Xbox in 2000, will its graphics still reign supreme.......!?

It was a generalization about having the option between the two in terms of hardware. You give developers the option to run 5x as many lights or 5x as many polys, the lights haven't stood a chance. This has remained a constant across all development platforms- PC, Console or Arcarde.

Except it looks extremely poor compared to proper lighting for anything real time. Disjointed shadows work wonders to destroy realism. We are pretty much already at the point where developers are going to move straight from lightmaps to extensive shader effects for lighting.

Per pixel lighting was nice in 2K when it started showing up regularly in games, but the number of lights utilized has remained low despite the vastly improved performance characteristics of current hardware. What I'm talking about is utilizing various PS/VS effects in tandem with an increased amount of lights. I guess you could say that Dot3 or CubeMaps would fall under that general guideline, but I was thinking more extensive utilization of a combination of shader effects ala Doom3. It seems that all the games looming on the horizon utilizing a decent amount of lights are going to be far more limited by the shader performance then they are by setup calcs(which have a relatively speaking minor impact on VS performance).

Simply using multiple lights for the sake of multiple lights has never caught on with game developers, nor will it likely ever do so. Using additional poly simply for the sake of increased geometry has been constant since the start of 3D and will continue to be until it is no longer relevant in terms of count due to density. The same is not true of lighting. One light with true complete radiosity calculations will look a lot better then six, sixty of six hundred basic lights.

 

Aww, too bad I guess.

Also, is Elan T&L bandwidth limited ? or can you still double the clock rate and still used the SDRAM without going to DDR.

I wonder why PVR, hasn't release high end card like ATI and NVIDIA or even MATROX. Given the cost of cards are mostly due to expensive memory, PVR can get away with slightly more expensive chip.

Those high end card really leverage the low end card as well as improve company's image

 

Nobody said a console would use the exact board as the arcade. The DC doesn't use the NAOMI 1 does it? A NAOMI 2 based console would be similar to the NAOMI 1 based DC...VERY easily doable.

 

T&L - Yes
SFX - No
mem bandwidth - system No, framebuffer Yes
fillrate - Yes

zurich[/quote]

 

It should've Looking at some of the NAOMI to DC port, they should give both the same amount of RAM at least.

 

Specifically which ports are you talking about? AFAIK NAOMI 1 to DC ports were 99.9% identical.

 

Texture filtering, blend modes, and anything on the perpixel level (lighting)

zurich

 

Most of them. Crazy Taxi, DOA2, F355, etc, Like you said its 99.9%, but that extra 0.1% makes all the difference.

 

Sorry, but I just don't see it. BTW I've seem Virtua Tennis in the arcade and it looked different, but not necessarily better. Probably has to do with the monitor that are used in arcade cabinets.

 

Yet you said its 99.9%. I guess its like how most of my friends don't see the jaggieness on the early PS2 games, until you point it out to them.

Then I guess, majority of people don't really see the difference between VF4 on N2 and VF4 on PS2. So what's the point of having a slight advantage if majority don't see that advantage ?

Than you should wonder why N1 spec is different compare to DC spec.

 

The 99.9% figure is based off of the fact that compression is used more on the DC version of the game. It's not based on what I have seen. What I've seen says 100% perfect port

VF4 on N2 and VF4 on PS2 is a BIG difference not 0.1%. The fact that PS2 isn't using N2 technology accounts for that difference.

N1 wasn't designed to show the difference between DC graphics and N1 graphics. It was created as a platform for quick porting to DC with little if any graphics downgrading

The difference between N1 and DC is the arcade experience not graphics.

 

A big difference if you don't know it, is the same as no different at all, that's the point I am getting at.

If it were the same spec, wouldn't it be even easier ?

Well there are graphics different. Last time I listed them down, in game such as CT by putting the DC and the Arcade version side by side. That was ages ago. I can't be bothered doing it anymore.

 

But that analogy is flawed because VF4 on PS2 looks obviously downgraded from the N2 version. OTOH DC ports of N1 games don't look downgraded at all.

If DC had twice the memory it would've been easier obviously, but it would've cost more to manufacture which wasn't an option. Again N1 was arcade tech so it could afford to be more expensive.

Assuming there is a visible difference, that's only one game. That's far from most or majority. DOA2 wasn't a N1 game btw. Bottom line is, the majority of N1 -> DC ports were 99.9% the same graphically...period.

 

Some of my friends can't tell a difference between PS2 and Arcade version of VF4. The analogy is only flawed to you because you can't see the different.

No, not just one game, most of the game that get the conversion, showed the typical downgrading.

DOA2 wasn't N1 ? what was it ? Model 3 ? Hikaru ?, System 246 ?, N2 ?
You don't play in the arcade alot from the looks of things.

 

Actually, it was.

http://www.system16.com/sega/hrdw_naomi.html#doa2

 

Still doesn't change the fact that it didn't look any different from the DC port

But thanks for clearing that up.

Huh?? Read what I posted. I said it's obviously downgraded ESPECIALLY since it's not using the same hardware as N2. N1->DC ports are NOT obviously downgraded IF AT ALL!

BTW bringing your friends into the equation isn't going to support your argument instead it's showing that you don't have a valid one to begin with.

If that's what you believe then I'll just leave it at that. I think is OBVIOUS that a DC port of a NAOMI 1 game will be a lot closer than a PS2 port of a NAOMI 2 game since DC and N1 is basically the same system and ESPECIALLY when N1 is using 25% texture compression and DC using 75%. VF4 on PS2, however, was blurry and jagged among other things.