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[AstroNut325]

Problem is, is the ones that care about power & graphics are in the minority of the entire gaming world. The average consumer doesn't give a damn about graphics & power, they just want to play games (& average consumers makes up about 90% of the gaming world every generation).

If the next Gen consoles aren't total beasts I will simply abandon console gaming. I'll order the Alienware X51, slap a 680 successor in and replace my current Gen systems in my living room.

I know I'm in the minority but that doesn't mean I have to go along with the flow.

 

[StuBurns]

So, I don't know anything about tech, could anyone give me a quick one sentence with how this compares with the rumoured PS4 specs? And based on the tech, when is each likely to release? If that can be extracted from the specs at all, of course.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

This is what I don't get. If 3rd party companies are such graphic fans, why not turn to the PC?

The average AAA game sells much, much better on consoles than on PC.

 

[lostinblue]

One of Sony's problems was that you didn't see the "$300 difference". Those 300 dollars more were very inefficient spend. If anything the 360 - not the ps3 - looked like the more capable console and wasn't the machine that "offered" multiplat games with blurry image quality, worst textures and lower framerates.

Still wouldn't justify the extra price, just like Xbox didn't.

As long as Sony Orbis runs the same games being more or less powerful won't really matter providing it's balanced enough and cheaper; mass consumer isn't a tech head. Pricepoint and exclusives will be the real selling point.

And power matters... maybe not for you, but there are a lot of people that care for technical progress and can´t stand stagnation.

Face it, those people are a minority. And I actually care for specs, for them to be appropriate anyway rather than inappropriate (I don't like underpowered I like just-right/best-bang-for-the-buck). Otherwise I wouldn't be having this specs talk or analysing them.

Thing is I've got present that the situation of a console offering top range hardware at a competing price isn't a good business decision; it wasn't this gen and won't be in the future. Sony has to worry about their profitability rather than cater to a minority. Specially after the wii was market leader with 10 year old hardware. I also value more that there is competition than seeing them go bankrupt because of me.

You can swim against the river or you can accept that specs aren't all they're supposed to be; for starters most people can't interpret them properly. I mean for lots of people 8 cores are 8 cores, even if they're Intel Atom cores (ridiculously suggested by the article) I mean it still sounds very powerful! Just like a GPU based on Kepler/Geforce 6xx sounds better than one based on the previous Fermi generation despite the fact that performance configurations vary, and thus only top range kepler configurations beat top range fermi ones.

In the end they tend to be confusing for regular consumers, see, having the consumer compare console SKU's and HDD capacity between models from the same manufacturer surely didn't help Sony or Microsoft this gen. If you're too confused to decide you might as well go for a wii, it's simpler, just one sku and no hdd comparing.

If the next Gen consoles aren't total beasts I will simply abandon console gaming. I'll order the Alienware X51, slap a 680 successor in and replace my current Gen systems in my living room.

I know I'm in the minority but that doesn't mean I have to go along with the flow.

Good thing you have a choice.

That's a great machine, I'd like to be able to consider one as a gaming machine; but it's too expensive for me; you're paying for that extra power; doesn't make sense for console manufacturers to top it and sell it at a fraction of the cost.

 

[CLEEK]

Saturn was more powerful. Thing is it was hard as nails to develop for so not many games show it's power advantage.

Oh man, no. No, it wasn't.

You don't even need to know anything about hardware design to see this.

Look at the best games on each console. Which ones are technologically better? When pushed, the PS1 destroyed the Saturn in everything except 2D sprite games. Late gen PS1 games were incredible. Nothing on the Saturn comes close to the technical oomf of GT1/2, Wip3out, Tekken 3, Ridge Racer Type 4 and so on.

 

[StuBurns]

Oh man, no. No, it wasn't.

You don't even need to know anything about hardware design to see this.

Look at the best games on each console. Which ones are technologically better? When pushed, the PS1 destroyed the Saturn in everything except 2D sprite games. Late gen PS1 games were incredible. Nothing on the Saturn comes close to the technical oomf of GT1/2, Wip3out, Tekken 3, Ridge Racer Type 4 and so on.

I'm not saying you're wrong in terms of it's capabilities, but using those examples is kind of ridiculous. The Saturn didn't have the software support the PS1 did, the work wasn't put in late game to maximize it's capabilities like it was on PS1.

EDIT: And I'd say PDS goes toe to toe with practically anything on PS1.

 

[CLEEK]

I'm not saying you're wrong in terms of it's capabilities, but using those examples is kind of ridiculous. The Saturn didn't have the software support the PS1 did, the work wasn't put in late game to maximize it's capabilities like it was on PS1.

It's not ridiculous. Comparing best software on each platforms is the way to compare relative merits of consoles.

Bare in mind that the most advanced 3D Saturn games were first party, who would know how to push the hardware. Yet none of these held a candle to even mid-gen PS1 games. Third party support is irrelevant. Lack of 3rd party games didn't prevent Nintendo from pushing the N64 either.

Daytona vs Ridge Racer
Daytona CE vs Rage Racer or Ridge Racer Type 4
VF2 or Fighters MegaMix vs Tekken 2 or Tekken 3
Sega Rally Vs GT1/2

The PS1 was custom designed to run 3D games. The Saturn was not. It had a second Hitachi CPU added late in its design in a vain attempt to match the announced specs of the PS1, resulting in an unbalanced design. It couldn't handle transparencies, and the number of polygons it could render was far lower then the PS1. Saturn 3D games usually ran in a lower resolution (Saturn had a couple of high res modes which it used for 2D gaming). The Saturn was a 2D powerhouse, but the world had moved into 3D and polygons. As Sega knew well, as they were pioneering this in the arcades, yet failed to bring this tech into the home.

 

[milsorgen]

I'm not saying you're wrong in terms of it's capabilities, but using those examples is kind of ridiculous. The Saturn didn't have the software support the PS1 did, the work wasn't put in late game to maximize it's capabilities like it was on PS1.

EDIT: And I'd say PDS goes toe to toe with practically anything on PS1.

Saturn was designed for 2d games at the height of 2d gaming, when they found out what Sony was going for 3d they hastily added 3d capabilities late in the design phase. It was never going to be able to compete with the PS1 in 3d gaming without tremendous effort on the part of the devs.

 

[CLEEK]

Saturn was designed for 2d games at the height of 2d gaming

Not even that - it was designed at the time that 2D gaming had already peaked, Model 1 had been out for a while and Model 2 was being designed.

Sega knew more than any other company that the future of gaming was 3D, yet they fucked up / cheaped out and designed a 2D console. Which they then tried to beef up at the last minute with a second CPU.

 

[StuBurns]

Tekken 3, Ridge Racer Type 4 and so on.

Third party support is irrelevant.

Sure.

 

[GoofsterStud]

I still think Shining Force 3 Scenario 3, Radiant Silver Gun, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Burning Rangers (The lighting effects weren't possible on the PSX), Shemnue (sega saturn) and Grandia all looked as good or better then the PSX best.

The problem is games had to be coded in assembly to take advantage of the systems power. The sound processor had to also be used for graphics.

 

[CLEEK]

Sure.

Namco were effectively second party with Sony during the PS1 era. And Sony had limited internal studios, compared to the depth of development talent in-house at Sega.

Even so, Wip3out (hell, even Wipeout 2097) is far in advance of any Saturn game.

Anyway, this is derailing the thread, so I'll leave this alone.

 

[lostinblue]

Oh man, no. No, it wasn't.

You don't even need to know anything about hardware design to see this.

Look at the best games on each console. Which ones are technologically better? When pushed, the PS1 destroyed the Saturn in everything except 2D sprite games. Late gen PS1 games were incredible. Nothing on the Saturn comes close to the technical oomf of GT1/2, Wip3out, Tekken 3, Ridge Racer Type 4 and so on.

Theorectically more powerful if you will. Saturn didn't live until it was mature enough to have the software swansong setoff PSone had. Then again claims of Virtua Fighter 3 pulling somewhere between 500.000 to 750.000 polygons per second on it and being essentially ready but never released are pretty much documented (and past anything PSone could do) and there's Shenmue Saturn videos out there. I can't imagine PSone pulling that. Some later games also showed a glimpse of the systems potential.

Doesn't change the fact that Saturn was a bitch to develop for and never reached it's potential unlike PSone, but it was powerful. I'm not saying it was better/more balanced/pleasing to develop for, as it wasn't; but overlooking it is wrong. Saturn was too much of a beast for it's own good.

No Psone game did the high resolution mode Saturn did with Virtua Fighter 2 in 3D no less, and it could certainly pull a lot of polygons with better rendering than PSone. (see, PSone did 3D in low precision mode with polygons snapping to a grid in order to simplify 3D coordinates) that's why PSone emulation doesn't really work right at higher resolutions because polygons will be snapping to the original grid. Not so with Sega Saturn games being emulated.

If N64 or Saturn resorted to Playstation tricks they could render a shitload more polygons, but they didn't (N64 actually had a forbidden low precision microcode mode like that, on the Saturn it probably wasn't possible). PSone wasn't really all that powerful, trust me; it was powerful enough and clever enough to do some big tradeoff's (when it came to rendering quality) in order to make the most of itself, the rest was down to being easy to develop for, cheap licensing fee's, transparencies (that the saturn managed to get wrong) and FMV support via hardware. It managed to hit all the right notes while not being nothing special as a piece of hardware, it's omissions were forgivable.


But let's not have this discussion, I agree to disagree if that's the case.

 

[GoofsterStud]

Shenmue Saturn

Virtua Fighter 3 Saturn: (Apperently it was nearly finished, these got leaked about the same time Shemnue did. Sega admitted it was done, and it proved the SAT was more powerful then the PSX; however, Sega didn't release the inferior version as they felt it would eat into sales of the Dreamcast. I wish they would of released these games for the Saturn; however, in the end I think the Dreamcast was the right choice. AM2 did not want to port Virtua Fighter 3 for the DC and wanted to release it for the Saturn. They were against porting a game that old, and wanted to release Virtua Fighter 4 in house. That is why Genki did the Dreamcast port.

The 4 MB ram cart really did improve the Saturn's performance for both 2D and 3D. Virtua Fighter 3 and Shemnue supposedly made use of the ram cartridge to do what many thought was unthinkable. The biggest problem was that the US refused to release the ram cart. The US really fumbled with the Saturn, it actually sold well in Japan.

Back on topic: I really hope console owners get to choose from simple performance/graphic settings. Even if it's as simple as. Enable FXXA, 60 frames 720p or 30 frames 1080p mode.

 

[DR3AM]

will this be able to do BF3 ( or BF4) on Ultra + 60 FPS? aka, how powerful is it?

 

[Borman]

Virtua Fighter 3 Saturn: (Apperently it was nearly finished, these got leaked about the same time Shemnue did. Sega admitted it was done, and it proved the SAT was more powerful then the PSX; however, Sega didn't release the inferior version as they felt it would eat into sales of the Dreamcast. I wish they would of released these games for the Saturn; however, in the end I think the Dreamcast was the right choice. AM2 did not want to port Virtua Fighter 3 for the DC and wanted to release it for the Saturn. They were against porting a game that old, and wanted to release Virtua Fighter 4 in house. That is why Genki did the Dreamcast port.

The 4 MB ram cart really did improve the Saturn's performance for both 2D and 3D. Virtua Fighter 3 and Shemnue supposedly made use of the ram cartridge to do what many thought was unthinkable. The biggest problem was that the US refused to release the ram cart. The US really fumbled with the Saturn, it actually sold well in Japan.

Dont think these are Saturn screens, despite what one site says.

 

[GoofsterStud]

Dont think these are Saturn screens, despite what one site says.

It was on a lot of sites. I remember seeing them everywhere, and Sega's response was that it existed. So we will never know. They had the same initial response with Shenmue. I don't see why they couldn't be, the backgrounds were far more detailed in Shenmue and the character models were nearly as good. Still it's vaporware regardless.

 

[Loghorn150]

Thing is I've got present that the situation of a console offering top range hardware at a competing price isn't a good business decision; it wasn't this gen and won't be in the future. Sony has to worry about their profitability rather than cater to a minority. Specially after the wii was market leader with 10 year old hardware. I also value more that there is competition than seeing them go bankrupt because of me.

I agree. Sony would have to be absolute morons to just go for more bleeding edge tech with tons of power & graphics after seeing what happened to them financially with both PS3 & PS Vita in order to please a small minority group of mindless fanboys.

 

[lostinblue]

Sorry to drag this on, but those are not Virtua Fighter 3 saturn images, they're mame's model 3 early emulation with glitches. Got distributed as Saturn shots a few years back.

They're garbled, final game on the saturn in finished form couldn't possibly look like that.

The 4 MB ram cart really did improve the Saturn's performance for both 2D and 3D. Virtua Fighter 3 and Shemnue supposedly made use of the ram cartridge to do what many thought was unthinkable. The biggest problem was that the US refused to release the ram cart. The US really fumbled with the Saturn, it actually sold well in Japan.

The ram cart is debatable:

As with the Shenmue prototype, neither revision of Saturn VF3 used any kind of hardware accelerator or memory upgrade cartridge

Source: http://www.assemblergames.com/forum...mcast-any-info&p=232648&viewfull=1#post232648

Also this:

Have you worked on the previous DC Shenmue games?

Shin Ishikawa: I have worked on all Shenmue versions.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the unreleased Saturn version? How long had it been worked on, and did it use the experimental Saturn expansion cartridge or the 4meg RAM card?

Shin Ishikawa: Nearly two years of work was put in the Saturn version. It didn’t use a booster cartridge nor did it use the 4meg RAM card, so yes, the game was programmed for, and the footage seen as an extra on Shenmue II is from the code running on a stock Saturn.

VF3 was probably the same.

 

[Globox_82]

I agree. Sony would have to be absolute morons to just go for more bleeding edge tech with tons of power & graphics after seeing what happened to them financially with both PS3 & PS Vita in order to please a small minority group of mindless fanboys.

That dont even buy games. They talk about them

 

[GoofsterStud]

Sorry to drag this on, but those are not Virtua Fighter 3 saturn images, they're mame's model 3 early emulation with glitches. Got distributed as Saturn shots a few years back.

They're garbled, final game on the saturn in finished form couldn't possibly look like that.The ram cart is debatable:

Source: http://www.assemblergames.com/forum...mcast-any-info&p=232648&viewfull=1#post232648

Also this:



VF3 was probably the same.

After doing more research I found this interview:
Q: Can you tell us a little bit more about the unreleased Saturn version? How long had it been worked on, and did it use the experimental Saturn expansion cartridge or the 4meg RAM card?
A: Nearly two years of work was put in the Saturn version. It didn’t use a booster cartridge nor did it use the 4meg RAM card, so yes, the game was programmed for, and the footage seen as an extra on Shenmue II is from the code running on a stock Saturn

Looks like you are right. Damn retro sites and sega-saturn.com. :-/

 

[Glorified G]

I agree. Sony would have to be absolute morons to just go for more bleeding edge tech with tons of power & graphics after seeing what happened to them financially with both PS3 & PS Vita in order to please a small minority group of mindless fanboys.

Was Sony trying to please a small minority group of mindless fanboys when they went with high end tech with the ps1/ps2?

 

[GoofsterStud]

Was Sony trying to please a small minority group of mindless fanboys when they went with high end tech with the ps1/ps2?

With the PS2 promises and over hyped DVD support, there was little doubt at the time. PS1 is a different story. It was a transition time form 2D to 3D, so it's debatable.

 

[Auto_aim1]

I agree. Sony would have to be absolute morons to just go for more bleeding edge tech with tons of power & graphics after seeing what happened to them financially with both PS3 & PS Vita in order to please a small minority group of mindless fanboys.

PS Vita isn't "bleeding edge tech with tons of power & graphics". It's what they could manage using off-the-shelf parts that was neither expensive nor weak. Coming to the PS3, they pushed their own business model with Blu-Ray and made the system expensive in the process. It is certainly not because of some small vocal minority.

 

[lefantome]

Can an Nvidia now on the market be more representative of an ati card that will be available in the future than thenactual ati cards?

 

[subversus]

Was Sony trying to please a small minority group of mindless fanboys when they went with high end tech with the ps1/ps2?

different times.

 

[Horse Armour]

Can an Nvidia now on the market be more representative of an ati card that will be available in the future than thenactual ati cards?

Nope. Current AMD cards are GCN architecture and will be for a few more years still so any AMD console GPU will definitely be based on the same GCN architecture as current cards so current nvidia cards would definitely not be closer to any console AMD GPU.

 

[Brad Grenz]

This may be true; however, it's almost always geared towards Nvidia. I never see AMD sites talk about FXAA. I just assumed Kepler must be more efficient at applying FXAA. I never hear any of the AMD guys talk about using injectors. Maybe I have been brainwashed.

Anyone can use the injectors, AMD or nVidia. No hardware is inherently better at it. FXAA'a association with nVidia largely stems from the fact it was added to their drivers as an AA option, much like AMD had done with MLAA back when the Radeon 5XXX cards hit. Injectors are just handy because they let you experiment with other post processing effects that you couldn't use with the "official" driver implementations. Even looking at it as MLAA vs FXAA is pretty silly since there is so much research going on in post-AA right now. There's SMAA, GPAA, PLAA... It's about the algorithm, not the hardware.

 

[Data West]

Would it be possible for a console next generation to use a SSD?

 

[S1kkZ]

Would it be possible for a console next generation to use a SSD?

yes but ms/sony wont sell the new consoles with an ssd (way to expensive for them). but i think they will give you the option to use an ssd as an upgrade.

 

[GoofsterStud]

Anyone can use the injectors, AMD or nVidia. No hardware is inherently better at it. FXAA'a association with nVidia largely stems from the fact it was added to their drivers as an AA option, much like AMD had done with MLAA back when the Radeon 5XXX cards hit. Injectors are just handy because they let you experiment with other post processing effects that you couldn't use with the "official" driver implementations. Even looking at it as MLAA vs FXAA is pretty silly since there is so much research going on in post-AA right now. There's SMAA, GPAA, PLAA... It's about the algorithm, not the hardware.

Thanks, that was very informative.

 

[Aguirre]

i've subbed this thread for when the next gen of consoles do release, i will look back at this thread then i will enjoy myself, laughing at it, at how wrong we were, then proceeding to play halo 5.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Thing is I've got present that the situation of a console offering top range hardware at a competing price isn't a good business decision; it wasn't this gen and won't be in the future. Sony has to worry about their profitability rather than cater to a minority. Specially after the wii was market leader with 10 year old hardware. I also value more that there is competition than seeing them go bankrupt because of me.

You're presenting something of a false dichotomy though.

Neutral or negative margins on hardware can and have been a perfectly viable business model.

The Wii ran out of steam rapidly, in part, because it wasn't sufficiently powerful - HDTV adoption grew substantially for example during the Wii's tenure.

It's possible to produce a reasonably powerful, reasonably priced, reasonably futureproof system without "going bankrupt."

 

[dragonelite]

I hope also people claiming Sony shouldn't go for platform parity or at least cave in with developers requirement, keep in mind that Sony will be loosing software royalties for the first 20 million console or so because support will be shitty like this gen.

And given the fact a lot of folks are claiming psn will be free next gen they wont have a $30 each year the player is playing online as a subsidize hardware compensation that microsoft has with gold.

 

[nasos_333]

Still sounds unclear on whether this thing is a beast or not without GPU specifics, but the RAM is looking good.

I guess the 4GB would not be that usefull without a beast GPU to render all the stuff pushed to that RAM at a good frame rate

So, we can assume will probably be a beast in every way, if the RAM is that high

I doubt we will see more than 2-3GB ram myself and this rumor seems a bit too much imo

 

[alexandros]

The average AAA game sells much, much better on consoles than on PC.

Correction: The average AAA console-oriented game usually sells better on consoles than on PC. PC-oriented games sell better on PC.

 

[dr. apocalipsis]

The PS1 was custom designed to run 3D games. The Saturn was not. It had a second Hitachi CPU added late in its design in a vain attempt to match the announced specs of the PS1, resulting in an unbalanced design. It couldn't handle transparencies, and the number of polygons it could render was far lower then the PS1. Saturn 3D games usually ran in a lower resolution (Saturn had a couple of high res modes which it used for 2D gaming). The Saturn was a 2D powerhouse, but the world had moved into 3D and polygons. As Sega knew well, as they were pioneering this in the arcades, yet failed to bring this tech into the home.

Bolded false statement.

At a developer standpoint, it's true PSX it's better designed. Easier to develop, cheaper to manufacture, good performer overall. The best Sony machine so far along with Vita.

But Saturn was more powerful. Playstation had a bunch of fixed hardware functions to handle graphical effects such as aforementioned transparencies or video playback. Saturn didn't. That doesn't mean Saturn was unable to handle them, just developers had to code them by software. The good old fixed hardware vs raw power battle.

Saturn have more Ram to store textures and do not have that PSX Trademark horrid low precision texture deformation, have better hi res modes, etc... So you can't say Saturn wasn't ready for 3D rendering.

Thing is, ask back then at 1995 to code for dual main CPU's without a proper SDK, when even today there is a buch of monothread code out there. SEGA's results were growing exponentially, every generation of games put in shame the former. There is nothing close to leaked Shenmue footage on PSX, but that wasn't the rule.

PSX it's a better console hardware since it is close to full potential in most of the games. Cheap hardware, cheap tricks to render, okay, but it looks better with less investment.

And, of course, it's wrong that Saturn was designed to 2D. Hitachi developed SH2 as a cost efficient all around performer. When Sony used SGI based R3000A, they just can't deliver the same performance on a single chip, that's why they went the 2 chips way. They didn't have the tech.

And, of course, those are not Saturn VF3 screenshots. Just look at the resolution or aspect ratio. Just old glitchy model 3 emulation.

Sorry for the derail. There is a lot to talk about Saturn, but this is not the thread.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

Correction: The average AAA console-oriented game usually sells better on consoles than on PC. PC-oriented games sell better on PC.

That isn't even necessarily true anymore. Consoles have basically doubled the fanbases for games like Skyrim, Battlefield, and now Minecraft.

 

[M°°nblade]

That isn't even necessarily true anymore. Consoles have basically doubled the fanbases for games like Skyrim, Battlefield, and now Minecraft.

How did the PC version of battlefield 3 sell compare to the PS360 versions? Wasn't it a lot less?

 

[yon61]

PS Vita isn't "bleeding edge tech with tons of power & graphics". It's what they could manage using off-the-shelf parts that was neither expensive nor weak. Coming to the PS3, they pushed their own business model with Blu-Ray and made the system expensive in the process. It is certainly not because of some small vocal minority.

How is it not expensive? Sure it's not PS3-expensive, but it's still expensive. Sony are losing money on it and it's one of the major reasons why people aren't buying it.

 

[Dali]

Shenmue Saturn

Virtua Fighter 3 Saturn: (Apperently it was nearly finished, these got leaked about the same time Shemnue did. Sega admitted it was done, and it proved the SAT was more powerful then the PSX; however, Sega didn't release the inferior version as they felt it would eat into sales of the Dreamcast. I wish they would of released these games for the Saturn; however, in the end I think the Dreamcast was the right choice. AM2 did not want to port Virtua Fighter 3 for the DC and wanted to release it for the Saturn. They were against porting a game that old, and wanted to release Virtua Fighter 4 in house. That is why Genki did the Dreamcast port.

The 4 MB ram cart really did improve the Saturn's performance for both 2D and 3D. Virtua Fighter 3 and Shemnue supposedly made use of the ram cartridge to do what many thought was unthinkable. The biggest problem was that the US refused to release the ram cart. The US really fumbled with the Saturn, it actually sold well in Japan.

Back on topic: I really hope console owners get to choose from simple performance/graphic settings. Even if it's as simple as. Enable FXXA, 60 frames 720p or 30 frames 1080p mode.

Does that really prove the SAT was more powerful? I'm not saying its not, just don't see how these screens prove anything. Ico and Onimusha on PSX were pretty impressive as well.

 

[omonimo]

From what I remember saturn had big problem with the 3d & surely isn't it superior to the psx in the 3d camp, but isn't it ot?

 

[phosphor112]

From what I remember saturn had big problem with the 3d & surely isn't it superior to the psx in the 3d camp, but isn't it ot?

It's very OT. People always do this in these thread. Try to make the past relevant to the present and then completely derail in some stupid power debate on tech that's nearly 2 decades old.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Bolded false statement.

At a developer standpoint, it's true PSX it's better designed. Easier to develop, cheaper to manufacture, good performer overall. The best Sony machine so far along with Vita.

But Saturn was more powerful. Playstation had a bunch of fixed hardware functions to handle graphical effects such as aforementioned transparencies or video playback. Saturn didn't. That doesn't mean Saturn was unable to handle them, just developers had to code them by software. The good old fixed hardware vs raw power battle.

Saturn have more Ram to store textures and do not have that PSX Trademark horrid low precision texture deformation, have better hi res modes, etc... So you can't say Saturn wasn't ready for 3D rendering.

Thing is, ask back then at 1995 to code for dual main CPU's without a proper SDK, when even today there is a buch of monothread code out there. SEGA's results were growing exponentially, every generation of games put in shame the former. There is nothing close to leaked Shenmue footage on PSX, but that wasn't the rule.

PSX it's a better console hardware since it is close to full potential in most of the games. Cheap hardware, cheap tricks to render, okay, but it looks better with less investment.

And, of course, it's wrong that Saturn was designed to 2D. Hitachi developed SH2 as a cost efficient all around performer. When Sony used SGI based R3000A, they just can't deliver the same performance on a single chip, that's why they went the 2 chips way. They didn't have the tech.

And, of course, those are not Saturn VF3 screenshots. Just look at the resolution or aspect ratio. Just old glitchy model 3 emulation.

Sorry for the derail. There is a lot to talk about Saturn, but this is not the thread.

It's amazing how quickly you've leapt to the Saturn's defense after trashing the Cell so recently when the Saturn's design is guilty of many of the sins you excoriated Sony over. It's not a secret that the Saturn was a messy design that was difficult to program and lacked the robust, efficient quality of the PS1's 3D hardware. So, yeah, technically Saturn could have handled transparencies in software, but guess what? It was not a practical solution for real-time graphics so all we got was the ugly screen door hack. There's nothing a 3DFX card could do that a Pentium chip couldn't either, given enough time, but that doesn't mean one wasn't clearly a better way to run Quake. Sega got caught on the wrong side of the 3D hardware revolution, the same way Sony got high centered on the transition to unified shaders with the PS3. At the time the "fixed function" hardware you are hand-waving was groundbreaking. In many metrics the Saturn simply could not keep pace, no mater how good your software engine was. There's a reason everyone moved to hardware acceleration and never looked back.

 

[KageMaru]

Reading everyone's thoughts on these rumors makes the wait for E3 next year a bit harder. It's going to be interesting indeed.

The PS1 was custom designed to run 3D games. The Saturn was not. It had a second Hitachi CPU added late in its design in a vain attempt to match the announced specs of the PS1, resulting in an unbalanced design. It couldn't handle transparencies, and the number of polygons it could render was far lower then the PS1. Saturn 3D games usually ran in a lower resolution (Saturn had a couple of high res modes which it used for 2D gaming). The Saturn was a 2D powerhouse, but the world had moved into 3D and polygons. As Sega knew well, as they were pioneering this in the arcades, yet failed to bring this tech into the home.

While I agree the PSone was better designed, IMO there were Saturn games that held up beautifully that gen. Panzer Dragoon Saga amazed me even though I did plenty of gaming on my PSone.

Also, IIRC the poly count was not too far off. The biggest difference was the Saturn rendered quadrilaterals where the PS1 rendered triangles. Of the 3 systems, I'd say the N64 had the lowest poly performance.

Plus the high res mode was used in some 3D games such as VF2 and Last Bronx.

Not saying it was better, but regardless of it's design faults, it was still able to produce great results. Quake, PDS, Grandia, Nights, VF2, etc. all looked great for their day.

 

[CitizenCope]

I really hope console owners get to choose from simple performance/graphic settings. Even if it's as simple as. Enable FXXA, 60 frames 720p or 30 frames 1080p mode.

I would love this. 60fps all day!!

 

[onQ123]

I think DaE is trolling the industry lol

now he says that it's a AMD.

 

[Triple U]

I think DaE is trolling the industry lol

now he says that it's a AMD.

Yeah see this is where he loses credibility with me.

 

[DaSorcerer7]

BG and Steviep proven right yet again.

 

[bgassassin]

BG and Steviep proven right yet again.

I can't take credit for other people's information. All I can do is pass along what I hear (without getting someone in trouble), and if it's correct then they deserve the credit. Though I doubt they would want to take the credit, haha.