tech specs that actually improves gameplay instead of graphics

When most people think of tech specs and system power, "graphics" pop into their heads immediately. However, I can think of many examples of technical stuff that actually improves gameplay instead of graphics:

1. amount of sprites- allows more things to happen at once, good for more complex platforming

2. cpu speed- allows more things to happen at once

3. animation- helps the control of the game. Also is good for boss fights. I hate when bosses are just still pictures that stand in the corner and do absolutely nothing until you wack them umpteen times. Bosses just need to play their own little game with you, to be fun. Bosses also need a very rewarding explosion at the end. You don't want to beat the crap out of them just to see them go poof at the end and disappear? You want to see them explode like crazy at the end of the boss fight.

4. scaling and rotation and other special effects (thankfully not the Snes kind) - helps animation a lot. Also good for more complex platformming. Allows characters and bosses to be more rewarding to see after you beat/blow them up.

Anybody agree/disagree? Have any others?

While not necessarily improving gameplay, other features often get overlooked.

Anti-Aliasing: The PS2 is pretty much known for having "the Jaggies" in its games. The Dreamcast, Xbox and GC had this feature built into the hardware.

Texture Mapping: Again, the PS2 was a polygon beast, but when it came to texture mapping, it was weaker than the Dreamcast, Xbox and GC.

Drive access speed can make a big difference.

I forgot to mention this one.

System RAM: The Saturn was a 2-D powerhouse, because it had enough memory to store all of the sprite information, for demanding games like Street Fighter Alpha 2. This would fall under the category (animation) Dragonboy mentioned, about missing frames of animation.

I'd say the Vampire/Darkstalkers and the Marvel fighting games were much more demanding than the Alpha games, hence why the latter received great (yet not perfect) ports on the PS1. Can't say the same for the former games on PS1.

Lot of GFX and CPU performance for smooth framerate, which is a must for enjoyable experience for me.

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Originally Posted by gamevet

I forgot to mention this one.

System RAM: The Saturn was a 2-D powerhouse, because it had enough memory to store all of the sprite information, for demanding games like Street Fighter Alpha 2. This would fall under the category (animation) Dragonboy mentioned, about missing frames of animation.

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Doesn't Saturn need the 4MB RAM cart for those games?

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Originally Posted by gamevet

Texture Mapping: Again, the PS2 was a polygon beast, but when it came to texture mapping, it was weaker than the Dreamcast, Xbox and GC.

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Texture Mapping? Texture Mapping is one of the main reasons (along with shading and poly count) people confuse technology with graphics.

This is one of those things I hate about 3D, the technology can only help with the graphics, not the game. Where as 2D, the technology can actually help the gameplay out.

The other reason, 3D games you can just go around the enimies when they are in your way, instead of 2D where you can either jump over or attack the enimies but dodge all the other enemies while you do it.

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Originally Posted by Gentlegamer

Doesn't Saturn need the 4MB RAM cart for those games?

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No not all of them.

Also, there are two versions of Metal Slug for the Saturn, one that does require a RAM cart and one that does not...I have both and they really aren't that far off from each other.

There is just a little slowdown in co-op mode in the non-RAM version.

Dragonforce seems to eat up that RAM though...its a huge game.

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Originally Posted by dragonboy

This is one of those things I hate about 3D, the technology can only help with the graphics, not the game. Where as 2D, the technology can actually help the gameplay out.

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hahahahaha what? Videogames don't have a magical invisible slider with 'gameplay' at one end, and 'graphics' at the other. More 'graphics' doesn't automatically mean less 'gameplay', and more 'gameplay' doesn't mean less 'graphics'.

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The other reason, 3D games you can just go around the enimies when they are in your way, instead of 2D where you can either jump over or attack the enimies but dodge all the other enemies while you do it.

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First person shoot-em-ups. There you go, that's one 3D thing you absolutely cannot reproduce on a 2D plane no matter how much technology you throw at it.

Simply 'making something 3D' does not make it A Bad Thing!

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Originally Posted by Gentlegamer

Doesn't Saturn need the 4MB RAM cart for those games?

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Not for Street Fighter Alpha 2 it doesn't.

Physics. New Video cards have powerful stream processors in them capable of taking over physics calculations from the CPU. Little is out there to take advantage of this now but the stuff that does is jaw dropping and really could change gameplay.

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hahahahaha what? Videogames don't have a magical invisible slider with 'gameplay' at one end, and 'graphics' at the other. More 'graphics' doesn't automatically mean less 'gameplay', and more 'gameplay' doesn't mean less 'graphics'.

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What does that have anything to do with what I said?

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First person shoot-em-ups. There you go, that's one 3D thing you absolutely cannot reproduce on a 2D plane no matter how much technology you throw at it.

Simply 'making something 3D' does not make it A Bad Thing!

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As I already mentioned, I like jumping over and dodging enimies instead of just walking around them. And besides it can be done on a 2D plane, just have it a top-down view on a rotating field and have your sprite on the bottom of screen so you can see everything infront of you, but not behind of you, just like in real 3D.

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Originally Posted by dragonboy

Texture Mapping? Texture Mapping is one of the main reasons (along with shading and poly count) people confuse technology with graphics.

This is one of those things I hate about 3D, the technology can only help with the graphics, not the game. Where as 2D, the technology can actually help the gameplay out.

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This is totally untrue. Burning Rangers is an excellent game on the Saturn, but it really taxed the hardware. The game suffered from slowdown and the polygons sometimes had the tearing effect, because the hardware couldn't draw everything the game demanded. The game really didn't have much for texture mapping either. The enemies and character faces were all a single shade, much like Virtua Racing. Compare it to a game like Shenmue, where you see wrinkles in the clothing, smooth frame-rates and a more immersive environment.

Comparing 32-bit texture mapping and polygon count to that of the 128-bit machines like the PS2 and Dreamcast, is about the same as comparing the 2-D sprites of the NES to that of the Genesis.

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Originally Posted by gamevet

This is totally untrue. Burning Rangers is an excellent game on the Saturn, but it really taxed the hardware. The game suffered from slowdown and the polygons sometimes had the tearing effect, because the hardware couldn't draw everything the game demanded. The game really didn't have much for texture mapping either. The enemies and character faces were all a single shade, much like Virtua Racing.

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Burning Rangers didn't necessarily tax the hardware -- it taxed the engine. Keep in mind that it runs on the NiGHTS engine, which was almost two years old and designed for a different type of game. I'm not disputing your underlying point, just saying. Just because a game has issues such as slowdown and/or pop-up, tearing, etc. doesn't necessarily mean it has reached some sort of barrier in the hardware.