TEXAN*s SEGA enthusiast thread - past and future hardware choices
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Yeah I have to agree about that. And by the time the console was released in Europe even more games were released on the region.
TTT and SSX were good looking enough to turn heads. The DC couldnt touch these titles in terms of graphics. The lighting, special effects, polygons and smoothness were like nothing else seen on the DC. DOA 2 and Soul Calibur paled in comparison. They almost looked like a generation old compared to TTT. I am still amazed by how good TTT looks even today mind you. It is probably better looking than T4 and T5.
Even SF EX 3 which wasnt the best looking game on the PS3 looked better than the majority of DC games.
RRV was also as impressive as Metropolis Street Racer and probably looked slightly better.
Freak'n Big Panda
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OK but then why did playstation beat out the N64 with a worse GPU? Why is the Wii winning in numbers this gen? If history has taught us anything it's that comsumers largely don't care about graphics.
Also Xbox > PS2 in terms ofgraphics performance yet it still lost big time in # of worldwide shipments.
Sometimes its technology sometimes it is not. It depends on the circumstances of the time
The N64 was a victim of its hardware choices itself like the absence of a CD-medium.
The Saturn had weird hardware choices too that made it a less desirable console to support as a developer or play as a consumer which comparatively made the PS1 seem like a better choice. Similar hardware choices existed on the PS2 but wasnt a problem because the circumstances were different.
I think the DC was a victim though of previous Sega failures, marketing choices, stronger competition AND low hardware performance.
The n64 was no victim when it managed to host million selling cartridges over the best ps1 could manage for years, the only thing that damaged n64 was that nintendo did not have the 64DD built in or even the greatest selling peripheral the 4mb ram cart built in due to target price.
Saturn was perfectly fine, what killed it was the rush jobs
Sr2 was a near launch title by a few months, it was a solid console effort but it on ly proved to add doom and gloom by failing to match model 3 visuals just like virtua fighter 3tb and even Fighting Vipers 2, considering the latter was a 2000 or 2001 release but just did not help the reputation of Sega rush jobs or lack of faith jobs like dirt devils becoming tnn racing...
Daytona 2000 again was more about not really putting the effort and still rushing the game hoping fans would just eat it instead of questioning the specs and why the game failed to even look as good as Sega Super GT/S.C.U.D. Race.
Ferrari 355 was an acurate port of a game that really showed it could only be enjoyed in the arcades, it was too technical for home and too boring and while pretty, its tech demo 3d engine only showcased one car model type.
Tdlm although great was not a game the sega racing fan was really looking for, they or me just really wanted perfect sega super gt and daytona 2, vf3,etc we did not get it.
Impo sega's DC biggest screw up was listening to critics about hardware, it should have had dual SH4 cpus to take over more of the lighting chores of the graphics chipset and allow Sega's own programmers who already mastered Saturn dual SH2s.
Other than that there are too many rushing jobs with dc, there was no reaalistc way to put SH5s or better graphics because Sega was losing money to invest and it would mean a 2001 or more realistic 2002 console release which is why I said in a previous post that Saturn and the 4mb ram cart should have been supported as a main console to 2001 with no DC existing ever and no 32x either, saturn was that much better.
Or double the Main System Ram to 32MB.
There were rumours in 1999 that SEGA were to release a 32MB upgraded version of the system.
I personally think 16MB was a massive mistake.
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Neither me or my friends agree on this. It may be false from a pure technical pov but game as soulcalibur and sega rally for had a way clearer, neater more pleasing feel to them.
If the DC had to be released in it's current form then SEGA could have atleast done the following in 2001 -
Release an update adapter containing a PVR2+ELAN plus the associated RAM. This would have transformed the system into a home Naomi 2.
As you can see, the NAOMI 2 was significantly more powerful than PS2/GC/XB -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWFZaOuweyc&&hd=1
The PS2 port was a severe downgrade in comparison.
Release an update adapter containing a PVR2+ELAN plus the associated RAM. This would have transformed the system into a home Naomi 2.
As you can see, the NAOMI 2 was significantly more powerful than PS2/GC/XB -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWFZaOuweyc&&hd=1
The PS2 port was a severe downgrade in comparison.
Hang on. You're saying NAOMI 2 was more powerful than PS2 based solely on comparing one game, an arcade and it's port?? How's about you try comparing similar titles designed specifically for the system. Look at the simple characters and shading of VF compared to Tekken.
This does not prove either platform is the more powerful, because as much depends on the software. You need a combination of tech specs and best example games to determine which was the most powerful hardware in real terms.
You can't compare a 2001 title with a 2005 title if I be absolutely honest with you.
A fairer comparison would be with the 2004 Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned.
Unfortunately all the videos of VF4FT on YouTube are blurry, but having extensively played both T5 and FT myself, I can assure you there is no comparison.
A fairer comparison would be with the 2004 Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned.
Unfortunately all the videos of VF4FT on YouTube are blurry, but having extensively played both T5 and FT myself, I can assure you there is no comparison.
Grandmaster's point about IQ is a good one, and not asinine.
It's been a while, but I don't recall either SSX or TTT supporting progressive scan or using aniso filtering. I do, however, remember the Euro version of TTT having its image horribly distorted (awful PAL conversion) and having it's gameplay wrecked as it ran painfully slowly (50hz). A depressing, running leap backwards for anyone used to 60 hz modes (or systems) and VGA support.
This is not to say the Euro DC didn't have it's own share of bad PAL conversions (some of which broke 60hz and VGA support, and ran slow and bordered at 50hz), but the general standard of DC Pal gaming was far ahead of the PS2 around the time of launch (and for a while afterwards).
And impressive though (NTSC) TTT and SSX were, I don't recall either possessing the same "wow" factor that Shenmue had, even with its dated assets (gameplay is a different issue, of course). Once again, there's more to nice graphics than poly counts.
Shifty Geezer said:
Absolutely. What it does show though, IMO, is that tied to a powerful T&L unit the DC's graphics chip could really step up and handle far more polygons than we saw in even the most notable DC games.
If the DC had a weak point it wasn't the graphics chip as this thread's OP states, it was that the CPU couldn't provide the muscle to really push it (despite being the fastest CPU to date at vector maths, iirc). I'm not sure what Sega could really have done about this; no-one wanted another multi-cpu system and developing and including a T&L unit would probably have taken time and money that Sega didn't have.
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PVR2DC could draw 7 million pps @ 100 mHz.
Only a relatively small proportion of the SH4's time could be spent on T&L for any given frame, and it was required to do more than just the kind of simple transforms that give the 10 million figure.
If you think about it, Naomi 2 wouldn't be capable of 10 (or more) million pps if the GPUs could only do 3 a piece.
But when you started being one, it probably completely made sense
IMO it basically was the only console with *real* hardcore games.Edit: talking Sega Genesis here ofcourse=)
the numbers that circulate in here are a bit misleading....
the sh4 cannot perform t&l for 10 million polys at interactive frame rates. However, it CAN process significantly larger amounts of geometry than what was seen in commercial games.
The highest i have seen is dead or alive 2 with ~30000 vertices per frame in some scenes.
I got a dc devkit some time ago and managed to get 80000 verts per scene @ 60 fps with dynamic diffuse lighting and one texture. This was coded purely in assembler and the geometry was used as a simple raw, continuous vertex buffer with the shader being evaluated for every vertex.
Further optimizations using indexed geometry buffers and a triangle stripping library will give even better results.
My point is, the dc was a platform where you could get acceptable results without too much effort and the developers did not really bother to max it out. I'll post my demo when i finish it as i do not have a lot of free time, and i think i will get my point across.
the sh4 cannot perform t&l for 10 million polys at interactive frame rates. However, it CAN process significantly larger amounts of geometry than what was seen in commercial games.
The highest i have seen is dead or alive 2 with ~30000 vertices per frame in some scenes.
I got a dc devkit some time ago and managed to get 80000 verts per scene @ 60 fps with dynamic diffuse lighting and one texture. This was coded purely in assembler and the geometry was used as a simple raw, continuous vertex buffer with the shader being evaluated for every vertex.
Further optimizations using indexed geometry buffers and a triangle stripping library will give even better results.
My point is, the dc was a platform where you could get acceptable results without too much effort and the developers did not really bother to max it out. I'll post my demo when i finish it as i do not have a lot of free time, and i think i will get my point across.
I dont know what you mean with "host". Only few games managed to sell tremendously well whereas the PS1 was having more successful titles. The games were more expensive to buy, and limited the amount of things that the developer could do with the console. Support was less also due to that limitation and the N64 wasnt fully utilized. Thats why the lack of build in 64DD or the 4MB peripheral was a problem. The cartridge was inadequate.
The Saturn hardware was a rushed job by itself.
But when you started being one, it probably completely made sense
Edit: talking Sega Genesis here ofcourse=)
The Saturn more than the genesis made a believer specially when I got Daytona usa cce netlink edition and Fighters Megamix, legend of oasis, tomb raider sat, 4mb capcom games, nights and the sonic 3d menu, hell I even had sega rally netlink with the fixed textures and more...
Your belief is a massive mistake.
Sega targeted a very low entry level price as opposed to Saturn and PSX which were cutting edge when released.
32MB had a price premium if it was to be built in and if Sega were to have made DC cutting edge even for 1998 with dual SH4s a single pvr2 and 32MB the price would have jumped over $450 or around there imho
You really make me feel like you have no concept of the reality of sega even for back then.
Get your fantasy straight, the ELAN chip was meant for and only for the arcade because Sega's top programming talent had it like that just look at the custom jobs to model 2, model 3 and the hikaru board. It was never meant for console use.
Imagination Technologies had a not so easy time implementing a t&L hardware into a pvr sequel, let alone a pixel shading capability. It took them a lot of time to catch up to even matrox parhelia flawed design.
If PS2 was so inferior to NAOMI 2 why don't you test that out with VF4 and VF4 evolution so you can see how Sega-AM2 made so much progress with the emotion engine and GS that really calls to question if NAOMI 2 was really necessary at all.
If they made made so much progress and they are Sega-AM2 there is no question that PS2 would have been capable of a superior version of Shenmue 1 & 2 only the DC sales and the lack of 70million to make a PS2 version stopped them.
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