The PS has a MPEG decoder in hardware, not JPEG.
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Heh, I always wondered why the magazines kept calling the video on PS1 JPEG compressed, that's always been pictures. The issue is always in the development kits/documentation and how standard they are. Everybody knows Sega's documentation wasn't all that clear early on and its dev kits weren't anywhere near what Sony sold developers with for the PS1 until 1996. That is the only real problem with some games having smaller windows or lower resolution for video.
Sorry the DC is far from a masterpiece it had a number of issues .. The Joypad was a joke not enough buttons and lack of dual sticks was pretty poor, it had no digital out , it had piss poor loading times and one of the worst and most noisey CD drive ever made and the decision not to go with DVD one of the dullest moves in history . It also had slow memory and weak support for lighting
? the PS3 is one of the best selling consoles in the history of consoles .Quote:
True that, thankfully this time Blu-ray wasn't enough for the PS3
Are you using CDRs? Almost all of my Dreamcast games load in 3-8 seconds, with a few going into the 12 seconds range. There are a couple of bad PC ports that are slower, but really the Dreamcast is a fast loading machine just like the Saturn was. Also, Dual Analog is overrated.
Not all kinds of games require dual sticks. I wouldn't want to play an FPS on the Dreamcast though that's true.
No?
Not really no, it's not as good as it should be but this is the most minor of complaints imaginable.
This was due to money problems at Sega (blame the saturn for that one). They wanted DVD support. This in contrast to the Gamecube which lacked DVD by choice.
Not enough of a limiting factor.
What do you mean?
It wasn't able to curbstomp the competition despite having the super strong PS2 library and Blu-Ray. In fact, most games are better on the 360.
Nope all originals.....
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8286/7...0897f5d1_b.jpg
Now the DC was poor at loading . Anyone that plays MSR street Racer will tell you that , never mind the noise the machine makes when loading in data (you can tell when an enemy is due to appear in D2 just by the noise the drive makes) and dual Analog overrated ? . It would have made playing Shenmue , Quake 3, Outrigger a help of a lot easier to play for starters
So is "movie JPEG" just MPEG? And if there's no difference why is the Playstation's video always clearer than the Saturn's? (Yes, always).Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
Nope. Playstation Wipeout's FMV is clearer than anything on Saturn including Deep Fear. I suppose Lunar Complete is a draw but that falls squarely in the meh box.
@ the DC's drive noise: some people get lucky, I don't think it connected to release date or anything, it's just that quite a lot of DCs make an obnoxious amount of noise that would ruin any thoughtful or atmospheric game and can even be annoying in multiplayer (where headphones aren't an option). I can't think of a comparison at the moment but it'd be something to do with cars, perhaps a faulty transmission.
Because it has a hardware MPEG decoder. Although the CPUs can be programmed to decode MPEG I'm not sure any game did. The format isn't free, developers would have to pay royalties for the decoding. Sega would have to provide the decoding library themselves and eat the licensing costs, and I'm pretty sure they didn't, otherwise the MPEG decoder card wouldn't exist.
A modern example would be free internet browsers like Firefox. The reason they originally didn't provide H264 video was that they'd have to eat the licensing costs. Now they just use the decoding libraries provided in each operating system which avoids the licensing issue.
Nothing to do with the Saturn and everything to do with SEGA wanted to sell the DC at low cost take a hit on the price . Which meant an end to the DVD drive .Quote:
This was due to money problems at Sega (blame the saturn for that one). They wanted DVD support.
Go and play MSR and then come back to meQuote:
No?
I mean it was poor for lighting effects , thanks to to Power VR only supporting Vertex lightingQuote:
What do you mean?
PS2 BC was dropped early in and the PS3 has outsold the 360 in Japan and Europe. The difference between the 2 systems in just a few million in sales . And its up for debate if 360 games are better;if you mean porting wise then Yes , but that's developers just being lazy again , though most PS3 ports or now more or less spot on and I would put to you the best looking games are on SONY system . I've seen nothing on the 360 that can beat the GFX I seen in Drakes III or God Of War 3Quote:
It wasn't able to curbstomp the competition despite having the super strong PS2 library and Blu-Ray. In fact, most games are better on the 360
That's where you confused me, with the "stupid waste of money" talk. Which it wasn't, it was a stupid waste of money to produce the FMVs or the games themselves when they weren't going to look their best because Sega refused to spend the extra cash on licensing the MPEG program.
Of course the Saturn still had great software, that's why it's not surprising it did as well as it did, only it could've done better--for an apparently endless list of reasons.
They've stated it was due to a lack of money for the license. And yeah the fact that the Dreamcast was as cheap as it was with hardware as good as it was says a lot.
That's one example, it's not like every game is like that.
They all use vertex lighting. The higher vertex counts are what hide it in the others.
The PS2 and Xbox can do per-pixel lighting effects like blooms, but it's not really "per pixel lighting". You can still see the vertex lighting even in the best looking Xbox game, Ninja Gaiden.
Yes I was talking about porting. It's suffering the same fate as the Saturn in that area. Something the PS2 didn't even though it also had overly complex hardware. The reason the latest PS3 ports are spot on is mostly thanks to the Unreal 3 engine.
So let me get this straight, one game has longer load times, so the Dreamcast has long load times? Most of the other games you just mentioned have fast load times.
I can play Dreamcast shooters just fine without the second analog stick, just like people can play shooters with a mouse and keyboard. It's just the limitation of buttons, requiring a function button to allow for more buttons, that causes the Dreamcast controller to be deficient. I've actually used the Dreamcast pad to play Battlefield 2 on PC, the analog stick is MUCH more sensitive than the Xbox 360's illustrious controller. I did about as well with either pad.
Outside of the Armored Core games, about the only thing the PS1 and PS2 did with the second analog stick was camera control, which is just silly.
I love the Dreamcast as much as anyone but I too wish it would've had a dual analog controller. While I don't think it's a major failing there's really no reason it shouldn't have had dual analog. I'm not a huge fan of the controller overall though.
Never noticed any issues with loading times myself but the drive noise is a valid complaint. That's something that either bothers you or it doesn't though. For me personally it was never a concern.
I'd say the VMU probably killed any chance for a second analog stick if Sega even wanted to go that route. MDK 2 and Fur Fighters played fine with the face buttons though; after all, it's not as if PC games of the day had two analog inputs, and the DualShock wasn't especially well supported early on.
I also love the Dreamcast D-pad. Still the best D-pad around as far as I'm concerned.
Well i think in general the MS & MD were more good designs than bad. And yes it's quite amusing how the ps2 was the worst designed but it was the most successful because of the i.m.o masterfully designed PS1 and how well it did along with how much confidence gamers and 3rd parties had in Sony's Playstation brand because of the PS1. It is to this day the only well designed Playstation product.
As for the DC pad looking back it really should have had a 2nd analogue and a 2nd set of shoulder buttons with the sacrifice being the VMU which was mostly pointless. The d-pad should aslo have been better. But as far as the internals of the DC goes there is no way Sega could of designed a better machine for release in Nov 98 for the same or lower price. DVD was way to expensive to use for a console launch back then and if used they would of had to launch at over £$300. There only hope would of been in an alternate reality where they had designed there 32 bit system properly and had good support from all parties and split the market with the PS so roughly 45/50 million units were shifted each. That would of been a success in Sega's eyes and they could of launched there 128 bit system around the same time as the Gamecube. Mabee a Hitachi SH5 + Power VR 3 and built in DVD gaming & movie playback with backward compatibility of their properly designed 32 bit systems games but with no modem for £299.99.