PS2 vs Dreamcast Graphics

Heres what I was talking about in sakura taisen 4. I found the textures used to make the refraction effect and the radial blur. Seems simple but I guess render to texture might be taxing on the dreamcast if they were only used sparingly. Still maybe it could be an indicator of what was to come if it held on effects like these would have become more common?

note to Yharnamresident: Rps is rendering per second on demul. This is the frame rate. As you can see cutscenes/gameplay is locked to 30 fps. Fps for some reason is the "frame rate" of sound processor. No clue why he changed it like that but its a changed noted on an older changelog.I checked the other games we were talking about and they were locked to 30 fps.( 2d art/title screens running at 60 rps is not gameplay)

Refraction effect texture:
https://i.ibb.co/dpZcZSK/ogamirefraction.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/zh0dr3g/sakurataisen4refraction.jpg

Radial blur effect :
https://i.ibb.co/DgPyZhw/sakuraradial.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/7rrYjxX/sakurataisen4radial.jpg

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

I don't know why you ask me, much less using Dynasty Warriors 2 - which for me didn't look great. the game runs in the PS Trademark usual low Res mode and features the typcial blurry PS2 textures, seems to have a lack of AA and so gives you that PS2 washed outlook.

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asked precisely to understand your view of the game, and this part of the textures is interesting because it is within my focus .
it's no secret that ps2 was released in March 2000 and the jaggies and low resolution were the biggest critics, however in the view of devs was an exaggeration by the media, as quoted by IGN before the launch of PS2 in the US

https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/07...liased-no-more


What I mean is that this issue was partially resolved in the early months of ps2, especially in the US release and in the following months but for some reason the ''jagged ps2'' myth perpetuated. (but not all games could benefit from this) and we're talking about a period where progressive scan was not available on ps2 games.

That's why these release games need to be re-evaluated, because, in my opinion, they represent a time when PS2 and Dreamcast were competing in the 128-bit market. Therefore, the games themselves, the way were made, the philosophy, was very close in them, in early ps2 games we see textures and colors that we don't easily see in later ps2 games.

these are: X Squad, Tekken Tag, Summoner, Dark Angel vampire apocalypse, klonoa 2, Time Crisis 2, silpheed, Orphen, Track and field, Dark cloud, unreal tournament, The Bouncer, Half life and onimusha, some have textures, others have anti aliasing others has both, all first generation of ps2 games. I will compare with the major adult action games from Dreamcast: Slave Zero, RECV, Draconus, Blue Stinger, Head Hunter, Carrier, Sword of the Beserk, Zombie Revenge, Confidential Mission, MDK 2.( just for textures).

I suspect few Dreamcast games have exceptional textures; which are the ones we have already mentioned as pso, skies of arcadia, shenmue, SC and others. So perpetuating the idea that ps2 had worse textures than Dreamcast, they were probably using exceptions and making them the norm.

That isn't exactly a well written article. There are several errors and a total overlook of a good portion of early PS2 games only running at 320x240, which would create even larger jagged edges.

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Fast moving objects also tend to tear, because they are moving at 60mhz but their lines tear by odds and evens. These are just the usual technical problems that us game programmers have to slog through.

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I got my PS2 when Gran Turismo 3 came out. I got the GT3 bundle @ May of 2001. The game is infamous for having that shimmer effect from aliasing.

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Originally Posted by SegaAMD

asked precisely to understand your view of the game, and this part of the textures is interesting because it is within my focus .
it's no secret that ps2 was released in March 2000 and the jaggies and low resolution were the biggest critics, however in the view of devs was an exaggeration by the media, as quoted by IGN before the launch of PS2 in the US

https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/07...liased-no-more


What I mean is that this issue was partially resolved in the early months of ps2, especially in the US release and in the following months but for some reason the ''jagged ps2'' myth perpetuated. (but not all games could benefit from this) and we're talking about a period where progressive scan was not available on ps2 games.

That's why these release games need to be re-evaluated, because, in my opinion, they represent a time when PS2 and Dreamcast were competing in the 128-bit market. Therefore, the games themselves, the way were made, the philosophy, was very close in them, in early ps2 games we see textures and colors that we don't easily see in later ps2 games.

these are: X Squad, Tekken Tag, Summoner, Dark Angel vampire apocalypse, klonoa 2, Time Crisis 2, silpheed, Orphen, Track and field, Dark cloud, unreal tournament, The Bouncer, Half life and onimusha, some have textures, others have anti aliasing others has both, all first generation of ps2 games. I will compare with the major adult action games from Dreamcast: Slave Zero, RECV, Draconus, Blue Stinger, Head Hunter, Carrier, Sword of the Beserk, Zombie Revenge, Confidential Mission, MDK 2.( just for textures).

I suspect few Dreamcast games have exceptional textures; which are the ones we have already mentioned as pso, skies of arcadia, shenmue, SC and others. So perpetuating the idea that ps2 had worse textures than Dreamcast, they were probably using exceptions and making them the norm.

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I think better filtering was on the Dreamcast side and add mipmaps. Some times the mip maps blur everything to Oblivion and take up more vram but helps with fill rate.

I remember reading that if you twiddle(arrange the data in a way the DC can process it fast) the Dreamcast texture you get bilinear filtering for free(common thing DC games did). Not to mention alot of devs mentioned you can get like 20-35 mbs of texure compressed to like 4 - 5 mb of vram.

On the ps2 I hear anti aliasing is broken and filtering has to be done by software. I guess all that together means the Dreamcast can handle textures off the bat better than ps2. So I guess maybe there is some merits to those complaints

PS2 was infamous in its day for shimmering or jaggies. I posted in this thread or the Gamecube thread where the Xbox Magazine was touting that Xbox has none and poor PS2 is full of them. I remember Extended Play on TechTV often pointing jaggies out with PS2.

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Originally Posted by SegaAMD

What I mean is that this issue was partially resolved in the early months of ps2, especially in the US release and in the following months but for some reason the ''jagged ps2'' myth perpetuated

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With is anything bad said againt the PS2 a myth? I remember when one saw Tekken Tag, VF 4, Time Spliters and the likes of Dead Or Alive 2, (which one could compare directly to a DC game) you saw low res and jaggies anywhere, compared to the 640x480 AA DC games that you got from day one. It was hardly a myth. But like with any system, if developers put the time and effort in, they'll developer workarounds or are just better able to use the Hardware.

Like I said before. I wasn't at all impressed with the PS2 more so after all the hype. That started to change when I saw ESPN Track and Field which while full of jaggies started to show off the PS2 polygon pushing power.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

you saw low res and jaggies anywhere, compared to the 640x480 AA DC games that you got from day one. It was hardly a myth. But like with any system, if developers put the time and effort in, they'll developer workarounds or are just better able to use the Hardware.

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you may disagree, which is natural in a conversation like this (it's very bad when everyone agrees with everything) But I still insist that they created this myth; I don't know who started if it was the media, the forums or Nintendo fans. Someone started and didn't stop anymore. Just note that you put jaggies and Tekken Tag in the same sentence, TTT with jaggies = Jap TTT with AA = US release. amazing IQ perfectly compatible with Dreamcast fighting games. (but there was this debate in the previous pages, so let's not get into it)
Summoner, also had AA
x-squad had an acceptable IQ, less than the two above maybe use some post processing, by the way, among the earliest ps2 games, it most closely resembles a dreamcast game in some characteristic terms. (IMO)
Then we have several clean IQ games until we get to BGDA, one of the best IQs seen on the platform at the time (2001).

When it comes to consoles, the primary source for myth-making is marketing itself, Microsoft took advantage of this in its advertising, helping to rate ps2 as a shimmering, jaggies console.

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Originally Posted by Cloofoofoo

I think better filtering was on the Dreamcast side and add mipmaps. Some times the mip maps blur everything to Oblivion and take up more vram but helps with fill rate.

I remember reading that if you twiddle(arrange the data in a way the DC can process it fast) the Dreamcast texture you get bilinear filtering for free(common thing DC games did). Not to mention alot of devs mentioned you can get like 20-35 mbs of texure compressed to like 4 - 5 mb of vram.

On the ps2 I hear anti aliasing is broken and filtering has to be done by software. I guess all that together means the Dreamcast can handle textures off the bat better than ps2. So I guess maybe there is some merits to those complaints

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I believe (talking about filters) everything is linked to the graphics engines, production time and scope of the games.
But there is no denying that at the hardware level DC has advantages in the field of textures, DC can handle 5-25MB textures (Ecco, shenmue does) PS2 could only handle 10MB (in DOA2) so far, with later programming methods it was possible to handle with more textures than 10MB (my guess is 20MB), but the real problem is displaying them, there is no way to display them directly from main memory, so the 4mb limit is the same. I liked those two DF Retro videos, Unreal and Half Life (ok, it's an unfinished game) it brings light to understand the textures on both systems, because in those situations the ps2 version is the same or better than the dreamcast version. very interesting, i would say.

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Originally Posted by SegaAMD

you may disagree, which is natural in a conversation like this (it's very bad when everyone agrees with everything) But I still insist that they created this myth; I don't know who started if it was the media, the forums or Nintendo fans. Someone started and didn't stop anymore.

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It's not a myth, it was an issue. Which version of Dead Or Alive 2 had the more jaggies the PS2 or the DC version? . Does VF 3 on the DC, have jaggies like those in VF4 on the PS2 and unlike VF4, VF3 was a launch game.

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When it comes to consoles, the primary source for myth-making is marketing itself

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Not always it can comes for gaming mag's and forums. To this day a lot of people think VF3 on the DC isn't close to the Arcade version when it is.
Many people think the Saturn can't do 3D, the PSX can't handle 2D, or MS don't have any good games or can't run studios or Jackie Chan does all his own stunts (he never did even in his heyday)

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

It's not a myth, it was an issue. Which version of Dead Or Alive 2 had the more jaggies the PS2 or the DC version? . Does VF 3 on the DC, have jaggies like those in VF4 on the PS2 and unlike VF4, VF3 was a launch game.



Not always it can comes for gaming mag's and forums. To this day a lot of people think VF3 on the DC isn't close to the Arcade version when it is.
Many people think the Saturn can't do 3D, the PSX can't handle 2D, or MS don't have any good games or can't run studios or Jackie Chan does all his own stunts (he never did even in his heyday)

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The virtual fighter 3 thing is especially sad. Gameplay wise it's 100 ℅ perfect. Graphics wise from what I read they were given a few months to work on it with prototype libraries. They had to port it to Naomi first then when they got the unfinished DC SDK they ported to the Dreamcast. Even then they got 90% of the polygon count down with minimal amount missing. After all that effort they got eaten alive by people.

On the ps2 texture front segaamd you might not want to admit but it was indeed a problem. Even later in its life ps2 used 4bit\8bit textures. So even if the ps2 uses the same rez texture it has less color depth than Dreamcast 16 bit textures . The ps2 used a 24 bit\32bit framebuffer for display which gave it less color banding than the Dreamcast but that's where the advantage ends. The ps2 always played to its strength and would stream textures from main memory to its vram. That probably required a lot of bandwidth. Also ps2 used weird resolution and very early on just plain low(512x240?why ). The Dreamcast some games implement anti aliasing and render games in 1280x480( wacky races, omikron nomad soul)


The lack of MIP maps always hurt it. Want to see how bad no mipmaps is? Look at shenmue 2. The lack of MIP maps give it crazy artifacts in the distance. I wouldn't be surprised if it contributed to the slow down, without MIP maps the DC could not conserve the fillrate.

Eh, I seem to recall a Jackie Chan movie where they were showing several moments where he was being hauled off in a stretcher after falling during several stunts.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/jackiec...-shooting/amp/

Is there a way to know, how many MB of textures does ps2 use in later games? Because as I said, Shenmue and Ecco are known to use 25MB, shenmue 2 might use even more than that, if we know which game has more MB textures then it will be possible to do something more objective. Half life.

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Originally Posted by Cloofoofoo

later in its life ps2 used 4bit\8bit textures. So even if the ps2 uses the same rez texture it has less color depth than Dreamcast 16 bit textures . The ps2 used a 24 bit\32bit framebuffer for display which gave it less color banding than the Dreamcast but that's where the advantage ends. The ps2 always played to its strength and would stream textures from main memory to its vram. That probably required a lot of bandwidth. Also ps2 used weird resolution and very early on just plain low(512x240?why ). The Dreamcast some games implement anti aliasing and render games in 1280x480( wacky races, omikron nomad soul)

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Actually 4 bit 8 bit is used from day one, from what I read, 4/8 bit textures, not what you usually think about them, they are part of the ps2 compression method, palletizing (although it is controversial to call compression palletizing, but the operation is analogous), then these textures are rebuilt, and reach bigger colors and size. 24 bits being the average depth of games, while in GC and DC they use 16 bits (which presents less detail)

The advantage of Dreamcast is that the textures are more defined over long distances, at this point it surpasses GC, but when it gets close to the object the textures match or get closer.

''Also ps2 used weird resolution and very early on just plain low(512x240?why )''.

According to DF Retro (Ico), the Ico game features 240 progressive plus AA, so for a cleaner and glitch-free look, it sounds weird, but due to the dev kit issues, this was the best solution. however others like ridge racer 5, is low resolution and without aa unfortunately. by the way ico is a technologically advanced game, have you ever seen the water present in the game?

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Originally Posted by gamevet

Eh, I seem to recall a Jackie Chan movie where they were showing several moments where he was being hauled off in a stretcher after falling during several stunts.

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Jackie Chan doesn't do 'All' his own stunts and even in his main 80's features he will be doubled at some points (usually because he was injured or shooting another scene) Project A is held up as one his best (and quite right) but in the end sence it's clearly not Jackie Chan doing the side flip, after Sammo Hung puts the grenade in the carpet

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Originally Posted by Cloofoofoo

The virtual fighter 3 thing is especially sad. Gameplay wise it's 100 ℅ perfect. Graphics wise from what I read they were given a few months to work on it with prototype libraries. They had to port it to Naomi first then when they got the unfinished DC SDK they ported to the Dreamcast. Even then they got 90% of the polygon count down with minimal amount missing. After all that effort they got eaten alive by people.

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Genki had less than 6 months to handle the port and had to use Set 2 and Set 4 developent kits for most of that time. I'll go as far to say its 95% Arcade perfect graphics wise, with clothing movement not quite as good and some low res Bitmap background.
I never got the hate and I put it down to the likes of EDGE mag and some anti-SEGA mags looking to pour scorn on SEGA claims of Model 3 polygon handling and over 1 million polygons per sec. It was lame and pathetic and I remember some of the press slating the game for the lack of a VS mode, looking over the that was exactly what it was like to play VF3Tb in the Arcades

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Originally Posted by SegaAMD

Is there a way to know, how many MB of textures does ps2 use in later games? Because as I said, Shenmue and Ecco are known to use 25MB, shenmue 2 might use even more than that, if we know which game has more MB textures then it will be possible to do something more objective. Half life.




Actually 4 bit 8 bit is used from day one, from what I read, 4/8 bit textures, not what you usually think about them, they are part of the ps2 compression method, palletizing (although it is controversial to call compression palletizing, but the operation is analogous), then these textures are rebuilt, and reach bigger colors and size. 24 bits being the average depth of games, while in GC and DC they use 16 bits (which presents less detail)

The advantage of Dreamcast is that the textures are more defined over long distances, at this point it surpasses GC, but when it gets close to the object the textures match or get closer.

''Also ps2 used weird resolution and very early on just plain low(512x240?why )''.

According to DF Retro (Ico), the Ico game features 240 progressive plus AA, so for a cleaner and glitch-free look, it sounds weird, but due to the dev kit issues, this was the best solution. however others like ridge racer 5, is low resolution and without aa unfortunately. by the way ico is a technologically advanced game, have you ever seen the water present in the game?

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Yeah palletized textures are stored in one format and the color in another right? Saves a lot of space. But that's nothing special, the Dreamcast also does 4bit ,8 bit palletized textures because of the twiddle function and the vq compression. The Dreamcast is kinda robust when it comes to these things.
Regardless of ico being advance or not that form of aa is not as good compared to the super sampling. Remember wacky races that pushes 80k polygons per frame + cell shading? It runs 1280x480 internally. You can't really downplay Dreamcast image quality.