Comparison of 5th generation ("32/64-bit") game console hardware

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but lets see who clever you are after a 13 hour night shift and the need to take pics of your Saturn games running on real hardware and on a CRT ,more of a pain in the ass that just going to youtube and just linking a video that's for sure

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Hold the presses! Turning on a TV and taking a snapshot with your phone is that fucking complicated now?

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Originally Posted by Black_Tiger

I only have free time to make short posts from my phone, so I can't post drawings to illustrate some of the differences in the pics at the top of this page. I'm pretty sure that in Megamix, Akira's hands never animate/open and are just balls.

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All the hands are animated, best seen in winposes, but even if you just go through every move in practice mode. Open palms are needed for many moves like hand presses and such. Pretty sure even VF1 had those.

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Originally Posted by zyrobs

Duke 3d seems to use 4bit CLUT sprites for the landscape + gouraud shading on them for lightning. Other sprites are 8bit.
Not many games use RGB colour polygons, they are slower to draw and use more memory.

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I was talking about the framebuffer end. (paletted 16-bpp vs 5-5-5 RGB modes)

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Gouraud shading on the Saturn works by combining 2 RGB values, one taken from the target pixel, one from the shading lookup table (traditional Gouraud shading only affects the luminance). One entry in the shading table includes four (one for each vertex) 5bit RGB values, so 32 shades for each component. These values are interpolated to the target sprites size. Colour values above 16 are reduced by 16 and added, values below 16 are subtracted as is from the target pixels colour values. So in theory you can add or subtract 16 values to each colour component - for RGB sprites.
If you only want to increase only one colour component, you set up the shading entries to include a colour that only has that colour component, and 10h (no change) for the other two.

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So the lighting on the saturn uses a lookup-table to approximate linear (multiplicative luminance) lighting using simple addition logic? (I was thinking they simply used linear additive/subtractive blending, but that would be a nice workaround -short of the expense of adding fast multipliction logic into VDP1)

Also, the method used for lighting a polygon should apply to both flat and gouraud shaded objects, obviously there's additional shading logic needed for g-shading, but I'm just speaking about lighting. (taking a source color value and lighting it)

If that is the case, and multiplicative lighting is reasonably approximated, then I'm again confused as to why Tomb Radier ended up looking the way it did, lighting wise.

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Things get more tricky if you use gouraud shading on sprites with palettes, since the VDP1 will still perform the same mathematical operation on them as with RGB sprites. In this case you use red gouraud shading (the other two components are set to 16 for no operations), because those are written to the same least significant bits as the palette entries are. You are effectively using gouraud shading to go to lower/higher palette entries dynamically.
The downside is that you ultimately have less palettes to use, as you need x extra entries for every level of lightning, for every texture that is dynamically lit.

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What if you used 16 color CLUT textures exclusively and then a custom framebuffer palette (in 16bpp mode) so you wouldn't have weird trade-offs in color usage as with 16/64/128/256 color paletted textures?

I'm not totally sure exactly WHY you'd want to do that rather than 5-5-5 RGB rendering, except maybe getting somewhat smoother/better colors or gradients (paletted from 24-bit RGB) and having more priority bits to work with for mixing in VDP2 layers rather than the 1-bit priority 5-5-5 RGB has.

Again, not sure about working in 8bpp framebuffer mode though. (you'd need to be able to modify the LSBs of individual bytes, not 16-bit words)

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For CLUTs, they are just pre-stored colour values in VDP1 VRAM. One table has 16 entries, each 16bit long, and each entry can have any data that a normal sprites would otherwise have - so straight RGB or palette entries. The VDP1 just takes the colour entries from the table and writes them to framebuffer. Gouraud shading is probably applied on these entries after they are taken, so same thing happens as described above.
The advantage seems to be that you can swap out CLUTs on the fly, without having to redefine each palette, thus making it simpler to do coloured lightning among others.

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That, and CLUT textures are the only option for compressed textures in 5-5-5 RGB framebuffer mode (can't rely on paletted modes), but in paletted modes you've got the flexibility of remapping colors beyond shifting linear offsets within the CRAM palette range. (which limits you to consecutive colors in CRAM)

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

And I'm sure you do this to wind me up . Its nothing at all to do with the lighting because if one plays Fighters MegaMix which uses more polygons and features full lighting effects the joints aren't are smooth, same goes for Fighting Vipers on the Saturn (which also supports lighting) . Like Tekken 2 (which also supports lighting) Last Bronx (arcade and Saturn, VF 2 (Arcade) the characters arms just aren't as smooth and have rectangle like lines/blocks making up their Arms - something which you don't see in Saturn's VF 2 or Dead Or Alive

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I'm saying the LACK of lighting on the Saturn version of Virtua Fighter 2 is THE reason the models look smoother. No lighting means no obvious facets on models due to flat shading. (granted, nice use of gouraud shading would also make things smoother than the Arcade game, since Sega's Model 2 lacked smooth shading)

It's super obvious when you look at the PC version of VFII, the models look "smoother" in the same way when you use static lighting. (I noticed this around 3 years ago when the PC game was being compared on Sega-16)

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Originally Posted by zyrobs

No, not really, it has been confirmed by interviews with key Sega people, and we also know that they were asking NVidia and 3DFX as early as 1995.

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I fail to see what the mention of Nvidia, 3DFX, and PowerVR (etc) have to do with Sega's radical product (mis)management and priority restructuring in 1995/96 (and then again in 97, ugh)
Companies are ALWAYS planning for next gen hardware, and remember it often takes 3-4 years to develop such hardware and bring it to market (unless you're talking something super primitive and rushed like the 32x :p ).

The Saturn was almost certainly in full design/engineering progress by 1992, so having the next gen system in the works by 1995 wouldn't be unusual, and as it is, we can see they were persuing several different possible projects in Japan and the US. (plans related to Nvidia's NV-2 and development systems using the NV-1 and very problematic wirewrap NV-2 sumulators -which apparently never worked right, and then the later PowerVR and 3DFX dealings)


Sega's "cancellation" of several major products in favor of the Saturn in '95/96 has been somewhat exaggerated at times, and overlooked in other cases (and isn't fully understood in any case), but from as near as I can tell it was a collective mess of crappy transition to the Saturn and crappy management of their myriad of products at the time. (and poor damage control over the 32x situation and poor response to Sony's new big presence on the market -especially outside Japan)

The MD, 32x, Saturn, GG, CD, and even Pico and SMS to some extent were all mismanaged at the time, and things never really got better overall . . . they kind of stagnated and settled down in 1996 with the Saturn being weakened due to the crappy start but still somewhat OK, and then just falling apart in early 1997, and then totally pulling back from Saturn and replacing it with absolutely nothing for the >2 years before DC arrived in the US. (which is where I point out that, if they were unwilling or unable to support the Saturn as a proper, mainstream platform at least into 1999, then they had no business planning for the Dreamcast either, they should have just cut their losses and started transitioning to software only at that point)


On a related note: there was nothign wrong with the timing of the Saturn's development or its release in Japan, or the planned fall 1995 release originally schuduled for the US. And hardware cost/complexity (and development environment) issues aside, the big issue was totally on the mangement/marketing end for all the Sega consoles on the market (including 32x, which at very least should have had much better damage control if not proper follow-through for the original plan to support it as a semi-mainstream platform through 1996 -if only in North America, which is the only place it came close to taking off).
Regardless of whether they should have released it at all, they made things worse after the fact too . . . then the Saturn's E3 pre-launch fiasco and trickledown of problems from there all leading into a compromised 1995 holday season, and then problems lingering in 1996 too.

At the same time you have their major mainstream 1995 (and '96) products in the MD and GG also being mismanaged with a lack of focus in properly transitioning the MD into the long-term low-end, low volume, high profit market sector (without odd hesitation or having to completely outsource/license distribution), and then compromising the GG's potential to really compete in the handheld sector in the mid/late 90s. See: http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...ame-Gear/page2


They made some major mistakes complemented by a bunch of smaller ones, and then, before they could rectify any of that (or at least much of it), they made yet more mistakes and things continued in a downward spiral . . . which continued up through the Dreamcast years too, if you really look at things all around. (some mistakes weren't repeated, but others were, and new ones appeared along with old problems just chuging alone much as they did in the mid 90s)

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

Or you could just use SSF, it's more than adequate for this kind of comparison.

I'm not going to stop with the lighting because the lighting is the issue here. It may not be the issue with Last Bronx but it IS the issue with Virtua Fighter 2 and Dead or Alive. In the arcades those games use simple flat shaded lighting, on the Saturn they have no lighting whatsoever. If you apply flat shaded lighting to the Saturn Models using the same textures you will see the exact same rectangular lines you are complaining about. If you don't believe me take a look at the PC version shots sheath posted earlier. In the PC Version you can use the Saturn models and the higher quality Arcade ones. You are also able to turn lighting on and off. If you turn lighting off all those rectangular lines go away. If you turn it on they show up, even on the Saturn models.

Saturn Models without lighting:
http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/sites/...omp/VF2PC1.JPG

Saturn Models with lighting:
http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/sites/...omp/VF2PC2.JPG

GASP! The rectangular lines have appeared!

Arcade Models with lighting:
http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/sites/...omp/VF2PC4.JPG

Arcade Models without lighting:
http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/sites/...omp/VF2PC3.JPG

GASP! The rectagnular lines disappeared!

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You know, the textures (and color choices) look nicer/smoother on the Saturn models . . . the polygon count doesn't seem that much lower either (hard to tell at a glance), but yeah, that's exactly what I was talking about with the lighting effects.


Also, in that Last Bronx vs VF2 screenshot comparison TA posted, I'm seeing polygon facets almost as easily on VFII, it's only the greater variety (and more complex) textures in LB that make the seams more obvious.

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Or you could just use SSF, it's more than adequate for this kind of comparison

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Some of us here like to use the real deal when it comes to someone posting links with Super Nintendo Emu ;) :P . And that's overlooking that SSF isn't 100% perfect

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GASP! The rectangular lines have appeared!

Arcade Models with lighting:

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Gasp those aren't even Arcade models but never mind .

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Hold the presses! Turning on a TV and taking a snapshot with your phone is that fucking complicated now

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Seems that way since so many here don't do the same . And yes setting up the Saturn to the CRT, digging out the games and then uploading them is a bit of a pain imo.

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I'm saying the LACK of lighting on the Saturn version of Virtua Fighter 2 is THE reason the models look smoother.

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The joints are even smoother than those found in Decatlete, Last Bronx on the Saturn - both games which have zero lighting or something like Final Fight Revenge . It just seems like with Digital Dance Mix AM#2 liked the smoother look and using less polygons too

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Some of us here like to use the real deal when it comes to someone posting links with Super Nintendo Emu ;) :P . And that's overlooking that SSF isn't 100% perfect

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It's good enough for this though.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Gasp those aren't even Arcade models but never mind .

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Regardless it still proves the point that the issue you have with the visible edges of the polygons is related to lighting.

Looking at the actual models, I don't see anything that looks smoother on the Saturn than the Arcade . . . everything is equal at best and (much more often) noticeably blockier on the Saturn.

It does look like the textures might have been specifically optimized to have sort of a smooth shading effect with the static lighting in mind.

I'm 99% sure if the Model 2 had gouraud shaded lighting, we wouldn't even be discussing this.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Some of us here like to use the real deal when it comes to someone posting links with Super Nintendo Emu ;) :P . And that's overlooking that SSF isn't 100% perfect

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People are using emulator screenshots because it's more convenient and you get nice pixel perfect output without any video cable interference, ghosting, camera focus issues, etc. For technical comparisons, they are more accurate than 100x zooms on your CRTs aperture grille.

SSF isn't 100% accurate, but the biggest inaccuracies lie in getting games booting - the video hardware itself is near 100% correct with only two minor functions missing.

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Gasp those aren't even Arcade models but never mind .

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They are. Unless you are implying that they made a third set of character models for the PC release.

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Seems that way since so many here don't do the same . And yes setting up the Saturn to the CRT, digging out the games and then uploading them is a bit of a pain imo.

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Is this supposed to be sarcasm, because it is very difficult to not reply to this without resorting to insults.
It takes 10 minutes for me to "dig out" any of my Saturns (including the boxed away ones), set up the cables, put the game CD inside, turn it on, and take a snapshot. And it would be all worthless because you couldn't really see any details better than on emulator screenshots.

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Originally Posted by zyrobs

Is this supposed to be sarcasm, because it is very difficult to not reply to this without resorting to insults.
It takes 10 minutes for me to "dig out" any of my Saturns (including the boxed away ones), set up the cables, put the game CD inside, turn it on, and take a snapshot. And it would be all worthless because you couldn't really see any details better than on emulator screenshots.

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Some of us have stuff packed away and/or TVs embedded in cabinets that aren't easy to hook things up to . . . and may not have external switchboxes in use. (or dongles to the same effects)

Anyone with dedicated game rooms or modular gaming set-ups for specific TVs shouldn't have that problem though, but not all of us do.


Let me tell you, growing up it was NOT trivial hooking up a new game system in our family room . . . it's really not any better now either, but we don't use it as a modular gaming set-up. (consoles stay there all the time . . . or hook-ups do at least)

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People are using emulator screenshots because it's more convenient

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Or more like most people don't own the actual hardware never mind have it set up to a CRT TV . Which I can fully understand given how much space a CRT TV it's self can take up these day's , never mind the pain of switching the Scart leads at the back of the TV, every time you want to play a different classic consoles

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It's good enough for this though

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No Saturn Emu comes close to matching the High Res image one gets from a Saturn Hooked up to a CRT TV, never mind when you hook one up in RGB Scart . Same goes for the N64 Emu which will never fully replicate the washed out look one gets from a actual N64 hooked up to CRT. Its much the same for Amiga emu's (most of which have issues with 4:3)

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Looking at the actual models, I don't see anything that looks smoother on the Saturn than the Arcade

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Then you really need to play both and you see a vast difference in both , while Last Bronx on the Saturn keeps the more chunkier look of its Arcade counter part. Tekken 3 (which features lighting) goes for the smoother look (over Tekken 1& 2 ) too.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Or more like most people don't own the actual hardware never mind have it set up to a CRT TV . Which I can fully understand given how much space a CRT TV it's self can take up these day's , never mind the pain of switching the Scart leads at the back of the TV, every time you want to play a different classic consoles

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Or we don't take shots of our TVs because it looks crummy. And it's not really worth digging out my Capture card when SSF will give a better shot without cable interference.

My Saturn is currently hooked up to my 20 inch CRT Television. I'm not going to bother taking a shot of the screen for a technical comparison though because it would be worthless.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

No Saturn Emu comes close to matching the High Res image one gets from a Saturn Hooked up to a CRT TV, never mind when you hook one up in RGB Scart . Same goes for the N64 Emu which will never fully replicate the washed out look one gets from a actual N64 hooked up to CRT. Its much the same for Amiga emu's (most of which have issues with 4:3)

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Right, because your CRT blurs things while SSF just gives you a clean shot of what's in the frame buffers. The N64 issue has more to do with the fact that most emulators use OpenGL renders to enhance the image. SSF doesn't do that.

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And it's not really worth digging out my Capture card when SSF will give a better shot without cable interference.

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There's no capture card that can really do justice to a Saturn hooked up to a RGB Scart input . I use SSF but playing the likes of Saga on the emu, isn't quite the same as playing it on real hardware much like no matter how good the code was playing RSG on a actual Saturn is better than playing it on the 360 . The 360 lacks that crisp display that you only get when playing Saturn in scart and all emu's don't replicate the lovely shimmer effect you get when you see Saturn High Res on a CRT , Saturn 's Virtual On High Res title screen makes one eye bleed on CRT lol .

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Right, because your CRT blurs things while SSF just gives you a clean shot of what's in the frame buffers.

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Yep so the emu is not 100% accurate or the true to real effect one got from playing the actual Hardware on the then standard TV . N64 image output is pretty shit true be told

Eh, I have RGB and S-Video and the only difference is the whiteness level, *all* of the details visible in one are visible in the other. My capture card does S-Video justice as well, you just have to watch out for compression artifacts.

As for using emulation to compare polygon models, accurate or no the emulator cannot change the models. You might get framerate issues or tearing, but the emulator is not going to add or take away polygons.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

There's no capture card that can really do justice to a Saturn hooked up to a RGB Scart input . I use SSF but playing the likes of Saga on the emu, isn't quite the same as playing it on real hardware much like no matter how good the code was playing RSG on a actual Saturn is better than playing it on the 360 . The 360 lacks that crisp display that you only get when playing Saturn in scart and all emu's don't replicate the lovely shimmer effect you get when you see Saturn High Res on a CRT , Saturn 's Virtual On High Res title screen makes one eye bleed on CRT lol .

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Try playing 360 Radiant Silvergun over HDMI with all the new effects turned off and the original HUD. It looks the same. The 360 is perfectly capable of recreating that crisp image the Saturn gives you, as it can display an even crisper image due to it being able to render in higher resolutions.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Yep so the emu is not 100% accurate or the true to real effect one got from playing the actual Hardware on the then standard TV . N64 image output is pretty shit true be told

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It's accurate to what the Saturn is actually drawing, not what your TV does with it. Which is how it should be. It's a Sega Saturn emulator, not a CRT emulator after all.

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Try playing 360 Radiant Silvergun over HDMI with all the new effects turned off and the original HUD. It looks the same.

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What? You think I don't play my 360 through HDMI . Since I the elite came I've used HDMI for the 360 on my HDTV Plamza . But no playing RSG over HDMI you don't get the shimmer or the crisp clean image that CRT and its scan lines gives Saturn games through RGB, its the only downfall of the Flat Screen HD age . The colours in the title screen of RSG on the 360 aren't quite right for starters but the trouble with emu I mean there's some that still say Ikaruga on the DC is better thanks to crisper and better colours

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Eh, I have RGB and S-Video and the only difference is the whiteness level

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Don't think I ever seen a Capture card with a RGB Input , and yes I use S-Video for my Wondermega and Saturn captures , but even Saturn S-Video pales to the Saturn RGB output

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It's accurate to what the Saturn is actually drawing, not what your TV does with it

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Note quite they'll be the odd effect here and there that isn't done or doesn't look quite right.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

What? You think I don't play my 360 through HDMI . Since I the elite came I've used HDMI for the 360 on my HDTV Plamza . But no playing RSG over HDMI you don't get the shimmer or the crisp clean image that CRT and its scan lines gives Saturn games through RGB, its the only downfall of the Flat Screen HD age . The colours in the title screen of RSG on the 360 aren't quite right for starters but the trouble with emu I mean there's some that still say Ikaruga on the DC is better thanks to crisper and better colours

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So you are saying a CRT running at 240p will look crisper and cleaner than an HD Plasma running at 1080p? Wow, just wow. Seriously TA, as much as I love the Saturn even I must admit that RS on the 360 looks leaps and bounds better. The only reason I prefer the Saturn version is that it's a tad bit more forgiving with continues in Saturn mode.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Note quite they'll be the odd effect here and there that isn't done or doesn't look quite right.

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Is Last Bronx or VF2 one of these games?

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So you are saying a CRT running at 240p will look crisper and cleaner than an HD Plasma running at 1080p?

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When you're playing an old console on it - given the way the HD TV will up scale the whole image and even if you play a retro title made for LIVE on the current consoles it's never quite the same as playing the old console on a CRT . I can see the colours in RSG 360 aren't quite nailed on (in the title screen) NiGHTS is far from perfect on the 360 I'm sure the Dremcast fanboys have pointed out the differences of playing Sonic Adv 1 and II or Ikaruga on an actual DC to that of XBOX Live.
Even the M2 Mega Drive games on XBox Live aren't as good as playing a actual Mega Drive on a CRT tv, given the Mega Drive utterly fantastic RGB output through scart. Its not always about the better imag, e its more about what the actual console games looked like playing it and setting it up to the screen of the day.

Its really hard to get that classic scan line look you got from a console hooked up to a half decent Scart TV, on any PC screen or HD TV.

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as much as I love the Saturn even I must admit that RS on the 360 looks leaps and bounds better

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Its starts to look more like a flash game when you add in the new graphical modes imo, I hate them , much like I hate most of the filter effects for old games on XBOX LIVE or PSN