PS2 EE question

In terms of environmental and character detail, there's no getting around that the cube is easily superior. Much higher geometry capabilities (except for particles) and texture details because of flippers tev units and extra memory.

Certain multiplats may have seen a higher res texture on the ps2 because of its larger main memory, and wasn't reworked for the cube's memory set up.

In terms of playing the games on CRT, image quality isn't a big divide but a lot of games on PS2 are interlaced or use strange resolution tricks that don't hold up at all on lcd where as gamecube holds up well provided it's not a huge screen. I keep a crt around just for ps2 and n64.

 

Afaik GC games often use lower colour depth. Framebuffer is 24 bit max.
Also GC and Wii output has annoying pinstripe effect.

 

Admittedly i'm nitpicking on the Ps2's image quality, I also play my back compat wii on my crt with component. So just a side note, if you use component for PS2 on lcd it can introduce additional artifacts depending on the ps2 model. In the end I think all of 6th gen should be played on a crt.

The vast majority of cube games are in progressive and you never saw something like ICO on gamecube(at least that I know of) that ran far below SD resolution, and Wii games usually output in 720x480 true widescreen. Some of the earlier ones don't, as well as some older ports like RE4.

In my experience ps2 looks gobshite on lcd but I can live with the Wii.

I do recall seeing dithering on games like skyward sword on an lcd, but it depends on the game.

Never used gamecube with component as I didn't even know that was a thing growing up, and also those damn cables are super expensive now. Supposedly gamecube has cleaner image on an lcd than wii, with its proprietary cables. Between Wii and Xbox's component output Xbox actually looks better on an lcd.

 

Could it be also the same for True Crime New York City and one of Splinter Cell games? In those games there is 3D water on PS2 and no 3D water in GC.
Also tell me please ifyou know why there is a lot of games on PS2 with 3D water and even a lot of games there is 3D water what reacts on character movement and not so much games with 3D water on PS3 and Xbox 360? Even on PS4 and Xbox One there a lot of games without 3D water. I thought on PS4 and Xbox One 3D water should be by default.

 

I think Resi 4 was one of the games where it had better water effects on GC though

 

Wave Race Blue Storm too, of course...

 

I'm not too familiar with true crime or splinter cell honestly.

As for why you saw less interactive water on PS3 and 360, it's just a shift of priorities. Devs would rather spend that power elsewhere. You kind of saw more of it in the beginning of last gen, such as gears 2 but after that for gears 3 they wanted to save every ounce of power for other details. Halo 3 as well, had reactive water but it was gone for reach.

 

But it's not reactive. Don't think wave race is either, nor Mario sunshine. Though visually sunshine's water looks just downright tasty.

Re4 takes perfect advantage of the cube and I think that version is easily the best looking "realistic" game of that era.

The black borders in the game are actually 3d objects, so the game is actually rendering things beneath them unlike say the evil within or the order 1886 today. I wonder if perhaps they could've made the game look even better by simply not rendering those pixels and used the resources on something else. Or maybe that's how it had to be done on crt?

Both the prime games have way higher poly counts than the halo games, and it's locked 60fps vs. 30 with dips. For that, Prime holds up a lot better.

However it's not because the Xbox is weaker, it's a difference in priorities and obviously different developers. Personally I wasn't impressed with the Halo games graphically until Reach.

Prime doesn't use power on many shader effects or advanced lighting like Halo, it just chucks everything it has on modeling detail. And also Halo has more advanced AI and bigger environments. Halo 2 uses a lot of normal maps which also uses extra power as well.

 

Its difficult to compare directly. In terms of programmable resources (e.g. the programmer can set them running at anything they want), the PS2 scores highly even if it is difficult to use. On Xbox, the Vertex shaders are programmable and the pixel shaders are configurable ... but you're limited in what you can do in Vertex shaders and even more limited with what you can do with the outputs (the outputs have to feed into the graphics pipeline so you can't use them for game world simulation).

So the number of calculations you can do on Xbox is vastly higher, but there are limitations on what you can do and what you can do with the results.

On GC, you are even more limited than on Xbox ... the number of calculations the box can do is high if you include hard wired operations in the T&L units, the configurable features in the TEV, and all the sampling and blending operations ... but the programmer has little control over what you can do.

Because of the fundamental differences in hardware, the machine seems comparatively better or worse depending on what you're looking at. By virtue of its advanced CPU and GPU architectures, the silicon area, the clock speeds, the memory quantity etc Xbox pretty much always wins out regardless. With PS2 and GC, however, things aren't so clear cut. In terms of programmable resources PS2 looks like the stronger machine, if you can tame it. In terms of delivering games, this means there will be cases where a PS2 focused game can't port well to the GC.

In terms of easily delivering a great looking game, I think GC has the overall advantage though.

 

Water is reactive in many areas in RE4. For example, the lake. Also in RE1, the shark tank is flooded with reactive water. Blue storm loading screens have reactive water too lol.

 

Metroid Prime has reactive water. Also, refractive water beads on Samus' visor...

 

By reactive i mean the water physically moving around due to your interacting with it. Re4 does have 2d ripples and particle splashes ; I didn't mean you shoot it and nothing happens at all. Wave race’s water bounces around a lot but not by the racer moving on it ; lots of particles are thrown around though. It's like wave race 64 just prettier. These approaches are perfectly fine i'm just noting it.

I'll never praise games like horizon zero dawn where you just clip through water and foliage and nothing happens at all lol

 

Wave Race 64 definitely had interactive water. Hell, that was pretty much the whole premise of the game; take advantage of waves to get through the course as quickly as possible.

 

It's physically based, but the water in the game affects the player, the movement of waves moves the water ski. The water ski doesn't impact the shape or movement of water ; this is what i'm talking about. Like pikmin 3 or Mario odyssey.

I'm going to let this thread get back to the ps2 now

 

But that would be pointless! Wave Race 64 is not a game that's about shaping water. Framerate was abysmal enough as it was, burdening the system with a wave dynamics simulation would probably have been completely unfeasible with the computational resources that was at hand. A good game designer picks and chooses their battles carefully, they know where to make a stand, and where to give up.

 

The instances of water I mentioned are simulations, not just some decals or precalculated ripples. For example:



RE4 has many more instances but they are hard to show because the camera rarely looks down into the water. The beginning of chapter 3-2 with the invisible bugs has many examples.

 

Before you were talking about re4 which is what i was talking about. Also for some reason when you said re1 i thought of the ps1 version, i forgot the cube version even existed and i never played it. I can't stand old school resident evil honestly but that is cool. Makes sense it could do that with the pre rendered backgrounds.

@Grall yes it would be pointless. I never said I was pointing out flaws

 

Reach supports geometrically-reactive water, although water varies in reactiveness. In Halo 3, on-map water is basically all high quality.

Halo 1 makes extensive use of normal maps as well, albeit not on dynamic objects.