So the Saturn was like a for-serious verion of this?
My mind is blown. No wonder Sega dropped out of the hardware business.
Sorta. A lot of it has to do with the rushed nature of the Saturn. the saturn was never meant to be a 3D machine... it was supposed to be the ultimate 2D machine, with the 3D power of the model 1 arcade board. When sony revealed their PSX with it's much more powerful 3D rendering, sega essentially decided to duct tape 2 saturns together.
So, instead of 1 SH2 CPU, they included 2. Instead of 1 VDP, they included two. In truthfulness, when harnessed properly, the saturn was capible of eclipsing the N64 and displaying jaw-dropping 3D effects but doing so would require a level of expertise with the hardware that could only be obtained if you were involved in the actual creation of the hardware.
Sony's PS3 is being compared to "a movie theater" vs the Xbox 360 being "A dvd" in terms of complexity to program for according to Hideo Kojima. Consider the saturn to be a 3D holographic projector.
It's worth noting that most of the games everyone always talks about when they mention the saturn are the games which more than any other pushed the system to the metal. Outside of Saturn Shenmue, the NiGHTS engine was THE saturn engine. When it was released, it wasn't just a pretty saturn game - it was a pretty game period. It was one of the most visually stunning games ever. It did a lot of things people thought impossible on the saturn, like 3D real-time alpha blending (i.e. making 3D objects transparent in 3D space), software based Z-Buffering, multiple independent multi-color light sources, and a huge draw distance. Games such a Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force III, and Burning Rangers all used it.
The VF2 engine was also heavily used, as it was probably the second most powerful engine created for the system, and it too pushed the Saturn to the extreme. VF2, Virtua On, Fighters Megamix, and Fighting Vipers all used it.
In order to get the good saturn games (i.e. not bug!) on gametap or the wii, the saturn emulator they have must be phenomenal.
As far as the quadratics is concerned, why couldn't they just convert the 3d matrices to triangles, essentially drawing a diagonal line through each square. Then load the new matrices into memory and use them instead?
maybe. With today's multi-core machines, I could see it being more possible. Devote a single core to emulating a saturn processor...
Of course, there is another way. Let us not forget that Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Fighter 2, Bug!, and several other saturn games were ported to the PC. This is because sega invented what they call the DINO engine, which would allow them to play saturn ports on a PC (this was before the days of OpenGL or Direct X). They could, theoretically, if they still had the source codes to these games, port them over to the DINO engine and then run those games on modern PCs (as the DINO engine was later ported to Direct X). but that's not emulation, that's full on porting - rewriting chunks of a game to work on a different system.
As far as the quadratics is concerned, why couldn't they just convert the 3d matrices to triangles, essentially drawing a diagonal line through each square. Then load the new matrices into memory and use them instead?
I suggested that in my post. That's how GiriGiri worked, in fact.
The problem is that saturn emulation is very intensive, and doing this means they do twice the work.
Well, at least now I know exactly why I get this deep feeling of fear whenever I look at the Saturn motherboard.
That thing is madness.'
This probably explains why my brother's computer can emulate the Dreamcast with a bit of tweaking, but when he tried to emulate the saturn he only met failure.
This is probably going too far into gray area so I'll just say that as of two years ago, it sucked. As of a couple months ago, on a modern CPU, it worked full-speed.
This is probably going too far into gray area so I'll just say that as of two years ago, it sucked. As of a couple months ago, on a modern CPU, it worked full-speed.
I, for one, would have loved to see an "Ultimate 2D" generation, rather than the half-assed 3D generation we got.
It wasn't so bad at the time. Besides, the way had to be paved somehow.
It was to 3D was the 8-bit generation was to 2D.
I groan everytime someone calls a PSX/N64/Saturn game "unplayable" because it's ugly. It's bullshit. The games are still every bit as much playable today as they were before.
And there were plenty of "2D" games on the N64 and PSX. That's about as good as you can make 2D games look, before you're just using polys to do the animation like Thousand Year Door.
the games that suck to play now just sucked back then.
And there were plenty of "2D" games on the N64 and PSX. That's about as good as you can make 2D games look, before you're just using polys to do the animation like Thousand Year Door.
the games that suck to play now just sucked back then.
This is incorrect. The N64 and PSX couldn't do 2D the same way the saturn did.
EDIT: And there were 2D games on the saturn that weren't possible on the PSX or N64.
I'm pretty sure I don't want to play any of the collectathons over again. Some of the games had really shitty controls compared to most modern games.
Yeah, but the same thing could be said about the 2D generation. I didn't say that old games are always awesome. I said they're just as playable now as they were then. Games that suck still suck, and games that rock still rock. People who dismiss, say, Fighters Megamix because it looks bad are idiots and are missing out on one of the best fighting games ever.
Well duh the Sega Saturn had Segata Sanshiro so like if anyone made 2d games that weren't better he totally made them explode or killed them or something.
Well duh the Sega Saturn had Segata Sanshiro so like if anyone made 2d games that weren't better he totally made them explode or killed them or something.
The sega saturn was a memory power house. It could push more sprites, bigger sprites, more colorful sprites than the N64 or PSX could. 2D games could have more animation, too.
The Sega Saturn has roughly 10 or so megabytes of ram available to 2D animation with the ram cart expansion. That is, 10 megabytes devoted to frames of animation. By comparison, the N64 had 4 mb and the PSX even less than that.
Want proof that the Saturn was a 2D beast? Compare Xmen vs Street Fighter. Or Street Fighter Alpha. Or Mortal Kombat 3 vs UMK3.
Everytime the saturn went up against the PSX or N64, it blew them away on the 2D front. Hell, even games like Astal are prettier, and pack more of a 2D muscle than possible on the PSX or N64. The saturn dominated on the 2D front.
I'm not him, but from what I have heard, the Saturn was designed have graphically awesome 2D games. They shoved the other processor in to make it better at doing 3D. This made it fucking hard to program any good 3D games for the Saturn. The fact that it was good at 2D didn't matter when pretty much all of the really big games were 3D.
I, for one, would have loved to see an "Ultimate 2D" generation, rather than the half-assed 3D generation we got.
It wasn't so bad at the time. Besides, the way had to be paved somehow.
Oh, no, don't get me wrong, I'm not bitching and moaning about the N64/PSX/Sat generation, my favorite game comes from that generation (Rayman 2: The Great Escape) I was just saying that it would have been nice to see what would have come out of a kickass pure-2D system.
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited April 2007
TSR's right on. The N64 -didn't- have many 2D games, because it was not set up for 2D processing. In fact, I think even things like the GUI had to be done using textures or specialized code. I know games like Mischief Makers exist, but they are rare.... and even Mischief Makers was heavily "3D."
TSR's right on. The N64 -didn't- have many 2D games, because it was not set up for 2D processing. In fact, I think even things like the GUI had to be done using textures or specialized code. I know games like Mischief Makers exist, but they are rare.... and even Mischief Makers was heavily "3D."
I'm guessing that's also why 2D ports of games like Mortal Kombat Trilogy just plain didn't run well. You're instructing the System to run bit-maps all over the place when its specialty is pushing polygons.
Or maybe I am just dumb and have no idea what I'm talking about.
I was running around Splash Garden yesterday and I'm pretty sure the draw distance was the equivalent of 10 metres.
RE Saturn emulation: I recall playing NiGHTS on this PC at a decent speed a few months ago.
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Niceguyeddie616All you feed me is PUFFINS!I need NOURISHMENT!Registered Userregular
edited April 2007
I have the PC version of Bug!, and installed and attempted to play it last night. It doesn't exactly have the Sega Saturn intro at the start of it. It does show the logo, but the text under it reads "Sega Away Team." What does the Saturn logo on the Gametap version look like?
I, for one, would have loved to see an "Ultimate 2D" generation, rather than the half-assed 3D generation we got.
It wasn't so bad at the time. Besides, the way had to be paved somehow.
It was to 3D was the 8-bit generation was to 2D.
I groan everytime someone calls a PSX/N64/Saturn game "unplayable" because it's ugly. It's bullshit. The games are still every bit as much playable today as they were before.
i get what you are saying, and i agree to some extent.
but i played jet moto one a few months ago and as i was racing i was trying to identify an object in front of me. like "i don't remember that type of...WHAM! it was a tree.
so some stuff that was cutting edge visuals fails now.
this does NOT apply to games with strong art direction.
Sul on
Who is the mortal I see every morning with more than a little bit he must be important
Nintendo Friend Code: SW-0689-9921-0006
It's beautiful, that's for sure, it's a shame I don't really like how it plays.
I love the later levels. Every time I want to talk about how good the game looks, I always want to post three specific part of the game, where you're fighting this giant, multiple-screen long bug with huge legs, the part where you fight the evil Astal guy, and the very end boss fight.
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Like I said, I'll check the PC version when I get to houston.
So the Saturn was like a for-serious verion of this?
My mind is blown. No wonder Sega dropped out of the hardware business.
Sorta. A lot of it has to do with the rushed nature of the Saturn. the saturn was never meant to be a 3D machine... it was supposed to be the ultimate 2D machine, with the 3D power of the model 1 arcade board. When sony revealed their PSX with it's much more powerful 3D rendering, sega essentially decided to duct tape 2 saturns together.
So, instead of 1 SH2 CPU, they included 2. Instead of 1 VDP, they included two. In truthfulness, when harnessed properly, the saturn was capible of eclipsing the N64 and displaying jaw-dropping 3D effects but doing so would require a level of expertise with the hardware that could only be obtained if you were involved in the actual creation of the hardware.
Sony's PS3 is being compared to "a movie theater" vs the Xbox 360 being "A dvd" in terms of complexity to program for according to Hideo Kojima. Consider the saturn to be a 3D holographic projector.
That's Shenmue, right?
Thanks for crushing my dreams.
Is Saturn emulation even possible for any system?
Of course.
It's worth noting that most of the games everyone always talks about when they mention the saturn are the games which more than any other pushed the system to the metal. Outside of Saturn Shenmue, the NiGHTS engine was THE saturn engine. When it was released, it wasn't just a pretty saturn game - it was a pretty game period. It was one of the most visually stunning games ever. It did a lot of things people thought impossible on the saturn, like 3D real-time alpha blending (i.e. making 3D objects transparent in 3D space), software based Z-Buffering, multiple independent multi-color light sources, and a huge draw distance. Games such a Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force III, and Burning Rangers all used it.
The VF2 engine was also heavily used, as it was probably the second most powerful engine created for the system, and it too pushed the Saturn to the extreme. VF2, Virtua On, Fighters Megamix, and Fighting Vipers all used it.
In order to get the good saturn games (i.e. not bug!) on gametap or the wii, the saturn emulator they have must be phenomenal.
maybe. With today's multi-core machines, I could see it being more possible. Devote a single core to emulating a saturn processor...
Of course, there is another way. Let us not forget that Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Fighter 2, Bug!, and several other saturn games were ported to the PC. This is because sega invented what they call the DINO engine, which would allow them to play saturn ports on a PC (this was before the days of OpenGL or Direct X). They could, theoretically, if they still had the source codes to these games, port them over to the DINO engine and then run those games on modern PCs (as the DINO engine was later ported to Direct X). but that's not emulation, that's full on porting - rewriting chunks of a game to work on a different system.
But that is certainly possible.
I suggested that in my post. That's how GiriGiri worked, in fact.
The problem is that saturn emulation is very intensive, and doing this means they do twice the work.
That thing is madness.'
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
Nintendo DS?
Not quite.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
You and I have a vastly different definition of "Pretty Well."
intriguing. I go to investigate.
It wasn't so bad at the time. Besides, the way had to be paved somehow.
My Collection
It was to 3D was the 8-bit generation was to 2D.
I groan everytime someone calls a PSX/N64/Saturn game "unplayable" because it's ugly. It's bullshit. The games are still every bit as much playable today as they were before.
the games that suck to play now just sucked back then.
This is incorrect. The N64 and PSX couldn't do 2D the same way the saturn did.
EDIT: And there were 2D games on the saturn that weren't possible on the PSX or N64.
Yeah, but the same thing could be said about the 2D generation. I didn't say that old games are always awesome. I said they're just as playable now as they were then. Games that suck still suck, and games that rock still rock. People who dismiss, say, Fighters Megamix because it looks bad are idiots and are missing out on one of the best fighting games ever.
Share your wisdom with us.
Well duh the Sega Saturn had Segata Sanshiro so like if anyone made 2d games that weren't better he totally made them explode or killed them or something.
I never asked for this!
It makes perfect sense.
The sega saturn was a memory power house. It could push more sprites, bigger sprites, more colorful sprites than the N64 or PSX could. 2D games could have more animation, too.
The Sega Saturn has roughly 10 or so megabytes of ram available to 2D animation with the ram cart expansion. That is, 10 megabytes devoted to frames of animation. By comparison, the N64 had 4 mb and the PSX even less than that.
Want proof that the Saturn was a 2D beast? Compare Xmen vs Street Fighter. Or Street Fighter Alpha. Or Mortal Kombat 3 vs UMK3.
Everytime the saturn went up against the PSX or N64, it blew them away on the 2D front. Hell, even games like Astal are prettier, and pack more of a 2D muscle than possible on the PSX or N64. The saturn dominated on the 2D front.
I'm not him, but from what I have heard, the Saturn was designed have graphically awesome 2D games. They shoved the other processor in to make it better at doing 3D. This made it fucking hard to program any good 3D games for the Saturn. The fact that it was good at 2D didn't matter when pretty much all of the really big games were 3D.
Oh, no, don't get me wrong, I'm not bitching and moaning about the N64/PSX/Sat generation, my favorite game comes from that generation (Rayman 2: The Great Escape) I was just saying that it would have been nice to see what would have come out of a kickass pure-2D system.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
... the thought of such pretty 2d makes me kinda wish that Sega hadn't made so many bad decisions and the Saturn had become huge.
The Saturn was huge... In Japan.
Over here?.... not so much...
I never asked for this!
Astal. This was originally going to be the killer Saturn App before 3D became the shift of focus.
There is about 7 layers of parallax in this screen shot, and nearly everything is a separate sprite.
I'm guessing that's also why 2D ports of games like Mortal Kombat Trilogy just plain didn't run well. You're instructing the System to run bit-maps all over the place when its specialty is pushing polygons.
Or maybe I am just dumb and have no idea what I'm talking about.
I was running around Splash Garden yesterday and I'm pretty sure the draw distance was the equivalent of 10 metres.
RE Saturn emulation: I recall playing NiGHTS on this PC at a decent speed a few months ago.
i get what you are saying, and i agree to some extent.
but i played jet moto one a few months ago and as i was racing i was trying to identify an object in front of me. like "i don't remember that type of...WHAM! it was a tree.
so some stuff that was cutting edge visuals fails now.
this does NOT apply to games with strong art direction.
Nintendo Friend Code: SW-0689-9921-0006
and i weep at our loss.
that...that is just ...sexy.
Nintendo Friend Code: SW-0689-9921-0006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VlFtv1AZ_k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PGjw6C1aZo
It's beautiful, that's for sure, it's a shame I don't really like how it plays.
I love the later levels. Every time I want to talk about how good the game looks, I always want to post three specific part of the game, where you're fighting this giant, multiple-screen long bug with huge legs, the part where you fight the evil Astal guy, and the very end boss fight.
EDIT: Here's an example of later in the game
EDIT DOS: Oh, another really good example
I'm still trying to find the three parts I'm talking about...