Sega Saturn vs N64 hardware wise
- Thread starter jackal256
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It's impossible to know.. Just look at the modder who recoded and optimized the Mario 64 source code to run a much more graphically impressive mod of the game on actual hardware at 30fps
There's simply a lot more understanding these days of how to optimize and render things more efficiently.. so in reality we never saw the true potential of the hardware.. and while perhaps to a lesser degree, that will continue to remain true for current and future generations as well. Not to mention budgets and time are finite.. and that's a large reason why we don't see a lot of the true potential of various hardware until many many years later if at all.
It would be really awesome to have some developers go back and really push these classic consoles to the breaking point and take us on a journey through the process of doing so and having a big comparison. I would love that so much.
There's simply a lot more understanding these days of how to optimize and render things more efficiently.. so in reality we never saw the true potential of the hardware.. and while perhaps to a lesser degree, that will continue to remain true for current and future generations as well. Not to mention budgets and time are finite.. and that's a large reason why we don't see a lot of the true potential of various hardware until many many years later if at all.
It would be really awesome to have some developers go back and really push these classic consoles to the breaking point and take us on a journey through the process of doing so and having a big comparison. I would love that so much.
This seems to tun it in emulation not actual hardware. Or am I wrong?
Some of the footage is from emulator, or "PC virtual console" as he calls it lol.. But later in the video you see it on actual hardware.
Here's one that shows actual n64 footage
No, because the feature set is so different. Even if you could match the models and environments in raw assets, the lack of perspective correction and filtering would totally change the way the game looks. Not to mention the intro, where the whole screen is wobbly when Conker is drunk. Maybe you could render the whole framebuffer to a texture and then distort it using the CPU, but I don't think the performance is there for that effect.
One of the big advantages N64 had was it's filtering and perspective correction. If you look at the environments in many N64 games in wireframe, you can see how they didn't have to resort to doing things like subdivision to keep the textures stable when they are close to the camera.
You guys instroduced me to a new, nerdy rabbit hole to dive into. That Kaze guy is entertaining, in a deeply nerdy way 
Yet a lot of 3D Saturn games didn't suffer like the PSone did despite this. Also Dev tools were very immature than with N64 & PSX, Since you had to code on hardware with 2x CPU's and a dual core GPU.
But still it is very different architecturally and its hardware configuration is less straightforward and very different from both the N64 and the PS1
Saturn games still have plenty of rendering issues with polygons close to the camera. Plus, when you are comparing to N64, games like Conker have landscapes made out of large polygons. A little wobble on a polygon that takes up 10% or more of the screen means that 10% or more of your image in unstable.
Yet quake 2 & Ridge Racer type 4 show you can overcome it with better tools & software tricks.
That because Sega wanted near N64 tier power with 1993 hardware. It pretty much the 90s version of the PS3.
Oh I m a bit confused with that statement. Nor Sega nor Sony knew details about the N64, and Sega's rejection of one of the hardware options for the Saturn ended up in becoming the N64 we know.
Sega was interested in reaching and potentially surpassing the PS when they found out how much better the PS hardware was compared to the Saturn design they were initially making.
The Saturn is the result of making changes too late and following the arcade board paradigm. The numbers on paper mattered more than practicality for Sega Japan.
Even Sega Japan themselves probably werent sure what the hardware was supposed to be doing in an ideal scenario.
Its like they slapped different processing units and hoping for the best.
It didnt work out well.
Nintendo had completely committed themselves to 3D gaming with the N64 and that differs greatly from what the Saturn could do. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the Saturn was a beast with 2D sprites, far superior to the N64 in that area. It is funny that the N64 processor was originally pitched to Sega and they turned it down. Hard to say if that choice would have changed the fate of the Saturn. The main advantage the N64 had over the Saturn and certainly the PSX was the way it handled textures. One of the reasons many N64 games can look good in HD. The geometry is simple and even though the textures are low resolution, they look correct.
Are forgetting this is 1993 were talking about not 1996?, Sega wanted It out to rival the PSone but knew they couldn't make 1x CPU & GPU with the power needed without waiting 2.5 years later. The N64 had ram latency issues & was capped to 4KB textures, The Saturn didn't have that issue.
This was the same era where PC games only used the CPU where video cards were seen as more of gimmick.
Well yes of course we are talking about 1993. Thats why Sega was trying to rival PS and not the N64 as you initially suggested. All hardware choices had their pros and cons but the Saturn was obviously the most convoluted and overall the most problematic one.
Sega of America and Sony were going to collaborate initially to make the console together. Rejected by Sega of Japan because according to Sega of Japan, what does Sony know about console hardware and games? Ironically that initial meeting with SoA gave Sony an idea of the future of gaming which SoA and Sony were aligned with. 3D was the future. Virtua Fighter 1 indicated that.
Then Sega of America went to SGI, made a hardware prototype, rejected by Sega of Japan because it wasnt good enough. Then SGI fixed the problems, went back to Sega of Japan, again rejected because of an underestimating attitude towards Kalinske, Sega of America in general and against other companies.
SGI already made R&D expenses and were like "what are we gonna do with this now". Kalinske since was a good partner and managed relationships better than SoJ, told them there are other companies that might be interested in that. They went to Nintendo.
That R&D by SGI was the backbone of what ended up in the N64. Of course revisions were made based on costs and what Nintendo wanted. But that hardware was more straightforward and according to rumors, easier to make games on and probably more competitive with the PS.
Basically the Saturn hardware was the result of Sega of Japan underestimating competition first, which caught them off guard with the PS capabilities, and later it was the arrogance and resentful competitive culture towards their western partner Sega of America.
Surely some things the Saturn did a bit better. But in general it was a pain in the ass and struggled to put out competitive results. The Panzer Dragoon creators at GDC said that when they saw the initial revelation of the PS hardware running Ridge Racer they felt that they were screwed. Then when they worked on the final Sega Saturn hardware to make the Panzer Dragoon games, although their games were some of the best showcases of the hardware, often used by the biggest Saturn fans as examples of hardware superiority, they said that they would never wish to work on such a messy hardware ever again. They felt that the Sega Saturn was not good hardware.
The design of the games that shined on the hardware were extremely limited to the specific hardware challenges and capabilities. Much more so than the top games did on PS and the N64.
For example you would see less texture warping on the Saturn in relation to the PS but still was there, while framerates were generally much worse, transparencies were inconsistent, color palette was not clean, sound was worse because of lack of hardware compression etc.
It was simply put, a mess. Much more messy than PS2 and PS3 ever were.
But I surely give a hats off to the amazing Quake on the Sega Saturn. That was a miracle. One of the most impressive showcases of the generation. It surely makes us wonder what the Saturn could do with smart thinking. I am also very curious how a Quake game would have looked on the PS1 if it was tailored to the PS1 hardware and not a straight port running off the CPU like the did with Duke Nukem
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Probably a lot like the Quake 2 port on PS1, which is pretty great in a lot of ways but doesn't get the recognition that Saturn Quake does.
I'd love to see someone with today's knowledge to go back and try to improve saturn games. It was a really interesting compilations of chips. I think they could have gotten away with a better machine at the time through other means esp at the cost the saturn was. Nvidia , Videologdic , 3dfx , Matrox or whoever could have provided a decent enough 3d accelerator at the time to pair with an sh2 or even the sh3. I believe Digital foundry has a great video of the early video cards competiting against the n64 in star wars. They all offered pretty good results. I mean an sh-3 with a voodo 1 would have been more than enough to compete with the playstation. The saturn was a beat of a console in terms of computer chips. There were 2 sh-2 chips , the vdp1 and 2 and the sound chip from yamaha. I think they easily could have simplified by going with a 3d accelerator
Watching the videos you can see the trade offs each cards strength and weakness. I think this route would have depended on what cpu they would have needed to keep up with.
Heck the sh-3 itself would have added a memory management unit , modified cache , extended instruction set along with dsp extension. That could have been a saving grace for the saturn.
Or alternativly I wonder how much just having more ram would have helped the console from the get go. That extra 4 megs could have made a big difference.
Wanted to also add this DF retro video of quake
I think this shows how far ahead those cards are vs the n64 and saturn consoles
Watching the videos you can see the trade offs each cards strength and weakness. I think this route would have depended on what cpu they would have needed to keep up with.
Heck the sh-3 itself would have added a memory management unit , modified cache , extended instruction set along with dsp extension. That could have been a saving grace for the saturn.
Or alternativly I wonder how much just having more ram would have helped the console from the get go. That extra 4 megs could have made a big difference.
Wanted to also add this DF retro video of quake
I think this shows how far ahead those cards are vs the n64 and saturn consoles
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Sega was offered the N64 chipset but they didn't like it so SGI went over to Nintendo. That hardware was pretty lame in the Sega showing from what I gather, and Nintendo got an improved version of it.
It was just a time of crazy change and nobody knew what was best of course.
Voodoo1 Saturn would have been cool but Voodoo1 is really 1996 hardware and uses 3x 64-bit memory buses and two big ASICs. It probably requires 4MB RAM for itself. Not exactly cheap. It would completely outclass N64 though. It has something like 3x the effective z-buffered fillrate at 50 MHz vs N64's RCP's 62.5 MHz. I think Riva 128 was the first to catch up to that (but was fugly). Fun times!
It was just a time of crazy change and nobody knew what was best of course.
Voodoo1 Saturn would have been cool but Voodoo1 is really 1996 hardware and uses 3x 64-bit memory buses and two big ASICs. It probably requires 4MB RAM for itself. Not exactly cheap. It would completely outclass N64 though. It has something like 3x the effective z-buffered fillrate at 50 MHz vs N64's RCP's 62.5 MHz. I think Riva 128 was the first to catch up to that (but was fugly). Fun times!
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