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midnightguy · Jul 9, 2005

Rave Racer for PowerVR Series 1 (PCX1, PCX2) - 1996 - unreleased

now lets compare estimated performance of Arcade, Playstation and PowerVR1 Ridge Racers

Arcade System22 board (Ridge 1993 - Ridge 2 1994 - Rave 1995)

240,000 triangles/sec with texture mapping, z-buffer, fog, perspective correction, gouraud shading, lighting. (no texture filtering) games run at 60 FPS, 640 x 480 interlaced. Rave Racer has higher res textures

Playstation Ridge Racer 1994: approx 90,000 textured, shaded polygons. 30 FPS. approx 320 x 220 interlaced. ~ roughly about 1/4 to 1/3 of the System22 arcade graphics

Playstation Ridge Racer High Spec / Turbo 1998 - improved polygon models, better texture mapping, shading and lighting @ 60 FPS - therefore, about 180,000 textured, shaded, lit polygons ~ roughly about 2/3 to 3/4 of the System22 arcade Ridge Racer graphics

PowerVR1 Rave Racer 1996: roughly 200,000 polygons sec at most, probably less than that though. 30 FPS. 640 x 480. gourad shading, high-res textures, some effects not in arcade to make up for lower polygon count. ~roughly about 1/2 of the System22 arcade Rave Racer graphics (remeber its half the framerate which cuts polygon count)

Ridge Racer HiSpec / Turbo is the most impressive of the home versions, because it is pushing Playstation (which is weaker than PowerVR1 + Pentium 133) harder than the PowerVR Rave Racer conversion. no doubt, if the PowerVR1 was pushed as hard as the Playstation was in 1998 RR HiSpec, the Rave Racer conversion could've been 60 FPS and even more impressive, but that did not happen, since Rave Racer PowerVR1 was first or second generation PowerVR1 software and an improve version years later does not exist.

ourumov · Jul 9, 2005

Looks pretty similar to the arcade to me

GDGF · Jul 9, 2005

I still have that Next Generation.

element · Jul 9, 2005

i miss nextgen

midnightguy · Jul 9, 2005

I miss Next Generation and Next Generation Online.

when they became Next-Gen and Daily Radar, things went downhill.

now that Next-Gernation is back, I am not seeing the old industry-savey Next Generation that I knew in the mid to late 1990s....

element · Jul 9, 2005

the thing that i loved about nextgen back in the day is with each issue i actually learned something. They talked about a new type of tech in a game preview. They talked about why this hardware was better then that hardware. they had AWESOME interviews!! Each issue was like Game Developer, but actually better.

Barry Lightning · Jul 10, 2005

does anyone actually receive their issues of game developer? they keep telling me i've had a subscription for 2 years but i've never once received an issue in the mail.

MetalAlien · Jul 10, 2005

NG and NGO love.

ArcadeStickMonk · Jul 10, 2005

element · Jul 10, 2005

Barry Lightning said:
does anyone actually receive their issues of game developer? they keep telling me i've had a subscription for 2 years but i've never once received an issue in the mail.

I get mine each month.

Lazy8s · Jul 10, 2005

One of the extra effects mentioned that PowerVR could've improved over the System22 arcade board might have been the use of gouraud shading. The way the lighting system in the Rave Racer arcade is explained reads as if the game just swaps different colored textures onto the cars when it drives through tunnels and shadowed areas. Hardware lighting/shading for that effect could produce a more natural result and save memory.

midnightguy · Jul 10, 2005

Lazy8s said:
One of the extra effects mentioned that PowerVR could've improved over the System22 arcade board might have been the use of gouraud shading. The way the lighting system in the Rave Racer arcade is explained reads as if the game just swaps different colored textures onto the cars when it drives through tunnels and shadowed areas. Hardware lighting/shading for that effect could produce a more natural result and save memory.

well that might have been true if Rave Racer had been created for SEGA's Model 2 board, which lacked hardware gouraud shading. the System22 board was definitally capable of it, in fact, Namco stressed that one of the key advantages of System22 over Model 2 was gouraud shading, even though Model 2 could pump out more textured polygons
(System22: 240,000 textured gouraud shaded polygons/sec - Model 2: 300,000 textured polygons/sec)

an area where PowerVR could definitally have improved over System22 was texture filtering, if using the PCX2 revision of PowerVR1. System22 and Super System22 lacked texture filtering.

mip-mapping might have also been an area where PowerVR (PCX1 or PCX2) could've improved over System22 board, as I think (not certain) that System22 lacked mip-mapping.

Lazy8s · Jul 10, 2005

The way the PowerVR enhancements are described as doing away with need for the extra, shaded polygons of the arcade version reads somewhat (confusingly, though) like adding gouraud shading. It also reads like the enhancement could be higher precision lighting, cutting down the need for so much geometry tesselation, but that doesn't seem to make as much sense.

Perhaps using the feature on System22 was problematic. PowerVR's Simon Fenney, who assisted on the conversion, also got the impression from Rave Racer's assets that gouraud shading wasn't used.

midnightguy · Jul 10, 2005

Lazy8s said:
The way the PowerVR enhancements are described as doing away with need for the extra, shaded polygons of the arcade version reads somewhat (confusingly, though) like adding gouraud shading.

true, yeah it does. but in that context, what gouraud shading would've be used for, is to help close the gap between System22's realworld polygon throughput, and PowerVR's, were PowerVR had less realworld polygon performance
(partly because of the constraints of being dependant on Pentium CPUs)

It however did not mean that System22 lacked gouraud shading

It also reads like the enhancement could be higher precision lighting, cutting down the need for so much geometry tesselation, but that doesn't seem to make as much sense.

yeah, not enough info to make any definitive conclusions.

Perhaps using the feature on System22 was problematic. PowerVR's Simon Fenney, who assisted on the conversion, also got the impression from Rave Racer's assets that gouraud shading wasn't used.

that seems likely, yeah. even though both System22 and PowerVR were capable of gouraud shading, early software on both did not seem to make entensive use of it.
(i.e. there was very little gouraud shading used in System22 arcade Ridge Racer (1993) or
arcade Ridge Racer 2 (1994). IIRC, System22 arcade Ace Driver was the first System22 game to make significant use of gouraud shading.

with that said, it is a shame we did not get an arcade-identical or improved port of
Rave Racer on PowerVR2 based systems (Dreamcast, Neon250).

where a Pentium 133 coupled with a PowerVR1 based card (PCX1 or PCX2) of the *mid* 1990s was *not* enough horsepower to rival the System22 board, a PowerVR2 based system with better CPU (SH4 or Pentium III) ... re: Dreamcast or PC of the *late* 1990s would've been more than enough to rival System22, and even easily surpass it, significantly -- since both such platforms (late 1990s PC or Dreamcast) with PowerVR2 are capable of several million textured polygons/sec and System22 is stuck with 240,000/sec.

....keeping in mind the fact that System22's 240,000 polygons is a very robust figure, it is sustained and realworld... whereas a typical PC 3D accelerator of the mid 1990s that has a claimed spec of 350,000 to 500,000 textured polygons was actually significantly LESS powerful in practice than either Namco System22 or Sega Model 2.

ManaByte · Jul 10, 2005

element said:
the thing that i loved about nextgen back in the day is with each issue i actually learned something. They talked about a new type of tech in a game preview. They talked about why this hardware was better then that hardware. they had AWESOME interviews!! Each issue was like Game Developer, but actually better.

"Liquid AI? Thats the shit that ran down EA's leg when they saw our game".

The Kelly Flock interview is classic.

midnightguy · Jul 13, 2005

Next Generation was by far the best magazine from 1995 to 1999. I read every issue from cover to cover, at least twice.

akascream · Jul 13, 2005

ArcadeStickMonk said:

:lol

omg lol

midnightguy · Jul 15, 2005

I don't get it. :lol

Flo_Evans · Jul 15, 2005

man those scan reminded me of how good NG mag was. The layout of the articles and the typography are something you would find in a good design mag. Really makes me hate the 2Xtreme!! grafiti font bullshit magazine design found in every current gaming rag.

midnightguy · Jul 15, 2005

Flo_Evans said:
man those scan reminded me of how good NG mag was. The layout of the articles and the typography are something you would find in a good design mag. Really makes me hate the 2Xtreme!! grafiti font bullshit magazine design found in every current gaming rag.

I really hate just about every current videogame magazine.

i liked:
*old EGM when it was from Sendai Publications (1989 to 1994-95)
*VideoGames & Computer Entertainment (1989 - 1993)
*the old Game Players multi-console magazine (1989 until UGP came out)
*EDGE and Next Generation magazines (1994 to 1999 or so before it turned into Next-Gen)
*Intelligent Gamer magazine (1996 until the late 1990s)

now magazines mean dick-all because the internet is so pervasive and important.

Flo_Evans · Jul 15, 2005

yeah - I asked my GF to get me a subsription to the offical playstation mag (for the monthly demo disk) and instead she got one for PSM.... makes my eyes bleed just to try and read it.

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here's what PowerVR1 Rave Racer for PC looked like, circa 1996

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