2's graphics feature set like the DC's due to the similar hardware? Makes me wonder if any arcade titles used the DC's bumpmapping capabilities. Arcade hardware is always fascinating because it brings to fruition such pipe dreams as "what if the *insert console* had this *insert extra processor, more RAM, etc*". Naomi 2 was certainly one of the more interesting. Now that all the arcade hardware is based on common PC parts, it's kind of uninteresting.
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Uninteresting is right; even with consoles to an extent to be honest but that's just the way it will be for year to come. In regards to Naomi 2, iIf the specs are accurate here, then I suppose it had a similar feature set as the DC:
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=725
Prior to them, Kutaragi worked with Namco on creating the System 12. All they did was overclock the CPU to run at 48MHz, added 1MB of VRAM and voila (and it had a different sound chip). It wasn't a big leap but they pushed that setup enough that they hit a brick wall while attempting to port Soul Calibur to the PS1, and went with the DC.
Sega just never bothered with revisions like that in the 90's. All they pushed for is more advanced hardware in the arcades. Model 3 was the most powerful thing out there at the time, but it was too expensive for operators. Interestingly, they used the Yamaha sound chip for the Saturn in that one.
Namco even revised the PS2 based System 246 in a similar fashion but it really didn't seem to do much of a difference compared to PS1 hardware.
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=725
Prior to them, Kutaragi worked with Namco on creating the System 12. All they did was overclock the CPU to run at 48MHz, added 1MB of VRAM and voila (and it had a different sound chip). It wasn't a big leap but they pushed that setup enough that they hit a brick wall while attempting to port Soul Calibur to the PS1, and went with the DC.
Sega just never bothered with revisions like that in the 90's. All they pushed for is more advanced hardware in the arcades. Model 3 was the most powerful thing out there at the time, but it was too expensive for operators. Interestingly, they used the Yamaha sound chip for the Saturn in that one.
Namco even revised the PS2 based System 246 in a similar fashion but it really didn't seem to do much of a difference compared to PS1 hardware.
I had a friend introduce me to System16.com a while back, it's the place to get basic arcade system info. What I really wanted was real examples, not spec sheets lol. It would be fun to get one's hands on the hardware and screw around with it.
Question regarding the PS2's eDRAM: so now that I know it was used for texture storage, in what relationship is it used for framebuffer storage (I assume as in the finished frame?)? Is it's size the reason why the PS2 effectively could render out to 1280 x 1024 while the Gamecube and Wii are stuck at 480p with their 2 MB framebuffer? I had always thought that 4 MB was way too small to store textures for building a complete scene (or is it done differently?), so it had to be a framebuffer. That's the point of the 360's eDRAM, framebuffer only correct?
Question regarding the PS2's eDRAM: so now that I know it was used for texture storage, in what relationship is it used for framebuffer storage (I assume as in the finished frame?)? Is it's size the reason why the PS2 effectively could render out to 1280 x 1024 while the Gamecube and Wii are stuck at 480p with their 2 MB framebuffer? I had always thought that 4 MB was way too small to store textures for building a complete scene (or is it done differently?), so it had to be a framebuffer. That's the point of the 360's eDRAM, framebuffer only correct?
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Matrox Mystique???
What's that? never heard of it before.
Matrox actually made another console?