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[Melchiah]

PS2 didn't have those games the first year while on DC there was plenty of beautiful games notably Soul Calibur. It was not before MGS2 and Jak & Daxter that PS2 felt superior to DC games. PS2 games were very uneven graphically and the first year games were disappointing.

But still on DC we had gameplay gems never found on PS2 like Toy Commander, Crazy Taxi or Power Stone 1 & 2. Those games remind me of the current Nintendo games.

SSX was a launch game in Europe, and it put everything on DC to shame. Not to mention, that SH2 and MGS2 were first year games in Europe. Then there were the likes of Onimusha, Devil May Cry and Soul Reaver 2 as well.

 

[nkarafo]

PS2 didn't have those games the first year while on DC there was plenty of beautiful games notably Soul Calibur. It was not before MGS2 and Jak & Daxter that PS2 felt superior to DC games. PS2 games were very uneven graphically and the first year games were disappointing.

Dunno... Silent Hill 2 was the first game i had ever seen with such amazing real time lighting and shadows cast from your flashlight. The shadows even had smooth edges on PS2, unlike a ton of later games on other systems that had hard edged stencil shadows.

I don't think there's a single Dreamcast game that does something close to that.

 

[cireza]

Dunno... Silent Hill 2 was the first game i had ever seen with such amazing real time lighting and shadows cast from your flashlight. The shadows even had smooth edges on PS2, unlike a ton of later games on other systems that had hard edged stencil shadows.

I don't think there's a single Dreamcast game that does something close to that.

I know about this game :


Maybe you could provide an example ?

 

[nkarafo]

I know about this game :


Maybe you could provide an example ?

The shadows look nice but the flashlight doesn't cast any.

Also, Silent Hill 2 does environmental shadows as well, not just character/enemy model shadows. Both cast by the flashlight in real time. You can light a sofa or the corner of a wall and you can see their shadows moving relative you your flashlight. It's a pretty standard thing today but back then it was the only game i knew that did this.

Go to 5:54, sorry i don't know how to link specific time stamps.
:

 

[lostinblue]

Not to say it didn't have some good looking games or it was weak, but I feel like the Dreamcast's technical specs were mostly a product of the timing of its launch and more developer friendly design.

Yeah. It was really powerful for what it was.

It was not only competitive in efficiency and specs but also had two tricks up it's sleeve, tile based rendering and being really good at texturing. This at the time meant that it could punch above it's weight in two areas against more powerful chips.

That said, this was an era where moore law was true, so two years after the Dreamcast launched, you'd have something on the market with easily twice the power. That doesn't mean the Dreamcast was not an incredible machine when it launched. The fact it's like half performance 128-bit machine, closer to it's 128 bit brethen than to 32-64 bit consoles says a lot, the design was forward looking enough. In fact I'd say it's the first "modern" console when it comes to CPU/GPU architecture "staples". In quite some ways it was more modern than PS2, and subjectively against it's other competitors in some areas as well.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Dreamcast is 1998 hardware. And considering that it was very powerful. But 1998 was the era of video card wars, we bought one like every 6 months. In 2000 I think Geforce 2 was on the market. Which was worlds apart from 1998 tech, which was like Voodoo 2 or Banshee or something.

PS2 had some flaws, but also some boons like its texture fillrate.

Dreamcast games would go for a very typical style. Rather simple textures and lighting but very colorful, like many arcade games of the time. Take Powerstone for example. Its a typical DC game to me. It looks appealing, colorful and runs fast. Dreamcast would cripple if it would chase something more realistic with a lot of fidelity and details like Silent Hill or MGS2. Even Shenmue has very low quality textures and flat lighting in game, but it looked appealing. Art direction goes a long way, Nintendo proves it year after year while having weak hardware.

In PAL region the games were riddled with aliasing and shimmering. It was super painful to watch, especially as people were playing with composite in interlaced 50Hz.

Meanwhile, Dreamcast offered 60Hz on the large majority of its games, and it was always cleaner than 50Hz. My CRT for example handles much better interlaced 60Hz than 50Hz. In 50Hz the shimmering is unbearable.

PAL was shit in general, once I saw the light I modded my PSX and imported software. The great thing about Playstation was that it was software level, all US/JP discs ran 60hz on PAL machines.

Dreamcast upped the ante with 60hz options, and Sony was kind of lacking there, early games like RRV and TTT didn't feature it, but at the same time SR2, HotD2 and VF3 didn't either. DMC1 was notorious on PS2, as was FFX. MGS2 and SH were well optimized and AC4 offered 60hz. Later games like T4, SC2 etc had 60hz modes on PS2. I used a codebreaker CDR to boot all my DC games to 60hz, and an imported PS2.

I'm glad those days are over. Nowadays its all equal.

 

[onnextflix5]

Power was fine, but it lacked games that everyone wanted, and that controller, what were they thinking.

 

[cireza]

Go to 5:54

Oh I see, that's quite nice !

I remember watching a technical video about how the Dreamcast displays its graphics, and concluding that it was not going to be will suited for lighting effects. It was still very forward thinking and came to be a rendering method used in mobile technologies if I am not mistaken. I will see if I can find the video.

Dreamcast Architecture | A Practical Analysis

An in-depth analysis that explains how this console works internally

www.copetti.org

 

[Alexios]

This guy's playing various Dreamcast games (apparently wants to do them all, even the shitty ones?!) to the end and it's an ok (not great quality recording OR playing) way to see later parts of some of the longer games since most youtube videos focus on the easy to pick up and play arcadey stuff.


As for PlayStation ports, whatever, it had loads of great games PS didn't and some were radically different (more like multiplatform games where Dreamcast matched or topped the PC) while others were transformed by the high res/fps/filtered textures without wobbling/warping/dithering/etc.:


Of course quite often they're filler games nobody even cares about on any platform anyway as there're superior alternatives on all of them but their totals are counted just to make that stupid point about Dreamcast being a PlayStation Pro. Even though they still were clearly well beyond that:
​

 

[German Hops]

This guy's playing various Dreamcast games (apparently wants to do them all, even the shitty ones?!) to the end and it's an ok (not great quality recording tbh) way to see later parts of some of the longer games since most youtube videos focus on the easy to pick up and play arcadey stuff.
​

How many DC games were released in total?

I mean, the system had a short life, so playing every game should be feasible, right?

 

[Alexios]

Less than 300 USA games. Lots more in Japan and a couple only in Europe for a total of over 600, I dunno if he will do those too or fan translations. But some of them are REALLY bad and others REALLY hard and a few a combination of both, which makes it quite the task anyway was my point.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

The dreamcast was very powerful

10x more polygons than the fifth generation

8x RAM
8x vram memory

a generational leap but ps2 and GC surpassed it later but compared to ps1 and N64 the console was an incredible leap

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

One thing that needs to be said, design like that of the Dreamcast, GameCube, Ps1, ps2 even Sega Saturn can be designed with today's technology, obviously in a hypothetical situation, after all exotic situations like two memory pools, two gpus or large bus, not advised by market lobby, developers may deny support as Wii U. Today the hardware choices are the disproportionality between the cpu and gpu and the amount of unified memory. Console has always been about where to hide the weak point

Assuming that PS4 was still current, a ''Dreamcast'' correlated to it would be Nintendo Switch. A ''Dreamcast'' correlated to the PS5 would be a PS4-Pro (this correlation is more accurate imo).
.

 

[nkarafo]

8x RAM

Well, 3x compared to the N64. 2x if you count the expansion pack which was pretty standard after 1998.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

Well, 3x compared to the N64. 2x if you count the expansion pack which was pretty standard after 1998.

N64 4mb of unified memory +4mb (expands ''vram'' more than system ram)
PS1 2mb ram 1mb vram 0,5mb sound
DC 16mb ram+8mb vram +2mb sound

The N64 is unlikely to have a game that exceeds 3 MB of RAM. So 5,3x.

 

[Hudo]

It was pretty good and up there with high-end PC builds of the time but for much cheaper. And its online capabilities were revolutional. PSO alone was mindblowing.
And, in my opinion, receiving a port of Quake 3, which you could play against PC players as well is all that you need to know about the Dreamcast's technical prowess. Good console.

But at that point, Sony was already dominating so much that even if Sega had offered free blowjobs with every Dreamcast, they could not have stopped the industry waiting for PS2 and largely ignoring the Dreamcast from that point on.

 

[Mobilemofo]

It was ahead of everything because it was way more powerful, but it came at the wrong time. People were still on the SNES/mega drive, although leaving slowly, the jaguar died early, and nobody particularly cared for the Dreamcast, even with the internet appeal. I mean, sega rally was marvellous, but it just never convinced, well, apart from my mate Colin, who bought every console that failed, and I went from SNES to playstation.. dickhead he was..

 

[Mobilemofo]

One thing that needs to be said, design like that of the Dreamcast, GameCube, Ps1, ps2 even Sega Saturn can be designed with today's technology, obviously in a hypothetical situation, after all exotic situations like two memory pools, two gpus or large bus, not advised by market lobby, developers may deny support as Wii U. Today the hardware choices are the disproportionality between the cpu and gpu and the amount of unified memory. Console has always been about where to hide the weak point

Assuming that PS4 was still current, a ''Dreamcast'' correlated to it would be Nintendo Switch. A ''Dreamcast'' correlated to the PS5 would be a PS4-Pro (this correlation is more accurate imo).
.

Remember when Devs use to really push the hardware and take advantage of 'to the metal'? Now it seems alot of Devs just have to deal alot of engine bullshit, shader compilation shit, and just general tardyness, displayed by half assed releases, being patched to fucking death month after release. It's a fuckin shambles..the fuck has shit gotten this bad within the industry? Don't answer, I know how. Watched it decline for decades now.

 

[Alan Wake]

Soul Calibur was a stunning game for years afterwards. Shenmue and Shenmue II were obviously really impressive, PSO as well. Games like Headhunter, Metropolis Street Racer and RE Code: Veronica all felt next-gen. But Dreamcast also had lots of lazy PS1 ports.

My main issue when playing on my Dreamcast today is not the graphics but the controller with only one thumbstick. It works but it feels a bit awkward.

 

[Horseganador]

Dreamcast was very powerful hardware at the time of its launch, this was not like Saturn or Playstation that had "similar" but very cut-down arcade conversions, Dreamcast meant having a Model 3 or Naomi board at home for $200 and it was incredible.

 

[cartman414]

Remember when Devs use to really push the hardware and take advantage of 'to the metal'? Now it seems alot of Devs just have to deal alot of engine bullshit, shader compilation shit, and just general tardyness, displayed by half assed releases, being patched to fucking death month after release. It's a fuckin shambles..the fuck has shit gotten this bad within the industry? Don't answer, I know how. Watched it decline for decades now.

Don't forget that the industry has pushed devs into AAA development where they're lucky if they even get the time to polish their games, to say nothing of the time/money spike that came from HD alone.

 

[lostinblue]

N64 4mb of unified memory +4mb (expands ''vram'' more than system ram)

Not true.

On the N64 the standard 4 megs of dedicated memory were actually 4.5 MB. With the expansion pack total memory was 9 MB.

That means standard vram on n64 were 512 KB, and with expansion, 1 MB.

It doubled it like it doubled the work ram.

Well, 3x compared to the N64. 2x if you count the expansion pack which was pretty standard after 1998.

It was never standard. And the game who bundled it (DK64) only came out in december 1999. Perfect Dark who required it for single player release in May 2000, Majora Mask in late 2000 outside of japan.

Sales for all those games were lower than the games that preceded them.

If the n64 had a 32 million userbase, best case scenario, the userbase with an expansion pack ammounted to 1/3. Most likely closer to 1/6th.

DK64 who came with it sold 5 million copies.

 

[U n i o n 0015]

Random Dreamcast thought, when the eff is someone gonna translate Segagaga??

 

[Grechy34]

I remember when the Dreamcast came out I went to Harris Scarfe (Australian retailer) and they had a Dreamcast Kiosk. Not thinking anything could beat N64 at the time I was so blown away by how the games ran and looked. It was a huge leap. I think from that point on I accepted the current gen was nearing the end.

 

[-Zelda-]

I remember that really cool demo disk with the Shenmue trailer video. I wore that disk to dust watching that video before that game came out. Also, that Echo the Dolphin demo that lets you play the beginning area that takes place during sunset. Never even bothered to complete it, just see how high I could get Echo to flip out of the water. Most of those Dreamcast games are playable on other consoles, but there are a few I miss that were never ported.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Random Dreamcast thought, when the eff is someone gonna translate Segagaga??

Probably right around the time we finally get a translation for Princess Crown.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

Someone open a topic so we can talk about whether today's Sega is more capable than the old one at managing a console.

 

[nkarafo]

It was never standard. And the game who bundled it (DK64) only came out in december 1999. Perfect Dark who required it for single player release in May 2000, Majora Mask in late 2000 outside of japan.

Sales for all those games were lower than the games that preceded them.

If the n64 had a 32 million userbase, best case scenario, the userbase with an expansion pack ammounted to 1/3. Most likely closer to 1/6th.

DK64 who came with it sold 5 million copies.

Why do you only count the bundles and the games that require the pack? The first game than used the expansion pack was Turok 2 and that was released in 1998. That's when i got mine. After that, a whole lot of N64 games used it. It's not like the Saturn where only 4 or 5 games use it in the whole library. More than 60 N64 games used it. Counting only the sales of the 3 games that required it doesn't make sense.

Either way, if you didn't have the expansion pack, you missed out a lot. It was a more important add-on than the rumble pack IMO.

 

[Nikodemos]

Someone open a topic so we can talk about whether today's Sega is more capable than the old one at managing a console.

The answer would likely be a resounding "No".

 

[DenchDeckard]

It felt amazing to me, man I loved my dream cast. I think it impressed me more than ps2 to be honest. Dreamcast always looked cleaner to me and ps2 with ssx and taken looked fuzzy and off.

Not sure what it was. Plus dreamcast pushed for 60hz in the UK so I have so much love for Sega and that console for that.

 

[Hudo]

Dreamcast has the best version of Rayman 2. And a good port of Re-Volt!

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

The answer to the question, "Was Sega Dreamcast powerful?" is an enthusiastic "YES." These videogames looked sensational in 1999 and 2000, and many of these titles haven't aged a day.

Like many Dreamcast fans, I was somewhat bitter for many years that the console was killed so quickly. While not as powerful as its Gen-6 peers, there was still plenty of power underneath the hood and I think another two or three years would have demonstrated this. Virtua Fighter 4 deserved to be here, not on PlayStation 2. And we deserved to have updated versions of all our favorite Saturn classics: Panzer Dragoon Trilogy, Lobotomy Trilogy, Shining Force 3 Trilogy, Nights, Burning Rangers, Dragon Force.

We got robbed.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

Yes. It was both.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

I remember when the first leaked screenshots of Sonic Adventure were posted on Next Generation forum and a lot of people there thought it was fake.

I also remember that a lot of early PS2 games looked ugly + ran worse than Dreamcast games. It’s obvious that devs really struggled to master the hardware. I think Final Fantasy X was the first game that really seemed like something beyond Dreamcast’s capabilities

 

[cireza]

I remember when the first leaked screenshots of Sonic Adventure were posted on Next Generation forum and a lot of people there thought it was fake.

I also remember that a lot of early PS2 games looked ugly + ran worse than Dreamcast games. It’s obvious that devs really struggled to master the hardware. I think Final Fantasy X was the first game that really seemed like something beyond Dreamcast’s capabilities

The game was painful to look at in PAL 50Hz. Abysmal image quality. But this was common on PS2 anyway.

 

[Bond007]

Dreamcast had so many bangers in such a short period.
Ultimately for me at the time it was a stop gap while i waited for the PS2 to arrive. Once it did, I sold my DC and never looked back. I knew all the franchises i loved would eventually continue on PS2- and Dreamcast just didnt have that future appeal. It was more " In the moment"

Soul Calibur
Ready To Rumble
Crazy Taxi
NBA 2K
Coder Veronica
NFL 2K
Sonic Adventure 1
Trick Style

What a time to be a gamer.
That being said, the PS2 launch was awesome for me. Right off the bat

Tekken Tag
Smugglers Run
Timesplitters
SSX

With a promise of Gran Turismo soon. I was set.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Here are the rest of the video links I posted earlier, just to get around the 10-video limit. Dreamcast has so many great videogames to enjoy. If you're a fan of arcade games, especially racing and fighting games, you'll have a blast. It's just such a pity we weren't given more time, but them's the brakes.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

I remember when the first leaked screenshots of Sonic Adventure were posted on Next Generation forum and a lot of people there thought it was fake.

I also remember that a lot of early PS2 games looked ugly + ran worse than Dreamcast games. It’s obvious that devs really struggled to master the hardware. I think Final Fantasy X was the first game that really seemed like something beyond Dreamcast’s capabilities

The great irony of those days was that Sony and Sega swapped console designs. Dreamcast was the streamlined, "easy to program" console, while PS2 was the complicated, multi-processor beast that required a long learning curve to master.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

And here is a nice compilation video of (nearly) all the Dreamcast titles released in the USA. For a console that was only around for 18 months, this is a very impressive software library. There are probably too many sequels for my liking, and it's painfully obvious that few third-party publishers put any real effort beyond PSX/N64 ports, but what was given is quite excellent and holds up very well. This is the final hurrah for the age of arcade videogames and you couldn't ask for a better finale.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Finally, since I still have the mic, I wanted to share my current Dreamcast Top 20 list:

1. SoulCalibur
2. NFL 2K1
3. Phantasy Star Online
4. Hydro Thunder
5. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2
6. San Francisco Rush 2049
7. Street Fighter 3: Third Strike
8. Test Drive Le Mans
9. Virtua Tennis
10. Crazy Taxi
11. Tony Hawk Pro Skater
12. Ferrari F355 Challenge
13. NBA 2K2
14. Dead or Alive 2
15. NBA Showtime
16. Marvel Vs Capcom 2
17. Resident Evil: Code Veronica
18. Power Stone 2
19. Chu Chu Rocket
20. NHL 2K2

 

[Grildon Tundy]

It blew me away when I got mine--about two weeks before Sega announced they were leaving the console market.

Still, nothing on my N64 came close, graphically, to Jet Set Radio and Shenmue. JSR looks good to this day.

 

[German Hops]

Finally, since I still have the mic, I wanted to share my current Dreamcast Top 20 list:

1. SoulCalibur
2. NFL 2K1
3. Phantasy Star Online
4. Hydro Thunder
5. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2
6. San Francisco Rush 2049
7. Street Fighter 3: Third Strike
8. Test Drive Le Mans
9. Virtua Tennis
10. Crazy Taxi
11. Tony Hawk Pro Skater
12. Ferrari F355 Challenge
13. NBA 2K2
14. Dead or Alive 2
15. NBA Showtime
16. Marvel Vs Capcom 2
17. Resident Evil: Code Veronica
18. Power Stone 2
19. Chu Chu Rocket
20. NHL 2K2

No Sonic Adventure game?

Invalid list.

 

[Muffdraul]

I don't remember any talk of specs or even bits. It was probably right around that time when the whole "bits" thing fell out of fashion. It was common knowledge NES was 8-bit, SNES and Genesis/Megadrive were 16-bit, Saturn and Playstation were 32-bit, N64 was duh-bit. But Dreamcast and PS2... I don't remember there being any talk of how many bits they were, the way processors were split up and worked together had changed I guess, I was never much of a tech head.

But all you had to do was see Soul Calibur running at a demo kiosk in a game shop to know the Dreamcast had a lot of horsepower under its hood.

 

[bodine1231]

I imported mine with Power Stone before the USA launch w/ 4 controllers. Needless to say I was pretty popular on my street for a while. Really good times.

The thing about the Dreamcast was it was the first console that actually surpassed the arcade. Up until then nearly every game was compared to its console version in magazines and was always worse. Not anymore. It was the first time I realized that arcades were dead.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

Anyone who was gaming in 1999 knows that yes it was quite powerful

 

[Happosai]

No Sonic Adventure game?

Invalid list.

List was missing Powerstone 1 & 2 the same.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

No Sonic Adventure game?

Invalid list.

Yes, indeed, several high profile Dreamcast games don't appear on my top 20 list:

Sonic Adventure: A good experience, but not great. A big buggy and frustrating in execution, and while it has some strengths, it just struggles in 3D for me. But then again, I liked Big the Cat, and I'm probably the only one who felt that way.

Sonic Adventure 2: Honestly, I've never played this one, and I really ought to. I did play a demo disc of the first stage and thought it was fun, although the issues with controlling Sonic in a 3D environment were still there (and, honestly, will always be there). This character just doesn't translate from 2D to 3D nearly as easily as Mario.

Shenmue: A highly impressive tech demo that predicts the rise of Grand Theft Auto and sandbox videogames, but there's not very much to do. The novelty of opening every drawer and talking to every person wears thin. I also felt the combat was a touch clunky, but this just might be the game's Saturn roots showing. Honestly, this should have been on Saturn. Its impact would have been much greater.

Shenmue 2: Again, I haven't played this one yet. I really would like to play one of these days, I wonder why I never got around to playing this one? I would love to check it out sometime.

Jet Set/Grind Radio: I love this game's techno trip-hop design and art style, it's just amazing for its time. The controls are a mess: your movements are far too floaty in the vertical, yet far too twitchy in the horizontal. This leaves jumping and grinding rather difficult for me, as it lacks that sense of weight and speed that Tony Hawk Pro Skater nails so perfectly. If you can work around this, fantastic. If not, well, sorry.

Virtua Fighter 3 Team Battle: A very solid arcade conversion, almost perfect and better than its reputation. But it does show its age when compared to DoA2 and SoulCalibur, and I also think Fighters Megamix is a better fighting game, a smoother and more fluid experience.

Sega Rally Championship 2: I played this a lot back in 1999 and 2000, as I loved the original on Sega Saturn. The frame rate issues, jogging between 30-60 fps, always felt somewhat jarring, but this might not be as big an issue today. The course designs, however, are not as good as the first game, especially that final city course. I did like the 10-year championship mode, however. Overall, a fun experience but slightly disappointing. But the last time I seriously played was over 20 years ago.

Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament: I played the heck out of Quake 3 on Dreamcast, as it was the best online gaming experience at the time. But the frame rate sucks. There's no getting around that, and now that I'm fully immersed in the high holy Lobotomy Trilogy on Saturn, I just can't enjoy this version of Id's classic. I really do wish Lobotomy were still around to handle this translation, and then give us a DC version of Powerslave. That would have been amazing. Same goes for Unreal Tournament, a series that I loved dearly on PC. A lot of Dreamcast games have silky smooth 60 fps, but many others just struggle with frame rates, and that always irritated me somewhat. That said, I really wish these two franchises would return. Why did they go away?!

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Here is a great video showing ten "hidden gems" for Sega Dreamcast, and it's a very worthy list. I enjoyed many of these titles, and they are all worth checking out, if only to see if they have improved with age. Omikron: The Nomad Soul was one that I was particularly fond of, thanks to its futuristic Blade Runner design and the presence of our dearly departed David Bowie.

PS: Why don't we have an official "NeoGAF Sega Dreamcast Community" thread? There are many discussions on Sega's final home console, but there is no single home for everybody to gather as we have with Sega Saturn. Who will be the one to step up and create it? Or is everybody waiting for me to do it? Hah! Okay, I happen to have a few days free this week...

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

List was missing Powerstone 1 & 2 the same.

Oh, no, I've got Power Stone 2 on my list. If I wrote down a Top 30, the first game would be there for sure. I love them both and really wish Capcom would bring the series back, but I do prefer the chaotic Smash Brothers multiplayer (and the alchemy item creation mode) of the sequel over the original.

 

[buenoblue]

It was the most powerful console at the time and had better looking games than I had ever seen. Especially as I never had a PC back then. Obviously as time passes tech moved on and the PS2, GameCube and Xbox were better but that's just how it goes.

I actually hate that consoles from Sony and Microsoft are released at the same time now and use the same AMD tech.They end up being so similar it's boring.