PS2 vs Dreamcast Graphics

[Yharnamresident]

Sigh I assure you that isn't the case. I don't actually understand how are you getting those framerate. Ran it through the last demul and it's locked to 30fps.Here I'll provide a link to a page specifically aimed at unlocking 30 fps locked games. Frame grides name appears on it. I love the Dreamcast but IAM not gonna shut my ears on facts. The game wouldn't require a 60 fps if it was unlocked and a 60 fps code wouldnt make it run twice the speed. If ya don't believe me you could just run it on real hardware see for your self it's not 60 fps. Alot of the games u claim are unlocked are not.

I just like being more factual.

https://www.obscuregamers.com/thread...0fps-codes.61/

Don't get me wrong, you've posted tons of useful statistics and introduced me to NinjaRipper, but I see the constant downplaying so I eventually gotta speak up about it.

[Yharnamresident]

Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing (1999, DC)

Average: 350,000 polygons per second


I've always thought this game looks like crap, and no surprise that it performs like crap. I don't know what Criterion was thinking when they created this game, it almost looks like an N64 game.




Around a corner with 3 bikes on screen. 300,000 PPS




A straight stretch with tons of bikes. 450,000 PPS

[Yharnamresident]

Suikoden III (2002, PS2)

Average: 2 million to 3 million polygons per second


A PS2 exclusive. This is another game that would've been a good very high performance game for the Dreamcast, albeit with this one they'd have to do some drawbacks. The game has a unique cultural theme which I personally love.



At the start. 1.65 million PPS



Couple characters and buildings on screen. 2.2 million PPS



3.25 million PPS



Outskirts with only the character. 900,000 PPS



A battle. 1.9 million PPS



Duck village. 3.2 million PPS



As you can see, these ducks have a ton of polygons. 3.1 millions PPS



The highest polycount I could find. 4.5 million PPS



German town. 1.55 million PPS



German town with a ton of buildings and characters. 3.36 million PPS

[SegaAMD]

Well, I focused a lot on polygons, now I'm going to focus on textures, there are a lot of myths on both sides, neither Dreamcast is that marvel in the field of textures, nor is the PS2 horrible as they paint; in the next posts I will make comparatives focused only on that aspect.

there are three aspects that Dreamcast guys criticize on PS2; jagged edges, output and textures, let's see ps2 has over 4,000 games.
The texture below is often used as an example of something ps2 supposedly can't do.

[Cloofoofoo]

.

Anyways heres my comparison of the world series baseball engine by sega wow. Use across many platforms such as arcades and home consoles. While the game can go higher when the bases are loaded I just wanted to show how comparable they were visually.

dreamcast world series baseball 2k1 - 15,886 tris per frame x 60 = 953K polygons per second




ps2 gekitou pro yakkyu(2003) - 13,995 tris per frame x60 = 839K polygons per second




Gc Homerun kings( 2002) - 51,961 tris per frame x 60 fps = 3.1 million polygons per second

[Team Andromeda]

How many does WSB 2k2 use on the DC . It wasn't made by WOW and looks stunning and plays better than the WOW WSB games on the DC

[Cloofoofoo]

How many does WSB 2k2 use on the DC . It wasn't made by WOW and looks stunning and plays better than the WOW WSB games on the DC

It may play better than sega wow's game( debatable, I prefer the 2k1 arcade roots as its far more fun.Also i feel visual concept fell really flat on the art style, sega wows art was far more realistic) but it isnt pushing much more polygons. It uses back face culling on the players(any polygon no facing the screen isnt drawn) while sega wows engine didnot clip anything unless it was offscreen. Those long stretched out polys you see are the volume modifiers, they meshes used for shadows.

13,751 tris per frame at 60 fps = 825K polygons per second.

[SegaAMD]

man i miss these days, searching here for textures, I found a ps2 release game, locked 60fps, high polygonal count, lots of flicker and almost no jaggies (compared to Ridge Racer V and the PS2 version of Grandia 2) Does any Dreamcast game have grass?

[gamevet]

Phantasy Star Online has grass.

That game looks like Dynasty Warriors.

[SegaAMD]

Phantasy Star Online has grass.

That game looks like Dynasty Warriors.

I asked because I really don't remember playing a grass game on DC (I'll check later).

This is part of my texture research, DC uses many green textures that represent grass, but in ps2 / gcn they use detailed grass instead of textures. This somehow counts as an advantage for ps2 in the texture department.

I don't think PSO looks anything like Dynasty Warriors 2, In some points, PSO even looks nicer.

[Cloofoofoo]

I asked because I really don't remember playing a grass game on DC (I'll check later).

This is part of my texture research, DC uses many green textures that represent grass, but in ps2 / gcn they use detailed grass instead of textures. This somehow counts as an advantage for ps2 in the texture department.

I don't think PSO looks anything like Dinasty Warriors 2, In some points, PSO even looks nicer.

Which is kinda weird. The dc should have been ok with grass. It renders punch through textures almost at the same speed as opaque polygons. Thats all grass is a plane with a punchthrough texture on top. Maybe it just died before they could go through using it?

The dynasty warrior-type games thing is more complicated though. From what i understand it uses a system called imposters. When the enemy mob is far away they are rendered on a flat plane using render to texture to save polygons what will always face the camera. But its fill rate heavy. The dreamcast being fill rate limited who knows how it would have worked out. the ps2 excels at fillrate.

[Cloofoofoo]

I asked because I really don't remember playing a grass game on DC (I'll check later).

This is part of my texture research, DC uses many green textures that represent grass, but in ps2 / gcn they use detailed grass instead of textures. This somehow counts as an advantage for ps2 in the texture department.

I don't think PSO looks anything like Dinasty Warriors 2, In some points, PSO even looks nicer.

Heres a screen shot of the dc using punchthrough texture to make trees in a tech demo from the official sdk. You could just use the same technique for grass.



EDIT: heres another shot from the second official sdk punchtrough techdemo with 1000 trees.

[SegaAMD]

Which is kinda weird. The dc should have been ok with grass. Maybe it just died before they could go through using it?

I understand that every game displayed on a console focuses on its strengths, I don't say that Dreamcast couldn't make grass, this is an artistic decision, but you can see that there are limitations, the only game I saw grass (not confuse with green textures) was Skies of Arcadia and yet it's a very limited scene. on modern consoles like ps3, the explanation for the lack of grass was bandwidth.

[Cloofoofoo]

I understand that every game displayed on a console focuses on its strengths, I don't say that Dreamcast couldn't make grass, this is an artistic decision, but you can see that there are limitations, the only game I saw grass (not confuse with green textures) was Skies of Arcadia and yet it's a very limited scene. on modern consoles like ps3, the explanation for the lack of grass was bandwidth.

But making grass could have been/was one of its strength/touted feature set. It doesnt waste time/bandwidth with punch through polygons and treats it almost the same as opaque. It just seems like this strength was not thoroughly exploited(dreamcast may have had unique features not used at all). Thats what i was trying to explain using the tech demos. The second screenshot tech demo can have upto 81,000 polygons worth of trees in the frame @ 11 fps. Iam pretty sure that could have been adjusted to be used in a real game situation.

[Yharnamresident]

ps2 gekitou pro yakkyu(2003) - 13,995 tris per frame x60 = 839K polygons per second

"41985 vertices" "13995 polygons" that ratio is not right. That screenshot is likely 38,000-40,000 polygons. There must be tons of seams missing in that mesh capture.