Could Dreamcast et al handle this/that game/effect? *DC tech retrospective *spawn

The RAM difference is not a major advantage. It's like how the Xbox 360 did not have a huge memory advantage over the PS3, despite the 360 having 512MB of main RAM compared to the PS3's 256MB.
Your example can't be used compared to his. The PS3 didn't have less memory. The 360 had 512MB of total memory shared between GPU and CPU whereas the PS3 had 512MB of total memory split between CPU and GPU.
 
Your example can't be used compared to his. The PS3 didn't have less memory. The 360 had 512MB of total memory shared between GPU and CPU whereas the PS3 had 512MB of total memory split between CPU and GPU.

He just told you 8 MB is os reserved for PSP. Leaving 26 mb( 24+2vram) . DC is 16 MB+ 8mb vram + 2mb sound ram. Since dc compression may be lossy but it's even greater than the psp and doesn't have to keep textures inram just vram it evens out.

Also Iam not sure you're aware tapamn over here is a god damned superstar in the DC scene and probably one of the most knowledgeable on a extremely low level of the hardware from sh4 assembly to how to transfer data dma or store queues ( and which out speeds which). Not to mention he literally made his video driver for the pvr, basically the guys more knowledgeable than actual devs were during the Dreamcast hey day and has massively contributed dc homebrew sdk performance expansion recently.

I'd trust he knows what he's talking about. He's knows the machine like the back of his hand and basically was one of the first wave of people that could push unheard amount of vertices on dc ( had some synthetic test running 4.2 mpps at 60 fps).
 
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It doesn't need a wait-and-see. It just needs the ongoing discussion to be fair. People want to compare current framerate with final. That makes sense because if current framerate is same as PS2, that's not a problem. And if it isn't, we can wait and see whether the framerate gets there or not while speculating on whether it will or won't.

The problem is people are being very wishy-washy with their use of framerate, and different people are using different measures which favour their position. If you want to take PS2's lowest at 25 fps, then compare the port's current lowest. If you want to use a median, then compare DC's current median framerate to PS2, which is 30 fps using the DF video as source. The measurements have be fair and the same thing.


The video included two games. One was mostly 29 fps, the other sub 25 fps. As you claimed GTA fell below 25 fps all the time, davis.anthony felt you must have been referring to the VC part of the video as that game, not GTA, constantly ran below 25 fps. Then the silly back-and-forth with you two not understanding that the other guy couldn't understand your point.

Neither of you respected the other enough to question their own position and make an effort to get to know exactly where they were coming from.

I'm going to ask for clarification on this statement you made because it confuses me:

I see about 80 seconds of GTA footage. With the framerate changing once per second, there are I think 2 seconds of below 25 fps, and the vast majority of framerate counter is at 28 or 29 fps. That's 1/40th of the time below 25 fps where you asserted it falls below 25 fps all the time. It we measure framerate at or below 25 fps, it's still only about 5 seconds out of 80. I cannot reconcile the evidence you presented with your interpretation of that evidence.

Can you please explain your interpretation of the video or in some other way revisit your statement so we can get on to the same page in regards PS2's framerate so we can fairly compare it to the DC port's?

Literally every time he turned it would stutter and chug , on scenes that weren't even action packed and somehow that's promising? Not to mention the commentator keeps blasting it for being poor performance from beginning to end. I am sure the context is there. Sure 25 may have been an exaggeration on my part but if I was to count the amount of time gta3 section of the video from the time they started frame counting , it's definitely more than 1/4 that the game ran sub 30 fps while having basically empty scenes( and I know it can get way more hectic ,I own this one on PS2 and not to mention played the current dc proto and as soon as I started down the road it was like 7 cars with like over 5 peds.) on the performance it's definitely wait and see. As we speak they increased performance but introduced more graphical bugs. Who knows by the end of this if the sound doesn't kill the CPU and they can get it run on the aica and aica ram you might have basically similar fps to the PS2 version.
 
DC and PSP have the same amount of RAM available. The PSP has 24MB of main RAM available for games, and 2MB of video RAM, totaling 26MB. The DC has 16MB of main RAM, 8 MB of video RAM, and 2 MB of sound RAM, totaling 26MB. Games on both systems can use 26MB.

Games can use 26MB for both, but one allows developers the option to do more than the other.

The thread title is, "Could Dreamcast et al handle this/that game/effect? *DC tech retrospective *spawn."

Exactly, we're talking about tech specs and not comparing games.

Maybe we should discuss if DC could handle PSP GTA.
 
Games can use 26MB for both, but one allows developers the option to do more than the other.



Exactly, we're talking about tech specs and not comparing games.

Maybe we should discuss if DC could handle PSP GTA.

Looks like PSP handles Dreamcast about as well as Dreamcast handles GTA3:

 
He just told you 8 MB is os reserved for PSP. Leaving 26 mb( 24+2vram) . DC is 16 MB+ 8mb vram + 2mb sound ram. Since dc compression may be lossy but it's even greater than the psp and doesn't have to keep textures inram just vram it evens out.

Also Iam not sure you're aware tapamn over here is a god damned superstar in the DC scene and probably one of the most knowledgeable on a extremely low level of the hardware from sh4 assembly to how to transfer data dma or store queues ( and which out speeds which). Not to mention he literally made his video driver for the pvr, basically the guys more knowledgeable than actual devs were during the Dreamcast hey day and has massively contributed dc homebrew sdk performance expansion recently.

I'd trust he knows what he's talking about. He's knows the machine like the back of his hand and basically was one of the first wave of people that could push unheard amount of vertices on dc ( had some synthetic test running 4.2 mpps at 60 fps).
He was replying to someone else not me. I was referring only to his argument about PS360 where he was not correct.

Regarding the rest I didn't say anything
 
Looks like PSP handles Dreamcast about as well as Dreamcast handles GTA3:


Funny enough the guy who made that is the one porting gta3 to Dreamcast. Though performance on GTA 3 picked up due to the new graphics logic, seems to be hitting 30 fps. Unfortunately the graphics is more broken.

He was replying to someone else not me. I was referring only to his argument about PS360 where he was not correct.

Regarding the rest I didn't say anything

Ah I thought it was a reply to the full thing .
 
Your example can't be used compared to his. The PS3 didn't have less memory. The 360 had 512MB of total memory shared between GPU and CPU whereas the PS3 had 512MB of total memory split between CPU and GPU.
I wasn't trying to say the PS3 had less memory, I'm aware of the PS3's video RAM. I was comparing exclusively main RAM between the PS3 and 360 (and deliberately ignoring other RAM pools) to mirror the way davis.anthony was with the PSP and DC. Maybe I should have rephrased, "despite the 360 having 512MB of main RAM compared to the PS3's 256MB" as "despite the 360 having 512MB of main RAM compared to the PS3's 256MB of main RAM" to make it clearer?
 
Yep, for a none unified memory architecture you can't arbitrarily disregard important pools of memory e.g. vram, and compare only the pools you choose to against all of main memory in unified or hybrid unified memory architecture systems.

The 360 was hybrid UMA, the PS3 was none unified. Comparing the 512MB of the 360's main memory to only the 256MB of PS3's main ram is only going to poison any meaningful consideration of what the two systems could practically store in memory.

The same is true for DC and PS2 or DC and PSP. Or PS1, Saturn and N64. Or even, to some extent, PS2 and Xbox. You can't just disregard important pools of memory to skew ratios in the direction that suits the current argument you want to make.
 
Indeed. If you want to argue RAM amounts, you need to argue specific workloads. Cell could only realistically access XDR, but RSX could decently access the GDDR5 directly. It can all get pretty complicated. No-one should be doing a straight MB <> MB count and drawing conclusions.
 
Yep, for a none unified memory architecture you can't arbitrarily disregard important pools of memory e.g. vram, and compare only the pools you choose to against all of main memory in unified or hybrid unified memory architecture systems.

The 360 was hybrid UMA, the PS3 was none unified. Comparing the 512MB of the 360's main memory to only the 256MB of PS3's main ram is only going to poison any meaningful consideration of what the two systems could practically store in memory.

The same is true for DC and PS2 or DC and PSP. Or PS1, Saturn and N64. Or even, to some extent, PS2 and Xbox. You can't just disregard important pools of memory to skew ratios in the direction that suits the current argument you want to make.
pst ... xbox had 10megs of eram
 
Indeed. If you want to argue RAM amounts, you need to argue specific workloads. Cell could only realistically access XDR, but RSX could decently access the GDDR5 directly. It can all get pretty complicated. No-one should be doing a straight MB <> MB count and drawing conclusions.
Only PS3s with Future Cell equipped could access GDDR5 ( https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/Future_Cell ), regular Cell PS3s had access to GDDR3 at least in the canon universe
 
it's very important and deserves its day in the sun. The b3d article about it was still one of the best ones on this site. Remember those days ?

I do, and it was great. It wasn't germane to the point that TapamN was making though - that comparing only main memory on 360 and PS3 would lead to a very lopsided understanding of the total effective storage capacity of the two systems.

That's was used to try and highlight how important the large amount of vram on the DC was in terms of total storage.
 
Was a massive fan of dreamcast as kid, But when i saw MGS2 and GT3 they looked like they belong in a different gen cause of the lighting in poly counts. I'm expert but i don't think dreamcast could run those games.
 
Was a massive fan of dreamcast as kid, But when i saw MGS2 and GT3 they looked like they belong in a different gen cause of the lighting in poly counts. I'm expert but i don't think dreamcast could run those games.
Surely with massive downgrades
 
Was a massive fan of dreamcast as kid, But when i saw MGS2 and GT3 they looked like they belong in a different gen cause of the lighting in poly counts. I'm expert but i don't think dreamcast could run those games.
I remember seeing a PS2 at a friends house running GT3 with the replay of a rally in Tahiti, only two cars I think but in the background you saw the ocean and beach and the sky was “sega-blue” with some white clouds. The sun not being a simple lens flare. At that moment I was completely in awe of the PS2 as I imagined arcade cabinets having many kilograms of chips and circuits inside with massive fans cooling all of it. And the PS2 with GT3 surpassed anything I ever saw up until that point in time in the arcade
 
I do, and it was great. It wasn't germane to the point that TapamN was making though - that comparing only main memory on 360 and PS3 would lead to a very lopsided understanding of the total effective storage capacity of the two systems.

That's was used to try and highlight how important the large amount of vram on the DC was in terms of total storage.
Ask a fan of the pc architecture why it is better to have separated memory pools (I don’t think there is a real advantage unless the unified ones have latency or bandwidth hits when both are accessed at the same time or something)

And whatever excuse they can come up with for PC, would apply to the PS3
 
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