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[cireza]

people can only assume based on what you show, you bring a collection of non contemporary games as argument, is that some display of big knowledge of snes catalog? quite the opposite

I took the personal attack bait you started to see if you would further derail on it, which you did.

I think this demonstrates quite well that you don't have anything meaningful to add to your dumb Dreamcast is a PS1 Pro argument. We are done here.

 

[Fafalada]

The PS2 didn't have texture compresssion of 5:1 ratio

PS2 (and every other console that gen except DC) average compressed texture was 4-8bits/pixel.
For DC it was 2-4bits. While this ignores the palette inefficiencies and shape limitations of DCs format, we can't exactly generalize that to a single % - and it's fair to say it was around 2x as efficient as other compression available.

and had half of the VRAM of Dreamcast

That's like saying Dreamcast had 80% of VRam of XBox360. It's 'technically' true but the machines didn't work that way.

 

[Lysandros]

PS2 (and every other console that gen except DC) average compressed texture was 4-8bits/pixel.
For DC it was 2-4bits. While this ignores the palette inefficiencies and shape limitations of DCs format, we can't exactly generalize that to a single % - and it's fair to say it was around 2x as efficient as other compression available.


That's like saying Dreamcast had 80% of VRam of XBox360. It's 'technically' true but the machines didn't work that way.

Back to earth post of the day.

By the way, didn't PS2 have a unified pool of 32 MB of V/RAM besides the crazy high bandwidth 4 MB of EDRAM in comparison to Dreamcast's (much lower bandwidth) split 8 MB of VRAM and 16 MB of system RAM? In this sense PS2 could still have considerably more memory for textures. I remember Dreamcast games having generally 'smoother'/lighter textures versus PS2's more detailed albeit more pixelated/less compressed textures.

 

[tommolb]

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

Someone needs to get an Amiga CD32.....then come back to this thread and edit this comment

 

[Lysandros]

(nvm)

 

[BlackTron]

you bring good points, the sales of 5 months and market share is a good argument, maybe I am underestimating the ps2 hype, there are many factors for the DC another is the EA games at the time I remember the 2k sport games did relatively well I still think the rely on ports was too excessive but of course there is not a single cause

I try to put myself in the place of the average user, just as you do when mention people playing in places you visited or in your house, if I put the experience in my house as the "average user" then the sole purpose of DC was to play marvel vs capcom 2, at the end of the day even a good and famous game doesn't sell as much a there are consoles

By the time you had a DC in your house, PSO was out. What you are saying is like talking about your perception buying a Gamecube when WW hit, having totally glossed over Smash and Rogue Leader at launch.

The best-selling game on the system is Sonic Adventure, which is not a PS64 Pro game; the system was also known for the insane graphics of 2k sports which had a reputation back then for looking like a "real life game on TV", though of course smaller cable CRT TVs and component input helped with that. NFL 2k in particular. Frankly, my dad never played and had no interest in gaming and DC graphics were so good he even checked out all the games on the demo disks. Every single person I saw exposed to Dreamcast was absolutely floored. No, the average user didn't just use their DC for MvC2, maybe after the dust settled and many games had run their course. Not because they didn't even know Soul Calibur was a thing. I'm questioning that you even played Sonic, the best selling DC title, the way you talk about its graphics, honestly sounds like someone who didn't play it back then and is critiquing it now in retrospect.

The DC had many problems that led to its death. The "general public" perceiving it as a PS64 Pro isn't one of them. It was known as a graphics powerhouse; the ultimate biggest reason was failure to compete with Sony hype. Sega's reputation was too damaged, Sony had too much momentum with PS1, and a DVD player. We could discuss the minutiae of Sega's mistakes all day but my point is, that's the gist of it and it has nothing to do with failing to convey that the system pulled crazy graphics.

 

[polybius80]

The best-selling game on the system is Sonic Adventure, which is not a PS64 Pro game;

true but even the best selling game doesnt sell as much as the system sells

the system was also known for the insane graphics of 2k sports which had a reputation back then for looking like a "real life game on TV", though of course smaller cable CRT TVs and component input helped with that. NFL 2k in particular. Frankly, my dad never played and had no interest in gaming and DC graphics were so good he even checked out all the games on the demo disks. Every single person I saw exposed to Dreamcast was absolutely floored.

you have a point but a person circle of family and friends cannot really be considered proof for a global market

No, the average user didn't just use their DC for MvC2,

I never claimed that but if we are going to use family and friends preferences as a measure then is as valid as anyones

maybe after the dust settled and many games had run their course. Not because they didn't even know Soul Calibur was a thing.

we where playing MVSC2 religiously with and without Soul Calibur

I'm questioning that you even played Sonic, the best selling DC title,

yes but I didnt bought sonic adventure for DC at the time

the way you talk about its graphics, honestly sounds like someone who didn't play it back then and is critiquing it now in retrospect.

what am I saying about its graphics that is so troublesome?, when it come to ported games yes they were better there are some way way better, there are even ports that have more than graphics as an advantage but there are also crappy ports too, my point is not the quality of ports the problem is that there are too many ports that shared time with older consoles as if it were part of the generation and I saw that a lot, not saying my experience is the metric for everybody but I find that same patter of huge amount of ports from N64/PSX along the occasional exclusive over and over so(I am a game collector and have seen many people collection of games) yes I consider that as a problem for the performance of the system and I am talking market wise not graphically so it is a point of discussion, how big it was as an impact? how about the time of each release? and other things to discuss as I said its academic

currently there is a similar situation for me, I have a PS4 I dont have a PS5, but I still buy new games because I dont require a PS5 for the games like elden ring or SF6 sure you can argue the average user doesnt care because PS5 is highly succesful but there are people that could contribute to PS5 given more exclusive games

The DC had many problems that led to its death. The "general public" perceiving it as a PS64 Pro isn't one of them. It was known as a graphics powerhouse; the ultimate biggest reason was failure to compete with Sony hype. Sega's reputation was too damaged, Sony had too much momentum with PS1, and a DVD player. We could discuss the minutiae of Sega's mistakes all day but my point is, that's the gist of it and it has nothing to do with failing to convey that the system pulled crazy graphics.

you bring interesting points but at the same its uncertain how influential each are, not saying that the my point about "old gen ports" is crucial or the most signification but "it was considered a powerhouse" yet we have "the damaged reputation" and "ps2 hype" so how influential is that it was considered a powerhouse?, and who had this consideration? was it really extended for everybody?, did it matter if a significant portion or player were ok with inferior versions? it is difficutl if nto impossible to point to a single cause I dont have the answer and I dont expect you to tell me a single cause its just discuss and compare points

 

[polybius80]

Back to earth post of the day.

By the way, didn't PS2 have a unified pool of 32 MB of V/RAM besides the crazy high bandwidth 4 MB of EDRAM in comparison to Dreamcast's (much lower bandwidth) split 8 MB of VRAM and 16 MB of system RAM? In this sense PS2 could still have considerably more memory for textures. I remember Dreamcast games having generally 'smoother'/lighter textures versus PS2's more detailed albeit more pixelated/less compressed textures.

as I understand the idea is you put a texture cache in EDRAM the size of your choice( there are good practices for better efficiency) typically 2 MB and you refresh this cache with new textures many times during frame, you draw somehing and use the textures at the moment to do so, geometry also works in a simialr way passing chunks of data to VU1 memory at a time, so you dont really have a huge a mount of textures in cache but have acces to a big chunk of textures passed to memory in a certain order from main ram to complete the drawing, this works because its very very fast, I think sound works similarly too with its own cache, GC works in a similar way but it has their cache sizes fixed it has 1 MB texture cache for example and another 2 MB for framebuffers, zbuffer etc, only the xbox has everything in a big space

I remember an interesting technique a dev mentioned where you can reuse the zbuffer space for post process effects as zbuffer is not necessary by the end of the frame I wonder if there are games that used part of the texture buffer for some effects if they can predict the space wont be necessary at that moment

 

[BlackTron]

true but even the best selling game doesnt sell as much as the system sells

I don't see why a 1:1 attach rate is necessary for the point to be made that people knew about the game. But its other best-selling games included Crazy Taxi, NFL 2K and Sega Rally. I assume for someone to buy these games, they had to know about them first. And these are the titles driving DC sales, and being played in living rooms and such. I can't find the sales data for MvC2 but in Japan it only sold 140k units. It's not like most normal people saw a Spider-Man sprite on screen and said oh, that's what Dreamcast is.

But I'm done countering these disingenuous points. Have fun guys.

 

[polybius80]

I don't see why a 1:1 attach rate is necessary for the point to be made that people knew about the game.

it isnt, its a reminder that just because a game is popular it wont sell as much, without sales data of each games its difficult to point its real impact in the system and how known that game was overall

But its other best-selling games included Crazy Taxi, NFL 2K and Sega Rally. I assume for someone to buy these games, they had to know about them first.

yes but not everybody is going to buy them, its an assumption, the question then is how many units sold each games and better with how much overlap(which probably cannot be known) at the end of the day are 9-10 million dreamcast potential buyers and there is an average of bought games per console, its best selling game was sonic adventure(2.5 million copies )

I dont like racing games and sport games is a no, crazy taxi is sort of racing game but its more its opwn thing still wasnt in my radar, I didnt bought any of those games, but if you include in the list let say gauntlet, then that its my type of game

And these are the titles driving DC sales, and being played in living rooms and such. I can't find the sales data for MvC2 but in Japan it only sold 140k units.
It's not like most normal people saw a Spider-Man sprite on screen and said oh, that's what Dreamcast is.

at the time one of the selling points of DC was arcade perfect ports and MVSC2 was a popular game in arcades, I think for the japanese gamers seeing MVSC2 was expected with such marketing, if the game wasnt popular on DC in japan its a surprise to be honest

 

[polybius80]

I took the personal attack bait you started

the what?

 

[BlackTron]

it isnt, its a reminder that just because a game is popular it wont sell as much, without sales data of each games its difficult to point its real impact in the system and how known that game was overall

yes but not everybody is going to buy them, its an assumption, the question then is how many units sold each games and better with how much overlap(which probably cannot be known) at the end of the day are 9-10 million dreamcast potential buyers and there is an average of bought games per console, its best selling game was sonic adventure(2.5 million copies )

DCs best selling game was Sonic Adventure. Are you sure that SA2 with 2.5 million copies is not counting all platforms, including say the GameCube version. I said I wouldn't respond again but you need to check your information.

No one made an assumption that just because a game is the best selling title, or on the top 10 list, that means all console owners have the game. The only assumption being made is yours that my point hinged on every last console owner having a specific title. It doesn't. Assumptions like this are why it's exasperating to talk to you.

One thing that the sales numbers do prove. Is that the best selling games were not ports of N64 and PS games. And that popular games were Dreamcast/Noami titles. Though you seem to live in some strange universe where popularity trends can't be gleaned by sales lol.

It's like if I told you that Switch is known for Mario Kart and Zelda. Pointing to the fact that, near launch, more copies of BotW sold than even Switch systems and TotK shattered sales records around the world. Mario Kart 8 has sold what? Over 30 million? But wait! Even the most popular game won't sell as much as the system, so we can't be entirely sure what people really think about its capabilities. After all there are thousands of flash grade eShop games too, and more ports than we know what to do with. For this reason we really don't have enough data to conclude that people don't see Switch as a Game Boy Vita Pro. The data just isn't there so we can only go by anecdotal experience of your friends watching you play your only two Switch titles, both from Limited Run Games. Get the fuck out of here.

 

[polybius80]

DCs best selling game was Sonic Adventure. Are you sure that SA2 with 2.5 million copies is not counting all platforms, including say the GameCube version.

the figure comes from wikipedia page dedicated to dreamcast it mentions sonic adventure(SA) as its best selling game at 2.5 million no mention of SA2(sonic adventure2?) or gamecube versions

Dreamcast - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I said I wouldn't respond again but you need to check your information.

oh dont worry you can come back to respond anytime

One thing that the sales numbers do prove. Is that the best selling games were not ports of N64 and PS games. And that popular games were Dreamcast/Noami titles.

never said best selling games were n64 and ps ports I mentioned the sales from ports of n64 and PS games, as in the "total of ports sales" not a "specific game"

It's like if I told you that Switch is known for Mario Kart and Zelda. Pointing to the fact that, near launch, more copies of BotW sold than even Switch systems and TotK shattered sales records around the world. Mario Kart 8 has sold what? Over 30 million? But wait! Even the most popular game won't sell as much as the system, so we can't be entirely sure what people really think about its capabilities. After all there are thousands of flash grade eShop games too, and more ports than we know what to do with. For this reason we really don't have enough data to conclude that people don't see Switch as a Game Boy Vita Pro. The data just isn't there so we can only go by anecdotal experience of your friends watching you play your only two Switch titles, both from Limited Run Games. Get the fuck out of here.

that was very funny honestly, but you came with that from incorrect ideas like me saying that "the best selling games in DC are N64/PSx games" which is not true or thinking that if I mention how my friend and I playing mostly MVSC2 it somehow is understood by you like I said that mots people played that game, perhaps it would be less exasperating for you if you pay more attention to what you quote or make questions if you are unsure of something

 

[BlackTron]

the figure comes from wikipedia page dedicated to dreamcast it mentions sonic adventure(SA) as its best selling game at 2.5 million no mention of SA2(sonic adventure2?) or gamecube versions

Dreamcast - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I thought you said DC's best selling game was Sonic Adventure 2, the sentence blended together a little:

sonic adventure(2.5 million copies )

never said best selling games were n64 and ps ports I mentioned the sales from ports of n64 and PS games, as in the "total of ports sales" not a "specific game"

that was very funny honestly, but you came with that from incorrect ideas like me saying that "the best selling games in DC are N64/PSx games" which is not true or thinking that if I mention how my friend and I playing mostly MVSC2 it somehow is understood by you like I said that mots people played that game, perhaps it would be less exasperating for you if you pay more attention to what you quote or make questions if you are unsure of something

My only incorrect idea was which SA game you were talking about. You say that it was easy to make the mistake that DC was a PS64 Pro because the typical user was exposed to too many PS64 Pro type games. When I say legit DC/Noami games were best-sellers, you tell me that that can't prove typical perception of DC because people may be playing a different mix of games anyway. When I show you a real-world example of why that is silly, you move the goal post and make my argument dependent on your saying ports were best-selling games, which it wasn't, I never suggested, and you never stated. I think that's what they call a "strawman argument".

 

[polybius80]

I thought you said DC's best selling game was Sonic Adventure 2, the sentence blended together a little:

no problem, will try to make spaces next time

My only incorrect idea was which SA game you were talking about. You say that it was easy to make the mistake that DC was a PS64 Pro because the typical user was exposed to too many PS64 Pro type games. When I say legit DC/Noami games were best-sellers, you tell me that that can't prove typical perception of DC because people may be playing a different mix of games anyway. When I show you a real-world example of why that is silly

sorry there are many things said, what real-world example specifically?

the perception can come from the amount of games sold that come from n64/PSX ports like the OP mentioned a popular game can only sell so much for example SA selling 2.5 millions, an average user will buy let say 10 games how many of those games are going to be SA or another popular game? and how many are going to be a port from n64 or ps1? given the amount of ports available a good chunk of those 10 games can go to ports giving which can give the perception of being a machine for n64/ps1 ports to some people you can check my comments on page3 if you think changed, it really is just that if you dont agree or think its silly that is fine is just an opinion no need to be excruciating or anything like that

 

[BlackTron]

sorry there are many things said, what real-world example specifically?

The real world example was the one you thought was funny with Switch being known for Mario Kart and Zelda. Which it is, despite being an even bigger port machine than DC by a WIDE margin. Switch has its own identity despite the sea of ports padding its hefty software sales, so did DC.

the perception can come from the amount of games sold that come from n64/PSX ports like the OP mentioned, a popular game can only sell so much for example SA selling 2.5 millions, an average user will buy let say 10 games how many of those games are going to be SA or another popular game? and how many are going to be a port from n64 or ps1? given the amount of ports available a good chunk of those 10 games can go to ports giving which can give the perception of being a machine for n64/ps1 ports to some people, it really is just that if you dont agree or think its silly that is fine is just an opinion no need to be excruciating or anything like that

The perception can come from that, I'm just not seeing it. Sure it can happen for "some people", if by using a term so vague the sample size can be like 100-1000 people.

Everyone knows every console has system-defining trailblazers, the "tentpole releases", filled in with other games. My non-gamer mom understood this when she took me to rent NES games when I was 6. This is some bizarre personal canon where a system gets judged on its ports, but ok. Agree to disagree.

 

[polybius80]

The real world example was the one you thought was funny with Switch being known for Mario Kart and Zelda. Which it is, despite being an even bigger port machine than DC by a WIDE margin. Switch has its own identity despite the sea of ports padding its hefty software sales, so did DC.

mario kart and zelda had huge fame way before switch, not exactly apples to apples

on DC except for sonic most of the now renowned games weren't and had to make their reputation in and outside dreamcast

The perception can come from that, I'm just not seeing it.

wait for it.....

Sure it can happen for "some people",

......now you are seeing it

if by using a term so vague the sample size can be like 100-1000 people.

sure the size is a topic of debate as many things around DC and why it failed

Everyone knows every console has system-defining trailblazers, the "tentpole releases", filled in with other games. My non-gamer mom understood this when she took me to rent NES games when I was 6. This is some bizarre personal canon where a system gets judged on its ports, but ok. Agree to disagree.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Dreamcast died before seeing AAA type development save for a couple very experimental titles. Look how mature Sakura Taisen IV looks there as the final series farewell at the time with all its cool animations, particle and screen effects and tell me folks would hate having such a JRPG on PS2.​

This is a big part of it, IMO. TBH a lot of 3P devs held off doing AAA games on Dreamcast during its commercial years; Namco for example only did one such game (Soul Calibur), while others like Konami had plans but dropped them as Dreamcast was performing horribly in Japan. Capcom are the only ones I feel committed to a AAA-scale game for Dreamcast, in Code: Veronica, but again that was just one game.

IIRC Rayman 2 was developed with the Dreamcast in mind, so maybe that counts as well, but yeah in terms of 3P there weren't a lot of commitments for AAA games developed with the Dreamcast in mind. That was basically left up to Sega, hence games like Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, Shenmue 1 & 2, Phantasy Star Online, etc. I think if Dreamcast could've made it a couple more years, we'd of gotten some games at least within the visual ballpark of late 2001 - 2003 PS2 games, but I think sometime by mid-2003 you'd of seen Dreamcast games struggling to keep up with the AAA PS2 games on the market, if not get outpaced by them by that point.

So from early-mid 2003 onward you'd probably only have Sega and possibly Capcom putting out the best-looking Dreamcast games, but there'd be noticeable limits compared to the AAA games coming for PS2, Gamecube and Xbox. So by then, we'd of probably seen Sega looking to bring a new system to the market by sometime in 2004. Either that, or they would've gone 3P that year instead of 2001.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Yes, and this is the exact same reason why we still get poor image quality nowadays. Always rendering stuff from lower resolutions, and then stretching via the hardware to something bigger, and on top of this maybe the TV is also stretching as well, because LCD certainly cannot render the rectangles pixels a CRT can. And you end up with that unsatisfactory, blurry picture, for which more blur is applied on top anytime something moves (thanks LCDs again).

When your game is native res though, it will definitely look very clean and pretty on LCD (but you will keep the movement blur though).

If we continue down this dumb road, we will eventually reach the point where we will be spending more ressources at uprezing a shitty picture than actually outputting a native res one.

My preference goes largely towards simpler visuals but done at native res and 60fps, which was exactly what arcade games were about to begin with.

It always comes down to a balancing act; there are inherent benefits to working with lower internal resolutions such as less resource/processing strain on the system itself, but only if paired with really good upscaling capabilities.

The latter of which has only become a focal point in GPU designs over the past few years, and will take time for developers to intelligently utilize. For example there are probably parts of the framebuffer that could be rendered at a higher internal resolution and other parts at a lower internal resolution relying on image upsampling/upscaling to increase the visual quality of.

This is part of the reason technologies like DLSS, FSR, and XESS are interesting; they look to answer this problem with a mixture of hardware-based and software-based implementations. But all of these are powered by AI image learning, and that wasn't a technology present with older consoles to benefit from. So, that in part has to be understood.

your average DC game doesnt look like shenmue or have individual fingers and dont move their mouths in fact most of them dont even animate the texture of their lips, the system is perfectly capable but most games didnt use that and were made with different scopes and techniques for a long time, the problem of the DC is one of perception not of the system capabilities

The actual issue is that Dreamcast never got enough market share to make it a viable platform for 3P AAA development by and large. So, Sega were the only ones really making AAA-scale games for the system with the odd one here and there from say, Capcom or such.

Visual potency of games always scales with budget, manpower and time of development. Dreamcast wasn't on the market for very long to attract enough resources in dev team counts and budgets from 3P for AAA games. So we never got to see the full potential of the hardware outside of I'd say Sonic Adventure 2, Shenmue 2 and Phantasy Star Online.

For example I think if VF4 Evolution came out for Dreamcast it would've looked about on-par with the PS2 version but maybe slightly blockier character models and some simplified lighting effects. Same if Yakuza came out for it, or Panzer Dragoon Orta. But I don't think you'd get visuals too much beyond those if we're talking AAA games pushing the hardware to its limits, and some of these games were 2003 releases.

Personally I don't think any 1P or 3P AAA Dreamcast games would've matched, let alone exceed, the AAA games PS2 and co. got from 2004 and onwards, at least in terms of overall visuals. Though given things mentioned ITT, they could have probably bested some of those games in IQ (with higher internal resolution) and color depth, or mip-mapping features that were hardware-supported. Maybe we'd of gotten 1 or 2 Sega 1P AAA games in 2004 on Dreamcast that could hang with the upper AAA games released for PS2, Gamecube & Xbox that year in most areas, but they'd be doing all sorts of crazy stuff just to do so, and probably with various sacrifices in areas like lighting, or using sprites in lieu of polygonal models for certain environmental objects that the player wouldn't need to interact with (and alongside that, using fixed/locked camera angles in certain sections to give the illusion a better shot, or breaking up levels into smaller chunks with loading times between them, etc.).

fun fact

Sega wanted Xbox to play Dreamcast games

Sega had hoped that the original Xbox would play Dreamcast titles, according to new reports.

www.digitalspy.com

Bring this up whenever people foolishly say Sony killed Sega. The buck actually stopped with Microsoft rejecting Dreamcast BC on the OG Xbox.

IIRC Sega wanted to do an actual Dreamcast 2 with Microsoft through the Xbox project, but as Xbox was always meant to propel DirectX into home gaming console space, Microsoft weren't in it to give Sega a boost.

 

[tkscz]

Short answer, No.

Long answer: Games developed specifically for the Dreamcast showed how far ahead of the N64 and PS1 it was. Resident Evil Code Veronica, Shenmu, Jet Set Radio, even Sonic Adventure could not run on the N64 and PS1. The closest the N64 could get were Conker's Bad Fur Day, Banjo Tooie and Perfect Dark and those barely ran correctly on there. Can't even think of a PS1 game that comes close to Dreamcast graphically. The Dreamcast didn't have a long enough life to really see it get put to use and it came out far too early so it got a lot of gen 5 ports with upgraded resolution (if it was on PS1 first) and higher frames.