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[Stuart360]

I loved the 3DO but the framnerates sucked. I mean even the Saturn version of Road Rash and Need for Speed had much higher framerates than 3DO.
Dont let the 3DO's price fool you, it was way behind the PS1, Saturn, and N64.

 

[Afro Republican]

Afro, you insinuated that 2D shooters aren't demanding and the 3DO would have been able to run them at 60fps if there were any on the system, didn't you?

No. I said the PSX had a good amount of 2D SHMUPS that made up a good chunk of it's 60fps library as most of the PSX"s 3D games were 30fps or sub, and a good chunk of themw ere not really demanding.. However I never meant that as to say the 3DO was equal to the PSX, just that we can't make a comparison for SHMUPS if the 3DO doesn't have any. And it doesn't.

You also stated that the 3DO could keep pace with the PS1's first few years of games.

Again if you jump in a conversation try reading the conversation. I never said this, I said 3DO games were comparable and were compared to PSX games during the PSX's early years, this is a fact not an opinion. Magazines/critics did this. The Jaguar, in contrast, was usually not and was usually reviewed on it's own or in relation to the SNES/GEN in many cases.

If 2D games are undemanding, as you claim,

Which I never claimed, stop. Heck you contradicted what you said earlier with this.

Again your post boils down to me saying the 3DO was better or equal to the 3DO which I never said or implied. What I said was it was great when it came out (true) in terms of hardware, and that when the PSX/SAT came out it was still comparable to those systems since it took awhile to start producing notably better games consistently. Even critics compared them (and in some cases gave the 3DO versions the win.)

I never made the arguments you have posted.

 

[Afro Republican]

I loved the 3DO but the framnerates sucked. I mean even the Saturn version of Road Rash and Need for Speed had much higher framerates than 3DO.
Dont let the 3DO's price fool you, it was way behind the PS1, Saturn, and N64.

No one has said anything in this thread that you're implying.

 

[Stuart360]

I will say that 3DO didnt have as much texture warping as PS1 though. Games like Total Eclipse actually look better on 3DO to me, but framerate is much higher on PS1.

 

[Stuart360]

No one has said anything in this thread that you're implying.

Am i mixing you up with someone else?, didnt you say that the 3DO versions of some games ran at higher framerates than the PS1/Saturn versions?. If you didnt then i'm sorry.
You DID say that the PS1 port of Ridge Racer was crap though, which simply isn't true. Its like you're mixing it up with the Saturn version of Daytona USA or something.

 

[Petaya Berry]

No signs of Way of the Warrior.

It seems that it's a bad game, but when I saw in magazines, I thougt that was a cool game.

 

[dark10x]

I never said the 3DO was made to handle technically impressive 2D games, however the game you mentioned above, are more demanding than most of those basic shmups on the PSX. You don't seem to realize just how not having SHMUPS on the 3DO makes it impossible to make such a comparison. Comparing games like Ridge Racer or Samurai Shodown to the lower-end of SHMUPS are are the majority of the SHMUPS on the PSX is an apple to oranges comparison. That isn't the same as me saying that the 3DO was fully capable of advanced 2D games, which I never said, yet the rest of your post implies I di.. The comparison doesn't work.

OK, let's just stop this. Name those games. There isn't any point going any further. You seem to think there are a bunch of low-spec 2D shooters on PS1. What the heck are they? The lowest end examples I've found are part of compilations (like Namco Museum or the Konami Deluxe Packs). I don't know what games you're talking about so name them please. If you look at the VAST library of 2D shooters on PS1 and Saturn, most of them are pushing a lot of sprites and background detail.

No it wasn't, your taking your modern bias and bringing through your retrospective lens. Gex was considered a well run amazing home console games at the time. Almost all 3D on consoles or home computers before 3DO was horrible unless you think those early 90's 3D ST/Commodore games running at 3fps with displaced blocky figures were better. Especially since games like Gex outside of frame rate were more impressive visual and audio wise than a 60fps SNES game. People didn't mind that much back in the day. Just like they didn't mind the N64 frame rates, which were also bad.

No, I'm not doing that. 2D platform games of that era were 60fps. Period. That was the target frame-rate and I knew it back in the day. Sonic 2, Yoshi's Island, Donkey Kong Country, Dynamite Headdy, Rocket Knight Adventures...so many others all look better than Gex and run much smoother. They feature more complex parallax background scrolling with the illusion of many layers while throwing around more sprites at 60fps.

What do you think makes Gex look better? It uses pre-rendered sprites like DKC but with simplified parallax scrolling (the background is static). The only technical advantages it has stem from the CD capabilities - FMV, a higher quality soundtrack and spoken words from Gex. The actual visuals aren't a leap.

Again here's another example. Why are you using DOOM as an examples of issues pulling off 3DO frame rates when DOOM 3DO is a widely known publicly documented cases of people trying to rush the game and not optimizing it correctly? There's plenty of stories about why Doom 3Do runs bad, but it wasn't because they had issues getting it to run. That's a bit misleading.

The problem is that you can't provide any counter-examples. Doom is a horrible port on 3DO but PO'ed, Killing Time and the like were considered solid games. Games like Immercenary also look great but, again, very low frame-rate.

My point was that you seem to be attacking the 3DO primarily on it's frame rate and you seem to be giving the N64 a pass.

...because N64 games tend to run a lot better than 3DO games while looking dramatically more impressive.

Again if you jump in a conversation try reading the conversation. I never said this, I said 3DO games were comparable and were compared to PSX games during the PSX's early years, this is a fact not an opinion. Magazines/critics did this. The Jaguar, in contrast, was usually not and was usually reviewed on it's own or in relation to the SNES/GEN in many cases.

I don't understand why critics of the time matter since they typically knew a lot less about these things than we do now.

The first year or two of PS1 has a lot of 30fps 3D games and some 60fps 3D games. 3DO really doesn't compare on that front in terms of raw performance.

There's nothing like Tekken, Ridge Racer, Ace Combat, Destruction Derby, Wipeout, Alien Trilogy, Crash Bandicoot (1996 game BTW), Tomb Raider, Rayman and the like.

All of the 3DO ports to PS1 run much much faster too. Two to three times the frame-rate in basically every single case.

 

[Afro Republican]

You DID say that the PS1 port of Ridge Racer was crap though, which simply isn't true. Its like you're mixing it up with the Saturn version of Daytona USA or something.

I mean it's not an issue of whether it's true, I'm just going off what some critics said at the time. Some critics.

 

[dark10x]

I mean it's not an issue of whether it's true, I'm just going off what some critics said at the time. Some critics.

Which critics?

It kinda doesn't matter because we know more than them now. If they complained about it then they made an error. Critics writing in English would have been playing versions of the game newer than the original Japanese release and that version is locked 30fps as well.

 

[Stuart360]

I mean it's not an issue of whether it's true, I'm just going off what some critics said at the time. Some critics.

Critics were blown away at the time.Just Google what kind of racing games looked like on PC at the time. RR was an awesome port that looked beyond anything similar at the time.

 

[Stuart360]

Unless you're thinking about the bonus disk that came with RR Type 4 Afro, that had a higher resolution 60fps version of Ridge Racer on the disk, but that was just to show how far Namco had come with PS1 development, and it was only 1 car on screen. The orig port of RR was amazing, and i certainly dont remember ANY bad press for it at the time.

 

[dark10x]

Unless you're thinking about the bonus disk that came with RR Type 4 Afro, that had a higher resolution 60fps version of Ridge Racer on the disk, but that was just to show how far Namco had come with PS1 development, and it was only 1 car on screen. The orig port of RR was amazing, and i certainly dont remember ANY bad press for it at the time.

Yeah, that's what is confusing. I even pulled out some of my old game mags and everyone is raving about. There are claims that it's arcade perfect even (which it isn't). I can't recall any complaints at all. I have no idea where that is coming from.

It really seems like there is confusion between RR and Daytona for Saturn which was a letdown.

 

[Stuart360]

Yeah, that's what is confusing. I even pulled out some of my old game mags and everyone is raving about. There are claims that it's arcade perfect even (which it isn't). I can't recall any complaints at all. I have no idea where that is coming from.

It really seems like there is confusion between RR and Daytona for Saturn which was a letdown.

Oh man, the old 'Arcade Perfect' claims for games back in the day. Hey that could make a good DF Retro actually, going back and looking at arcade ports and how many of them actually were 'arcade perfect', and which ones came closest. It would take a while to do that episode though so maybe not feesable lol.

 

[Afro Republican]

OK, let's just stop this. Name those games. There isn't any point going any further. You seem to think there are a bunch of low-spec 2D shooters on PS1. What the heck are they? The lowest end examples I've found are part of compilations (like Namco Museum or the Konami Deluxe Packs). I don't know what games you're talking about so name them please. If you look at the VAST library of 2D shooters on PS1 and Saturn, most of them are pushing a lot of sprites and background detail.
.

The issue is you keep avoiding the issue of this being a broken comparison since the 3DO doesn't have any shmups to compare with. Even the Jagaur has Shmups (well a few of them you can count with one had). You also seem to have forgotten my original point on this issue. I said there were PSX Shmups that aren't that taxing the 3DO can run. Not that the 3DO can run them at 60fps which seems to be what you THINK I'm saying based on your posts.

A game like G Darius can't run on the 3DO at all.

What do you think makes Gex look better?

I mean you ignoring the 1st boss of Gex aside, if parallax is the ONLY metric a game can look better to you instead of say, cleaner sprites, higher color count, filtering etc. than yeah I guess you could say Gex wasn't a leap. But I think some of the reviewers would disagree with you on that. In fact, i'd dare say MOST of them, and I'm talking about from back then as well.

But see this response isn't really that relevant, we both know that the 3DO was designed more for 3D in mind despite it doing serviceable 2D, but you seem to be trying to imply that I'm saying the opposite. Like your posts seem to be trying to pound down the 3DO as much as possible despite the fact it was good hardware for the time it was relevant.

The problem is that you can't provide any counter-examples. Doom is a horrible port on 3DO but PO'ed, Killing Time and the like were considered solid games. Games like Immercenary also look great but, again, very low frame-rate.

Not only is this not true (you said before you found 2 3D FPS games I listed to run at 30fps) but the issue is you don't want to admit DOom is a bad example. Not only is DOOM a bad example but so is Killing Time because Killing Time has the real-time FMV ghosts that are on the backburner in real-time taking up resources which is why the game run like shit even on MODDED PCs for years until much later.

But see notice what you said "considered solid games" again you using your modern bias of frame rate, and putting it through a retrospective lens. It was impressive at the time, that's why it was considered solid games by reviewers.

The 3DO is clearly limited in many aspects, I never said it wasn't or implied it wasn't, but you seem to be hitting it down a bit more than necessary.

...because N64 games tend to run a lot better than 3DO games while looking dramatically more impressive.

And 3DO games tend to run a lot better than SNES/GEN/ST/Falcon/Amiga 3D games while looking dramatically more impressive.

The N64 is clearly a double standard here. As even games that generally considered to have the better version on the 3DO you strike against it for frame rate.

 

[Stuart360]

Afro did you have a test version of 3DO's M2 installed in your 3DO or something?

 

[Afro Republican]

Yeah, that's what is confusing. I even pulled out some of my old game mags and everyone is raving about. There are claims that it's arcade perfect even (which it isn't). I can't recall any complaints at all. I have no idea where that is coming from.

It really seems like there is confusion between RR and Daytona for Saturn which was a letdown.

Or your last sentence is compete nonsense since the games look nothing a like. Some (notice the some) critics attacked it on it's slowdown and on it's visuals. For example, Gamepro, and Dragon netted it for Slowdown. Even more reviewers criticized the graphical issues.

 

[Afro Republican]

Afro did you have a test version of 3DO's M2 installed in your 3DO or something?

This statement is out of context and doesn't mean anything. If you still think I'm saying the 3DO was as or more capable you have serious reading comprehension issues as that's never been said or implied.

 

[s_mirage]

Again if you jump in a conversation try reading the conversation. I never said this, I said 3DO games were comparable and were compared to PSX games during the PSX's early years, this is a fact not an opinion. Magazines/critics did this. The Jaguar, in contrast, was usually not and was usually reviewed on it's own or in relation to the SNES/GEN in many cases.

Oh really?

You're giving the PSX (and especially Saturn) way too much credit here. The first 2 years of PSX games were mostly able to run on 3DO at the same frame rates, heck early PSX had a lot of issues running games at good frame rates, and 3Do multiplats would usually loo better, and if there was texture advantage on the PSX the games would still look worse because 3DO drew polygons without half the wrapping and other problems the pSX had. The games that would look beyond the 3DO usually involved using hardware tricks like Crash 1 and so on. Until end of 97, early 98 that's when PSX games were more consistently better than the 3DO and even smaller cash grab devs could take advantage of the new tools.

The Saturn never really go this treatment. Saturns would by the end of its NA run get games that would run better than 3DO, however would have bad image quality and have massive pop-in. Gex 3DO running at 30fps was due to the tools CD had at the time as other 2D games on the 3D (though not all) ran at 60fps.

Now where they both more powerful than the 3DO? Yes, but for a period of time that was questionable, and when it started becoming more so a truth it was inconsistent. 3DO needed to hit $299 one year earlier then it did, because 3DO was touting that against Sega but Sony ended up entering at that price and that ended up backfiring on them. For that generation the 3DO was more than capable enough to run most of everyones favorite games. Especially the big sellers.

My point was, however, that pretty much most major selling PSX games before late 98, the 3DO was powerful enough to be able to run most of those games. This goes double for the Saturn.

How else is anyone supposed to read that? You didn't mention contemporary critical reception, or the Jag, until later. As quoted, you said that the 3DO could run the Playstation's first few years of games, and most of those from the first couple at the same frame rates. Doubly so for the Saturn. The time period you've given would have included such games as Wipeout 2097 (XL) on the Playstation (30fps) and Virtua Fighter 2 (60fps) or Sega Rally (30fps) on the Saturn. Nothing on the 3DO gives any indication that the system could have matched those early games. Comparisons have also been given between games that appeared on more than one system that suggest that the 3DO wasn't capable of parity in less complex games either. If you have valid counter-examples, please post them.

Also, don't accuse people of not reading the thread when what you said is quite clear, and it's clear that you are backpedaling.

 

[Afro Republican]

, and it's also clear that you are backpedaling.

No you're just an idiot.

Yes, MOST PSX games during it's first 2 years can run on the 3DO at the same or near the same frame rates. MOST of the early PSX games were not major improvements to the 3DO or what it was capable of. First-party games and some bigger third-party games excluded.

Not all PSX games in its first couple years were Crash Bandicoot. There were games that looked and ran considerably worse. Heck one of the best selling early PSX game, Rayman was on the jaguar.

Unless you though games like FoxHunt or Fade to Black weren't capable of running on the 3DO I'm not sure what you're smoking.

It took awhile before critics stopped comparing 3DO games to PSX games because so many PSX games were 3DO level games or were only a bit better. Look at game lists for 94-1996 before Crash. What's next? Bubsy can't run on the 3DO?

 

[Stuart360]

No you're just an idiot.

Yes, MOST PSX games during it's first 2 years can run on the 3DO at the same or near the same frame rates. MOST of the early PSX games were not major improvements to the 3DO or what it was capable of. First-party games and some bigger third-party games excluded.

Not all PSX games in its first couple years were Crash Bandicoot. There were games that looked and ran considerably worse. Heck one of the best selling early PSX game, Rayman was on the jaguar.

Unless you though games like FoxHunt or Fade to Black weren't capable of running on the 3DO I'm not sure what you're smoking.

If by the 'smae framerate' you mean half, then yeah you're right.

 

[Afro Republican]

If by the 'smae framerate' you mean half, then yeah you're right.

Or you could just not get early PSX mixed up with later PSX> Because early PSX you commonly found games that were 30fps or sub 30. Not to mention the FACT that critics used to compare 3DO games TO PSX games because they weren't far apart (and in some cases gave 3DO the victory)

I'm not sure why this fact is controversial here. Or why me mentioning it somehow makes some of you believe I'm saying the 3DO is more powerful. This seems more like people just wanting to pretend early PSX was much more than it actually was. Again not every PSX game 86 and earlier were Crash Bandicoot. Crash is when games started to widen the gap much more.

 

[Stuart360]

Or you could just not get early PSX mixed up with later PSX> Because early PSX you commonly found games that were 30fps or sub 30. Not to mention the FACT that critics used to compare 3DO games TO PSX games because they weren't far apart (and in some cases gave 3DO the victory)

I'm not sure why this fact is controversial here. Or why me mentioning it somehow makes some of you believe I'm saying the 3DO is more powerful. This seems more like people just wanting to pretend early PSX was much more than it actually was. Again not every PSX game 86 and earlier were Crash Bandicoot. Crash is when games started to widen the gap much more.

Well i owned the 3DO and loved it. Road Rash and Need for Speed for example, 10-15fps on 3DO, 30fps on Saturn and PS1. There are vids on Youtube comparing them. The only reason why 3DO got compared to PS1 and Saturn early on was because some 3Do games were ported to PS1 and Saturn, ports that ran, and sometimes looked, way better on PS1 and Saturn.

 

[dark10x]

Or your last sentence is compete nonsense since the games look nothing a like. Some (notice the some) critics attacked it on it's slowdown and on it's visuals. For example, Gamepro, and Dragon netted it for Slowdown. Even more reviewers criticized the graphical issues.

Then they don’t know what they’re talking about. You really think they know better than I do on this one?

I’ll dig up the review either way.

And 3DO games tend to run a lot better than SNES/GEN/ST/Falcon/Amiga 3D games while looking dramatically more impressive.

Most Genesis and SNES games (98% of the libraries) are 60fps. They’re also 2D but that’s what they’re made to do. They run those games at high frame-rates. It doesn’t make sense to compare 3D.

That said, Virtua Racing runs better than many 3DO racers. 3DO does 3D much much better than those systems, though. No denial there.

Which 3DO games are said to have a better version than Ps1 and Saturn.

I said there were PSX Shmups that aren't that taxing the 3DO can run.

Which ones? Name some.

This is about 2D not shooters. I’m saying 3DO is garbage for 2D games but solid for 3D of that era.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I will say that 3DO didnt have as much texture warping as PS1 though. Games like Total Eclipse actually look better on 3DO to me, but framerate is much higher on PS1.

 

[Stuart360]

Yeah PS1 seems to be about double the framerate there.

 

[dark10x]

Also, let me make sure it's clear - I'm having fun in this discussion so let's keep it going!

Or your last sentence is compete nonsense since the games look nothing a like. Some (notice the some) critics attacked it on it's slowdown and on it's visuals. For example, Gamepro, and Dragon netted it for Slowdown. Even more reviewers criticized the graphical issues.

 

[s_mirage]

Yeah, that was fairly typical for games that were ported from the 3DO to the Playstation or Saturn: the 3DO had better image quality and/or effects but got trounced in terms of framerate. Assuming comparable efficiency and ignoring assistance from co-processors, the 12.5 MHz processor was always going to get bogged down before the ~33 MHz CPU of the PS1 or the twin 28 MHz CPUs of the Saturn.

In terms of graphics hardware, especially with regards to 2D games, I've seen it claimed that the PS1s GPU had a fillrate of 66 Mpix/s, while the 3DO's CEL engines had a claimed fillrate of 64 Mpix/s. However, I seem to recall reading somewhere that the 3DO's rate included all interpolated pixels (it interpolates the 320x240 framebuffer to 640x480), and that the raw fillrate is much lower. Does anyone have any insight into that?

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

I remember “2D acceleration” as a feature on the Riva 128

 

[dark10x]

In terms of graphics hardware, especially with regards to 2D games, I've seen it claimed that the PS1s GPU had a fillrate of 66 Mpix/s, while the 3DO's CEL engines had a claimed fillrate of 64 Mpix/s. However, I seem to recall reading somewhere that the 3DO's rate included all interpolated pixels (it interpolates the 320x240 framebuffer to 640x480), and that the raw fillrate is much lower. Does anyone have any insight into that?

All games are scaled to 480i, basically, but certain FZ-1 models from Japan have a 240p switch on the back (and you can mod one in). That's what I'm using. It slightly boosts performance but only a tiny bit. It looks terrible at 480i, I think, but much sharper at 240p.

 

[s_mirage]

All games are scaled to 480i, basically, but certain FZ-1 models from Japan have a 240p switch on the back (and you can mod one in). That's what I'm using. It slightly boosts performance but only a tiny bit. It looks terrible at 480i, I think, but much sharper at 240p.

I keep meaning to check out whether I can do that mod to my Japanese FZ-10, but with my crappy soldering technique I don't like soldering wires to pins much.

 

[Freedom Gate Co.]

The 3DO is one of my favorites.

The thing about the 3DO is that yes, it was comparable to the PlayStation early on. But that's because 3D was relatively new for console developers. If some of these companies had more experience, even early dev kits would have produced significant differences from the 3DO. Luckily for the 3DO, that wasn't the case and it lasted another two years before money ended up becoming major issue for the 3DO company.

I do know that some ports were compared among the Saturn and PS1, however, there was also a rumor that 3DO was paying reviewers as well so who knows what was going on there.

What I know is, Star Fighter aside, of the over 20 cross-platform titles, the 3DO version is generally the worst. Outside of Star Fighter, D (arguably), Myst, and Creature shock, technically the 3DO has the worst version of the ports graphically.

Usually when certain reviewers gave the 3DO the nod it was for content and features, not really graphics. For example, NFS has better frame rate on the other consoles but they removed a lot of vehicles and background areas. Space Hulk has the better frame-rate on the Saturn but the developers intended the 3DO's slower frame-rate to be the basis for how the game would control since they considered the slower walking as adding to the horror atmosphere. Which is lost on the Saturn version. Also the PS1 version was made to appeal to kids and took some elements out of the game as well as having a lot less enemies..

Another example is The Horde, basically the same game on all consoles, but the Saturn port removed the FMV's, so that got some critics to subtract from the Saturn versions score. Then you have Road Rash where it was content that won out not performance with FMVS and the Sound Garden license..

While the 3DO did get higher scoring ports, in some cases, it's a bit disingenuous to say that it's because of graphics. While I will agree some early PS1 games were not at all that impressive, a lot of the reasons why reviewers gave the 3DO versions higher scores was because of content, features not on the other versions, or certain things being cut. Some say Gex is better on the 3DO because of the save system, that has nothing to do with graphics.

I would also like to add that the 3DO was not a good 2D machine. For one thing, the Jaguar ran circles around it in 2D, especially later on. The reason why people were making a deal about the 3DO when it was announced was that it was a 3D machine. A 3d Machine with CD audio that could also run your favorite FMV's, while having the ability to play some decent 2D titles.

Also OP is wrong about computers:

Ain't no 3DO game is going to run even at half the speed and have that much detail. I agree with OP that the 3DO was impressive, for a console, at the time, however the 3DO was just too slow, couldn't push ENOUGH polygons on the screen, and was limited to how large the polygons could be which is why you never saw towering structures in 3DO games unless part of the structure was a 2d sprite. Texture limitations was a severe limit as well.

While NFS is the most stable and detailed racer on the 3DO:

Yeah, 3DO isn't touching PC. Not to mention all those cross PC-Ps1 racing ports.

 

[Freedom Gate Co.]

Also, let me make sure it's clear - I'm having fun in this discussion so let's keep it going!

I think the OP used wikipedia reception section for the Gamepro claim. Because it says on their that Gamepro criticized the games glitches and Slowdown yet your image doesn't seem to say that at all. So what likely happened is OP just assumed the Wiki article was right.

 

[Noboru Wataya]

This back and forth is hilarious. Thanks for the evening entertainment.

 

[Afro Republican]

Also OP is wrong about computers:

Ain't no 3DO game is going to run even at half the speed and have that much detail. I agree with OP that the 3DO was impressive, for a console, at the time, however the 3DO was just too slow, couldn't push ENOUGH polygons on the screen, and was limited to how large the polygons could be which is why you never saw towering structures in 3DO games unless part of the structure was a 2d sprite. Texture limitations was a severe limit as well.

How are you going to compare a PC racing game, if it is one, from near the end of the decade when this conversation is about the early and mid 90's? PC's were not eve close to the 3DO, Doom was basically the best that could be done in 93 along with flat, untextured polygons at 5fps.

 

[s_mirage]

How are you going to compare a PC racing game, if it is one, from near the end of the decade when this conversation is about the early and mid 90's? PC's were not eve close to the 3DO, Doom was basically the best that could be done in 93 along with flat, untextured polygons at 5fps.

That game is Screamer. It's from '95, although it did need quite a beefy PC to play smoothly IIRC. I remember it running pretty well on my PC from '96.

 

[Freedom Gate Co.]

How are you going to compare a PC racing game, if it is one, from near the end of the decade when this conversation is about the early and mid 90's? PC's were not eve close to the 3DO, Doom was basically the best that could be done in 93 along with flat, untextured polygons at 5fps.

That game is Screamer. It's from '95, although it did need quite a beefy PC to play smoothly IIRC. I remember it running pretty well on my PC from '96.

No actually, you could get it to play like that without too beefy a PC. Just the draw distance would shrink a little. You could even get it running with a lower PC you'd sacrifice textures though.

Even then it runs at 30 (60 upper end) with more detail than NFS on 3DO. Too much going on in the gif, from cars and bridges to towering structures zipping by.

 

[s_mirage]

No actually, you could get it to play like that without too beefy a PC. Just the draw distance would shrink a little. You could even get it running with a lower PC you'd sacrifice textures though.

Even then it runs at 30 (60 upper end) with more detail than NFS on 3DO. Too much going on in the gif, from cars and bridges to towering structures zipping by.

A quick play in PCem set up to emulate a PC equivalent to mine at the time suggests that it's the SVGA mode that requires the beef. It chugs a bit in that mode, but is nice and smooth in VGA.

 

[Douche McBaggins The 3rd]

Wow this topic has a masterful tech fighter going against the Wikipedia look ups. This fight is almost plain butchering. At this point the game.com has more games that run at a stable frame rate. Ouch.

 

[s_mirage]

What I know is, Star Fighter aside, of the over 20 cross-platform titles, the 3DO version is generally the worst. Outside of Star Fighter, D (arguably), Myst, and Creature shock, technically the 3DO has the worst version of the ports graphicall

Star Fighter was an interesting game. Single most impressive piece of software on the 3DO IMO (either that of Blade Force), and one where the 3DO version is clearly superior to the others. No idea what happened to the other ports; I can understand (though not agree with) the choice to change the colour palette of the game, but what happened to the draw distance? The massive draw distance, albeit not all at full detail, gave a great impression on the 3DO, but the other versions shrouded everything in fog. I was blown away by the game as a kid.

 

[Crowza]

The way that I remember it, the war fought over the 3DO was more concentrated with the 3DO vs the Atari Jaguar fanboy battles back in the day. I remember it as a bitter fight and a search of Usenet archives during the timeframe would probably be interesting. I followed the battle closely, but I never picked a side. I do remember being amazed at the 3DO's stats (and price). But nothing ever enticed me to buy either system.

It's the "forgotten war".

 

[Futaleufu]

The way that I remember it, the war fought over the 3DO was more concentrated with the 3DO vs the Atari Jaguar fanboy battles back in the day. I remember it as a bitter fight and a search of Usenet archives during the timeframe would probably be interesting. I followed the battle closely, but I never picked a side. I do remember being amazed at the 3DO's stats (and price). But nothing ever enticed me to buy either system.

It's the "forgotten war".

It's the console wars equivalent of "Gangs of New York", no one knows who won, nobody seems to remember or care.

Screamer on PC required at least a Pentium class CPU to run smoothly.

For some reason the 3DO version of Megarace doesnt have music. The video playback also seems to be better on the PC version.

 

[dark10x]

A quick play in PCem set up to emulate a PC equivalent to mine at the time suggests that it's the SVGA mode that requires the beef. It chugs a bit in that mode, but is nice and smooth in VGA.

Yeah, I played it on my 486DX/2 66 and it ran kinda OK in VGA mode. At least as well as NFS on 3DO (which is to say, always under 30fps). The 640x480 mode, however, was unplayable on that system.

On a Pentium it really was a Screamer, though.

 

[Afro Republican]

Which 3DO games are said to have a better version than Ps1 and Saturn.

.

Several, Star Fighter being the most popular one everyone talks about because of how baffling that is.

Most likely Star Fighter developed deep into the 3DO
s hardware that the PSX and Saturn couldn't replicate. This also goes to my point that neither of those two consoles were ready for 3D. I don't think any console at that time was ready for 3D until 97 PC and 2000 Dreamcast. While you seem to be fixated on Frame Rate, alone, those consoles weren't that much of a jump from 3DO, texture and polygon count would eventually become a clear difference on the PSX side but half the games that do so had to use workarounds or hardware tricks to do it.

 

[dark10x]

Several, Star Fighter being the most popular one everyone talks about because of how baffling that is.

Most likely Star Fighter developed deep into the 3DO
s hardware that the PSX and Saturn couldn't replicate. This also goes to my point that neither of those two consoles were ready for 3D. I don't think any console at that time was ready for 3D until 97 PC and 2000 Dreamcast. While you seem to be fixated on Frame Rate, alone, those consoles weren't that much of a jump from 3DO, texture and polygon count would eventually become a clear difference on the PSX side but half the games that do so had to use workarounds or hardware tricks to do it.

Which other ones, though? I feel like Star Fighter is literally the only one (and it's super impressive on 3DO, no doubt).

So, the thing for me...I actually find those early 3D games to be visually appealing in some way. Sure, they have flaws, but I LIKE that rough, early 3D look. Games like Killing Time look visually awesome and I appreciate what they were going for. The problem is that the frame-rates are just too low to be enjoyable which is why I keep harping on it. If these 3DO games all ran at higher frame-rates, the visuals wouldn't be an issue at all since I think they often look great.

There's still plenty of 3D games on PS1 and Saturn that genuinely hold up even if you're not way into old school pixelated visuals. Stuff like Radiant Silvergun, Tobal 2 and Tomba are just as gorgeous now as they ever were and they all run at 60fps.

I mean, seriously, games like this could almost pass for a Dreamcast title (along the lines of Plasma Sword or something).

 

[Afro Republican]

Which other ones, though? I feel like Star Fighter is literally the only one (and it's super impressive on 3DO, no doubt).

So, the thing for me...I actually find those early 3D games to be visually appealing in some way. Sure, they have flaws, but I LIKE that rough, early 3D look. Games like Killing Time look visually awesome and I appreciate what they were going for. The problem is that the frame-rates are just too low to be enjoyable which is why I keep harping on it. If these 3DO games all ran at higher frame-rates, the visuals wouldn't be an issue at all since I think they often look great.

There's still plenty of 3D games on PS1 and Saturn that genuinely hold up even if you're not way into old school pixelated visuals. Stuff like Radiant Silvergun, Tobal 2 and Tomba are just as gorgeous now as they ever were and they all run at 60fps.

I mean, seriously, games like this could almost pass for a Dreamcast title (along the lines of Plasma Sword or something).

Ok your going a bit far by saying any PSX game looks near a Dreamcast title, especially for polygon and Image quality reasons. However games like Tobal No.2 ANIMATE like a later titles, but visually no.

Plus you're also starting to go a been further from the time frame we are discussion. You're talking late 97 to 1998 titles which at that point isn't really fair to the 3DO because by then developers figured out the PSX (and Saturn to some extent). Late gen PSX isn't the same as early gen PSX.

That's like when N64 fans back in the day compared 1997 N64 games to 1994-1995 PSX games.

 

[dark10x]

Ok your going a bit far by saying any PSX game looks near a Dreamcast title, especially for polygon and Image quality reasons. However games like Tobal No.2 ANIMATE like a later titles, but visually no.

Plus you're also starting to go a been further from the time frame we are discussion. You're talking late 97 to 1998 titles which at that point isn't really fair to the 3DO because by then developers figured out the PSX (and Saturn to some extent). Late gen PSX isn't the same as early gen PSX.

That's like when N64 fans back in the day compared 1997 N64 games to 1994-1995 PSX games.

There's plenty of low poly Dreamcast games and Tobal 2 runs in high-resolution. It looks like a low-tier DC title, I'd say - but, whatever, that's not important to this discussion.

You're missing my point - I think early 3D games on 3DO, PS1 and Saturn can all look wonderful. I love that aesthetic. My entire gripe with 3DO is that most games run too slowly which directly impacts playability. Games at 10fps are very difficult to enjoy these days. Frame-rate matters more than visual quality.

I feel like, when you say 94-95 PS1 games, you're really thinking of some very specific titles and those titles are coloring your perception of the library during that period. Some of those year one games still look really nice and certainly better than anything on 3DO.

Again, Ridge Racer, Tekken, Air Combat and Wipeout all look great and run smoothly. Do you disagree? Do you think these games could run smoothly on a 3DO?

 

[Afro Republican]

There's plenty of low poly Dreamcast games and Tobal 2 runs in high-resolution. It looks like a low-tier DC title, I'd say - but, whatever, that's not important to this discussion.

You're missing my point - I think early 3D games on 3DO, PS1 and Saturn can all look wonderful. I love that aesthetic. My entire gripe with 3DO is that most games run too slowly which directly impacts playability. Games at 10fps are very difficult to enjoy these days. Frame-rate matters more than visual quality.

I feel like, when you say 94-95 PS1 games, you're really thinking of some very specific titles and those titles are coloring your perception of the library during that period. Some of those year one games still look really nice and certainly better than anything on 3DO.

Again, Ridge Racer, Tekken, Air Combat and Wipeout all look great and run smoothly. Do you disagree? Do you think these games could run smoothly on a 3DO?

No but you're talking about a very small percentage of the early PSX library and that's the issue you seem to never really address. A lot of the games people were buying during that time frame came from the 3DO, were in development for the 3DO originally and moved over, or they would be able to run on the 3DO at the same or maybe a lower but manageable frame rate.

And again Star Fighter is a good example of an impressive game that several early PSX games are not or not much better than in technical. I also never really disagreed with you that some frame rates are low (but for the cases of Doom and Killing time you are slightly misleading as to WHY those frame rates are that low)

But regardless, sub-30fps PSX games aside, I don't think the PSX was anymore ready for "smooth" 3D gaming than the 3DO. Even late PSX (and especially N64) had tons of compromises, and those were the titles by companies with tons of time and investments in the hardware, the average developers all had bad 3D al the way to the end.

It really was 97+ PC and Dreamcast where 3D was starting to actually be consistent, and the grainy/pixel look finally removed, with games more commonly aiming for 60fps. Though I like some of those early Arcade 3D games because the early Polygon look, when it's clean and snappy, looks fantastic.

 

[dark10x]

No but you're talking about a very small percentage of the early PSX library and that's the issue you seem to never really address. A lot of the games people were buying during that time frame came from the 3DO, were in development for the 3DO originally and moved over, or they would be able to run on the 3DO at the same or maybe a lower but manageable frame rate.

And again Star Fighter is a good example of an impressive game that several early PSX games are not or not much better than in technical. I also never really disagreed with you that some frame rates are low (but for the cases of Doom and Killing time you are slightly misleading as to WHY those frame rates are that low)

But regardless, sub-30fps PSX games aside, I don't think the PSX was anymore ready for "smooth" 3D gaming than the 3DO. Even late PSX (and especially N64) had tons of compromises, and those were the titles by companies with tons of time and investments in the hardware, the average developers all had bad 3D al the way to the end.

It really was 97+ PC and Dreamcast where 3D was starting to actually be consistent, and the grainy/pixel look finally removed, with games more commonly aiming for 60fps. Though I like some of those early Arcade 3D games because the early Polygon look, when it's clean and snappy, looks fantastic.

The whole point here is that there are a lot more 'playable' games on PS1 than 3DO due to bad frame-rates on 3DO.

That said, I do like 3DO. I spent a lot of money on it over the past few years. If I wasn't into it, would I?

 

[Afro Republican]

The whole point here is that there are a lot more 'playable' games on PS1 than 3DO due to bad frame-rates on 3DO.

Of course that's opinion given that those low frame-rate games are the ones that seem to be attracting people to the 3DO, and the ones that are influencing the homebrews. But imo, the PSX isn't that much more playable, as most of the popular games are 30fps or sub. Of course, that's a better average than the 3DO, but many games seem to be designed for the 3DO's frame rate. In fact for games like Space hulk it was done on purpose because it makes it seem like your slowly stepping in a horror corridor with a gun fearing for the possibility an Aliens will pop out of nowhere.

But, anyway, let's go back to looking at the over 400 game 3DO games list and see what we can find. Did you check out those other games yet you said you would check later on?

 

[dark10x]

Of course that's opinion given that those low frame-rate games are the ones that seem to be attracting people to the 3DO, and the ones that are influencing the homebrews. But imo, the PSX isn't that much more playable, as most of the popular games are 30fps or sub. Of course, that's a better average than the 3DO, but many games seem to be designed for the 3DO's frame rate. In fact for games like Space hulk it was done on purpose because it makes it seem like your slowly stepping in a horror corridor with a gun fearing for the possibility an Aliens will pop out of nowhere.

But, anyway, let's go back to looking at the over 400 game 3DO games list and see what we can find. Did you check out those other games yet you said you would check later on?

Yes. Still no additional 60fps games. I’m starting to think there are 2-3 titles in total that are 60.