House Of The Dead 4 arcade - on test in Japan

[Lazy8s]

The next generation arcade titles will probably all run at an unwavering 60-fps like Sega Sammy always design.

 

[Fox5]

Sega Sammy's foremo

st high-end arcade board for next generation has been announced to be the PowerVR board. Both it and Aurora should be using new cabinet designs, respectively -- the high-end board for high-definition display and Aurora for high integration for affordability.

Any idea on the specs yet? Or future use of a PowerVR part?

Quake 3: Arena tested at a depth complexity of over 3, even on processors using Early Z overdraw reducing techniques of the time.

Wouldn't current processors have better early z overdraw techniques then? I believe ATI is up to hyper-z 3 or 4.

A city environment is prone to layers of pedestrians and cars passing infront of rows of buildings.

Ah, GTA doesn't have that many cars/people on screen at once most of the time, that and it has a dynamic LOD system that fades out things in the distance. Shenmue did too though, for the people anyhow, and that ran on a system with tile based rendering.

An advantage in anti-aliasing for an architecture like PowerVR's would be the ability to sample directly from its tiles without having to use a higher resolution framebuffer.

Would that be no performance hit super sampling then?

I think the system may use a dedicated PPU or a Floating Point Accelerator.

Well, Sega did license the Ageia technology. Perhaps some functions could be offloaded to the gpu as well if it's sufficiently advanced.

Arcade games have to be a generation or two ahead of home technology. That's the way the business works.

Ideally it should work like that, but it's been a while since that was true. The only advantage recent arcade machines have had is more memory, and even then they sometimes have a power disadvantage.

BTW, nice to see house of the dead 4 ditches the lame shotguns from house of the dead 3.
Not sure if the graphics look next gen though, they don't look particularly better to me than those in virtua cop 3, and I'm pretty sure that ran on xbox hardware. Impossible to tell by those blurry screens though. Oh yeah, that and it's likely running at 720p at the very least, so that would eat up a lot of power.

Similar to part 3, innocents seem to have been kept out of this title all together.

I'm pretty sure part 3 had a few innocents, maybe not a lot, but some.

 

[Megadrive1988]

House of the Dead 4 may be the most visually impressive arcade game ever made, but it seems to be a step below the visual splendor we've seen from some of the finer upcoming PS3 and Xbox 360 titles. Aside from the massive number of detailed zombies on screen, the most striking visual improvements can be attributed to the switch to high resolution and the use of a high definition monitor. House of the Dead 4 looks last generation in comparison.

After reading the IGN article - and realizing that the graphics are very good, but not mind blowing, I am further convinced that HOTD4 is running on either:

A.) the new high-end PowerVR5 based board currently known as Lindburgh / System SP, and that it will definitally NOT overpower the new consoles, but at best, rival them. I am not convinced right now that PowerVR's highend chips are going to beat ATI and Nvidia's best, based on the sheer engineering resources and dollars invested into the next generation of graphics for console and PC. I don't think ImgTec is going to match Nvidia and ATI. it's not the 1990s anymore, where ATI and Nvidia had just so-so graphics accelerators and PowerVR blows them away. that said, I expect PowerVR5 to be an exellent GPU and want to know more about it.




or

B.) an Xbox 360 based arcade board (call it Chihiro 360 until the real name comes to light) which would use the Xenos graphics chip only if this is real Xbox 360 hardware - It could be even a board based on Xbox 360 *alpha* kits which would likely mean HOTD4 is using ATI R420
(X800 XT) or R480 (X850 XT)

what's the use of all that power right now?

Arcade games have to be a generation or two ahead of home technology. That's the way the business works.

Texan, but that is not the way the arcade business has been working for the past 5-6 years. while your statement would be correct if applied to the 1970s, the 1980s and most of the 1990s, it isnt true now. with the current generation (DC, PS2, Cube, Xbox) the home consoles have caught up technologically to arcade machines, and in many cases, surpassed them. most arcade games today are either older technology, or based on current-console technology. only with more RAM which is needed for fast loading.

only in a few cases do arcade machines technologically surpass current consoles, and even then, it is only slightly (Namco's System 258 board). It is wrong to say that current arcade games are a generation or two ahead of home technology. If you look on the PC side, PC graphics are a generation or two, or three, ahead of arcade technology.


Sega's Model 3 board, made in 1995, introduced in 1996, and not widespread in the U.S. until 1997, was the last major significant example of when arcade technology was a generation or two ahead of home technology. but those days are over, at least for the time being.

 

[Fox5]

after reading the IGN article - and realizing that the graphics are very good, but not mind blowing, I am further convinced that HOTD4 is running on either

A.) the new high-end PowerVR5 based board currently known as Lindburgh / System SP, and that it will NOT overpower the new consoles

or

B.) an Xbox 360 based arcade board (call it Chihiro 360 until the real name comes to light) which would use the Xenos graphics chip only if this is real Xbox 360 hardware - It could be even a board based on Xbox 360 *beta* kits which would likely mean ATI R420 (X800 XT) or R480 (X850 XT)

Just because the graphics aren't jaw dropping doesn't mean it won't overpower the next gen consoles...many of the jaw dropping next gen graphics also had extremely low framerates, it takes a while to get used to hardware and take advantage of it.

 

[Lazy8s]

Fox5:

Or future use of a PowerVR part?

Sega Sammy will probably make newer or alternate configurations of their PowerVR board depending on what a game requires, like they've always done with games that use multiple displays or need more performance.

Outside of their deals with Sega Sammy and their MBX market, PowerVR has a new line of processors called Eurasia that can scale to target everything from mobile to high-end. It's coming next year, and Intel has already signed on as a licensee. Because Intel is a continuing licensee of MBX and because MBX is continuing as a product line at PowerVR concurrently with Eurasia, Intel is probably looking to implement Eurasia into a higher performance market than mobile. The speculation is that Intel will use PowerVR processors in the integrated PC graphics market.

That could substantially affect the leadership in the sector. Intel's dominance with integrated solutions gives them 43% share of the overall graphics market to ATi's 26% and nVidia's 18%.

Wouldn't current processors have better early z overdraw techniques then?

Sure, but the effectiveness will always lag behind what PowerVR gets by determining for the whole scene. Application based techniques used in conjunction with early Z will also trade off some speed.

Shenmue did too though, for the people anyhow, and that ran on a system with tile based rendering.

Because the engine and set-up still get bogged down by undrawn geometry, occlusion is important for systems with display list renderers too; the calculations just don't have to be quite so intensive since texturing and shading will automatically be deferred.

Shenmue's character fade-in was actually more of a data access issue than a fillrate issue as all of the characters could be made simultaenously visible if Ryo stood in place for a second.

Would that be no performance hit super sampling then?

No, the fillrate cost would still be there, but neither pixel nor Z bandwidth requirements would rise or force the need for high amounts of memory space and bandwidth.

I'm pretty sure part 3 had a few innocents, maybe not a lot, but some.

There were a few cut-scene scenarios where the player had to shoot at enemies while the creatures were attacking the other partner.

Megadrive1988:

I am not convinced right now that PowerVR's highend chips are going to beat ATI and Nvidia's best, based on the sheer engineering resources and dollars invested into the next generation of graphics for console and PC.

Judging from the completeness of the launch software, the PowerVR arcade board is probably many months earlier than any of the next generation consoles.

that is not the way the arcade business has been working for the past 5-6 years. while your statement would be correct if applied to the 1970s, the 1980s and most of the 1990s, it isnt true now. with the current generation (DC, PS2, Cube, Xbox) the home consoles have caught up technologically to arcade machines, and in many cases, surpassed them.

The only arcade boards that have gotten matched by contemporary home consoles have been those that were based off of the home consoles. A custom arcade board could've easily been made, but product releases have a lot more to do with company roadmaps and business than technological possibility.

Fox5:

Just because the graphics aren't jaw dropping doesn't mean it won't overpower the next gen consoles...many of the jaw dropping next gen graphics also had extremely low framerates

I agree that the consistent 60 fps which Sega Sammy arcade games tend to have versus the inconsistent 30 fps which is more common to see in some console games is part of the issue for comparing the screenshots. The House of the Dead 4 is also a complete game at this point and not just a demo.

The scene where the hordes of zombies were seething behind the glass walls of a corridor, banging on the sides to get through, looked very impressive.

 

[TEXAN]

In EDGE magazine they say that sometime in The Summer there's rumoured to be a private Sega Sammy arcade show where all regarding the Lindbergh shall be revealed.

If not, then it'll be the first three days of September when everything is revealed.

September 1-3 Jamma 2005.

 

[Megadrive1988]

after reading the IGN article - and realizing that the graphics are very good, but not mind blowing, I am further convinced that HOTD4 is running on either

A.) the new high-end PowerVR5 based board currently known as Lindburgh / System SP, and that it will NOT overpower the new consoles

or

B.) an Xbox 360 based arcade board (call it Chihiro 360 until the real name comes to light) which would use the Xenos graphics chip only if this is real Xbox 360 hardware - It could be even a board based on Xbox 360 *beta* kits which would likely mean ATI R420 (X800 XT) or R480 (X850 XT)

Just because the graphics aren't jaw dropping doesn't mean it won't overpower the next gen consoles...many of the jaw dropping next gen graphics also had extremely low framerates, it takes a while to get used to hardware and take advantage of it.

well, I suppose you can say that - we will just have to wait to see what the capabilities of the new high-end Sega Sammy PowerVR board is. I do agree that framerate is probably the most important aspect of visuals because it directly ties in with gameplay, and if the new PowerVR board is better at keeping a consistant 60fps framrate than Xbox 360, given the same exact developer in any given instance, then I would of course acknowledge the PowerVR-based board's superiority. It is just that it has been a long long time since we've seen an arcade board massively overpower consoles and PCs, I'm not certain it is going to happen now.
(NAOMI 2 outperformed Dreamcast very significantly, but not the current consoles when you include Xbox and Gamecube).

 

[Lazy8s]

NAOMI2 was produced in May 2000, about two and half generations in graphics before GameCube or Xbox, and it uses far less transistors than them. Also, it was only partially updated from Dreamcast processors for its time of release with just ELAN.

 

[Fox5]

NAOMI2 was produced in May 2000, about two and half generations in graphics before GameCube or Xbox, and it uses far less transistors than them. Also, it was only partially updated from Dreamcast processors for its time of release with just ELAN.

Eh, even still, Naomi 2 doesn't seem impressive when compared to Ps2.
Virtua Fighter 4 is it's most graphically impressive game right? It was ported to PS2, a system with vastly different strengths, with minimal downgrading, and is far from representing the best the PS2 has to offer.
Also, certain games just don't lend themselves well to tile based hardware due to lack of overdraw, like flight sims. Rebel Strike could be considered gamecube's best looking game, or one of its best, and probably never could have been done on Naomi 2, maybe not even if you doubled the system's power. On the other hand, a game like Shenmue with lots of overdraw may have had similar performance on a Naomi 2 or an Xbox.

 

[Evil_Cloud]

NAOMI2 was produced in May 2000, about two and half generations in graphics before GameCube or Xbox, and it uses far less transistors than them. Also, it was only partially updated from Dreamcast processors for its time of release with just ELAN.

Eh, even still, Naomi 2 doesn't seem impressive when compared to Ps2.
Virtua Fighter 4 is it's most graphically impressive game right? It was ported to PS2, a system with vastly different strengths, with minimal downgrading, and is far from representing the best the PS2 has to offer.
Also, certain games just don't lend themselves well to tile based hardware due to lack of overdraw, like flight sims. Rebel Strike could be considered gamecube's best looking game, or one of its best, and probably never could have been done on Naomi 2, maybe not even if you doubled the system's power. On the other hand, a game like Shenmue with lots of overdraw may have had similar performance on a Naomi 2 or an Xbox.

Wrong.

Have you ever compared the arcade versions to the PlayStation 2 incarnations? If you did you'd see that the PlayStation 2 versions are vastly inferior to the NAOMI 2 versions (VF4, VF4: Evolution, VF4: Final Tuned). The arcade versions run at 480p, while the two PlayStation 2 games run at only 420i. Lower resolutions and lower polygon counts/texture sharpness and worse lightning effects. I wouldn't consider that to be 'minimal downgrading'.

NAOMI 2 is more powerfull than PlayStation 2, and when comparing Xbox (or GameCube) with the platform it has advantages and disadvantages, but you cannot say that one of these platforms are more powerfull than eachother. This is also the case with Chihiro and Tri-Force, developers choose the platform which suits their needs the best (although Chihiro is considered to be more powerfull from a general perspective, as it is a slightly buffed up Xbox).

 

[Fox5]

This is also the case with Chihiro and Tri-Force, developers choose the platform which suits their needs the best (although Chihiro is considered to be more powerfull from a general perspective, as it is a slightly buffed up Xbox).

System16.com says Triforce is roughly twice as powerful as Gamecube, if this means twice the clock speed of gamecube, I'd say it's quite a bit more powerful than Chihiro, though the games certainly don't look it, I don't think any have even matched the best looking games on Gamecube. Probably does have the doubled system ram though.

 

[Lazy8s]

NAOMI2's Virtua Fighter 4 has twice the geometry on the characters, 3D modeling for some background objects which were turned into a bitmap in the console versions, higher resolution and depth for the image and for the textures, and more complex lighting. The skinning was improved for the PS2 versions, though. The respectable resemblance that the home versions have to the arcade despite their technical shortcomings shows how much good visual design can make up for, like the Virtua Fighter 2 conversion on the Saturn.

Fox5:

Also, certain games just don't lend themselves well to tile based hardware due to lack of overdraw, like flight sims.

Even if the overdraw savings are small, saving them is still better than not. DC/NAOMI and NAOMI2 didn't really suffer from a fillrate disadvantage in games versus comparable systems.

Rebel Strike could be considered gamecube's best looking game, or one of its best, and probably never could have been done on Naomi 2, maybe not even if you doubled the system's power.

It has the necessary capabilities to perform a competitive version.

For some reference on the hardware, the NAOMI2 tech demos from the system's unveiling, though nothing in the demos or games really pushed its sustainable T&L capability of over 10M-tri/sec with 6 complex lights:
http://media.dreamcast.ign.com/articles/085/085311/vids_1.html

if this means twice the clock speed of gamecube

I believe Triforce just upgrades with twice the amount of 1T-SRAM to 48MB. That's quite a beneficial enhancement for the particular sysetm.

I don't think any have even matched the best looking games on Gamecube

F-Zero is one of the best looking games on GameCube.

 

[skilzygw]

What they should do is design it around blade like servers of STI's Cell processor. Small and extremely scalable cpu's. Sounds perfect for a Server environment aka Blades and for an arcade machine.

Wonder if well see it happen.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Eh, even still, Naomi 2 doesn't seem impressive when compared to Ps2.
Virtua Fighter 4 is it's most graphically impressive game right? It was ported to PS2, a system with vastly different strengths, with minimal downgrading, and is far from representing the best the PS2 has to offer.
Also, certain games just don't lend themselves well to tile based hardware due to lack of overdraw, like flight sims. Rebel Strike could be considered gamecube's best looking game, or one of its best, and probably never could have been done on Naomi 2, maybe not even if you doubled the system's power. On the other hand, a game like Shenmue with lots of overdraw may have had similar performance on a Naomi 2 or an Xbox.

NAOMI 2 could do its own reasonable version of any Gamecube game, even Gamecube's best looking games, and be comparable. what I was saying is, NAOMI 2 does not significantly outperform the current two best consoles: Gamecube and Xbox, even though it does beat Dreamcast and Playstation2.

NAOMI2 was produced in May 2000, about two and half generations in graphics before GameCube or Xbox, and it uses far less transistors than them. Also, it was only partially updated from Dreamcast processors for its time of release with just ELAN.

I look at it this way:

NAOMI 2's rendering chip, the PowerVR2DC (1997-1998 technology) is about one generation behind Gamecube's GPU (1999-2000 technology) and about a generation and a half behind Xbox GPU (2000-2001 technology). The ELAN is 1999 technology, and NAOMI 2 makes use of three seperate chips (2x PowerVR2DC + ELAN) dedicated toward graphics, plus a nice helping of RAM.

If you are going by Nvidia's old 6-month GPU introduction cycle, I guess you could say things like 'two and a half generations' when comparing graphics chips, but I am going by overall technology shifts in general. in terms of *console* generations however, the Gamecube and Xbox are not even one generation ahead of Dreamcast, and therefore, Gamecube-Xbox are not a whole generation beyond the rendering chips used in NAOMI 2.

System16.com says Triforce is roughly twice as powerful as Gamecube, if this means twice the clock speed of gamecube, I'd say it's quite a bit more powerful than Chihiro, though the games certainly don't look it, I don't think any have even matched the best looking games on Gamecube. Probably does have the doubled system ram though.

not really. TriForce is to Gamecube what NAOMI is to Dreamcast. TriForce has twice the 1T-SRAM that Gamecube has. but TriForce has the same polygon and pixel fillrate performance of Gamecube, not twice. not twice the clockspeeds. All the disadvatages and advantages of Gamecube vs Xbox will show up in TriForce vs Chihiro. the architectures and clockspeeds are the same between the console and arcade variants, with RAM amount and ROM-access speeds being the only major differences.

where you see some differences in actual power are in the boards that are enhanced over their console roots, such as: System 12, NAOMI 2 and System 258.

 

[MechanizedDeath]

Naomi2 has more RAM and cost more than the consoles. I'd like to see a PowerVR card release concurrent with ATI and NVidia's latest. I have no doubt, it would fall behind. It's one thing to come up with a mid-end card that tops other mid-end cards. But it's another thing to compete at the bleeding edge. ATI and NVidia are well seasoned in this, and only getting better. PowerVR is still a novelty technology IMO. All its benefits have gone wasted by long development cycles and late trips to market. PowerVR is still not high-end GPU tech. All IMO. PEACE.

 

[Lazy8s]

MechanizedDeath:

Naomi2 has more RAM

It could afford a lot more RAM for the same price since its bandwidth requirements could be met with simple, inexpensive, commodity SDR-DRAM.

and cost more than the consoles.

Cost is largely a function of die area in volume production parts, and its area, even with the separate chips, was smaller than other consoles at a given process size. NAOMI2's cost was similar to NAOMI at their respective releases, and NAOMI had a practical equivalent in an affordably priced home console.

It's one thing to come up with a mid-end card that tops other mid-end cards. But it's another thing to compete at the bleeding edge.

PowerVR2DC in November 1998, PowerVR2DCx2+ELAN in May 2000.

PowerVR is still a novelty technology IMO.

MBX.

PowerVR is still not high-end GPU tech.

Sega Sammy's 'Next Level' next generation presentation at E3.

 

[TEXAN]

PowerVR is novelty technology?

Thats would explain why Nvidia's and ATi's 2005 mobile chips aren't even half as powerfull as the 2002 MBX. All the while being more expensive and more WATT hungry than the MBX.

In 2006 almost every PDA and 3G smartphone will house a variation of the MBX.

It's all about priorities, IMGtec finds the mobile market more lucrative, thus they gave it their best shot and we have a chip that has been untouchable for almost half a decade and when the competition do catch up they'll be onto Eurasia.

Now if they were this serious on the desktop level then Nvidia and Ati would go out of business.

That may just happen if Eurasia is to be integrated onto Intel processors. That will be the beginning of the end for Nvidia and Ati. Intel has been looking for many years to have intensive 3D graphics done by the central processor instead of being dependant on seperate 3D chips within their systems made by other companies.

 

[PC-Engine]

NAOMI 2 is comparable to GCN and Xbox, however, since the PowerVR GPU is older technology, it may have difficulty matching the former at water effects. Does anybody know how good N2 is at water effects? I know it has a very good fixed function TnL unit, but that's probably not enough to compete with GCN and Xbox when it comes to water effects.

 

[Fox5]

NAOMI 2 is comparable to GCN and Xbox, however, since the PowerVR GPU is older technology, it may have difficulty matching the former at water effects. Does anybody know how good N2 is at water effects? I know it has a very good fixed function TnL unit, but that's probably not enough to compete with GCN and Xbox when it comes to water effects.

Water effects are the only thing more advanced shaders are good for? How about the fire effects in RE4, they beat out what Hikaru could do.

 

[Lazy8s]

NAOMI2 can pixel shade with a dot product to produce the shimmering water effect.