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[SenkiDala]

Did the definition of generation change while I wasn't paying attention?
Is this why people like to pretend that the Switch isn't a 9th gen console?

I swear this thread has no sense, at least if you're born before 2000.

Of course the Dreamcast is a 6th gen console (play DOA2 on DC and PS2 if you wanna be sure of it).

Then the N64 was a 64 bits consoles so it was also a 5 pro era console ? Then what was the 3DO ? The Neo Geo ? The PS2 was a 294/299 MHz consoles, the Gamecube 485 MHz and the Xbox 733 MHz, how do we do ?

How dumb is all this...

 

[ReBurn]

Last generation wasn't the first time enhanced consoles released. NEC did it with SuperGrafx back in the 4th gen. It was a failure for them.

It doesn't make sense to look at consoles that weren't upgraded within the same gen. Dreamcast wasn't a pro anything. It just happened to benefit from being powerful enough to faithfully power Sega arcade ports. Back then consoles were competing with arcade tech but once we hit the PS2 generation arcades were dying.

Now consoles are chasing PC. We needed new console hardware faster because PS4 and Xbone were criminally underpowered at launch and PC was already far ahead from a CPU/GPU perspective when those consoles launched. We're in the same position with PS5/Series. The only advantage current gen hardware has is faster I/O. They overwhelmingly cannot run games as well as PC. And PC hardware is constantly improving.

 

[Soodanim]

I'm shocked that the question is even being asked. The idea has never even crossed my mind because it's so obviously 6th gen.

 

[Destruction-1002]

The Dreamcast is a Pro console in 5th gen? you are delusional

 

[Dream-Knife]

The Dreamcast is a Pro console in 5th gen? you are delusional

Doesn't even look like that big of a difference anymore.

 

[Soodanim]

Doesn't even look like that big of a difference anymore.

Not when the comparison shots are emulators with upscaling applied, no.

 

[Lysandros]

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.

Wow this escalated pretty quickly from your side isn't it? Just a simple short post not sharing your view touched that much of a nerve? I have no post history 'trashing Xbox' or defending the Sony corporation and if you truly think so you can blame your distorted perception. Which i do have are posts discussing technical aspects of systems as a console hardware enthusiast including their respective strengths/weaknesses and actual real-world performances.

I liked Dreamcast very much, i sincerely think it's a tremendous system and i even consider it a small miracle for its time of release. In the same time i am just tired of this constant downplaying of PS2 based mainly of ignorance. In which context, i sadly see no value in sharing my arguments with someone with such an attitude. Won't see your further posts, don't bother responding.

 

[JCK75]

It was an impressive console hampered by one of the worst controllers ever designed

 

[cireza]

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

The fact that the console had lazy ports doesn't negate how forward thinking and advanced it was compared to anything that happened before it, and obviously PS1/N64 ports are not the games to look at to witness that gigantic jump for 3D games.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Dreamcast started not joined a generation.

 

[poodaddy]

Wow this escalated pretty quickly from your side isn't it? Just a simple short post not sharing your view touched that much of a nerve? I have no post history 'trashing Xbox' or defending the Sony corporation and if you truly think so you can blame your distorted perception. Which i do have are posts discussing technical aspects of systems as a console hardware enthusiast including their respective strengths/weaknesses and actual real-world performances.

I liked Dreamcast very much, i sincerely think it's a tremendous system and i even consider it a small miracle for its time of release. In the same time i am just tired of this constant downplaying of PS2 based mainly of ignorance. In which context, i sadly see no value in sharing my arguments with someone with such an attitude. Won't see your further posts, don't bother responding.

Touched my nerve yet you block immediately lmao. Fragile warrior, enjoy your tailor made world.

 

[Drew1440]

Dreamcast had too many next gen features to be considered fifth generation. It was closer to the PS2 than the N64.
If anything the original Xbox is considered the Dreamcast Pro, It was generally a generation ahead in terms of graphics

 

[Esppiral]

Doesn't even look like that big of a difference anymore.

Call me when your average open world game looks like this on 5th gen consoles.

Or your fighting models have modeled even theyr eyelashes and nails.

Or when you psx/n64 can render this at 480p @ 60 fps.

I could keep going with many other Dreamcast games that were built from the Ground up to take advante of the 6th gen console of games and they all destroy what the psx or n64 were able to do.

It still hurts my heart that there are still people that thinks that the Dreamcast belongs to the 5th gen of consoles...

 

[BlackTron]

Wow this escalated pretty quickly from your side isn't it? Just a simple short post not sharing your view touched that much of a nerve? I have no post history 'trashing Xbox' or defending the Sony corporation and if you truly think so you can blame your distorted perception. Which i do have are posts discussing technical aspects of systems as a console hardware enthusiast including their respective strengths/weaknesses and actual real-world performances.

I liked Dreamcast very much, i sincerely think it's a tremendous system and i even consider it a small miracle for its time of release. In the same time i am just tired of this constant downplaying of PS2 based mainly of ignorance. In which context, i sadly see no value in sharing my arguments with someone with such an attitude. Won't see your further posts, don't bother responding.

Touched my nerve yet you block immediately lmao. Fragile warrior, enjoy your tailor made world.

I wonder why he chose this moment to make his post history private? Well, at least we don't need it anymore because he told us what his posts were like in this thread. Really that's quite convenient for us and conscientious of him.

 

[BlackTron]

I don't think DC seems that different to other 5th gen machines, if you were not actually there seeing and playing the games for the first time on a CRT. If you weren't born yet, and played remastered versions of these games or upresed in an emulator with your 1060/2080, it could blend together and seem samey.

To anyone who was ACTUALLY there, and bought Playstation, N64 and Dreamcast as new systems when they came out, this very idea is laughable on its face. This very thread has comparison shots that aren't even native hardware, it's emulator BS. No wonder people are confused.

 

[Caio]

My two cents : XBox 360 was a PRO Console, back in 2005, what a piece of hardware !

 

[Hudo]

The Dreamcast was the Slim version of the Pro version of the PS2 Slim, clearly.

 

[BlackTron]

My two cents : XBox 360 was a PRO Console, back in 2005, what a piece of hardware !

Um we aren't talking about "was it for PRO gamers" lol. If the 360 was a real generational leap, then it was not a Pro system in the context being discussed (like the PS4 Pro, Xbox One X, whatever)

 

[Alexios]

You're not a fucking idiot

​

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

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.

I disagree with this part. The PS2 was a beast at particle fillrate, more than any of the other systems that generation, and it had really impressive geometry capabilities. But what is particularly interesting of its design, is how it's kind of the only fully custom architecture of that generation, specifically built in-house for console gaming, and more than held its own against the competition.

The OG Xbox was basically an off-the-shelf design using Intel and Nvidia chips with (slight) customizations and tweaks, but none of that work was in-house. The Gamecube's GPU was done by Silicon Graphics, so also not in-house in terms of a design. The Dreamcast's CPU and GPU were developed in collaborations with Hitachi and NEC, respectively, but still weren't "in-house", per se.

You can argue that the non-PS2 systems that gen were "forward-thinking" in the way of showing how console design in future generations would become less proprietary and adapt more general-purpose processors and designs customized for targeted gaming performance (and in Xbox's case, leaning into PC-space chips while doing this), but the PS2, IMO, is the pinnacle of the older school mentality of in-house, proprietary console architectures & designs specifically developed for a video game console.

And, in a generation where that was already starting to become less common, is impressive in itself. That they were able to still have advantages over competitors in select areas with this approach is even more impressive.

Agreed. The Dreamcast was the first true 3D console in existence.

Every other console before it had to use some form of visual trickery to simulate 3D.

This is false. The N64 was the first "modern" 3D console, as it had hardware support for Z-buffering and other 3D features that the PS1 and Saturn lacked.

The Saturn in particular, basically distorted sprites (interpreted as quads) in different perspectives to give the impression of a 3D space. Meanwhile, the PS1 used fixed-point integer math instead of floating point, so certain 3D calculations had to be rounded and approximated vs. fully detailed as a precise number. This is also why there was so much texture warping.

In that sense the Saturn is a truly insane design; it's basically the logical conclusion of Sega's super scaler 2D sprite technology from the '80s and early '90s, trying to act as a facsimile of 3D. But to the point: N64 was the first true 3D console.

 

[Trunx81]

In my memories (bit of Mandela effect), Dreamcast and GameCube always have sharper graphics than PS2. Can’t get my head around it, but that’s how I feel in retrospective.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Absolutely not. Whoever asks this is showing their age. If you were there, you’d remember the biggest jump in 3d graphics ever seen. I bought a used Dreamcast in 2002 and my jaw still dropped at seeing Soul Calibur. This question makes no sense.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

In my memories (bit of Mandela effect), Dreamcast and GameCube always have sharper graphics than PS2. Can’t get my head around it, but that’s how I feel in retrospective.

That's because of their video output support. Dreamcast supported VGA and Gamecube supported S-video & component out of the box. Both systems might've had better video encoders than the PS2, as well, but I'm just guessing there.

The PS2 had a muddy video output; though you could get cleaner output, it'd cost you. I guess Sony kind of skimped out on that area due to costs.

 

[Soodanim]

I wonder why he chose this moment to make his post history private? Well, at least we don't need it anymore because he told us what his posts were like in this thread. Really that's quite convenient for us and conscientious of him.

It's not very often that you get a good ol' fashioned ProTip™ these days, but here's one for you:

You can use the forum's search facility to search by username.

 

[TGO]

Soul Calibur is considered the best looking game for the Dreamcast.
If you know anything about the arcade board that game runs on then you've got your answer.
But I'm sure it was capable of a lot more

 

[BlackTron]

In my memories (bit of Mandela effect), Dreamcast and GameCube always have sharper graphics than PS2. Can’t get my head around it, but that’s how I feel in retrospective.

This is how I actually felt back then. At some point, after owning Dreamcast Gamecube AND Xbox, I finally forced myself to get over it and buy a PS2 because everyone else loved it, and figured I was just being a graphics whore. I never got over it. Between the fugly jaggies and dogshit controller, I played only a few exclusives on it while rotating between the safety of PC and Nintendo.

Xbox was okay, but soured on me because Halo 2 sucked compared to the e3 demo. Barring that, it had a lot of competent console versions of PC games (but I already used PC lol). Honestly I buy and give everything a chance since time started but always end up back at PC/Nintendo (well since Sega decided to peace out).

 

[dave_d]

It was an impressive console hampered by one of the worst controllers ever designed

Why they didn't just upgrade the Saturn 3d pad I'll never know. (A second stick would have been enough.)

 

[poodaddy]

Absolutely not. Whoever asks this is showing their age. If you were there, you’d remember the biggest jump in 3d graphics ever seen. I bought a used Dreamcast in 2002 and my jaw still dropped at seeing Soul Calibur. This question makes no sense.

I still adore the clean look of Soul Calibur 1. What an absolute master class of visual and artistic design, and the gameplay is absolutely perfect. For my money, 1 was the series peak and it progressively got worse in each entry.

How about Code Veronica? My God, my brother and I were absolutely freaking out when we first saw Claire walk down the first hallway with the lighter, that lighting had simply never been done before to that degree. It was an incredible achievement for its time and cannot be understated.

Also of note, most arcade ports at the time made major concessions to home consoles; this was the norm of the day of course. Not the Dreamcast, arcade ports were absolutely perfect, or in the case of Soul Calibur, were sometimes even vastly superior to the original arcade release.

Dreamcast was objectively the best piece of hardware assembly we had seen in a home console to the date it released. To those who were there at the time, its legacy is truly hallowed, as is deserved.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I don't think DC seems that different to other 5th gen machines, if you were not actually there seeing and playing the games for the first time on a CRT. If you weren't born yet, and played remastered versions of these games or upresed in an emulator with your 1060/2080, it could blend together and seem samey.

To anyone who was ACTUALLY there, and bought Playstation, N64 and Dreamcast as new systems when they came out, this very idea is laughable on its face. This very thread has comparison shots that aren't even native hardware, it's emulator BS. No wonder people are confused.

Just seeing screenshots of Dreamcast games in magazines like Gamer's Republic or EGM was enough to show it a generation ahead of PS1, N64 or Saturn. While I do think there are some PS1 games which fare well visually against certain Dreamcast games, it's always with the following caveats:

1: They were always the biggest production/budgeted AAA PS1 games (Vagrant Story, FF VIII, Parasite Eve 2, Fear Effect 2 etc.)​

​

2: It usually was due to combination of high technical polish (for a PS1 game) and fantastic art direction.​

​

3: It was usually always against smaller-scaled/budget Dreamcast releases (stuff like Illbleed, D2, Seven Mansions etc.)​

​

4: The PS1 games in question were never sports games or racing sims (hard technical limits and little room for creative visuals meant easily losing to Dreamcast versions of same games)​

​

5: None of the PS1 games managing such were open-world, and in some cases (like RE3) used static 2D backdrops and 3D character models to have good technical performance​

​

Those were almost always the conditions where I noticed any PS1 game looking "within reach" of a Dreamcast game, that wasn't a 5th-gen port to Dreamcast. But even with that, Dreamcast games always still held another benefit: almost always locked 60 FPS.

Why they didn't just upgrade the Saturn 3d pad I'll never know. (A second stick would have been enough.)

Sega probably felt they needed some type of hook into the portable market and a cheap memory card with LCD screen that could play simple mini-games seemed like their go-to.

FWIW when the Dualshock came out, barely any PS1 games made meaningful use of the second analog stick. And Sega probably figured that if FPS games were going to take off, it'd come alongside online gaming, and they made the keyboard & mouse peripherals specifically for that future. Therefore likely assumed FPS gamers would gravitate to getting the keyboard & mouse peripheral for optimal experience.

 

[TGO]

In my memories (bit of Mandela effect), Dreamcast and GameCube always have sharper graphics than PS2. Can’t get my head around it, but that’s how I feel in retrospective.

The Dreamcast I can understand as most of the games were like higher resolution PSX games excellent filtering and had an late 90's arcade look.
But the GameCube despite its graphical tricks it had up it's sleeve looked blurry and definitely had lower colour depth as the colour banding was really bad as most games ran at 16-bit colour

 

[BlackTron]

I disagree with this part. The PS2 was a beast at particle fillrate, more than any of the other systems that generation, and it had really impressive geometry capabilities. But what is particularly interesting of its design, is how it's kind of the only fully custom architecture of that generation, specifically built in-house for console gaming, and more than held its own against the competition.

The systems certainly had very distinct designs, with asymmetric strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, on paper Gamecube didn't seem that good but punched above its weight thanks to the console "secret sauce". PS2 certainly had some of that going on too, which is why it competed at all without being a lumbering behemoth of PC parts like Xbox.

In real-world use, actually hooking the system up to a TV and playing a game, my experience of watching a PS2 push polygons was generally not as pleasant as even DC. Even if it was capable of pushing more of them. I can't tell you exactly why, for the same reason I can't tell you why Gamecube was capable of Star Wars Rogue Leader despite being a purple lunchbox with "lower specs". You'll have to ask Factor 5 and I can only speak to my authority as a guy buying and playing games.

 

[Caio]

Um we aren't talking about "was it for PRO gamers" lol. If the 360 was a real generational leap, then it was not a Pro system in the context being discussed (like the PS4 Pro, Xbox One X, whatever)

I read in a hurry and misinterpreted the title, no reason to laugh like a 12 year old kid.

 

[Caio]

Dreamcast was a huge jump over Saturn, PSX and N64, a true generational leap; I owned everything, PSX, Saturn, N64, Dreamcast, PS2, GC, XBox, and I can tell for sure that Dreamcast blows away the 5th gen. PRO what ?

 

[Codes 208]

The dreamcast was the first sixth gen console and in now way was technically more advanced than gamecube or xbox (ps2 maybe, idr)

This is like asking if the wii u was a pro model of the eight gen

 

[Destruction-1002]

Not way when games on N64 ran at 20fps or lower with blocky graphics and stretched textures
As RSP processor is the reason why Goldeneye ran at 10fps

 

[Trunx81]

The Dreamcast I can understand as most of the games were like higher resolution PSX games excellent filtering and had an late 90's arcade look.
But the GameCube despite its graphical tricks it had up it's sleeve looked blurry and definitely had lower colour depth as the colour banding was really bad as most games ran at 16-bit colour

Probably because I’m always thinking about the Rogue Leader games to compare. They are still amazing to this day.

 

[lostinblue]

It emulated PSone on a different cpu architecture... Does this need any other answer?

It was like if switch was psone and dreamcast was PS4. Perhaps even further away.

N64 was the pro console for the 32-64 bit era at least when it came to 3D standards (z buffer, perspective correction etc), Saturn was pro for 2D arcade conversions, psone was just popular and relatively easy to develop for a bit of jack of all trades of the gen.

Every other console before it had to use some form of visual trickery to simulate 3D.

Not N64.

The others were still pulling 3D, i wouldn't call it visual trickery, they just had less precision going on and hence were doing things in ways that weren't forward thinking.

Then again if RT takes of a few years from now we might be having this conversation for everything that came before it. Everything is an approximation with reduced precision after all.

Yes. The Dreamcast is basically a beefed up N64. Still, pretty solid library. Way better than the N64.

I wouldn't say that. Even though yes N64 was the first console to do 3D mostly like we still do it today (or rather like we did before we did the jump for pbr), it was more programmable on the gpu than anything at the time it came out and it even had a primitive programmable transform and lightning unit...

N64 achiles heel was texturing and fillrate/bandwidth.

And that's exactly what dreamcast excelled at. Texturing was almost free on that thing, PS2 was worse at texturing. Sega even had issues with texturing on Xbox because they were used to dreamcast doing those free. (And they had to scale back transparencies on some ports due to that).

And I agree, image quality was pristine which is why sometimes it looks better than PS2 and even gamecube (because as people were mentioning, Nintendo flucked the framebuffer size and ended up with games running at 24 bit color, at best. (Usually 18 bit, worst case scenario 16 bit color)

 

[MarkMe2525]

It blew its early contemporaries away. First time I can ever remember one of my parents mistaking a video game for a TV broadcast (NFL 2K)

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

The systems certainly had very distinct designs, with asymmetric strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, on paper Gamecube didn't seem that good but punched above its weight thanks to the console "secret sauce". PS2 certainly had some of that going on too, which is why it competed at all without being a lumbering behemoth of PC parts like Xbox.

In real-world use, actually hooking the system up to a TV and playing a game, my experience of watching a PS2 push polygons was generally not as pleasant as even DC. Even if it was capable of pushing more of them. I can't tell you exactly why, for the same reason I can't tell you why Gamecube was capable of Star Wars Rogue Leader despite being a purple lunchbox with "lower specs". You'll have to ask Factor 5 and I can only speak to my authority as a guy buying and playing games.

I get what you're saying; FWIW I did not have a Dreamcast back then, but did have a PS2 and Gamecube. So my only experience with Dreamcast at the time was screenshots in magazines and guides, and footage from TV shows (or commercials). I don't ever really remember the Gamecube's 3D being considered bad or mediocre even back then; generally IIRC the perception was on-paper it was a step about Dreamcast and a tad better than PS2, and 2nd only to OG Xbox. Just taking the average multiplat into account, for the time Gamecube actually got multiplats, that usually also played out in practice.

With Gamecube it was the use of mini-discs that really hampered it. Publishers either had to ship on multiple discs or compress assets to fit onto a single disc (to save costs). That was the biggest weakness with the system, eerie repeat of the N64 in that respect. Out of the systems that gen, the PS2 definitely had the muddiest video output, so I think it really was down to not support component or VGA out of the box, and having a worst video encoder. But the exclusives that worked to its strength absolutely impressed me heavily at the time, though I guess that can be said for all the systems really.

Even so, I still recall quite a few PS2 games just looking really good on a CRT and being ahead of equivalents on generally more powerful systems. Gran Turismo 3 and 4 are two massive standouts in that regard; even if games like Forza Motorsport had better IQ, they were stuck at 30 FPS and had worst art direction. It's a generation IMO where honestly, when comparing the best among the systems (which were usually the exclusives), there is no clear-cut winner when it comes to visuals.

A lot will come down to preference; if you love that late '90s high-end arcade-like visual palette, you're probably going to prefer Dreamcast. If you were into the technical graphics features which were cutting-edge for the time, you'd probably prefer OG Xbox. If you prefer stuff that seemed close to Pixar/Dreamworks 3D films in combination of artistic & technical features, you'd prefer Gamecube. If you're into stuff that pulls off a strong avant-garde realist visual style, probably prefer PS2.

Very much generalizing there, but hopefully the point is understood.

N64 achiles heel was texturing and fillrate/bandwidth.

And that's exactly what dreamcast excelled at. Texturing was almost free on that thing, PS2 was worse at texturing. Sega even had issues with texturing on Xbox because they were used to dreamcast doing those free. (And they had to scale back transparencies on some ports due to that).

And I agree, image quality was pristine which is why sometimes it looks better than PS2 and even gamecube (because as people were mentioning, Nintendo flucked the framebuffer size and ended up with games running at 24 bit color, at best. (Usually 18 bit, worst case scenario 16 bit color)

IIRC, the Dreamcast's GPU supported tile-based deferred rendering, and it was the only GPU at the time (and for a very long time) to do so. Mainly because NEC were the only ones implementing the feature, so it was a pretty forward-thinking system in that regard.

I can't recall if that was related to the texturing benefit you're mentioning, though. I do know Dreamcast has more VRAM than PS2 (though half of NAOMI), and maybe its GPU had a wider bus than GPUs from the other systems that generation.

 

[RoboFu]

I will always fill that of sega was in a better position going into the Dreamcast they could have seriously contended with the ps2. They had the interest and they had the games. At a $99 price point much earlier than the ps2 Xbox probably wouldn’t have made it …

 

[Lysandros]

I disagree with this part. The PS2 was a beast at particle fillrate, more than any of the other systems that generation, and it had really impressive geometry capabilities. But what is particularly interesting of its design, is how it's kind of the only fully custom architecture of that generation, specifically built in-house for console gaming, and more than held its own against the competition.

The OG Xbox was basically an off-the-shelf design using Intel and Nvidia chips with (slight) customizations and tweaks, but none of that work was in-house. The Gamecube's GPU was done by Silicon Graphics, so also not in-house in terms of a design. The Dreamcast's CPU and GPU were developed in collaborations with Hitachi and NEC, respectively, but still weren't "in-house", per se.

You can argue that the non-PS2 systems that gen were "forward-thinking" in the way of showing how console design in future generations would become less proprietary and adapt more general-purpose processors and designs customized for targeted gaming performance (and in Xbox's case, leaning into PC-space chips while doing this), but the PS2, IMO, is the pinnacle of the older school mentality of in-house, proprietary console architectures & designs specifically developed for a video game console.

And, in a generation where that was already starting to become less common, is impressive in itself. That they were able to still have advantages over competitors in select areas with this approach is even more impressive.



This is false. The N64 was the first "modern" 3D console, as it had hardware support for Z-buffering and other 3D features that the PS1 and Saturn lacked.

The Saturn in particular, basically distorted sprites (interpreted as quads) in different perspectives to give the impression of a 3D space. Meanwhile, the PS1 used fixed-point integer math instead of floating point, so certain 3D calculations had to be rounded and approximated vs. fully detailed as a precise number. This is also why there was so much texture warping.

In that sense the Saturn is a truly insane design; it's basically the logical conclusion of Sega's super scaler 2D sprite technology from the '80s and early '90s, trying to act as a facsimile of 3D. But to the point: N64 was the first true 3D console.

You summarized each system fairly as usual, just be careful to not be labeled "a warrior" because of disagreeing to join PS2 bashing circle though.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Dreamcast had an edge over the PS2 and it was with AA, and VGA support. This made DC games look sharper, but in terms of details they weren't close. Sega circumvented this with their typical arcade art direction that looked always appealing and colorful.

But there is no DC game that looks remotely as good as Silent Hill 2, MGS2 or Gran Turismo 3. 2 of those came out when the PS2 was out for just a year in the west. Considering its been on the market for almost 2 years earlier than GC and Xbox, I think PS2 held up well. Developers continued to improve over the years resulting in the likes of Jak 3, Silent Hill 3 and God of War 2.

 

[lostinblue]

IIRC, the Dreamcast's GPU supported tile-based deferred rendering, and it was the only GPU at the time (and for a very long time) to do so. Mainly because NEC were the only ones implementing the feature, so it was a pretty forward-thinking system in that regard.

NEC didn't have much to do with it. Tile-based was a PowerVR thing.

And tile based helped but it wasn't a silver bullet either. If you force n64, ps2 or gamecube games to run in widescreen you'll see that a lot of them will clip things the moment they're not supposed to be seen. The difference is that dreamcast clips more (like just a part of an object onscreen) and does so automatically, but you're probably not shaving more than 500-1000 polygons per frame, at best.

In Dreamcast's case it mostly helped with the fact that the hardware didn't have a big raw polygon throughput. That and being efficient at texturing meant that you lost a bit less performance rendering. Fast texturing with compression definitely helped more than being tile based did.

I can't recall if that was related to the texturing benefit you're mentioning, though. I do know Dreamcast has more VRAM than PS2 (though half of NAOMI), and maybe its GPU had a wider bus than GPUs from the other systems that generation.

It wasn't down to VRAM on the PS2 side of things, PS2 had more memory for textures and more bandwidth it was down to the feature set and texture buffer. PS2 only supported up to 256 color textures and similarly to the N64 the texture cache inside the pipeline wasn't huge, I can't pinpoint how much right now, but that's the real reason you could never pull 16-bit textures even with a huge hit, there was a hard limit at place. This forced developers hands a lot towards 128x128 textures with 16 colors, or 64x64 with 256 colors, 16 colors were the norm, if not as low as 8 colors which I think rockstar used? 16 bit color textures weren't even supported. Also PS2 had a lot of hit texturing and it's hardware feature set was very rudimentary, it was essentially a bunch of "generic" processors acting as a big GPU.

Anyway, Dreamcast supported 16 bit textures and even though it had less memory available, these textures could be compressed using S3TC a feature that PS2 lacked. They didn't have to be uncompressed to be used by the GPU so that means ps2 spent more ram doing the same thing with worse results.

Also mip-mapping which was a staple on both N64 and Dreamcast and helped with image quality a lot had a hit to be done and a lot of games specially first and second game generations on PS2 opted to forgo it's use (if we consider PS2 to have 3 game generations, early gen, mid gen and later gen)

Add arbitrary resolutions for every game with different resolutions and that's ps2 in a nutshell.

 

[BlackTron]

I get what you're saying; FWIW I did not have a Dreamcast back then, but did have a PS2 and Gamecube. So my only experience with Dreamcast at the time was screenshots in magazines and guides, and footage from TV shows (or commercials).

I'm not being sarcastic here, but this isn't surprising and really my typical experience. Most people did not play Dreamcast at the time and teched straight to Smash Melee and MGS2, considering DC only in retrospect, familiarizing themselves with Youtube videos, ports, remasters and emulators. I beat Sonic Adventure before 9/9/99 on a rental Dreamcast by leaving the system on between sessions because Hollywood Video did not provide a VMU to save for their exclusive pre-launch promo; I was keenly aware of its massive upgrade from 64/PS, and directly compared newer systems to it, because I'd been playing it for two years. Most people hadn't.

I don't ever really remember the Gamecube's 3D being considered bad or mediocre even back then; generally IIRC the perception was on-paper it was a step about Dreamcast and a tad better than PS2, and 2nd only to OG Xbox. Just taking the average multiplat into account, for the time Gamecube actually got multiplats, that usually also played out in practice.

With Gamecube it was the use of mini-discs that really hampered it. Publishers either had to ship on multiple discs or compress assets to fit onto a single disc (to save costs). That was the biggest weakness with the system, eerie repeat of the N64 in that respect. Out of the systems that gen, the PS2 definitely had the muddiest video output, so I think it really was down to not support component or VGA out of the box, and having a worst video encoder. But the exclusives that worked to its strength absolutely impressed me heavily at the time, though I guess that can be said for all the systems really.

Even so, I still recall quite a few PS2 games just looking really good on a CRT and being ahead of equivalents on generally more powerful systems. Gran Turismo 3 and 4 are two massive standouts in that regard; even if games like Forza Motorsport had better IQ, they were stuck at 30 FPS and had worst art direction. It's a generation IMO where honestly, when comparing the best among the systems (which were usually the exclusives), there is no clear-cut winner when it comes to visuals.

A lot will come down to preference; if you love that late '90s high-end arcade-like visual palette, you're probably going to prefer Dreamcast. If you were into the technical graphics features which were cutting-edge for the time, you'd probably prefer OG Xbox. If you prefer stuff that seemed close to Pixar/Dreamworks 3D films in combination of artistic & technical features, you'd prefer Gamecube. If you're into stuff that pulls off a strong avant-garde realist visual style, probably prefer PS2.

Very much generalizing there, but hopefully the point is understood.

It's a good point and I get it. All systems definitely had standouts; like I said they were very asymmetric which resulted in differing results, somewhat like SNES/Genesis. PS2 surely had graphical standout games that were no slouches. That said, as a layman teenager, by and large I got the impression Dreamcast had made it easier for devs to give us cleaner looking games, even when they were lower budget whatever-tier games. It seemed like it took an act of God to defeat the fugly jaggy look on PS2. Even crappy DC titles tended to have a crisp, clean presentation. Demo disk games like Toy Commander made it seem like devs could just press a button to defeat the horrific aliasing and bad framerates of last gen. One example I can give is that back then I thought GTA3 looked jaggy, smeary and chugged. Sure it was new innovative and open-world, but coming from Crazy Taxi which was bright, colorful, clean, crisp and gave you a city to drive in and usually hit 60fps I was like...is that it? This is the best game???

This is where your point of preferences is valid, and I'm certain GTA3 had much more going on under the hood straining the system than Crazy Taxi did to DC (c'mon I'm not stupid). Nonetheless it just seemed like DC did more, with less. Such as Gamecube, or these days, Switch.

Back then, on a real CRT using real consoles. I don't think it was that flattering to PS2 to play its big games directly after Dreamcast with a copy of Sonic, Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi and a few demo disks. Especially when it came out 2 years later. Of course there are exceptions but you have jaggy heaven compared to a system that you wanted to connect to a computer monitor even on its "low tier" titles. The even bigger problem than the smeary screen though was the bad controller, which is also preference, but that really killed the system for me, which sucks because the game library is epic. I was devastated that they didn't update it for PS3, boomerang controller might actually have been better lol.

 

[Lysandros]

Dreamcast had an edge over the PS2 and it was with AA, and VGA support. This made DC games look sharper, but in terms of details they weren't close. Sega circumvented this with their typical arcade art direction that looked always appealing and colorful.

I remember reading that the AA difference was mainly due to the default flicker filter present on Dreamcast but not PS2 and (very) few Dreamcast titles having actual AA. Now the intended antialiasing hardware of PS2 was simply broken due to a giant bug (even developer documentation put that plainly apparently) because of this some games used SSAA like Dark Alliance/Champions of Norrath (to excellent results) with the help of PS2's fillrate and bandwidth to spare, and others used varying post processing methods including constant full scene motion blur for earlier titles like Code Veronica and Dead or Alive 2.

 

[Esppiral]

We should leave behind the myth about the Dreamcast having better image quality over the PS2 because it had AA 2hile the PS2 didn't.
The real reason is that the Dreamcast renders 99% of its tames internally at 640x480 while most PS2 games render internally waaasy below that figure, even games marketed as 1080i on PS2 actually rendered at 512x 224....

Same goes for the game cube it rarely rendered at 640x480, the only console consistently rendering at standards resolutions was the original Xbox reason why the DC and Xbox has the best image quality that gen

 

[BlackTron]

Dreamcast had an edge over the PS2 and it was with AA, and VGA support. This made DC games look sharper, but in terms of details they weren't close. Sega circumvented this with their typical arcade art direction that looked always appealing and colorful.

Maybe I'm just really sensitive to anti-aliasing and you hit the nail on the head here.

Edit: Or not, looking at the post right above this one lol

 

[Archaic101]

Nope. To me, when making this designation, you have to ask yourself: Could either the PS1 or the N64 pull of games like Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Powerstone 2, Soul Calibur, Shenmue, or Unreal Tournament...at reduced graphic quality/frames but with pretty much all mechanics intact? Y'know, the way both PS4 and PS4 Pro can play, say, Horizon and Last of Us 2?

And the answer is: Not a chance.

 

[Destruction-1002]

I'm not being sarcastic here, but this isn't surprising and really my typical experience. Most people did not play Dreamcast at the time and teched straight to Smash Melee and MGS2, considering DC only in retrospect, familiarizing themselves with Youtube videos, ports, remasters and emulators. I beat Sonic Adventure before 9/9/99 on a rental Dreamcast by leaving the system on between sessions because Hollywood Video did not provide a VMU to save for their exclusive pre-launch promo; I was keenly aware of its massive upgrade from 64/PS, and directly compared newer systems to it, because I'd been playing it for two years. Most people hadn't.


It's a good point and I get it. All systems definitely had standouts; like I said they were very asymmetric which resulted in differing results, somewhat like SNES/Genesis. PS2 surely had graphical standout games that were no slouches. That said, as a layman teenager, by and large I got the impression Dreamcast had made it easier for devs to give us cleaner looking games, even when they were lower budget whatever-tier games. It seemed like it took an act of God to defeat the fugly jaggy look on PS2. Even crappy DC titles tended to have a crisp, clean presentation. Demo disk games like Toy Commander made it seem like devs could just press a button to defeat the horrific aliasing and bad framerates of last gen. One example I can give is that back then I thought GTA3 looked jaggy, smeary and chugged. Sure it was new innovative and open-world, but coming from Crazy Taxi which was bright, colorful, clean, crisp and gave you a city to drive in and usually hit 60fps I was like...is that it? This is the best game???

This is where your point of preferences is valid, and I'm certain GTA3 had much more going on under the hood straining the system than Crazy Taxi did to DC (c'mon I'm not stupid). Nonetheless it just seemed like DC did more, with less. Such as Gamecube, or these days, Switch.

Back then, on a real CRT using real consoles. I don't think it was that flattering to PS2 to play its big games directly after Dreamcast with a copy of Sonic, Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi and a few demo disks. Especially when it came out 2 years later. Of course there are exceptions but you have jaggy heaven compared to a system that you wanted to connect to a computer monitor even on its "low tier" titles. The even bigger problem than the smeary screen though was the bad controller, which is also preference, but that really killed the system for me, which sucks because the game library is epic. I was devastated that they didn't update it for PS3, boomerang controller might actually have been better lol.

GTA 3 wasn't designed to run at 60fps back in 2001.
As the physics, animations are tied to the frame rate

 

[Alexios]

These are all PlayStation level with better image quality (without even including the likes of Shenmue or Metropolis Street Racer and their crazy polygon count, even average/launch games are obviously way beyond PS) and/or noone saw them but saw Tomb Raider & Jedi Power Battles, sure!


There are many great looking Dreamcast games, none of it is or was overshadowed (in terms of DC's prowess) by ports targeting PS, just like PC (which also got those games and DC got ports from the PS couldn't). Even average games like Maken X are way beyond the PS gen, this is but a start.


It was overshadowed by untruthful PS2 hype & all big media elevating it above all, just like PS. Dreamcast died without AAA games save for a few early/experimental efforts. Look at Sakura Taisen 4's spectacle in animation, particle, screen effects then try & claim it's way off PS2 Persona/SMT/Tales.
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