SEGA - 3DFX circa 1997

[Megadrive1988]

nice post Lazy8s - don't have time to reply in-depth, it's late here....


"I believe the proposed 3Dfx design was custom-made for SEGA's console, somewhere between Voodoo 2 and 3 and definitely more powerful than the War Gods arcade hardware."

Sounds about right. from what I understand, it was basicly a souped up Banshee. wether it was souped up Voodoo1 or Voodoo2 or souped up Banshee, it would've been so totally inferior to PowerVR2DC.

btw, the 3DO M2, which Sega rejected back in late '95 or early '96, was somewhat better than the original 3Dfx Voodoo1 (sst1) so all the more reason for Sega to reject 3Dfx, even if they had a newer (than Voodoo1) chip. 3Dfx would've just offered Sega a souped up version of an inferior architecture.



"Lockheed's Real3D solution was taken out of the running when SEGA focused on a lower US$199 equivalent target price point. The chipset was supposedly unparalleled in delivering IQ properties like truly high-quality and useable anti-alaising and texture filtering."

droooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.... [sigh!] Interesting!...I wonder what the Lockheed Martin Real3D Sega console chip was like in geometry / lighting performance & fillrate also, besides image quality. I'd like to know more about it. [i must keep digging!]


"For SEGA's needs, the NEC/VideoLogic PowerVR choice was the winner for both performance and political (control, pricing advantages on other supplied parts) reasons. The CLX was literally years ahead of its time (ultimately leading to some of its potential going unexplored)... I run through some Sonic Adventure 2 levels on occasion in VGA, and it's still the most graphically impressive platformer out there."

i'm still blown away with what Dreamcast does. Soul Calibur, Daytona 2001
and basicly any 60fps game you can think of. we got beyond $100,000 SGI
workstation (early 90s) performance (not IQ) for $200


"With regard to Hitachi, the iterations of their SuperH line which were contracted for inclusion in consoles (SH-2 for Saturn and SH-4 for Dreamcast) have always turned out stellar. Hitachi really went all-out creating those powerful and efficient CPUs, which seem to represent the strongest generational leaps within that family line, and delivering in good time for SEGA's launch schedule. It's really no wonder that Dreamcast's core can be modified and made into such a good mobile solution considering how smart the designs from both VideoLogic and Hitachi were."

Couldn't have said that as well as you did, myself. pity there will be no more Sega console (or portable) hardware.....at least the chances are extremely remote. i hope XBox2 is made really well. it will be the "true" Dreamcast2, as Sega's Dreamcast2 was reportedly / supposedly going to be 100x Dreamcast's performance. The former Sega president, Shoichiro Irimajiri, took charge of Dreamcast successor's development... he was no doubt overseeing something very awesome....

 

[Sonic]

What he oversaw is now unofficially done for. There will not be another SEGA console until the company has enough funds and is the #1 game maker in the industry by far. SEGA does want to release another console, but it also wants #1 and look how well that plan has turned out. Slowly but surely it will climb back to something of greatness, but not at its current rate.

3dfx did so many backhanded things to SEGA it's not even funny. They knew damn well they were going into it competing for the next console, and look what they gave us, a Banshee that couldn't keep up with the prowess.

Lazy8's, where do you get your information from? The Real3D chip isn't even in existence you're speaking of. Promises were made but never kept, SEGA ditched the company a long time ago in favor of what it knew would be much superior arcade hardware. Real3D just couldn't compete price to performance wise, and it would have failed if it had even tried to. Do you imagine what a monster chip from Real3D would have been like? Slow compared to PVR2DC.

As for the successor of the Dreamcast, that's partially true in a real world case. Work on further arcade hardware has been invested in, and something would have come from another wise cool Phoenix project, but the costs would prove to be astronomically high.

 

[Reznor007]

I believe the proposed 3Dfx design was custom-made for SEGA's console, somewhere between Voodoo 2 and 3 and definitely more powerful than the War Gods arcade hardware.

The War Gods arcade hardware was just a TMS 32031 at 50MHz with an ADSP2115 audio DSP. The 3d was all software rendering. Cruisin'USA was the same board.

 

[Fox5]

I thought war gods said 3dfx inside, if it had 3dfx inside, why have software rendering?
And I thought cruisin'usa was done on the ultra 64 hardware.

 

[Lazy8s]

Reznor007:

The War Gods arcade hardware was just a TMS 32031 at 50MHz with an ADSP2115 audio DSP. The 3d was all software rendering. Cruisin'USA was the same board.

Memory slip... I meant MACE: The Dark Age, not War Gods.

Blackbelt was to use technology developed subsequent to MACE's Voodoo + MIPS R5000 core.

http://www.system16.com/atari/hrdw_seattle.html

 

[Fox5]

Considering that is running on a voodoo 1, the games actually look on par with some lesser dreamcast games. Well, if they have a solid 60 fps framerate then they are. Though, despite having no evidence at all, I've always thought many earlier dreamcast games had been designed for inferior 3dfx hardware and quickly converted to powervr.(ignoring the arcade and pc ports)

 

[ShinHoshi]

Just a question...perhaps is a little offtopic...Didn't the SH2 chips used on SS have a total lack of floating point operations ??? Then how could SEGA trust on a company who did a so bad approach last gen ???

 

[Fox5]

Because it was sega who wanted that approach. For what they did, they were powerful.

 

[ShinHoshi]

Yes, it's a well know fact that SEGA started the SS as a 2D machine (then there was no need for FP support) and when the first PSX specs appeared then they added the DSP in order to make "sth"...
Just that I don't understand this hate for western companies (3dfx, Motorolla) when they had already worked together in both arcade and home systems.

 

[Fox5]

Perhaps it was hate for Sega of America rather than the other American companies....

 

[MfA]

Ehm how can you recognise that the 3dfx/motorola tech was not superior and still make a big deal about hate. Japanese are nationalistic yes, this was just one of those cases where it was justified. Just because they have to appear non nationalistic they have to choose the inferior offering or something?

 

[Megadrive1988]

.
.
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The ancestor of the Sega Saturn was started in late 1990 or early 1991. That would be the GigaDrive, which indeed was based on 2D sprite shifting technology, Sega's System32 arcade hardware that powered Rad Mobile, Golden Axe 2: Revenge of Death Adder, OutRunners, etc.

Sega's 32-bit console projects went through many changes from 1991- 1994. The Saturn/Jupiter was, at one time, using a single 68030 or perhaps duel 68030s. Then Hitachi came into the picture with the SH2. So at first, one, then two, SH-2s ended up in Saturn. I think the VDPs in Saturn are still based on the System32's (and thus GigaDrive's) 2D video hardware, though.

 

[Lazy8s]

An interesting thing about the SH-4's design was that it was specified to be compatible and fast for handling legacy instructions, like those for SH-2. Leaving the option open for backwards compatibility with Saturn was in the cards at some point, and the Dreamcast, with its similar SuperH CPU and Yamaha sound processor, could probably get a good handle on Saturn emulation with proper programming for the co-processing elements, VDPs, DSPs, etc.

Vince:

If I was another 2% sure, I would say this is Blatantly false. From what I remember, the project for Sega of America was spearheaded by Sellers and it's work was ultimatly manifested in the Voodoo2.

3Dfx would of course capitalize on their existing technology and knowledge base for any project as well as use what they'd make and learn from it to help further future designs, too. I wasn't implying their BlackBelt proposal was something radically new... rather, I was pointing out that SEGA's contract called for exclusivity - the supplied part was custom because it wasn't allowed to show up or be in any different product exactly as it would appear in SEGA's system. It's not a big problem to adapt a single technology for various, specific implementations.

SEGA contracted for a custom addition of an integrated 128-bit vector FPU to the SH-4, a specificly console-tweaked PowerVR Series 2 part, and a custom Yamaha part. It makes sense from a design standpoint and is also the way the manufacturers do business.

BlackBelt work was part of 3Dfx's next designs, and they did get to capitalize on it for future products since the project had fallen through. Feeling compromised and afraid that SEGA might pass along confidential information it learned from 3Dfx's intellectual properties to competitors, they filed to sue and eventually received something like $10 million in a settlement from the defendants.

Sonic:

Lazy8's, where do you get your information from? The Real3D chip isn't even in existence you're speaking of. Promises were made but never kept, SEGA ditched the company a long time ago in favor of what it knew would be much superior arcade hardware. Real3D just couldn't compete price to performance wise, and it would have failed if it had even tried to.

The strength of Real3D's technology base was its ability to sustain high-end effects in game situations without as much explicit compromise as many competitors. The compromise was more implicit to the hardware, partly from its robust layout and therefore costlier design. SEGA and Lockheed's try for collaboration on a console successor did come early, soon after delivering Saturn actually. Because of the especially sensitive pricing issue though, it ultimately didn't work out, so the project wasn't completed. Surprisingly, and illustrating what you and Megadrive1988 were saying about their unwillingness to adapt for a consumer marketplace, a Lockheed engineer themself then candidly said that the PC chip designers would serve SEGA's needs better.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Lazy8s, that reminds me of what was in the Nov 1995 Next Generation article on Sega-Lockheed working on Saturn2

Next Generation 11, Nov 95:

Sega initially approached Lockheed Martin in the fall of 1994 to design a new game box that would replace the Saturn - which was due to ship 2 months later in Japan - but due to the strong relationship between Sega and Hitachi it never happened. Now Sega has conceded internally that Saturn will face tough competition from the PSX and will not be able to match the onslaught from the Ultra 64 in 96. LMC has therefore been given the go-ahead to start work on Saturn 2, although it's not yet known exactly what form it will take. The current understanding is that the system will be a standalone console, but it's possible that Sega could save money by using the existing Saturn as an I/O device, CD drive, and power supply

So Sega approached Lockheed Martin about a console (or upgrade) at least twice. before the Saturn was launched in Japan and again after.

 

[Reznor007]

I thought war gods said 3dfx inside, if it had 3dfx inside, why have software rendering?
And I thought cruisin'usa was done on the ultra 64 hardware.

War Gods didn't have 3dfx mentioned. The only real new thing it advertised was DCS2 sound system, which was the first RAM based DCS system(all earlier versions were ROM based).

And there was no Ultra64 hardware. Cruisin was the TMS32031+ADSP2105 combo, and Killer Instinct was a MIPS R4600+ADSP2105. Ultra64 was a marketing scheme by Nintendo.

 

[Reznor007]

Reznor007:

The War Gods arcade hardware was just a TMS 32031 at 50MHz with an ADSP2115 audio DSP. The 3d was all software rendering. Cruisin'USA was the same board.

Memory slip... I meant MACE: The Dark Age, not War Gods.

Blackbelt was to use technology developed subsequent to MACE's Voodoo + MIPS R5000 core.

http://www.system16.com/atari/hrdw_seattle.html

Ah, I see. I actually have a Seattle board myself NFL Blitz '99. The 3dfx chips on it are essentially a Voodoo2(Voodoo core with 2 TMU chips).

 

[Reznor007]

Considering that is running on a voodoo 1, the games actually look on par with some lesser dreamcast games. Well, if they have a solid 60 fps framerate then they are. Though, despite having no evidence at all, I've always thought many earlier dreamcast games had been designed for inferior 3dfx hardware and quickly converted to powervr.(ignoring the arcade and pc ports)

The Seattle system games are 60FPS from what I remember. I only have Blitz '99, but CarnEvil is 60FPS, and I believe Mace was as well. FWIW, Hydro Thunder, Offroad Thunder, Arctic Thunder, and all SF Rush games are 3dfx based also. For some reason the DC port of Rush 2049 doesn't look as good despite DC being considered more powerful.

 

[Sonic]

Lazy8's, where do you get your information from? What Real3D had in the pipeline wasn't nearly powerful enough for what SEGA wanted the Dreamcast to be. How do you like the Virtua Fighter 3 conversion to Dreamcast? Well, if you have anything to nitpick about it then I see where you may think a Real3D solution might have been better off. Too bad it wasn't, because the rumored Saturn upgrade had very horrible graphics for its VF3 game compared to the DC port.

 

[Megadrive1988]

I heard that actual Saturn upgrade was using a PowerVR1 chip not Lockheed Real3D. even though for several years, there was report & speculation that Sega would have a 3D upgrade cart using the Lockheed Martin Real3D-100 plus a PowerPC CPU.

I am confident that VF3 ported to a Real3D-100 plus PPC CPU would have been truly exellent. probably looking very nice with its 750,000 textured polygon with features-on capability. arcade Model 3 VF3 used under 1Mpps so VF3 would've been able to work on R3D-100 + PPC, I just don't know how a R3D + PPC would work in the Saturn though. (probably difficult)

A VF3 conversion to a PowerVR1 upgrade for Saturn would indeed have horrible graphics compared to the arcade. PowerVR1 was 1/5th or 1/7th as powerful as PowerVR2, and barely a match for Model 2, much less Model 3.

 

[Lazy8s]

Megadrive1988:

So Sega approached Lockheed Martin about a console (or upgrade) at least twice. before the Saturn was launched in Japan and again after.

Those both might have been part of an ongoing research relationship between the companies. The job of delivering the Saturn would actually be over for some SEGA engineers several months before the commercial launch, as R&D had been completed and just mass production awaited, and they'd begin exploring partnerships for the next console at least that early and continue them until a definite forerunner that best met the goals emerged.