Questions about Sega Saturn

I think that PS1 did produce higher quality visuals at higher resolutions. Tobal I think was 640x480. Rapid Racer too I believe. And they were 60fps

Edit: Also I think this

 

But that was later when Saturn development had basically stopped. In limited cases the Saturn could produce really awesome graphics.

 

Well, I got that from someone who has a Saturn and told me that what showed the true capabilities of Saturn were the games made for it exclusively, while the versions of multiplatform games were better on the other consoles. The person who told me that is in a WhatsApp group I'm into and I trust him.

It's no wonder F-Zero is my favourite racing game -along with Project Gotham Racing, but that's another story- and my favourite Nintendo series. I didn't have the N64 but from what I know 60 fps or even 30 fps was a rarity.

Do you think that Saturn was an arcade machine more than a console?

 

Saturn doesn't actually have a 512 width output mode, IMO a major design flaw seeing as how the VDP1 framebuffers must be powers of 2. For high resolution you could use 640 or 704 width.

VF2 and other high resolution fighting games used 1024x256 VDP1 framebuffers.

There were PS1 fighting games that had widths of 512 and 640. No 704 though, 640 was PS1's maximum horizontal resolution.

 

OK. I'd still like a list of beast'n games, though. I've got a near complete set of US Saturn games and many imports as well. I said it before, I am a fan. It's probably my favorite console ever made. But, that doesn't mean that I'm delusional about it's capabilities, particularly in the 3D department. There are very few games that really show what the hardware was capable of, but that's mostly because the hardware had so many deficiencies that developers had to work around to untap the latent power of the console that didn't make sense to do for most games.

There are so many people who make claims about the Saturn's capabilities that make no sense at all. If it was so much better some developers would have really shown it. Think about the support Capcom gave Saturn. Great arcade fighting game ports. They defiantly knew how to handle the hardware. Look at hoe Resident Evil looks on the console. Given the 2 VDP setup, you would think a game that used 2d backgrounds and 3d characters would be tailor made for Saturn, but it has simpler geometry, lighting and the characters look to run at a lower resolution. And for the record, not even all 2d games are better. X-Men CotA is better on PS1 by a similar margin that Marvel Super Heroes is better on Saturn without the RAM cart.

 

Tobal came much earlier. I think it was in 1996

 

They certainly showed better what the Saturn could do. Regardless they rarely (if at all) did anything that the PS1 didnt do or surpass. Also there are many multiplatform games that the Saturn audience claim run better on the Saturn. A direct comparison I did with a friend showed the opposite results in overall quality.

Regarding exclusives, the Saturn still didnt fair better than competition.
Soul Blade was leaps above Last Bronx which was supposedly Sega's answer to Soul Blade and came later.
Ridge Racer was as good if not better than Daytona USA.
Virtua Fighter 2 sacrificed not only background geometry but also lighting effects and shadowing in order to achieve the clean looks it did. Tekken 2 and Tobal were super clean butter smooth games that retained their lighting effects and shadows.
Deep Fear was Sega's answer to Resident Evil 2 but it didnt fair as good. Backgrounds were less interesting and characters suffered from the same low res, low geometry, unlit models we also saw in Resi1 if not worse.
Time Crisis had more detailed textures and more geometry than Virtua Cop 2.
Burning Rangers suffered from terrible framerates, and the geometry was extremely low.
Crash Bandicoot 1 and Crash Team Racing looked better than Sega's Sonic R
I wont mention Sega Rally because a proper Rally game on PS1 came much later. But really find me one game that looked as impressive as Porsche Challenge on the Saturn
Steep Slope Sliders came the same year as Cool Boarders 2. Guess which one looked better.


I cant remember the PS1 having a game similar to Panzer Dragoon during the time that the Saturn was alive (I am speaking about genre not visuals), but we saw Omega Boost much later which in my opinion was more impressive. Omega Boost is rumored to have been made by former Panzer Dragoon devs btw.

And now lets see some of the multiplatform games that the Saturn audience claimed were better on the Saturn. I have tested these games simultaneously on PS1 and the Saturn
Resident Evil 1: Prerendered backgrounds were reworked on the Saturn with slightly better resolution, but characters, textures and lighting effects were significantly worse. Everything else was more pixelated
Pandemonium: more pixelated look, worse framerate, and worse effects due to bad transparencies
Wipeout and Wipeout 2097: Worse framerate, pixelated look, uglier lighting and effects on the Saturn. Again due to bad transparencies.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night: What made that game better on the Saturn was the extra content. But many of the visuals were redone and looked worse on the Saturn. Also it looked more pixelated and suffered from framerate dips.
Tomb Raider: Some claimed that Tomb Raider was another game that looked better on the Saturn. Some say it was the water effects which is subjective. But it also looked flat due to lack of lighting effects and the game looked more pixelated and I think it also had worse framerates.
Dead or Alive: Flat looking low polygon models like in Virtua Fighter 2. It's backgrounds also took a hit and were all replaced with 2D backdrops. The PS1 version was a completely different looking game. 2D backgrounds but characters had lighting effects and looked smoother.

Its the 2D games were the Saturn did better. But anything with 3D graphics didnt look special.

In the meantime the PS1 was doing some pretty interesting visuals, with Tobal, Rapid Racer, the Crash Bandicoot Series, Wipeout, Metal Gear Solid, Soul Reaver, Porsche Challenge, Soul Edge, Colony Wars, Forsaken, Jumping Flash, Ridge Racer, Spyro etc

 

Comparing console A exclusive game X versus console B exclusive game Y is pretty much completely fail, because there will be so many parameters differing, not just the skill of the artist teams, art style and direction, down to small technical details like how many polys to spend on backgrounds versus characters and things like that.

I don't find it productive, and usually such comparisons often tend to devolve into fanboyish screaming contests most easily summarized as "nuh-uh! it isn't!"

 

I would normally agree, but let's be honest here. There aren't really any Saturn games, exclusive or not, that show it to be superior to PSx or N64 by any real margin that don't take advantage of ram carts. It's pretty definitive here. I'm a big Saturn fan because I like the library. Mostly the arcade ports and exclusives, but lets be honest here. Saturn wasn't the most capable system of it's generation. It's greatness was in it's library, not it's hardware. In fact, it's probably in spite of it's hardware.

 

Well, in regards to what your friend told you it might be true, I can't corroborate everything because I haven't tried those games myself, but he also told me that multis used to run and look better on PS1 and N64.

However, he also mentioned that all the 2D games that came out for PSX and Saturn, were leaps and bounds better on the Saturn.

In addition, he told me that 3D wise the results oscillates from geniuses work to disaster because of the rendering differences, Saturn rendered squares he told me, and PSX rendered triangles.

When a game was programmed on PSX and then ported you had to look into that and add that rendering difference, including parallel processing, because of the amalgam of chips performing different tasks.

The result was normally nauseating.

Except when a game was programmed for Saturn. Then on those cases the videoconsole shone through offering resolutions that the PSX never achieved, graphics effects, more solid worlds, etc.

 

Continuing with what my mate told me, the 3rd party games that were inherently better on Saturn:

Duke Nukem
The amazing brilliance of the Quake port which is even superior compared to the N64 version
Alien Trilogy
Dead or Alive..

Then he told me about the STV arcade machine, which is a Saturn. It had games like Die Hard Arcade.

He also told me that you could count with the fingers of one hand the games on Saturn where it shone at 3D, because compared to the PSX version they were normally more crude and had worse framerate and a resolution which was puke-worthy pain nausea and revulsion inducing.

But then you saw running on it a game like Panzer Dragoon, with distortion effects, or a Last Bronx that in some stages even had texture softening -how is it called the effect of softening textures?- and you wondered how it was effin' possible.

(that's more or less literally what he told me)

 

2D games aside from Castlevania SotN were largely better on Saturn. It's just more beastly 2d hardware even without the RAM carts. This and its sound system was pretty much it in terms of advantages over the competition.

While the Saturn could produce decent 3d visuals in the hands of top notch developers i wouldn't dare say that their games can approach the best of what's on PS1. Saturn Shenmue is the finest example of visuals on the system, but unfair to compare it to other games since it was never released. SEGA's 1st parties were able to pull magic out of the system that's for sure. Panzer Dragoon Saga is a good example of a Saturn game with great graphics for the system.

When it comes to comparing exclusive games to PS1 in terms of graphics I find the PS1 to be vastly better, especially towards the end of its life. Thee hardware was simpler and more competent than Saturn's. Sony's dev tools were better and thus allowed devs to get more out of the hardware at an earlier pace. R4 is still an amazing looking game to this day.

 

Duke Nukem was ported by Lobotomy Software. They also ported Quake to the Saturn. That's one dev team that worked magic on the machine. If you have a Saturn you should check out Powerslave. I find it to be a great game with good graphics, still play it every couple of years.

 

I shall tell about that to him, he didn't mention that game at all. Another guy in the WhatsApp group I am into has also two ST-V Titan (Saturn transformed into arcade machines) although he said that they don't work well, they are a bit weak, because their RAM modules tend to fail.

This same guy with the ST-V machines, also got today a version AAA motherboard of Metamorphic Force, not yet dumped. Only him and Konami have that. He is going to send the data to the MAME team.

 

Well it is not what HE told me. It is what we tested together and experienced first hand

I wouldnt say all were leaps and bounds. Some were tiny better, some you couldnt tell a difference, some were significantly better.

The Saturn used quads yes. Which appeared to be a pain in the ass with high poly models later on.
Probably thats why we got ugly results like this.

When a game was programmed for Saturn we didnt have a PS1 version to compare to so its easy to claim that they did better. I disagree that the Saturn ever did resolutions that the PSX never achieved. And it is pointless when so many sacrifices had to be done to reach that resolution. In general even exclusive games suffered on the Saturn too especially when they tried to achieve the quality achieved on PS1 games.
For example check Deep Fear

One of the last AAA Saturn exclusive games. Suffers as much as Resi1 if not more

 

Duke Nukem was certainly better but I dont think it was proof of its technical superiority but rather it was mostly handled better by the team that made the port and they did a fucking excellent job.
As for Quake? I cant really say for sure. To me they look different and the N64 version I think was smoother.
Alien Trilogy looks on par, with some slight differences in the way it was rendered to me.
Dead or Alive on PS1 and Saturn are rendered as if they are completely different games. Notice that the Saturn version replaced the backdrops with 2d compared to the arcade and it also sacrificed the lighting effects of the arcade version. The PS1 version added some nice lighting and shading effects on the models.

 

This is what one of Lobotomy's developers, Ezra Dreisbach, had to say about PS1 vs Saturn:

http://www.gareth.uk/2010/08/07/interview-with-ezra-dreisbach-of-lobotomy-software/

Powerslave is also on PS1 and it's hard to see any way in which the Saturn version looks definitively better.

 

I've only ever played the PS1 version of Powerslave a few times years ago at a friend's house years ago. Should probably pick it up as I'd love to play it on a different system other than Saturn. I want to play Death Tank now.

 

I believe there are some old rumors pointing to that in the early days...I believe there's a Sega fan archive site that has sources of the engineering team but I'm not sure right now...

Hopefully that wasn't something mixed up with 32X development which actually came later after Saturn was well into development.

It's also possible that they were indeed planning for a cartridge and CD-ROM combo console which would eventually rely on CD-ROM...however the Saturn's arcade hardware (Sega ST-V) board runs on cartridges.

There are many variations on SH2 CPUs...the 32X also used dual SH2s.

It's worth noting that barely a few years after the Dreamcast based NaOmi Arcade hardware board came out, that Sega made the Dual SH4 CPU and Sega Custom 3d chip powered Sega Hikaru Arcade board (Brave Firefighters, Virtual On Force)

NaOmi 2 was also based on DUAL SH4 CPUs, but also dual graphics (PowerVR) plus a special T&L chip "Elan" (Virtua Fighter 4 and revisions)

Sega's internal hardware engineering staff had some goals, rather ambitious.

As for the video codecs in Sega Saturn did actually greatly improve later on.

The U.S. localized Fighters Megamix and Last Bronx...Burning Rangers, Panzer Dragoon Saga and Shining Force III did have improved video quality.

The VCD as far as games was mainly a benefit for Japan only games like a few that used Anime art style cut scenes and a few that used live action cut scenes where the video was main attraction.

That's a bit short sighted to say.

As far as the development of Saturn, you have to look at the previous Sega Arcade hardware and games around back then.

Rad Mobile and G-Loc definitely didn't use polygons and these games had far more advanced graphics than Out Run and After Burner series up to that point.

Rad Mobile did get a reprogrammed conversion (Gale Racer which wasn't released outside Japan and was an early launch era game) which implemented the use of polygon cars and tracks instead of how the arcade hardware used sprites.

Sega's finances were much more greatly affected by the "botched" North American launch and lack of maintaining public relations with devs afterwards as well as hiring a guy who was blocking a lot of Japanese games from being localized.

Core Design developed Tomb Raider on Saturn with features not available on PlayStation like water effects... Sega apparently never tried setting up some deals with Core Design so when Eidos got them they published multi platform.

The lack of sticking to Saturn for the long term and specially the reaction to the Nintendo 64 U.S. sold out launch holiday season in 1996 may have made Sega more thirsty to copy and paste at the cost of a console launch and bad public relations.

The major problem in thinking about this is that back then Sega had targeted a 1994 thereabouts launch to build an install base ahead of Nintendo before Sony announced their plans.

It seems like an interesting what if scenario however Virtua Fighter 1 granted huge sales for an initially successful Japanese Saturn launch, capitalized by Virtua Fighter Remix (which actually was a ST-V arcade title) and Virtua Fighter II in 1995.

If Sega Saturn was to be pre-planned for 1996 console launch then we would have to consider the 66Mhz Dual SH3 set up with some evolution of Sega's own plus custom secret Nvidia Nv2 chipset which being quads based is far more interesting to have seen.

However the difference if choosing SGi would be some dramatically different solution than the N64.

Sega's AM3 developed Last Bronx and the Japan only Dead or Alive Saturn conversion of the Arcade versions (from Model 2) did surpass Virtua Fighter II in technical terms.

I believe there were other Japan only fighting games that targeted the similar modes.

At some point around 1997 when it was after Sega's new Graphics Libraries developed by Sega-AM2 were released, there was an army of games being released and developed both as 3d and 2d games in Japan...sadly many of those games were not localized.

The botched public relations handling in North America caused more problems and that's leading into 1998 where more Japanese Saturn games were cranking out...leaving Sega to skip a holiday season which ironically enough they actually had skipped before by not having enough Genesis games during Saturn launch.

Fighting Vipers, and Fighters Megamix were Sega-AM2 reprogrammed conversions and original title for Saturn. Both fighting games use a lower resolution but they actually featured lighting effects.

Iirc Fighting Vipers was a 1996 release with Fighters Megamix a 1997 release.

I feel that Saturn, like Nintendo 64 didn't really realize their full software potential mainly due to Sega rushing into Dreamcast and causing a console gen jump which the competition cannot just leave an advantage of over a year...

Nintendo 64 had a lot of potential with the 4MB ram pack and larger 512Mb games (64MB) plus potentially matured dev tools and U.S. install base could have helped the RPG drought N64 didn't need.

A possible Super Mario 64 2 on 4MB ram pack required plus 64MB cartridge plus a Pilotwings sequel, Mario Kart sequel etc would have set some new watermarks.

Likewise for Saturn plus 4MB ram Cartridge and matured development tools which as far as the cartridge despite only one 3d game using it...it wasn't enough.

 

Well yeah, that was my point. High (> 352) resolution or 16bpp rendering with lighting, pick one but never both. PS1 can do 512 or 640 wide resolution without sacrificing 16bpp rendering (indeed, 16bpp is all you get)

It's not just a matter of lighting either, having to use a 256-color global palette is more limiting in general.