Graphics evolution in this console generation?

[cybamerc]

Mr. Angry Pants:

> Because by the standards of todays hardware it practicaly is?

Of course not. Prerendered BGs take up a great deal of memory and while I won't pretend to know what kind of performance hit the animated BGs come with they're certainly not free.

 

[marconelly!]

Marconelly, good point about the shadows cast over the pre-rendered backgrounds in REmake. My eyes bugged out of my skull the first time I noticed that.

However, I also have to point out that PC games 'Nocturne' and 'Blair Witch project' had pretty much the same effect some three years ago.

 

[Legion]

Off the topic how what exactly could the 3DO do in terms of promise and performance?

 

[Mr. Angry Pants]

cybamerc, I'm not inclined towards the technical, but I'm pretty sure the pre-rendered backgrounds used in REmake and other games like it are nothing more than simple 2D images being displayed as equally simple backgrounds. Doesn't seem like it'd take even a fraction of a modern console's horse-power to display.

Legion, the 3DO's 3D capabilities were anemic at best. I don't think it could even do true 3D games in hardware alone. If I were to guestimate I'd say it was roughly comparable to the mid-range 486 computers of the time, but with less memory.

 

[Mr. Angry Pants]

For anyone interested, 3DO specs:

CPU: ARM60 RISC CPU 32-bit @ 12.5Mhz made by Advanced RISC Machines

Resolution: 640x480 pixel resolution at 16.7 million colors

GFX Coprocessors: 2 Two Accelerated Video Co-Processors @ 25MHz for 9-16 million REAL pixels per second (36-64 Mpix/sec interpolated), distorted, scaled, rotated and texture mapped on any arbitrary 4-point polygon, source bitmaps can be 1,2,4,6,8, or 16 bits per pixel for a maximum combination of both high resolution and small storage space, transparency and other effects.

Sound: Custom 16-bit Digital Signal Processor (DSP) @ 25 MHz specifically designed for mixing, manipulating, and synthesizing CD quality sound. Pipelined CISC architecture. 17 separate 16-bit DMA channels to and from system memory. On chip instruction SRAM and register memory. 20-bit internal processing. Special filtering capable of creating effects such as Dolby (â„¢) Surround Sound.

FPU: Custom Math Co-Processor by NTG for accelerating fixed-point matrix operations. (Note: This is not the ARM FPU)

RAM and ROM: 2 megabytes of DRAM
1 megabyte of VRAM (also capable of holding/executing code and data)
1 megabyte of ROM
32kb battery backed up SRAM for game saving

CD ROM: Doublespeed CD ROM, 300kbps Data Transfer, 320ms access time, 32kbyte ram buffer

BUS: Super Fast BUS Speed (50 Megabytes per second ), 36 Separate DMA Channels for Processing Data Quickly

I/O Ports: High-speed 68 pin x 1 AV I/O port (for FMV cartridge)
High-speed 30 pin x 1 I/O expansion port Control port, capable of daisy chaining together up to 8 peripherals

Notes:

According to information from an article about the 3DO in Popular Science, the 3DO has an interesting design. Instead of a straightforward single bus configuration, it seems to have a multiple bus configuration. This in theory allows multiple components to be operating simultaneously, with less bus contention problems than would be found in a standard single-bus design.
The heart of the system is two Graphics and animation processors which are capable of rendering up to 64 million texture mapped pixels per second (interpolated). The Graphics animation processors and the DSP are custom designed by NTG, a division of the 3DO Company.

 

[Tagrineth]

Interesting, just like Saturn it used quads. Hmm.

 

[V3]

but I'm pretty sure the pre-rendered backgrounds used in REmake and other games like it are nothing more than simple 2D images being displayed as equally simple backgrounds.

Well it doesn't really matter because, once it get on screen it will be 2D anyway.

 

[Mr. Angry Pants]

Well it doesn't really matter because, once it get on screen it will be 2D anyway.

Thanks, I needed that.

 

[Goldni]

I got V-Rally 3 for the GBA. Good gosh! This game looks great. It's the first all 3D Textured Poly engine on the GBA and man does it move nicely. It's got some draw in but man you guys have to play this game. I've alos got the ATV Quad Pro Racing game for GBA it looks a little bit cleaner in the image but lacks any real trackside bldgs etc.

The reason I bring this up is that I'm sitting here playing a first gen raceron the lil ole GBA that looks as good as anything on 3DO or Saturn. Hell it looks better than most PSX 1st gen racers. By the time developers have dialed this littile portable in, it's gonna look damn near between PSX and N64 like quality imo.

 

[Fafalada]

I'm not inclined towards the technical, but I'm pretty sure the pre-rendered backgrounds used in REmake and other games like it are nothing more than simple 2D images being displayed as equally simple backgrounds.

They aren't.
Graphics aside, the very least your game needs is a 3d collision model that matches that of the prerendered scenes.
Moreover, you'll need something like a ZBuffer image of the same scene as well(or perhaps even use real raw geometry that was used for prerendered stuff to generate the depth data) - occlusion and light/shadow interaction with backgrounds will need this.
Also, REmake's animated bgrs will be anything but cheap on a machine without hw built in decoding.

Granted, I think this rendering scheme could be pushed much farther yet, but that doesn't mean it would be simple or easy to do so.

 

[Mr. Angry Pants]

Fair enough. I thought to mention the various maps needed to make a game like that work, but I guess I've come off as enough of a know it all who doesn't know it all already.

Still, we aren't talking about nearly the same kind of tax being put on hardware that has to render the enviroment in real time, right?

 

[V3]

Also good pre-rendered stuff, is more expensive to produce compare to good real-time stuff.

Real time cut scene is really a good cost cutting measure. I never understand why someone prefer high quality real time cut scene to high quality pre-rendered one.

 

[archie4oz]

FPU: Custom Math Co-Processor by NTG for accelerating fixed-point matrix operations.

Kinda funny how they refer to the fixed-point matrix processor as an *FPU*

Kinda reminds me how people did the same with the GTE on the PSX...

8)

 

[marconelly!]

I never understand why someone prefer high quality real time cut scene to high quality pre-rendered one.

Because they don't break the continuity in the game's visual style. It's also interesting to marvel from the technical point of view.

 

[V3]

Because they don't break the continuity in the game's visual style. It's also interesting to marvel from the technical point of view.

They don't break the continuity of the game's visual style ? Cut Scene is a break in a game. That's why its Cut Scene. Its a break, might as well enjoy it.

Marvel from the technical point of view ? High Quality pre-rendered scene are more worthy of marvel than their real time counter part. For one Real time is a try hard pre-rendered

 

[marconelly!]

V3, cool if you think so, but I still stand by my two comments. I think MGS2 would lose a piece of it's appeal if it's cut scenes weren't realtime rendered (and it wouldn't allow them to release that excellent Document disc where you can explore cut scenes by yourself

 

[Fafalada]

Still, we aren't talking about nearly the same kind of tax being put on hardware that has to render the enviroment in real time, right?

Granted, looking just at the processing load for backgrounds, you'd normally be spending much less time on it, but that's the time you'll be spending extra on other realtime stuff like characters instead.
This rendering method doesn't mean system will be slacking off - that much should be obvious when you consider REmake is running at 30fps, or occasional framerate stutter in Onimusha 2.

Anyway, the way I see it, using this particular rendering approach gives you a somewhat lowtech rendering solution that will look a good deal better then similar level realtime stuff, and perhaps as good as the very best realtime stuff out there. (sometimes, even better).
This pulls behind different focus of development parts as well, among other things, programming side for instance might be able to put most emphasis on non-graphic related content (how many times have we heard people complain too much emphasis is put on graphics), leaving graphics&presentation mostly to the artists.

On the other hand, you Could go really advanced into this type of rendering, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of using this approach - some of the more advanced uses I think that would be possible are likely every bit as complicated/time consuming to develop as standard realtime stuff, if not more.
Though, Imo at least, the potential is there to put stuff like RE/Onimusha completely to shame, if you tried hard enough.

Archie,
Well you know... they weren't really lying... FPU could also abbreviate... Fixed Point Unit
just a PR mastermind at work I guess...
But at least they bothered to put a div unit on the chip, unlike their recent handheld.

 

[Mr. Angry Pants]

Interesting, Fafalada. Thanks for schoolin' me.

It seems the 3DO and Saturn had a lot in common. Didn't both consoles store save game data in internal memory, as opposed to on a removable cartridge?

For the 3DO this was a terrible mistake. That 32kb of space filled up quick.

Fascinating piece of hardware, though. I think it's the only console that didn't have regional lock out, so you could play Japanese games on your NA 3DO without a hitch.

 

[archie4oz]

But at least they bothered to put a div unit on the chip, unlike their recent handheld.

Bah! They're just trying make sure we stay honest by keeping our reciprocal estimation skills up to speed...

Besides, div instructions are pretty complex, and nasty to pipeline...

Fascinating piece of hardware, though. I think it's the only console that didn't have regional lock out, so you could play Japanese games on your NA 3DO without a hitch.

I wasn't aware any of Atari's systems had regional locks, nor Coleco... The Famicom and SuperFamicom didn't either (of course they relied on physical deterrence). Gameboys haven't had any regional locks either...

For the 3DO this was a terrible mistake. That 32kb of space filled up quick.

I'd cut'em a little slack. It was rather difficult to estimate what the demands games utilizing optical media would place on a system regarding saving states at that time. NEC was rather lucky since they could simply rely on an associated HuCard, or at least an optional one...

It seems the 3DO and Saturn had a lot in common. Didn't both consoles store save game data in internal memory, as opposed to on a removable cartridge?

The Saturn had a single 512k memory cartridge slot (which could also be used as a debug port )

 

[V3]

I think MGS2 would lose a piece of it's appeal if it's cut scenes weren't realtime rendered (and it wouldn't allow them to release that excellent Document disc where you can explore cut scenes by yourself

I skipped most of the cutscenes in MGS2, it looks awful, and its pretty boring, its mostly just people talking. But I am happy that MGS2 allow you to skip those cutscenes.

But I think if people like real time cutscenes, Developers should be happy, because games can be cheaper to produce. Consumers doesn't want high production value anymore. That's smart marketing