ps2 and ngc technical details

[London Geezer]

So there's no complex PP lights, nor a huge number of them in Virtua Fighters 4, so how could it be "downgraded"?

Well to a blind man it wouldn't look downgraded

And you keep ignoring the simple fact that the main reason the game looked downgraded was because of the IQ and the Textures. And there are obvious reasons for that. Keep on your crusade.

You obviously have no answer for the obvious downgrade in lighting. Have you seen the arcade version of VF4??? Textures have ZERO relevence on lighting unless you have an excuse there too

BTW why does there need to be a crusade? Can to explain? Must be another one of you conspiracy theories that don't hold water. It's not a religion man. It's not a knock at Kill Bill either

I see you've tried to convert Phil into thinking Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions were sh*ty and failed. Just get over it and stop being a drama queen around every discussion.

Now THAT was mature...
If for "lighting" u mean the specular lighting on the characters (which is pretty much the only for of "lighting" u can see in the game apart from the 2 spotlights on the top of the building), then u're been through it.

 

[London Geezer]

If u still think that the biggest downgrade in VF4 is the "lighting" then maybe u can imagine how the game would look, with the SAME textures of the PS2 version, the same IQ of the PS2 version, but with the same lighting of the Naomi2 version.

U still think the game would look any less shit?

Oh, and i never made comments on YOU as a person, PCEngine. Not in this thread at least, so maybe u want to refrain being the child u usually are.

 

[Nick Laslett]

I think I have been misunderstood.

I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer.

I did not mean to say anything contentious.

kopio0 posted a question and I was just trying to help.

This is the point I wanted to make.

7.5 million polygons/sec @ 60fps was the highest sustained polygon figure in a PS2 game circa Nov 2003. Based on the Performance Analyser research. The SCEE engineer that did this research said in the thread, that he did not believe the Xbox and GC we getting results any superior to this. (Obviously there may be exceptions.)

If the spec sheet says the GC can handle 12million fully featured polygons.
And the spec sheet for the PS2 says it can handle 22 million with 2 texture passes.
And the Nvida documentation says the Xbox GPU does 30ish million.

Then my conclusion is that all of these numbers are a lot higher than the real world 7.5m the PS2 as actually achieved.

This leads me to believe that there is still plenty of scope left to push these machines.

My polygon figures were just the spec sheet numbers I had already seen posted here and in Edge magazine.

I hope this clarifies things.

 

[PC-Engine]

If u still think that the biggest downgrade in VF4 is the "lighting" then maybe u can imagine how the game would look, with the SAME textures of the PS2 version, the same IQ of the PS2 version, but with the same lighting of the Naomi2 version.

U still think the game would look any less shit?

Oh, and i never made comments on YOU as a person, PCEngine. Not in this thread at least, so maybe u want to refrain being the child u usually are.

Umm..where did I imply the lighting downgrade was the biggest factor?

I intentionally exluded textures and IQ because it has little to do with polygon numbers. Lighting OTOH has a big impact on polygon numbers with respect to the EE. Flipper is not impacted as much similar to ELAN.

 

[Farid]

Well to a blind man it wouldn't look downgraded

Actually, you're one that see so much downgrade in the lighting, the textures are worses, ok, the overall IQ is nowhere close to the arcade version, ok, the lightings... :? . Maybe if you're sure of it, it's been a long time that i didn't played VF4 (either arcade of PS2).

And on their spec sheet it says 6-12 million polys with AI, physics, etc.

Real-world polygon 6 million to 12 million polygons/second (Peak) (Assuming actual game conditions with complex models, fully textured, fully lit, etc.)

6 to 12 si a big leap, and etceatera could means a lot of thing.
OTOH, and slightly OT, we have to salute Nintendo honesty on this one.

He did??? Regardless, the classical setup is only valid for old architectures where single texturing and a single infinite light source is common ie PS1 games. Going forward I don't think Xbox 2, N5, and PS3 will be doing single texturing and single lights.

I agree with you PC-Engine,
but that doesn't change the modus operandi used by the manufacturers themselves today.

Actually the example is perfect for illustrating the absurdness of using RAW polygon numbers as a means of comparison for 99% of the games of this generation.

Now, i understand you perfectly, you would have better said this before.
That would had save us from one of this "Quote-FU" threads.

 

[London Geezer]

Umm..where did I imply the lighting downgrade was the biggest factor?

I intentionally exluded textures and IQ because it has little to do with polygon numbers. Lighting OTOH has a big impact on polygon numbers with respect to the EE. Flipper is not impacted as much similar to ELAN.

You are implying that VF4 is vastly downgraded. Which it IS. However you're failing to recognise why and how it was downgraded. The polygon counts are lower, not by much but they are. But i don't think it's because PS2 as a machine cannot handle the polygons counts sported on the Naomi2. In fact, the amount of polygons pushed by VF4 or ANY fighting game this generation is FAR from being the upper limit of current platforms.

If you want to show how PS2 cannot handle certain things, you should have chosen another game, since comparisons between VF4 Arcade and PS2 versions just scream for "LOOK AT THOS TEXTURES AND JAGGIES!!!", not the "difference in lighting" that you see. Personally i'm not sure why they replaced the specular maps on the arcade versions with that shitty "shiny" effect on the PS2 version, but after all i'm not even sure why they would lower the polygon count.
Of course your opinion is that AM2 can do no wrong, so it MUST be the hardware's fault. :?

 

[PC-Engine]

Of course your opinion is that AM2 can do no wrong, so it MUST be the hardware's fault

Umm...no. Considering VF4 was their only game on PS2, they sure showed Namco a thing or two didn't they?

 

[London Geezer]

Of course your opinion is that AM2 can do no wrong, so it MUST be the hardware's fault

Umm...no. Considering VF4 was their only game on PS2, they sure showed Namco a thing or two didn't they?

Well, to be honest the only commendable thing they did was MAKING THE GAME. VF4 was an impressive game, just like ANY VF game that ever existed, better than Tekken4. I don't think they did such a great job at porting it over. But after all, they NEVER did a good job at porting VF games over to consoles, ever since the Saturn days.
Namco still lie 198282 miles above them in console ports, ever since the days of the PS1.
TekkenTag was a MUCH better port, as was T4 and SC2. Hell, Soul Calibur for DC is still regarded as one of the best ever games in the 128bit generation!

 

[PC-Engine]

TekkenTag was a MUCH better port, as was T4 and SC2

Umm..you do realize that those games were programmed specifically for System 246 right?

 

[Simon F]

You are implying that VF4 is vastly downgraded. Which it IS. However you're failing to recognise why and how it was downgraded. The polygon counts are lower, not by much but they are. But i don't think it's because PS2 as a machine cannot handle the polygons counts sported on the Naomi2.

According to a previous poster, the best achieved on PS2 was typically 7.5MP/s. The 10MP/s on N2 was a measured performance rate (the peak figure is higher

Personally i'm not sure why they replaced the specular maps on the arcade versions with that shitty "shiny" effect on the PS2 version, but after all i'm not even sure why they would lower the polygon count.

Ahh I forgot - Elan also does some environment mapping UV set-up - it was something Sega asked for well after the original spec and I'd forgotten about it.

 

[London Geezer]

TekkenTag was a MUCH better port, as was T4 and SC2

Umm..you do realize that those games were programmed specifically for System 246 right?

Tekken Tag was not on System 246. Tekken4 was. As was SC2. But SC2 was ported to all 3 consoles flawlessly. All the PS1 games they ported were almost-perfect ports. Namco IS better at porting games.

Of course the fact that Sega arcade games always seem to run on slightly more powerful machines than the consoles out at the same time is a huge factor.

 

[Phil]

Perhaps I missed the whole point about VF4 being brought up in this discussion, but I think the whole discussion simply boils down to each console having their strengths and a PS2 running a game developed to its distinct strengths will obviously give you results better than what would be possible on any other platform (Naomi2 included). However, a game coded to another platforms strength (i.e. Virtua Fighter 4 for Naomi2) will give a game that looks great on its platform but will naturally be hard or at least challenging or sometimes not possible to port over.

Lets not kid ourselfs here. Each piece of hardware has some sort of bottleneck or weakness which will prevent it from doing *everything* better. There's no point in arguing why VF4 has worse lightning or less geometry on PS2, as it could be any of the following reasons or in combination:

- lousy port job (engine could be more efficient)
- the game simply emphasizes on strengths of the Naomi2 board and lacks those features on the PS2
- memory
- ....

Ports are never a great basis to compare performances of different consoles. Same applies with VirtuaFighter 4. While certainly a great game, only Sega knows why the PS2 version suffered and if there is left for improvement.

BTW: PC-Engine. While Rez might bode well with PS2 strengths, I think there are better games out there that emphasize just as much on geometry/fillrate and do a much more impressive job while at it. ZOE2 would be one. Others would be Jak II.

 

[Teasy]

PC-Engine

Looking at RAW poly numbers which was what Qroach was using to gauge in-game poly numbers is flawed unless you're talking about games like REZ or Battle Zone.

Actually I'll have to stick up for Quincy here, possibly for the first time ever. At first it did seem like he was talking about in game polygon counts to me. But he did make it clear later in the thread that when he said Flipper was weaker he only meant slower for raw theoretical polygon counts (no effects).

Vysez

awnser:

Simon F wrote:
Elan worked per-vertex

So there's no complex PP lights, nor a huge number of them in Virtua Fighters 4, so how could it be "downgraded"?
And the point of the discussion was the polycount of the machines only.

Actually Simon didn't say there was no per pixel lights in VF on Naomi 2 (not that I'm saying there are.. I wouldn't know). He just said that Elan itself works per vertex, but per pixel lighting could be achieved through dot3.

Also this discussion isn't only about polygon counts. Originally it was about real acheivable performance in-game. Now I know that term is ambigious, but I take it to mean a decent amount of textures and lighting ect.

 

[Farid]

According to a previous poster, the best achieved on PS2 was typically 7.5MP/s. The 10MP/s on N2 was a measured performance rate (the peak figure is higher

Actually the Sony research guy said that 7.5Mpps figure was an average figure, he took the example of a porsche doing a trip, the average speed will be far from its peak speed. Since the PA analyze a random part of a game, it could chose a part where it's not 'polygon stressing time' (in Jak II some part of levels looked totally classic, others were over the top).

 

[V3]

I find this talk about VF4, really funny.

Last time, most people here mistaken Arcade screenshots for PS2 version, and said how bad it really were.

I am sure in a blind screen test, its actually pretty damn difficult telling both version apart.

Granted the Arcade wasn't spectacular looking either. As powerful as N2, its no Model 3 for its time. IMO Sega should have done better than N2.

Though as bad as VF4 and Evo port for PS2, is still AM2 best VF port ever. I wished they had actually put in the effort for DC VF3tb. VF3tb port was like the worst out of all the VF port. Well to the AM2 defense, it wasn't done by them.

 

[London Geezer]

I find this talk about VF4, really funny.

Last time, most people here mistaken Arcade screenshots for PS2 version, and said how bad it really were.

I am sure in a blind screen test, its actually pretty damn difficult telling both version apart.

Granted the Arcade wasn't spectacular looking either. As powerful as N2, its no Model 3 for its time. IMO Sega should have done better than N2.

Though as bad as VF4 and Evo port for PS2, is still AM2 best VF port ever. I wished they had actually put in the effort for DC VF3tb. VF3tb port was like the worst out of all the VF port. Well to the AM2 defense, it wasn't done by them.

The first VF on saturn was pretty lame too. Rushed and all other excuses, but it was a lame port.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Also, the PA does not measure the peak T&L rate of the EE, but the polygons actually drawn by the GS on the screen IIRC.

 

[London Geezer]

Also, the PA does not measure the peak T&L rate of the EE, but the polygons actually drawn by the GS on the screen IIRC.

Which is what it should be right. In the end developers don't really care to see what the big numbers are, developers don't have discussions like we are having now, all they want to see is how better their game can run on PS2, and the PA was made for that purpose.

 

[Crazyace]

According to a previous poster, the best achieved on PS2 was typically 7.5MP/s. The 10MP/s on N2 was a measured performance rate (the peak figure is higher

The PA tends to only measured polys that generate valid pixels - I'm curious whether the N2 number is measuring pre T&L triangles or post.

Ahh I forgot - Elan also does some environment mapping UV set-up - it was something Sega asked for well after the original spec and I'd forgotten about it.

Both flipper and N2's elan ( unless I'm mistaken Simon ) probally have a lot processing power than VU1 on the PS2, but the programable nature can allow you to get a lot more bang for your buck.
There's a lot of room in terms of almost quick and dirty subdivision schemes to lesson the poor look of vertex compared against pixel lighting, and I'm sure that if AM2 had spent more time on the PS2 version of VF4 they may have increased the visual quality. ( It's normally true that as a programmer you can think of a least half a dozen major improvements to any project once it's actually out )

 

[Simon F]

While certainly a great game, only Sega knows why the PS2 version suffered and if there is left for improvement..

According to the grapevine (and this is a completely unofficial statement), Sega's own opinion was that N2 was far more powerful (in the practical sense) than the PS2.