xaeroxcore
Newcomer
This thread should come back to life.... Amazing data!
Could Dreamcast et al handle this/that game/effect? *DC tech retrospective *spawn
- Thread starter xaeroxcore
- Start date
-
- Tags
- sega
I have enjoyed reading this thread for the first time, so xaeroxcore, appreciate you reanimating it. 
Also I believe this may be my first post here even though I've been a member for a while, so hello everyone.
I certainly find it fascinating to explore the "what ifs" in relation to the Dreamcast, considering how short it's retail life was. I have always wondered what could have been accomplished if that system had be afforded a 5 or 6 year life span, and what interesting tricks and efficiencies these amazing developers would have found out in time. Just look at any reasonably successful system and compare it's first generation games to 3rd and 4th, there is usually a decent increase in graphics and gameplay.
I see that the discussion was centered around the question of whether the DC could handle VF4, and funny enough I have put a considerable amount of time into that game recently after dusting off the PS2. Pretty impressive what Sega pulled off on that system, and I do believe a reasonable facsimile of the game could have been done on the Dreamcast. But reasonable for me, probably was not for the Sega team developing it or the diehard VF4 players.
The polygon counts of VF4 probably would not have been the largest hurdle for the Dreamcast, when taking into account that character polygon counts of the PS2 version are even a bit lower than the DOA 2, and I feel the stages could be replicated to a sufficient amount, deformable snow/sand probably would have had to go, maybe. However it is the lighting model of VF4 that I think the DC would have had a considerable issue with, meaning it couldn't do it at a high polygon count.
I'm no programmer, and I have no idea how much of a processing burden lighting is when creating a 3D engine, but I would think very substantial. I recently saw the polygon counts for DOA 2 and guesstimate that the DC is pushing around 2.9 mio polys at it's highest number, taking the known polygon counts per character and stages then averaging them out to obtain just over 49,000 polys per frame. Impressive IMO, one of the best looking DC games in existence, but probably not hitting that amount most of the time, and you have to admit the lighting is a bit flat, like many DC games.
Now, my certainly layman's mind was thinking, if you could cut the polygon rendering budget by 30% and use some of that for lighting computation, it could make a pretty decent looking version. Certainly better in relation to the arcade original than say, the Saturn VF2 to it's arcade forbearer. That would be a game that still would hit "potentially" 2 mio polygons per second, and with talented artists I'm thinking that could go along way toward the issue of stage design, but how close is close enough?
In the end as much as I appreciate the Dreamcast and it's place in console gaming history, I bet Sega would have opted not to bring it to DC because the game would be too compromised in their opinion. Still a DC version of VF4 pushing the system for all it's worth would have certainly been something to experience.
I just saw a Project Justice stage for the first time that had interesting lighting scenario. It was raining and lighting would light up the whole stage something I had not seen on a DC fighting game before, except for perhaps Soul Calibur. Would be interesting to know the polygon counts of Project Justice.
Thanks for reading the thoughts of an old gamer.
Also I believe this may be my first post here even though I've been a member for a while, so hello everyone.I certainly find it fascinating to explore the "what ifs" in relation to the Dreamcast, considering how short it's retail life was. I have always wondered what could have been accomplished if that system had be afforded a 5 or 6 year life span, and what interesting tricks and efficiencies these amazing developers would have found out in time. Just look at any reasonably successful system and compare it's first generation games to 3rd and 4th, there is usually a decent increase in graphics and gameplay.
I see that the discussion was centered around the question of whether the DC could handle VF4, and funny enough I have put a considerable amount of time into that game recently after dusting off the PS2. Pretty impressive what Sega pulled off on that system, and I do believe a reasonable facsimile of the game could have been done on the Dreamcast. But reasonable for me, probably was not for the Sega team developing it or the diehard VF4 players.
The polygon counts of VF4 probably would not have been the largest hurdle for the Dreamcast, when taking into account that character polygon counts of the PS2 version are even a bit lower than the DOA 2, and I feel the stages could be replicated to a sufficient amount, deformable snow/sand probably would have had to go, maybe. However it is the lighting model of VF4 that I think the DC would have had a considerable issue with, meaning it couldn't do it at a high polygon count.
I'm no programmer, and I have no idea how much of a processing burden lighting is when creating a 3D engine, but I would think very substantial. I recently saw the polygon counts for DOA 2 and guesstimate that the DC is pushing around 2.9 mio polys at it's highest number, taking the known polygon counts per character and stages then averaging them out to obtain just over 49,000 polys per frame. Impressive IMO, one of the best looking DC games in existence, but probably not hitting that amount most of the time, and you have to admit the lighting is a bit flat, like many DC games.
Now, my certainly layman's mind was thinking, if you could cut the polygon rendering budget by 30% and use some of that for lighting computation, it could make a pretty decent looking version. Certainly better in relation to the arcade original than say, the Saturn VF2 to it's arcade forbearer. That would be a game that still would hit "potentially" 2 mio polygons per second, and with talented artists I'm thinking that could go along way toward the issue of stage design, but how close is close enough?
In the end as much as I appreciate the Dreamcast and it's place in console gaming history, I bet Sega would have opted not to bring it to DC because the game would be too compromised in their opinion. Still a DC version of VF4 pushing the system for all it's worth would have certainly been something to experience.
I just saw a Project Justice stage for the first time that had interesting lighting scenario. It was raining and lighting would light up the whole stage something I had not seen on a DC fighting game before, except for perhaps Soul Calibur. Would be interesting to know the polygon counts of Project Justice.
Thanks for reading the thoughts of an old gamer.
Lighting flatness was the major thing that annoyed me in general with DC graphics. That said, the texture detail and image quality was pristine for it's time. These were areas the PS2 had a hard time matching.I have enjoyed reading this thread for the first time, so xaeroxcore, appreciate you reanimating it.
I certainly find it fascinating to explore the "what ifs" in relation to the Dreamcast, considering how short it's retail life was. I have always wondered what could have been accomplished if that system had be afforded a 5 or 6 year life span, and what interesting tricks and efficiencies these amazing developers would have found out in time. Just look at any reasonably successful system and compare it's first generation games to 3rd and 4th, there is usually a decent increase in graphics and gameplay.
I see that the discussion was centered around the question of whether the DC could handle VF4, and funny enough I have put a considerable amount of time into that game recently after dusting off the PS2. Pretty impressive what Sega pulled off on that system, and I do believe a reasonable facsimile of the game could have been done on the Dreamcast. But reasonable for me, probably was not for the Sega team developing it or the diehard VF4 players.
The polygon counts of VF4 probably would not have been the largest hurdle for the Dreamcast, when taking into account that character polygon counts of the PS2 version are even a bit lower than the DOA 2, and I feel the stages could be replicated to a sufficient amount, deformable snow/sand probably would have had to go, maybe. However it is the lighting model of VF4 that I think the DC would have had a considerable issue with, meaning it couldn't do it at a high polygon count.
I'm no programmer, and I have no idea how much of a processing burden lighting is when creating a 3D engine, but I would think very substantial. I recently saw the polygon counts for DOA 2 and guesstimate that the DC is pushing around 2.9 mio polys at it's highest number, taking the known polygon counts per character and stages then averaging them out to obtain just over 49,000 polys per frame. Impressive IMO, one of the best looking DC games in existence, but probably not hitting that amount most of the time, and you have to admit the lighting is a bit flat, like many DC games.
Now, my certainly layman's mind was thinking, if you could cut the polygon rendering budget by 30% and use some of that for lighting computation, it could make a pretty decent looking version. Certainly better in relation to the arcade original than say, the Saturn VF2 to it's arcade forbearer. That would be a game that still would hit "potentially" 2 mio polygons per second, and with talented artists I'm thinking that could go along way toward the issue of stage design, but how close is close enough?
In the end as much as I appreciate the Dreamcast and it's place in console gaming history, I bet Sega would have opted not to bring it to DC because the game would be too compromised in their opinion. Still a DC version of VF4 pushing the system for all it's worth would have certainly been something to experience.
I just saw a Project Justice stage for the first time that had interesting lighting scenario. It was raining and lighting would light up the whole stage something I had not seen on a DC fighting game before, except for perhaps Soul Calibur. Would be interesting to know the polygon counts of Project Justice.
Thanks for reading the thoughts of an old gamer.
Overall DC games looked splendid and had a distinctive arcadey style.
We probably might have seen some interesting results on the console. Near the end of it's life we saw games that the PS2 could not match like for like. It is interesting how different these architectures were, and thus their most impressive titles would not necessarily be able to be recreated on each other despite that the PS2 was considered overall more powerful.
The DC would never be able to recreate faithfully MGS2, Tekken Tag, Gran Turismo, Silent Hill 3 or Devil May Cry, but I don't think the PS2 would be able to recreate Shenmue or Sonic Adventure 2 accurately either.
Sonic Heroes lacked in every aspect next to both Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 on the DC.
That said, I am really curious how well the DC would have hypothetically be able to recreate Tekken 5. It looks flat compared to Tekken 4 and TTT and dear I say DOA2 probably looked better.
I am also very curious why we didn't see some Model 3 games. Scud Race was a superb looking game and holds well even today. So was Daytona 2. It never got any of thease early Model 3 games. It got a version of Sega Rally 2 that looked noticeably inferior to its Arcade version and Daytona 2001 was underwhelming compared to 2.
I suspect some technical issues as no racing game on the DC looked that good. I think that even PS2 would have had a hard time running these games well enough.
Garrett Weaving
Newcomer
AFAIK Model 3 is faster in some areas than a Dreamcast, which is to be expected from a very very expensive arcade board from 2 years prior to the console's release. Model 3 also saw some revisions through the years and I believe the last one of them had quite a bit higher specs, so games released with those specs in mind would have somewhat of a hard time on the Dreamcast. Again, the DC was faster in some areas, slower in others.
I agree though, they should have brought more arcade ports, it is such a shame that Scud Race and Daytona USA 2 never saw a home release. One could argue however, that it was SEGA's insistence on pushing arcade ports on home consoles that got them out of the hardware business, as by 1998-1999, people started expecting different sorts of games from their home consoles. Anyway, on the subject of Sega Rally 2, not only does it look inferior to the Arcade version, but it also run like utter crap too. A lot of people blame Windows CE for that, but I have no comment on this. There was a code that allowed you to unlock the framerate from 30fps and also lower some of the details, but it never was consistent.
The PC version from 1999 is actually really good, especially compared to SEGA's previous attempts at bringing 3D arcade titles to the PC. It is almost arcade perfect and it runs pretty well on period correct hardware!
I agree though, they should have brought more arcade ports, it is such a shame that Scud Race and Daytona USA 2 never saw a home release. One could argue however, that it was SEGA's insistence on pushing arcade ports on home consoles that got them out of the hardware business, as by 1998-1999, people started expecting different sorts of games from their home consoles. Anyway, on the subject of Sega Rally 2, not only does it look inferior to the Arcade version, but it also run like utter crap too. A lot of people blame Windows CE for that, but I have no comment on this. There was a code that allowed you to unlock the framerate from 30fps and also lower some of the details, but it never was consistent.
The PC version from 1999 is actually really good, especially compared to SEGA's previous attempts at bringing 3D arcade titles to the PC. It is almost arcade perfect and it runs pretty well on period correct hardware!
I agree, Nesh. DC games did look amazing, and I was always impressed with their clean look. I know Sega released a system that was as powerful as their limited budgets could allow, but to be honest when I saw the very first Madden running on the PS2, I began to wonder if Sega hadn't reached far enough for the polygon budget. But a ton of polygons does not make a great game in the grand scheme of things to be sure, a lot can be done with aesthetics and great art direction.
Personally back in late 99 and early 2000, I was hoping for a Sega compilation of "perfect" model 2 ports of games such as VF2, Fighting Vipers and Daytona USA, I was a Sega arcade kid at heart. Hell I always wanted a remade Fighters Megamix done from the ground up for the Dreamcast, what a treat that could have been, and a great competitor to TTT on the PS2. But of course it's a business, and where would the budget come from, and would anyone other than a select few buy it? I know Sega wasn't swimming in cash at that time, quite the opposite.
Then one could have anticipated some version of VF4 on the Dreamcast, in the later years. If the gameplay would have been intact, could we all have been happy with less graphical splendor? Considering how much VF3tb was maligned by gamers and the press for not being Model 3 exact, and it really wasn't that far off to be honest, I'm not so sure. I believe now as a gaming community we are a bit more educated, is that the correct term, in this day and age. Most of us have an understanding that a $200 game console isn't going to match the graphical grunt of a $10,000+ arcade machine like for like when they are released within a couple years of each other, circa 1996-1998.
Regardless, we can only speculate on the why and why not of the Dreamcast legacy. In the end I sure would have liked to have had Sega go out swinging for the fences with VF4 and additional Model 3 game conversions. Those titles may not have been arcade perfect in the looks department, but as long as they played well, that would have been the more important achievement. It worked for VF 2 on Saturn for gamers and critics alike. However what we did receive with the Dreamcast in such a short development life, I can't help but feel there was a bit more left in the tank of that little white box. I can't believe DOA 2 or Test Drive: Le Mans was the best we ever would have received. Maybe that my fanboy showing, just a bit too much.
Garret you very correct on this. I believe there were 3 revisions of the Model 3 board over the years: Model 3 1.5, 2.0 and 2.1. I believe it was 2.0 that had the rather substantial horsepower increase, 6mio polys per second if that is correct/official. It is interesting to note that Scud Race (Super GT) and Daytona USA 2/Power Edition were on revisions 1.5 and 2.0 respectively. Perhaps this plays into why they were not ported to Dreamcast, as those revisions upped the polygon power of Model 3.
Sega Rally 2 also runs on revision 2.0, and it suffered. Could it be that those are too much for Dreamcast to handle and be true enough to the arcade version? Or was it simple early programming hurdles on a newly release console.... hmm. With what we eventually received on Dreamcast I'd like to hope for the latter, but who knows.
Fighting Vipers was also on revision 2, I never had that game unfortunately. Anyone that had it on Dreamcast and also played the arcade version, how does that conversion compare?
Cloofoofoo
Regular
Smilebit I believe ported Sega rally 2 using Windows CE to the Dreamcast. The overhead of it proved too much and loss of performance was noticeable.Not to mention it had splitscreen.Dreamcast is quite capable Virtual on oratorio tangram was step 2.0 it's polygon count was intact but texture quality and lighting suffered. Then Virtua striker 2 ver99 was step 2.1 and it's nearly perfect, only difference I notice was more aggressive l.o.d on the players and more aggressive clipping of players off screen With slight texture downgrade on stadium.
Fighting vipers 2 is less impressive. Some characters are slightly simplified but not too bad. The stages took a massive hit. A lot of the props were replaced by 2d versions and some parts of the stage were simply cut out replaced with 2d image. The textures for the stages took a massive hit as well. Consider that virtual fighter 3 was only missing like 10 percent if it's polygon count and written on Naomi then ported to prototype Dreamcast programming libraries while being ported by people who were not the developers. That was way more impressive. Vf3 gets too much negative press if anything I wouldn't be surprised if pushes polygon counts similar to Dead or alive 2 or double the polygon count than soul calibur.
So do you believe that the DC was more than capable at running perfectly these games?
We have to check which games were perfect ports and how much these games pushed the hardware if any.
Sega Model 3 is a fully designed for the internal targets that Sega Amusement had as goals, for it's time it also has a huge advantage of using ROM for game storage which is a major factor which plastic disc technology just has not been able to break in determining the graphical performance being pushed and of course there is that good old fashioned like Grandma use to make custom assembler level coding smashing performance barriers because in the arcades you do NOT want your players to go to another machine.
As such Sega Mudel 3, even the initial version is just way faster than a Sega Dreamcast... even with the 66Mhz CPU... Sega's world wide marketing used the comparison of Sega Model 3 vs Dreamcast for marketing purposes... obviously it never delivered and Fighting Vipers 2 which came closer to the end just did not do it... Virtual On Oratorio Tangram however may be argued but that game was actually ported by a Sega internal team because Virtual On is taken seriously in Japan yet both VOOT and FV2 were NOT localized by the bastards at Sega of America then. Activision published the localized version and that created something of an uproar as SoA basically was not catering to Sega Saturn owners.
NAOMI 1 is actually faster than Dreamcast hardware... the PCX2 has a higher clock...
NAOMI 2 uses DUAL SH4... it does not even matter if the Elan chip is there because Dreamcast is slower and was made deliberately like that due to demands and pressure imposed by Bernie Stolar and Sega of America...
Sega Hikaru uses DUAL SH4s and the internal Sega Custom 3d chip and it is leagues beyond NAOMI 2... Dreamcast has zero chance here against a TRUE Sega Japan internal arcade hardware engineered design with no meddling or pressure from Sega of America, although there was still pressure because back then there were media fears that a Sega Hikaru Virtua Fighter 4 was gonna leave the Sega of America Dreamcast with no VF4 which ironically still happened due to Sega of America dumb decisions and practices which created more and more financial losses so the belief that "Sega focused on Arcade ports that led to their downfall" are simply false as Sega Japan actually provided TONs of first party home consumer games even on Sega Saturn where in 1995 alone hosted many JRPGs and later hit it big with the "Sega of America WAS NEVER GONNA LOCALIZE" Sakura Wars JRPG series that were million sellers in Japan... way to go Sega of America dumb management.
Daytona USA 2001 was essentially a neutered version of Sega Saturn Daytona USA Circuit Edition Japan version and made as yet another dumb idea of apology for the rushed 1995 Saturn Daytona USA... hence although you did not get Daytona 2, you still got what was essentially a home consumer only racing game of Daytona USA and one that FAILED in the gameplay... it had nice graphics and nice extra bonus tracks and cars but the game was made to feed the EGO of Sega of America as it was made to use online network play which severely limited the graphics potential.
I feel we have to be a bit more realistic and there is official word in the form of old magazine articles and recent interviews which openly admit things like how Bernie Stolar pushed and demanded that the modem be included in the Dreamcast... yet even in 1999, a 56kbps modem cost around $200.00 to $150.00 USD, plus it was Bernie Stolar who went OVER Sega Japan orders that Dreamcast launch at $250.00 so he cut the price to $200.00 and a very similar thing happened in 1995 when he was back then a VP along with former Sega of America staff Steve Race where they decided to cut the Sony PlayStation launch price to $300.00 USD while the console retailed around $380.00 to $360.00 in Japan and both where fired despite any claims of wins.
We have to be a bit more critical about the facts that Sony PlayStation 2 just was never a factor in killing the Sega Dreamcast... it was Sega of America dumb policies and pressure under Bernie Stolar and even Tom Kalinske which goes back to the Sega Genesis and especially the 32X as that was a SoA initiative despite whatever North American published book linked with a film deal states. Sega of America played a huge factor in creating losses based on delusional beliefs that Genesis owners would be dumb sheep to buy 32X by the masses, that backfired in 1994 with angry customers, defective units and returns and refunds, angry retailers which were angry due to 32X, not the surprise Saturn launch which is another SoA thing... combine that with Tom Kalinske acting like he was running all of Sega, not wanting to do his proper marketing job with Sega Saturn then quitting, and later with Bernie Stolar essentially and deliberately and intentionally killing the life out of North American Sega Saturn and convincing Sega Japan pretty much to abandon their once Sega Saturn dominance in the market which created a vaccum for Sony to step into, plus leaking Black Belt information, the 3DFX leaks and settlement which Sega Japan (where the actual investors are) had to pay millions for and making a sub par hardware under pressure from Sega of America resulting in Dreamcast which was technologically inferior to Sega Saturn and was a cut down hardware not aiming the cutting edge although some still mistakenly believe that... so all delusions that Dreamcast was gonna last in that form were pretty much hopeless.
It does not matter in the case of Sega Rally 2 for Dreamcast because the major mistake was using that Sega arcade game as a selling point to show how "easy to dev for" but we made a mediocre game port was simply an advertisement for Windows CE, something that a Sega home system did not need and only resulted in a dumbed down and sub par port reflecting the quality and growing disappointment in Dreamcast as a hardware to be taken serious and it is truly ironic how Soul Calibur is fondly remembered as pushing the hardware while Virtua Fighter 3tb and FV2 never were... put it to rest, the Sony PS2 actually handled VF4 Evo as Sega AM2 had to go all out or risk being the laughing stock in the competition on PS2 land and had to try to regain VF players.
Sega Model 3 Fighting Vipers 2 is actually very impressive... the Dreamcast version suffers due to the port job yet there are times when the game comes close... yet again AM2 were busy with Shenmue and arcade projects...
Here we go again with the old tired argument that "it was all Sega of America's and Bernie Stolar's fault"
The Sega Dreamcast was designed in such a way that it would avoid all mistakes done by Sega of Japan for the Sega Saturn.
Dreamcast's hardware was developer friendly and at the time of release it was very powerful. It was cheap to manufacture and compact. Expecting it to go again all exotic, expensive hard to develop arcade style hardware was just insane. I think you hoped that the Dreamcast would have been the console that would have mimicked the Saturn and prove everyone wrong.
Well it wouldnt have worked.
Anyways we know that Naomi 2 was much more powerful. But wasnt Naomi 1 supposed to be more powerful than the Model 3? DOA2 was a perfect port AFAIK and it was Naomi1 based. It looked superior than VF3 and FV2. The question is could the Dreamcast play Scud Race and Daytona USA 2 perfectly? Or what about Sega Rally 2?
What about so many other Model 3 tiles? Or was the Model 3 revisions much more powerful to the point that in some areas it was more powerful?
The Sega Dreamcast was designed in such a way that it would avoid all mistakes done by Sega of Japan for the Sega Saturn.
Dreamcast's hardware was developer friendly and at the time of release it was very powerful. It was cheap to manufacture and compact. Expecting it to go again all exotic, expensive hard to develop arcade style hardware was just insane. I think you hoped that the Dreamcast would have been the console that would have mimicked the Saturn and prove everyone wrong.
Well it wouldnt have worked.
Anyways we know that Naomi 2 was much more powerful. But wasnt Naomi 1 supposed to be more powerful than the Model 3? DOA2 was a perfect port AFAIK and it was Naomi1 based. It looked superior than VF3 and FV2. The question is could the Dreamcast play Scud Race and Daytona USA 2 perfectly? Or what about Sega Rally 2?
What about so many other Model 3 tiles? Or was the Model 3 revisions much more powerful to the point that in some areas it was more powerful?
Last edited:
Here we go again with the old tired argument that "it was all Sega of America's and Bernie Stolar's fault"
The Sega Dreamcast was designed in such a way that it would avoid all mistakes done by Sega of Japan for the Sega Saturn.
Dreamcast's hardware was developer friendly and at the time of release it was very powerful. It was cheap to manufacture and compact. Expecting it to go again all exotic, expensive hard to develop arcade style hardware was just insane. I think you hoped that the Dreamcast would have been the console that would have mimicked the Saturn and prove everyone wrong.
Well it wouldnt have worked.
Anyways we know that Naomi 2 was much more powerful. But wasnt Naomi 1 supposed to be more powerful than the Model 3? DOA2 was a perfect port AFAIK and it was Naomi1 based. It looked superior than VF3 and FV2. The question is could the Dreamcast play Scud Race and Daytona USA 2 perfectly? Or what about Sega Rally 2?
What about so many other Model 3 tiles? Or was the Model 3 revisions much more powerful to the point that in some areas it was more powerful?
The Bernie Stolar created Sega Dreamcast never delivered on those claims and questions you are making, it never delivered a racer, not even by a third party that could surpass Scud Race and Daytona USA 2 and we all know what happened to Sega Rally 2 which never got a Sega Rally 2 Apology for using rubbish WinCE coding.
The Sega ST-V was meant to be not just Sega Saturn being used as arcade hardware but it was leagues more affordable than the OLDER and far more expensive Sega Model 2... likewise it is not hard to look up specs on NAOMI 1 which features a faster clocked graphics chip which kinda spells out to anyone that the NAOMI 1 is faster than Dreamcast, not only that but the NAOMI 1 simply NEVER outperformed Sega Model 3, not even under wishful thinking by buying into the marketing hype or Sega Hikaru would never have made sense to exist.
Also your opening sentence of ridicule for my post seems to just imply that just because a console is NEW that it is all of a sudden revolutionary cutting edge technology when the Dreamcast never, NEVER was and that stuff about avoiding mistakes by Sega Japan?... The Sega Saturn was actually more expensive than the Sony PlayStation and was out selling it in Japan from launch in 1994 to at least either late 1996 to early 1997.
I am a technology fan first, however if you have a fail crew at the marketing helm it is not a surprise that your product will fail and there were just way too many erratic decisions and initiatives made in North America that most so called tech fans are rather blind to see despite printed gamer magazine articles where certain PR staff made incriminating statements or where their advertising tactics along with dumb marketing can still be found as well as angry 32X letters in the mail section.
YES indeed it was Sega of America who failed here, they were failing to market the Sega Genesis and SegaCD and they completely dropped the ball on the Sega Saturn launch which is no surprise that the system failed as we are not talking here about recent trends of gangbuster sale numbers but at least a steady transitional sales which can only be possible if gamers and consumers were getting the proper marketing...
Video game consoles are not Ferraris or ?Lambos or Buggattis or super car Lexus models where there are completely different factors at play so just the assumption that it has to be super fast and overclocked is rather missing the point and this really has to stop because the old school consoles simply did not work that way and btw Sega Japan was not really expecting the Sega Saturn to sell out at launch and propel Sega Japan to first place which got them contractual audiences to negotiate terms with Square and Enix which were separate and competing entities which simply went to Sony due to the combination of Sega of America fail crew tactics and Sony money hatting. Anything beyond not acknowledging the real history is delusional.
Also I can use factual actions taken in the past as it is written that Sega of America which was back then supposed to be a subsidiary was essentially telling the engineers at Sega Japan what CPU they should use on Project Saturn... That Sega of America staff was NOT around when the Sega MegaDrive was made and neither were they employed when the Sega Genesis launched... nuff said and not trying to make it look like a baseless argument.
Last edited:
We don't even know if the thing could run well enough on the newer PS2 if ported. How can you be so sure that Sega was able to release an affordable console in 1999 that could do it? I cant find even a single PS2 game that looked that good. Regardless, why should you blame Bernie Storlar and Sega of America for it?
So you are basically comparing a Sega Saturn made into an arcade machine that was super inferior to Model 2 and 3, to expensive state of the art hardware built from the ground up for the Arcade that had to be translated into a home console.
You are puting words in my mouth. Sega accounted for developer friendliness, and cost efficiency and delivered the best they could in 1999. Sega was counting shipped units not sold to consumers in Japan. The PS1 was doing superb in Japan with reports actually stating that units sold to consumers were higher with Sony's machine And even if it was the case, whole of Sega had to listen to the authority of Sega of Japan, and ignore their own markets, as if Japan alone was huge enough as a market to stop Sega from bleeding.
Sega of America was forced to pull the plug from the Mega Drive because Sega of Japan wanted to focus the resources on the supposed success of the Sega Saturn and not so good Mega Drive sales in Japan.
Sega of Japan was calling the shots for all territories.
You focus too much on a short living success on one small region. Sony had market share success, the hardware and the money. Expecting that Square and Enix would have supported the Saturn instead of the Playstation if it wasnt for Sega of America doesn't sound very logical from their business success
Those facts reveal mostly that if Sega of Japan was more cooperative with Sega of America they could have made a better Saturn. All proposals were rejected by Sega of Japan, including the chance to collaborate with Sony to create a console with them. At the end they went with the complex last minute decision hardware choices that did not help the Saturn at all, 100% designed with Sega of Japan's input
Cloofoofoo
Regular
You make it seem like hikaru was a God send and the Dreamcast is a billion levels below model 3. I think the biggest problem with the Dreamcast was you have to invest money and time to get more out of it despite how "easy " it was to program. I extracted a few frames from demul in the past and whether the numbers are accurate I dunno but it does show a trend. Sega hikaru frames from 3 games, planet harriers, star wars racer and air Trix ranged from 16000 to a constant top out 33000 Tris per frame at 60 fps. While DC seems to be effort based with fighting vipers 2 topping out at 13000 Tris per frame , virtual on ot 7000 tris per frame @ 60 fps, Virtua fighter 3 32000 Tris 60 fps. Compared to a non Sega effort wacky races that under certain conditions reached more than 75000 Tris per frame @30 fps. The naomi2 trounces both by reach up to 120000 per frame @ 60 fps on both initial d and Virtua fighter 4.
Even if the numbers are inaccurate it shows you not all was set in stone as you thought. The Dreamcast seems to be all over the place performance wise and struggles to hit it's stride but out perform hikaru when it does, I mean how the heck is fighting viper 2 running at one third of the detail of vf3. One ported by Sega while vf3 was not Sega.why is step 2 game voot so not performance taxing? Heck with the wacky races figure seems to indicated you could have had a vf 4 port of slightly lower quality than the ps2 at 30 fps.
For 300 bucks vs 10000 dollar arcade machine the Dreamcast was a victory. It gives similar quality to the model 3 under certain conditions it seems.
Cloofoofoo
Regular
I think all ports would be below the model 3 versions especially later revisions. The model 3 simply outperforms the DC not to mention it has more which is something the DC should have had more of. I personally think they could have pushed DC harder as Dead or alive 2 \ wacky races showed. With the exception of Sega rally 2 the rest model 3 ports were mostly if not entirely arcade game play perfect. I mean look at Daytona USA 2001 , you could have had a scud racer with that kind of polygon count and still play identical to it's aracde version.
I think tose was smart with it's Naomi 2 ports to ps2. They don't even try to push the ps2 any where near the Naomi 2 for their ports of King the route 66 and initial d. They ported and added features instead. I extracted king of route66 on an older version ps2 emulator and king of route 66 runs lower polycounts than 18 wheeler on DC per frame . So does initial d ps2 to some extent. Initial d on psp seems to run 20000 to 40000 per frame @ 30. That's probably how it would of been on DC.
EsppiraK
Newcomer
I must have misread this line, like seriously.
Well some people still live in the good old 80s-90s where rumors and ideal scenarios about hidden sauce made gaming more interesting. Some hardcore fans just cant let go of the myth that Sega Saturn's special architecture could have potentially destroyed competition if it wasn't for Sony's easy development, money hatting, and dev laziness.
I have to say though that although I view the Saturn as a system that couldn't compete well, I do recognize that it probably had special potential, not because the hardware was necessarily super powerful, but because it's unorthodox layout and inner workings, gave a developer who had the time, money and knowledge, the potential to design his own custom work arounds for some interesting results in some cases that otherwise wouldnt have been able to be reproduced on PS.
So I believe the Saturn was an interesting piece of hardware for experimentation. That said, it doesnt mean it was practical, super powerful or efficient by any means. It just made it a different piece of hardware compared to anything else in the market. I am always curious what the Saturn would have produced if the developers gave it full support. (edit: Also for the Dreamcast. I think it had a lot of missed potential too. The PS2 and DC were also drastically different so I think that although the PS2 was more powerful, there are things that one could do that the other one couldnt.)
Saying that the Saturn was more advanced technologically doesnt make sense though.
Last edited:
Cloofoofoo
Regular
took a screenshot of what I was talking about. These polygon count are probably wrong seeing how I extracted them from demul but we can still use them to compare how the gameis stack up. I chose virtua fighter 3, fighting vipers 2 , virtua striker 2 , virtual on 2 and planet harriers from hikaru.
As you can see in the upper right corner where it says tris for triangle , the two non- AM2 ported games virtua fighter 3 and virtua striker 2 have the highest. Seems like genki had better grip on the dc hardware than am2 because fighting vipers 2 is only a third of those two in tri count. You could argue Vf3 is step 1 and fv 2 is step 2 but Virtua striker is step 2.1 and is probably close to arcade perfect. If you look at virtual on 2 its not even in the running, I guess its not a demanding game despite how pretty it is or the fact its step 2.0. I also added plnaet harrier just to show how hikaru games most likely could have been ported as geometry wise they are with in a comfortable grasp of the dreamcast.
virtua fighter 3:
fighting vipers 2:
virtua striker 2
virtual on oratorio tangram:
planet harriers hikaru arcade board:
As you can see in the upper right corner where it says tris for triangle , the two non- AM2 ported games virtua fighter 3 and virtua striker 2 have the highest. Seems like genki had better grip on the dc hardware than am2 because fighting vipers 2 is only a third of those two in tri count. You could argue Vf3 is step 1 and fv 2 is step 2 but Virtua striker is step 2.1 and is probably close to arcade perfect. If you look at virtual on 2 its not even in the running, I guess its not a demanding game despite how pretty it is or the fact its step 2.0. I also added plnaet harrier just to show how hikaru games most likely could have been ported as geometry wise they are with in a comfortable grasp of the dreamcast.
virtua fighter 3:
fighting vipers 2:
virtua striker 2
virtual on oratorio tangram:
planet harriers hikaru arcade board:
Thanks Cloofoofoo for the screens and triangle counts. It does lend some food for thought on the potential of the Dreamcast and what "could" have been. As I stated before I have no programming skills, but if clever use of Dreamcast strengths coupled with art direction and careful management of polygon budgets, I believe more Model 3 ports were within reach of Dreamcast, including a respectable version of Scud Race/Super GT. Hell, Soul Calibur is still quite good looking and it uses relatively modest polygon counts, but the art direction, to me anyway was/is stellar.
With DOA 2 pushing at peak well over 2 mio polygons per second on Dreamcast, I still attest that a paired down graphic version of VF4 would have been plausible, and if gameplay intact, an exciting addition to the Dreamcast library. A DC version of VF4 would have been at the least as comparable to it's arcade original, as say the VF2 Saturn port was to the much more powerful Model 2 board in the mid 1990s. Now I'm not saying DC could ever compete on level ground with PS2 or Naomi 2 in polygon counts or lighting computations, but darn it sure would have been a blast to see Sega pushing that system for all it's worth with more arcade games that made Sega so great.
I don't now if it was down to not wanting more arcade games on DC, or not enough development time, but it is a shame we didn't see what was the "pinnacle" of Dreamcast development. Even with Shenmue II, I don't think the depths of DC development had been fully plumbed in such a short retail life.
Thanks again for the info, great stuff. Happy holidays everyone.
