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Was the Dreamcast gen 5 pro?

Dream-Knife

Dream-Knife

Banned
With generations now being split in two with pro consoles it makes sense to view pervious gens through that lens. Was the dreamcast just a gen 5 pro? It had a lot of N64 and PC ports at higher res and better framerates. The dreamcast really lives in the year 2000. Late 90s before 9/11.

Now that pro consoles are all but confirmed, looking back this seems to make sense. The reasoning is different since consoles had unique architecture back then, vs the mid PC upgrades we now have. Still, I think it is an interesting thought.
 
KàIRóS

KàIRóS

Member
That's not how this works, console generations are divided based on hardware specs not what year they came out and what competition they faced, the Dreamcast was considerably more powerful than the N64, PS1 and Sega Saturn.

Same thing with the 3DO, yes it's competition was mostly fourth gen consoles (SNES, Genesis/Mega-Drive and the Atari Jaguar) but it was ultimately a fifth gen console due to it's much more powerful hardware and 3D capabilities.
 
Northeastmonk

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
Back when arcade game tech could still be used in a conversation. The NAOMI board was an arcade board, so it was like having an arcade machine at home. That’s at least how I understand it. The DC had some potential, but it got destroyed by the PS2.
 
TransTrender

TransTrender

Gold Member
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poodaddy

poodaddy

Member
The Dreamcast was the first of its kind, and still to this day is one of my favorite consoles of all time. It was light years ahead of N64 and PS1, and was technically more capable in a few areas than even the PS2. It would have competed more if not for PS2's getting into every home by being a DVD player as well. Hell, the PS2 was technically the least impressive console of that gen after the Dreamcast failed, yet it was the clear winner due to having an incredible library and being a DVD player.

Goddamn I love the Dreamcast so much.
 
E

Ecotic

Member
Games made exclusively for the Dreamcast could do things that were a clear step beyond the PS1 and N64. Games like Quake III Arena, Dead or Alive 2, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Shenmue, and Sonic Adventure 2 did 3D graphics that were either too fast or too pretty to be possible on the PS1 or N64.

I do get how someone could make that argument that the Dreamcast was a fifth generation Pro system. The Dreamcast did get a lot of enhanced ports of N64 and PS1 games, and the other consoles supposedly in the same generation (the PS2, Gamecube, and original Xbox) did games that wouldn't be possible on the Dreamcast like God of War 2, Rogue Leader, Resident Evil 4, Splinter Cell, and passable ports of high-end PC games like Doom 3 and Far Cry.

The Dreamcast was really on its own tier, doing things not possible on N64 and PS1, but also not able to do things that were possible on consoles released just a couple of years later.
 
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polybius80

Member
in my opinion there is a good reason why it felt like a "pro version" and not as a new gen, but its not really because the system capabilities

DC was the first system in that gen and devs at the time had the mentality of the PSX/N64 era that affects many things

the models for the most part where still made with discrete parts even sega own games, and this practice extended for a long time in lot of games it was curious as there were games on psx that werent as obvious or used proper bones/joints to deform models, when you see FFVII, FFIX, Chrono cross and vagrant story awesome models and then you see sonic adventure with sonic and every character models made of very obvious parts then it doesnt look good even the first crash bandicoot used some techniques to avoid using obvious parts, it had nothing to do with the system really it took time for proper 3d models to be common and most of the devs that already were working with more modern approach ddint released games for DC at the beginning

the scope of games was for last gen, most games where ports or planed for the at the time last gen, you cant simply expect most developers to use their time planning ambitious mechanics or go wild with new graphic capabilities for big worlds full of effects just to reduce them later for not having the expertise for such things most games suffer of very basic light effects and use poorly made light maps if at all, lot of games look very bland as a result, but again its not fault of the system it wasnt common yet, I think the most interesting game at the time of release was sonic adventure for the way of how big the scenery feels probably from sega own testing of the machine capabilities and even there it feels more as cut scenes blended with gameplay more like an old game where devs discovered they can trow lot of stuff in screen without affecting framerate, later systems also have similar problems but not as pronounced as the first system of the generation, its the price of releasing your system first


the system had very good games but its early death didnt help to change that perception in time for some people
 
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polybius80

Member
cireza said:
Dreamcast was the biggest jump we ever had after the move to 3D. So no.
Click to expand...

Dreamcast shared too much of its initial catalog with N64, PSX and PC at and for a good amount of its life for being "the biggest jump" in fact it was very similar to the situation with PS4/XboxOne to PS5/SeriesX(S) where you can wait for the new console as you can play most new games in fact the move to PS360 was way more a significant jump even if 360 had a fair amount of games it shared with PS2 that ended quickly by the time PS3 released games were generally too complex for the older gen and had to do special versions for PS2/Wii
 
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Esppiral

Esppiral

Member
Dream-Knife said:
With generations now being split in two with pro consoles it makes sense to view pervious gens through that lens. Was the dreamcast just a gen 5 pro? It had a lot of N64 and PC ports at higher res and better framerates. The dreamcast really lives in the year 2000. Late 90s before 9/11.

Now that pro consoles are all but confirmed, looking back this seems to make sense. The reasoning is different since consoles had unique architecture back then, vs the mid PC upgrades we now have. Still, I think it is an interesting thought.
Click to expand...
A pro 5th gen console? Are you high? The Dreamcast a proper generational leap one of the biggest at it, it suffered from awful PSX ports thought.
 
P

polybius80

Member
Ecotic said:
Games made exclusively for the Dreamcast could do things that were a clear step beyond the PS1 and N64. Games like Quake III Arena, Dead or Alive 2, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Shenmue, and Sonic Adventure 2 did 3D graphics that were either too fast or too pretty to be possible on the PS1 or N64.
Click to expand...

because to understand it you have to take into account the time and the amount of games, the Dreamcast was released in 1999 and discontinued at the end of 2001, games like quake3 for example was released at october from 2000 so it wast a game at release for the system, the same with sonic2, there are indeed great games for the system like the ones you mention and certainly not possible in PSX/N64 but when most of your catalog when releasing consist in games you can play in the consoles you already own there are people that wont be very impressed at the beginning of the generation even if at the end of the day it was a great system with great games not possible on prior consoles

in my case when I first saw the system I didnt liked the heavy influence of sport games, sonic adventure was impressive but not enough, there were a huge push for sport games and games like ready to rumble and diidnt know about DOA frachise at the time, it was games like phantasy star online(my first DC game) why I bought the system(and still own) I dont like crazy taxy and bought quake3 on PC for me the console wasnt really interesting until phantasy star online, then I played soul calibur wich I didnt know before and shenmue time later to be fair soul calibur alone could have made me buy the system sooner but from my perspective at the time it was port after port of games from psx and n64, ports and sports
 
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O

Ozzie666

Member
This thread feels like such disrespect for the little white box. It was capable of so much more, but we never got to see how far it could go. If only they had included a DVD, maybe it lived a few more years. But I still maintain the console was next gen, but the controller was not. Having Dreamcast, PS2, XBOX and GameCube really diminish the impact of the Dreamcast, being the first to release. How easily we forget Soul Calibur and Sonic Adventure, so far above PS1 and N64, it was like a marriage of those 2 systems finally come together.

This is sort of like asking where the PC-Engine belongs, but I think the answer for the dreamcast is much easier.
 
O

Ozzie666

Member
polybius80 said:
I have never seen a PC-engine in my life..... was it like a pro console?
Click to expand...

Not sure if totally serious, but ok.

8 but CPU, 16bit graphics chips. Was it part of the NES and Master system generation or part of the Super Nintendo and Mega Drive generation. The Super Grafix might be the first 'Pro Console' actually, which confuses things even more for the poor Pc-Engine / Turbo.

Not sure N64 or PS1 could have done Jet Radio or Crazy Taxi any justice.
 
BlackTron

BlackTron

Member
polybius80 said:
in my opinion there is a good reason why it felt like a "pro version" and not as a new gen, but its not really because the system capabilities

DC was the first system in that gen and devs at the time had the mentality of the PSX/N64 era that affects many things

the models for the most part where still made with discrete parts even sega own games, and this practice extended for a long time in lot of games it was curious as there were games on psx that werent as obvious or used proper bones/joints to deform models, when you see FFVII, FFIX, Chrono cross and vagrant story awesome models and then you see sonic adventure with sonic and every character models made of very obvious parts then it doesnt look good even the first crash bandicoot used some techniques to avoid using obvious parts, it had nothing to do with the system really it took time for proper 3d models to be common and most of the devs that already were working with more modern approach ddint released games for DC at the beginning

the scope of games was for last gen, most games where ports or planed for the at the time last gen, you cant simply expect most developers to use their time planning ambitious mechanics or go wild with new graphic capabilities for big worlds full of effects just to reduce them later for not having the expertise for such things most games suffer of very basic light effects and use poorly made light maps if at all, lot of games look very bland as a result, but again its not fault of the system it wasnt common yet, I think the most interesting game at the time of release was sonic adventure for the way of how big the scenery feels probably from sega own testing of the machine capabilities and even there it feels more as cut scenes blended with gameplay more like an old game where devs discovered they can trow lot of stuff in screen without affecting framerate, later systems also have similar problems but not as pronounced as the first system of the generation, its the price of releasing your system first


the system had very good games but its early death didnt help to change that perception in time for some people
Click to expand...

Maybe you personally didn't know about Soul Calibur until later, but it was painfully obvious to anyone who saw it and the first level of Sonic Adventure, one month after the system came out, that this was not a "N64 Pro". It was the biggest generational leap we ever had in 3D.

If you personally paid attention to a bunch of crappy ports that doesn't make it a PSX/N64 Pro either. The only port I had back then was Rayman 2 which was actually pretty great and didn't seem like some gimped PSX game.

Even playing random "lesser" games on demo disks it was blatantly obvious this system left PS/64 in the dust regardless to what extent it was being used. Without knowing anything about game development you could tell it was struggling less to perform and everything was sharper and cleaner even if reduced to the bare minimum.

At least we agree that Phantasy Star Online was megaton but if that's where you jumped in, seems like you just weren't aware of what the system was pulling. Which you pretty much just admitted if you didn't even know Soul Calibur was a thing. This one game represents the biggest visual upgrade in 3D history. You don't do that with a "pro" system. Sorry you didn't notice but just because you glossed over it, you don't get to rewrite history without any punctuation.
 
diffusionx

diffusionx

Gold Member
polybius80 said:
in my opinion there is a good reason why it felt like a "pro version" and not as a new gen, but its not really because the system capabilities

DC was the first system in that gen and devs at the time had the mentality of the PSX/N64 era that affects many things

the models for the most part where still made with discrete parts even sega own games, and this practice extended for a long time in lot of games it was curious as there were games on psx that werent as obvious or used proper bones/joints to deform models, when you see FFVII, FFIX, Chrono cross and vagrant story awesome models and then you see sonic adventure with sonic and every character models made of very obvious parts then it doesnt look good even the first crash bandicoot used some techniques to avoid using obvious parts, it had nothing to do with the system really it took time for proper 3d models to be common and most of the devs that already were working with more modern approach ddint released games for DC at the beginning

the scope of games was for last gen, most games where ports or planed for the at the time last gen, you cant simply expect most developers to use their time planning ambitious mechanics or go wild with new graphic capabilities for big worlds full of effects just to reduce them later for not having the expertise for such things most games suffer of very basic light effects and use poorly made light maps if at all, lot of games look very bland as a result, but again its not fault of the system it wasnt common yet, I think the most interesting game at the time of release was sonic adventure for the way of how big the scenery feels probably from sega own testing of the machine capabilities and even there it feels more as cut scenes blended with gameplay more like an old game where devs discovered they can trow lot of stuff in screen without affecting framerate, later systems also have similar problems but not as pronounced as the first system of the generation, its the price of releasing your system first


the system had very good games but its early death didnt help to change that perception in time for some people
Click to expand...

The system was only on the market for about 15 months, but already by the 2nd year you were starting to see games like Shenmue that really could not be done on prior consoles (and in that instance, they tried). There were others like JGR and PSO. If the Dreamcast was successful, the games would have continued to evolve. Look at the PS2, the first year was a lot of rough games and DC ports (bad ports at that) but by the end of 2001 it was a totally new ballgame. The Dreamcast was not going to be permanently shackled to the prior gen style of game forever the way the PS4 Pro was.
 
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Lysandros

Lysandros

Member
poodaddy said:
The Dreamcast was the first of its kind, and still to this day is one of my favorite consoles of all time. It was light years ahead of N64 and PS1, and was technically more capable in a few areas than even the PS2. It would have competed more if not for PS2's getting into every home by being a DVD player as well. Hell, the PS2 was technically the least impressive console of that gen after the Dreamcast failed, yet it was the clear winner due to having an incredible library and being a DVD player.

Goddamn I love the Dreamcast so much.
Click to expand...
That's a 'hell' of a subjective take and i wholeheartedly disagree with it.
 
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poodaddy

poodaddy

Member
Lysandros said:
That's a 'hell' of a subjective take and i wholeheartedly disagree with it.
Click to expand...
Ok, good for you. Just out of curiosity, how do you disagree specifically? Just wondering what I could have specifically said there that you disagree with? How was the PS2 a technically superior assembly of hardware over the GameCube and Xbox? I mentioned that it had the best library, but other than that what did it have on those two consoles?
 
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squarealex

squarealex

Member
PSX = 240p / 20 - 30fps
DC = 480p / 30 - 60fps

Is more than an enhanced of PS1/N64. The problem is just, DC was release too early, many game have PS1 specs on target, DC have many cross-gen games.

You can see a big upgrade comparing Soul Blade & Soul Calibur (240p 30fps / 480p 60fps, big 3D poly upgrade, alpha texturing etc..)
 
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SkylineRKR

SkylineRKR

Member
Dreamcast was bonafide next-gen, its exclusive software was too far ahead of PSX and N64.


But Sony and Nintendo could play the waiting game since their consoles still sold well, so they came up with technology from 2000 and 2001, which was 2 to 3 years ahead of Dreamcast. And we know that around the turn of the millenium, hardware and video cards advanced at a rapid rate. So they eclipsed the DC rather quickly.

I don't think the DC could do much more than what was available. The games from 2001, 3 years after its release, felt like they pushed the system. There were some things it simply couldn't pull off in terms of system RAM, memory bandwith etc. Don't forget we were much more tolerable to performance, the amount of pop in and slowdown in Shenmue was off the charts, not to mention the ridiculous load times. This was because of the fillrate. Crazy Taxi actually slowed down like hell too, especially on the new map.
 
Gameplay Gods Bless

Gameplay Gods Bless

Member
KàIRóS said:
That's not how this works, console generations are divided based on hardware specs not what year they came out and what competition they faced, the Dreamcast was considerably more powerful than the N64, PS1 and Sega Saturn.

Same thing with the 3DO, yes it's competition was mostly fourth gen consoles (SNES, Genesis/Mega-Drive and the Atari Jaguar) but it was ultimately a fifth gen console due to it's much more powerful hardware and 3D capabilities.
Click to expand...
They are not divided by hw specs because that would massively complicate things. They are divided by competition: the Gameboy and Atari Lynx are both 4th gen handheld consoles despite the lynx being massively more powerful than the Gameboy, the PS3 and Wii are both 7th gen consoles despite the PS3 being way more powerful than the Wii.
 
poodaddy

poodaddy

Member
Lysandros said:
That's a 'hell' of a subjective take and i wholeheartedly disagree with it.
Click to expand...
Nevermind, I just did a brief once over of your post history, and the entirety of your contributions are either defending Sony or trashing Xbox, so it's real obvious what your issue is with what I said, and you definitely aren't looking for an earnest discussion. Go about your day warrior.
 
deriks

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
Simple no

Remember that consoles used to be way more different from each other, and a game made for a console is very much it's own iteration. We didn't have a lot of RPGs for PlayStation and a lot of platforms on N64 just because. It was a hardware design thing. How CPU, GPU and memory worked was particular from every console. Not just a matter of better version or something

Let's put an example: if you emulate the PSX Dino Crisis on recent hardware PC, and compare with the Dreamcast version on original hardware, you will see a lot of similarities. That's because there's a lot of escalation of graphics that could be applied on the game, still the original PSX hardware couldn't handle those resolutions and stuff not just because of hardware, but the architecture itself

Another example: Need for Speed Underground on PS2 run with some effects, but graphics are very poor and those effects are hard too see. Game Cube version is way washed out, with less effects, but better resolution. Xbox version has better effects and better graphics, very close to the PC version, even thou doesn't run that well. Why the Xbox version is closer to the PC? Because the Xbox is basically a PC, while the other two consoles are two entirely different beasts

PS360 and the Wii U were the last of those, for better or worse
 
DaGwaphics

DaGwaphics

Member
Definitely no. While it is the weakest of the 6th gen systems in general, it could still hold its own with PS2 in specific areas. Not to mention the games look a lot more like gen 6 than gen5 (at a time when the generational difference was really stark)
 
Unknown?

Unknown?

Member
poodaddy said:
Nevermind, I just did a brief once over of your post history, and the entirety of your contributions are either defending Sony or trashing Xbox, so it's real obvious what your issue is with what I said, and you definitely aren't looking for an earnest discussion. Go about your day warrior.
Click to expand...
Maybe so but he does have a lot of technical reasons why PS2 is better than is thought. The problem being that devs had to know how to utilize it. It wasn't like PS1 where squeezing out the power was straightforward.
 
BlackTron

BlackTron

Member
Lysandros said:
That's a 'hell' of a subjective take and i wholeheartedly disagree with it.
Click to expand...

PS2 was definitely the least impressive system technically. Gamecube and Xbox were clearly better hardware. The only thing that was even debatably worse than PS2 was Dreamcast. Even then, in real life application, I usually liked the way Dreamcast games looked better than PS2. I can tell you that, having been playing DC for 2 years, I was pretty grossed out by early PS2 and didn't want it at the time just because of how shitty it looked. Edit: PS2 is a known example of power not mattering in the end, with weaker systems winning due to factors that matter more in the end. Nintendo wrote the book on this and are still writing it, I think Game Boy is the most extreme example
 
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