You have to remember that at that time PC still got huge AAA exclusives that were FAR beyond console games. The likes of Doom 3 and especially Half Life 2 were the best games graphically you could get. The fact that a console at that time could even get a port, it was pretty impressive.
Q3 on your screenshots looks REALLY good, Q3 was also ported to PS2, so I wonder how both version compare.More Dreamcast games emulated.
Quake 3
More Le Mans
Yet GC exclusives look better than Riddick and Splinter Cell, and that is with out direct shiny wall shaders.Splinter Cell 1 Xbox vs GC
Both versions looks very similar, it's hard to tell wich one is better
More screenshots in the spoiler
Tbqh doom 3 looks worse than a well made ps2 game. It had nice lighting on Xbox, nice dynamic per pixel lighting. A kind where you didn't even see on the cube. But those poly counts were atrocious. How others do not see this I do not know. Someone brought up black ; that was impressive for ps2.
Halo 2 looks worse than Riddick.
OKI have asked moderator to change an existing thread name to include dreamcast. Also I have usedEsppiral DC screenshots in my 1'st post but I had to change resolution from 1080p to DC standards because screenshots from other games are in 640x480 as well.
I thought PS2 was more capable than dreamcast, but on your screenshots dreamcast version looks way much better (especially textures). I'm reading DC specification right now and they mention 5:1 texture compression, so maybe that's why textures looks much sharper on dreamcast? But I have to say pretty much all PC games ported to PS2 looked extremely bad, Max Payne, Rune, Deus Ex, and even half life 1 (half life 1 run and looked better on Pentium 2 and 3DFX voodoo 3 card than PS2 version!)
Both Doom 3 and Riddick werent as detailed as some other xbox games like for example Splinter Cell 1 (polygon wise), but well made PS2 game (like Killzone, Time Spliters 2 for example) still had even less polygons. Also keep in mind bump mapping was used in Riddick and Doom 3 to create an illussion of higher polycounts on various objects (that's why bump mapping was invented in the first place), and with specular lighting and per pixel lighting on top of that these two games looked almost next gen compared to PS2 titles like killzone.
That's your opinion, not a fact. I have played fzero GX yersterday on dolphin emulator and there's nothing impressive in that game besides framerate. Only ships models have high quality textures, but besides that textures are low quality and levels arnt very detailed.
Here's similar game on xbox, ground texture is very detailed and is using pixel shaders (you can see bumps and reflections even during high speed). Why fzero gx doesnt feature details like that? The thing is, many xbox games were using effects like that frequently while GC games very rarely. The only game that can be compared to the best xbox titles is rogue leader, maybe also star fox (water surface had reflections and some object had realtime shadows instead of blob shadows) and wave race (water surface looked good) but besides that I dont really remember many other GC games that would feature graphics effects comparable to xbox.
It was totally opposite on MS console, because pretty much every xbox exclusive game used xbox hardware features (pixel and vertex shaders, shadow buffers) and later on even multiplatform games from PC also were using shaders (like doom 3 or Half Life 2 for example). And the thing is, when games were made with xbox in mind from the start (like Splinter cell 1-4) and later on ported to GC they were downgraded to the extreme (unlike RE4 port on PS2, because RE4 on PS2 still looked like the same game). If GC hardware would had more RAM + HDD and could recreate shaders and shadow buffers with good performance GC port would look comparable to xbox. Splinter Cell 1 on GC version had higher resolution textures compared to PS2 version, better water surface, better framerate but it was everything they could improve on GC version. Xbox version however still looked like a different game compared to both PS2 and GC versions.
Splinter cell 1
What's interesting even PS3 version had downgraded shadows compared to xbox version because RSX didnt had shadow buffers like Geforce 3-4-5 and xbox GPU. It's possible to emulate shadows buffers on PC with similar GPU (7800 GTX, and even xbox emulator on x360 did it) so I dont know why PS3 port used much worse looking shadows in this game. But one thing for sure, GC hardware would never emulate Splinter Cell shadow buffers with good performance and not to mention shaders on top of that.
Splinter Cell 3
In splinter cell 3 the difference is even bigger because this particular game was using shaders and specular lighting on all textures.
RE4 was very detailed game (polygon wise) and also texture quality was good but compared to xbox games I could see mamy effects missing. Water surface looked really bad, there were no dynamic shadows, and no shaders and bumps on textures. With effects like that RE4 would look stunning. Shader effects and shadow buffers really made a difference in xbox games and there's no way games like doom 3, riddick, splinter cell 1-4 games, far cry instincts, Half life 2, halo 1-2, PGR2, ralli sport 2 could be ever ported to GC because of inferior hardware. In fact people here mention even PS2 burnout 3 was too demanding for GC and that's why game wasnt ported to GC and you want to tell us GC had the best hardware. Yeah but lets believe GC hardware was the best despite the evidence (gamecube games vs xbox games).
When it comes to Half Llife 2 port on xbox classic, it had mixed textures, some textures looked sharp, while other textures looked like a blurry mess (compared to typical xbox game).
But even with lower quality textures compared to PC version and with poor framerate I have enjoyed playing xbox version. On CRT textures looked good for the most part, and even when framerate was diping to around 20fps it was still easy to aim (I dont know why but some games feel smooth and responsive even at lower fps, while in other games even 2fps dip feels cause problems with aiming).
Not killzone, but criterion's black yes.I thought PS2 was more capable than dreamcast, but on your screenshots dreamcast version looks way much better (especially textures). I'm reading DC specification right now and they mention 5:1 texture compression so maybe that's why textures looks much sharper on dreamcast? But I have to say pretty much all PC games ported to PS2 looked extremely bad, Max Payne, Rune, Deus Ex, and even half life 1 (half life 1 run and looked better on Pentium 2 and 3DFX voodoo 3 card than PS2 version!)
And here's some Q3 engine game RTCW on xbox, it was really good port, it run in higher resolution than typical xbox game (720x480 compared to 640x480), it had new levels compared to PC version, improved water rendering, although PC version had still higher resolution textures (especially character textures) better fog and coronas.
More screenshots in the spoiler
Both Doom 3 and Riddick wasnt as detailed as some other xbox games like for example Splinter Cell 1 (polygon wise), but well made PS2 game (like Killzone, Time Spliters 2 for example) still had even less polygons. Also keep in mind bump mapping was used in Riddick and Doom 3 to create illussion of higher polycounts on various objects, that's why bump mapping was invented in the first place, and with specular lighting and per pixel lighting on top of that these two games looked almost next gen games compared to PS2 titles.
Killzone 1
Doom 3 (xbox)
You want to tell me Killzone 1 looked better than Doom 3 on xbox?
And here's Riddick
Even simple square rooms in Riddick looks impressive thanks to these shader effects and dynamic lighting
When it comes to Half Llife 2 port on xbox classic, it had mixed textures, some textures looked sharp, while other textures looked like a blurry mess (compared to typical xbox game).
But even with lower quality textures compared to PC version and with poor framerate I have enjoyed playing xbox version. On CRT textures looked good for the most part, and even when framerate was diping to around 20fps it was still easy to aim (I dont know why but some games feel smooth and responsive even at lower fps, while in other games even 2fps dip feels cause problems with aiming).
PS2 had excellent SFX, high polycounts but often extremely simple textures, fixed cameras to allow good performances.
That's exactly why I was so amazed with xbox games. Levels in half life 2, halo 1-2, and especially far cry predator were really big,
IMO xbox classic was not only powerfull but also had many very good games. Yes, PS2 still had more games, but I had well over 50 amazing games on xbox which is still very good number (for comparison on PS4 I only have 18 games).
, dense grass, detailed trees, water with shaders. GC and PS2 ports looks.... well let's forget these version even existed .
, I was really impressed back then and game was very fun too.
That's exactly why I was so amazed with xbox games. Levels in half life 2, halo 1-2, and especially far cry predator were really big,
IMO xbox classic was not only powerfull but also had many very good games. Yes, PS2 still had more games, but I had well over 50 amazing games on xbox which is still very good number (for comparison on PS4 I only have 18 games).
Many xbox exclusives were ported years later to PC, for example halo but still I have played them for the first time on xbox. For example I remeber Fable in particular, it was one of the best games I have ever played during 6'th gen era, I couldnt stop playing it for entire week. Not only game was extremly fun to play and long, but also had amazing graphics. shadow buffers, detailed and large world, shaders on water surface.
Also some multiplatform games like Ghost Reacon 2 on xbox were a totally different games compared to PS2/GC.
To me Ghost Reacon 2 on xbox looked like a 3Dmark
Also Xbox had some really underrated games that I really liked, games like Brute Force, Enclave and even Dino Crisis 3 (different game compared to previous 2 dino crisis games, but I still liked it)
Brute Force
Brute force had bump mapping pretty much everywhere
Enclave, I cant run it on xbox 360, so I will use screenshots found on the internet and from PC version running at 640x480. Enclave had breathtaking levels and graphics (very high quality textures, water with shaders, shadow buffers), epic sound track, and very good gameplay, although some people considered it too hard (I have completed it anyway)
God Of War 1-2 looks amazing considering it's running on PS2, but indeed texture quality was far from good. I hope we will see GOW 1-2 remakes somedayPS2 had excellent SFX, high polycounts but often extremely simple textures, fixed cameras to allow good performances.
For instance, you can admire the over detailed textures of One of the most respected ps2 games:
PS2 hardware was too unbalanced.
The PS3 on the other hand has no real flaw.(SFX,textures, polycount,everything is fine)
It's incredibly detailed but it also is 30fps unlike star fox. Also the facial animations are less detailed compared to 64.
And now some GC screenshots
I really just cant tell why people consider Metroid Prime 2 the most detailed (polygon wise) game on 6'th gen. To me it looks like standard game on Q3 engine.
Also texture quality isnt the best, maybe even half life 2 on xbox has better textures for the most part
F-Zero GX
Yea, it was stunning when it came out. When Itagaki was head of Team Ninja he did not disappoint.
NG2 was good, but I agree it wasn't as good as the first one. It's always a challenge to make a sequel good as the original.
I thought DOA4 looked good, but I agree it didn't have the same visual impact as DOA3 when it launched for the OG Xbox.
Have you played Fzero GX on real GC hardware? I'm using emulator and analog sticks on my xbox one gamepad are too sensitive to the point I cant even stay on track. I wonder if controls on real GC were also so bad or it's just emulator to blame. Game looks fun and also music is very good, but controls ruins everything for me.
I think it must be something with the deadzones and stick sensitivity.
