Sega Saturn in 3D

[strat]

32-X has to do 3D in software. It's got two CPUs and a framebuffer, but no 3D acceleration. It remains to be seen if it could handle the watered-down Model 2 ports the Saturn got...

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

32-X has to do 3D in software. It's got two CPUs and a framebuffer, but no 3D acceleration. It remains to be seen if it could handle the watered-down Model 2 ports the Saturn got...

You only need to see it frame skipping it's way through the interior scenes of DarXide to know its limitations.

But in one sense, the Saturn is a 2d system. Technically, every quad is just a distorted 2d object. Digital Foundry did a Tomb Raider video that demonstrated what happens if you turn off that distortion.

Still, in the end, it's just the same as polygons in terms of what the consumer sees and engages with. It's really a shame that Sega wasn't sharing their knowledge of how to get the best performance out of the hardware, because games like Virtua Fighter 2 embarrass the blocky, lower resolution Tekken 2 on PS1.

Who knows what we might have seen by the end of the Saturn's life, if more people had known how to tap into that performance?

[DrLitch]

All you need is an Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) and all consoles are equipped, be it via the CPU, an ASIC/FPGA or DSP chip programmed to do multiple accumulates (which is a bread and butter operation of an ALU). If you have this onboard then 3D graphics are entirely possible. There is nothing special about the math, it just takes a ton of number crunching. Any console can theoretically do 3D graphics, even if not equipped with a 3D graphics Accelerator, you only need a shift register and a full adder to do any math. There is nothing special about 2D or 3D - it is only a question of the chips you have and the cost of each arithmetic operation in clock cycles. Everything costs clock cycles, the more you use, the less time you have to do something else. 16 bit systems for instance lack 3D games but not because they cannot do the Math. Graphic accelerators / custom chips are essential to speed up computations. Waiting 24 clock cycles to run a basic product will not do. Not when you have 100,000 such calculations in a frame and a 30MHz clock.

Can the Saturn do 3D, is it equipped to do 3D? The answer is a resounding yes. It has a custom DSP that can be programmed to do Matrix computations. The SH-2 CPU's have multiply accumulate wired into it's fabric and can compute other things. The Saturn has all it needs for 3D graphics. The Atari Jaguar also has all it needs to do 3D graphics. The question is one of streamlining, tools, and bottlenecks. PS1 had awesome tools and a simple design. It is the least powerful of all the 5th gen consoles but the easiest to get a ground up piece of software running. It is no coincidence the PS1 had the best graphics of the 5th gen. The Saturn had s**t tools and many programmers had to go with Assembly for the RISC processors. No easy job. N64 was the 5th gen's most powerful console by quite some distance (on paper at least). Had workable tools that Nintendo distributed to developers but to get power out the box developers needed microcodes - i.e. for more realistic games one could have AA turned off to drastically increase poly counts. Despite being the most powerful console, the N64 was the 5th gens ugliest console with the ugliest graphics. Awful, that small texture cache and AA filter did its best to make the game a blurry murky mess. The decision to use carts instead of CD's was terrible. I will take Powerslave graphics on the Saturn anyday against Goldeneye or Perfect Dark which can give the gamer chronic headaches.

One issue with the Saturn is that it utilizes Quads. Quads are awesome for 2D, for 3D it is bizarre. To get a quad on the PS1 requires two triangles but to get a triangle on the Saturn is a major problem.

This is the biggest issue I feel, the deal killer, the nail in the coffin:

Assembly code - adding two numbers, 80 and 70.

ORG $400400
NUM1 DC.B $80
NUM2 DC.B $70
SUM DS.B 1
ORG $400410
ADNUMS MOVE.B NUM1,D0
ADD.B NUM2,D0
MOVE.B D0,SUM
END $400410

C code - adding the same two numbers.

int x, y, z;
x = 80; y = 70;
z = x + y;

The C code then goes to a compiler and gets translated into native machine level instructions. Assembly takes a s**t ton of work and it only takes one typo to f**k you up. C is a joy to use and anyone with an EE or CSE or CS degree will learn C. Assembler on the other hand ....

This is how many Saturn and Atari Jaguar developers had to do it. In the Jaguar Case they had a 68000 to use - write C, compile, and tweak. That is why Jaguar games look like Genesis games. 68000 was not the power of the Jag, the two CPU's and Blitter had enough in there to put considerable distance between itself and the 16 bit consoles. Even moderately impressive titles like AVP or Skyhammer are using 68000. Atari released s**t tools and the end result was s**t games, or at least games that fail to even scratch the surface of the Jag. What is it capable of? Mario 64? Using just the 68000 the answer would be a fat no. Coded in assembler Using the two RISC CPU's with a team dedicated to a 2 or 3 year project I would not put it past the Jag (along with some clever programming and level design) to stick something that would be Mario 64 like. Mario 64 has no complicated texture maps. Would look blocky because the N64 is using an AA filter to smooth jaggies. Poly count on N64 is low but if the PS1 were to attempt it with the same fidelity, it would need to quadruple the Poly counts at the very least.

A lot of 5th gen consoles are really apples to oranges in trying to compare them. They all have strengths and weaknesses.

The Saturn and Jaguar are impossible to judge - lots of software, few 3D examples to draw significant conclusions.

Back then some titles would "cheat" with the background prerendered FMV.

The all-time champion of cheating has to be Starblade on the 3DO.

There's not a single polygon in the entire thing. Even the enemies are all 2d sprites on an FMV background.

http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php ... Home_Ports

LOL, that is funny. Still though, if you can get away with it.... 3DO is an interesting console, Trip was ready for the market (Sega and Atari were not), but a dumb manufacturing deal $700 tag meant it was pretty much DOA. I think a lot of titles used FMV background. Crash and Burn seems like it is FMV. Need for Speed does not look very polygonal to me. I know a lot of folks seemed to prefer Need for Speed on the 3DO.

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

Crash and Burn seems like it is FMV.

From what I've heard, it's because it's using specialized commands to only render the parts of the track that you'd actually need to see, in order to play the game. Which means you can't drive like a complete lunatic - you're sacrificing a bit of freedom for frame rate and draw distance.

It probably also doesn't help that it's 480i. Very little else that generation ran at that resolution, with textures that detailed. (I know they're technically not textures, but I still don't understand the exact difference, beyond one method requiring an extra step to create triangles, and the other taking two extra steps to render a detailed quad.)

Of course, I've never actually played Crash and Burn for myself, so feel free to correct me if I'm way off on any of this.

16 bit systems for instance lack 3D games but not because they cannot do the Math.

Yeah, Hunter and No Second Prize on Amiga really opened my eyes on what was possible, before it was common.

[DrLitch]

Whatever the case with the Saturn, it is clearly 5th gen and it squeezes itself in there. There is a lot of good content on the console that clearly was way beyond 16 bit. The 2D fighting games, Virtua Cop, Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter 2, Dead or Alive, Powerslave, Duke Nukem and so on. That some of the 3D graphics sucked is true. That also applies to PS1 and N64. I would say Virtua Fighter 2 holds it's own against many PS1 fighters. Yes it is not arcade perfect but spec wise Model 2 was way beyond the Saturn anyway. The N64 or PS1 could not hold a candle to Model 2 boards either. Despite not running at the same resolution, Tekken 3 and Soul Caliber (or was it blade on the PS1 I do not remember) are arguably more technically impressive than VF2 on the Saturn. Looks wise nothing 5th gen could compare to a good old fashioned Gouraud shaded poly. In a posthumous sense, enthusiasts are creating their own content for the Saturn and the results seem to indicate there is more in the chipset. Same goes for the good old Jaguar.

From what I've heard, it's because it's using specialized commands to only render the parts of the track that you'd actually need to see, in order to play the game. Which means you can't drive like a complete lunatic - you're sacrificing a bit of freedom for frame rate and draw distance. It probably also doesn't help that it's 480i. Very little else that generation ran at that resolution, with textures that detailed.
Of course, I've never actually played Crash and Burn for myself, so feel free to correct me if I'm way off on any of this.

Well that is quite cool. I always thought Crash and Burn looked pretty good graphically. I have not played it either. 3DO is quite an interesting console but I am trying to figure out it's strengths. Looks like it is not 2D judging by ports. Samurai Showdown does not seem to run as well as it does on the Neo Geo and the Street Fighter 2 port is not hugely impressive either. Not sure this console could pull off something like SF Alpha 3 like on the Saturn.

Yeah, Hunter and No Second Prize on Amiga really opened my eyes on what was possible, before it was common.

Oh yeah these titles are way ahead of their time. Sharp X68000 also had a Jumping Flash type game called Geograph Seal. Quite impressive for my money, no Super FX chips, just native hardware. I wonder if the Genesis could pull this off.

[jon]

That’s very interesting. Ive read about the Saturn’s limitations. It was basically impossible to have a 3d game that could compete with the PS1. There’s really no debate. It got creamed by the PS1 for a reason. Personally I think the PS1’s graphics are worse than the N64 although both were bad. I could care less if I ever play a PS1 game again. One thing that was so ridiculous was I played Die Hard Trilogy and when you’re driving the car through the town the backgrounds are unbelievably ugly. It was a joke.

As for the Jaguar, the thing that is unfortunate is that if they had just gotten more 2nd generation and maybe 3rd generation games things could’ve gotten improved on.

I’m not sure what the Jaguar is capable of, but personally I think they were on the right track with games like I-War. I haven’t played Jaguar CD games like Battlemorph and Hover Strike CD but they look promising. If they could’ve just gotten the speed a little faster and increased draw distance with more polygons, that would’ve been enough to make some fun games in my opinion. I think it might have been capable of that.

[DrLitch]

That’s very interesting. Ive read about the Saturn’s limitations. It was basically impossible to have a 3d game that could compete with the PS1. There’s really no debate. It got creamed by the PS1 for a reason.

Judging by samples, objectively, you are correct. Rogue Squadron, Battle of Naboo, Omega Boost and titles like this look beyond the Saturn. On the other hand there is no doubt the Saturn had some powerful chips in there. I have not studied the system diagram or found out what limitations it has in terms of bottlenecks. Subjectively, I do believe it was never pushed to the max even though I have no way of proving that.

PS1, by 2001/2 we had seen the best it could ever do. The N64 has a question mark about whether it was ever maxed out. Saturn, heck, Sega jumped ship three years in it's lifespan focusing on the Dreamcast. You know something is up when the Jag gets a better Doom port than the Saturn. Not all was well between Sega and the Third Party Devs. Yeah the Jag version of Doom does not have music, just stick on a Slayer CD and you are set.

Personally I think the PS1’s graphics are worse than the N64 although both were bad. I could care less if I ever play a PS1 game again.

They are both rough for sure. There are so many N64 games that are extremely hard to look at. Only a few had crisp nice graphics. PS1 at least had a number of decent looking and playing 2D titles and games like Omega Boost and Legacy of Kain looked better than average for their time.

I’m not sure what the Jaguar is capable of, but personally I think they were on the right track with games like I-War. I haven’t played Jaguar CD games like Battlemorph and Hover Strike CD but they look promising. If they could’ve just gotten the speed a little faster and increased draw distance with more polygons, that would’ve been enough to make some fun games in my opinion. I think it might have been capable of that.

I think the Jag had huge potential that was untapped - particularly 2D. An arcade perfect Mortal Kombat 2 or Street Fighter was well within it's capabilities. Instead we get almost pixel perfect ports of 16 bit games like Flashback. Do not get me wrong, Flashback is awesome but it is a 16 bit game. The Jag did not need these games. Hover Strike is very clean but all developers felt like they had to use that 68000 as the main CPU. You have two 32bit RISC processors doing next to nothing yet the same CPU that powers the Genesis was used as the primary CPU. Most likely that good compilers existed for the 68000 and C programming is much nicer than Assembly. Anyway, all Hover Strike needs is double-triple the polygons and double the frame rate and it would put most N64/PS1 games to shame.

[strat]

The Saturn port of Doom was messed up because John Carmack didn't like how the textures warped on the native quad rendering, so he was adamant on a software engine that would recreate the PC version exactly. Years later he showed some remorse for making that call in a tweet.

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

Oh yeah these titles are way ahead of their time. Sharp X68000 also had a Jumping Flash type game called Geograph Seal. Quite impressive for my money, no Super FX chips, just native hardware. I wonder if the Genesis could pull this off.

Probably. with severe compromise. According to reviews, a default 10mhz x68000 runs into playability/frame rate issues. With enough optimization, like maybe only using filled polygons on surfaces you can actually interact with? And with help from the Z80?

Using a smaller draw distance/radar?

It'd be a noble fight, at least.

If nothing else, it sounds doable on the Sega CD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX-2XOHXjyc

But for most Megadrive homebrew coders willing and able to tackle a polygon engine, this might be more realistic.

The N64 has a question mark about whether it was ever maxed out.

As horrible as it looks, due entirely to art direction, the Indiana Jones game is doing exactly that. After getting into the microcode and disabling the z-buffer, Factor 5 created tools to optimize their texture compression format, and used the entire cart as streaming RAM.

Then threw threw away Nintendo's microcode and wrote their own, so they could improve the lighting and polygon counts.

If only they were collaborating with the Perfect Dark team, we'd have a best of both worlds...

Hover Strike is very clean but all developers felt like they had to use that 68000 as the main CPU. You have two 32bit RISC processors doing next to nothing yet the same CPU that powers the Genesis was used as the primary CPU.

According to internet rants from Jaguar fans/coders, Super Burn-Out and BattleSphere Gold went beyond the 68000. Which makes sense to me, because they're running scaling sprites/flat-shaded polygons at arcade speeds. Supposedly, Battlesphere's also running some pretty complex AI routines at the same time...

Anyways, according to Gorf, Atari Age's resident Jaguar superfan/pre-crash arcade port coder and full time grouch, the Jaguar's upper-limit would probably be something like Daytona on Saturn, in terms of a playable polygon count. Which still isn't good, but would be way ahead of what we got. Unfortunately, he also complained about how hard it was for anyone to actually tap into any of that, and even today, you're more likely to see ST ports to the platform than anything else.

Despite not running at the same resolution, Tekken 3 and Soul Caliber (or was it blade on the PS1 I do not remember) are arguably more technically impressive than VF2 on the Saturn. Looks wise nothing 5th gen could compare to a good old fashioned Gouraud shaded poly.

Soul Blade. And yeah, Sega agreed with you. They took a huge resolution hit to give Fighter's Megamix Gouraud shading.

But, imagine if they'd pursued cel-shading earlier than Jet Set Radio?

Suddenly, that resolution advantage makes a big difference. And the art style makes it easy for them to blend sprites in with their set, while avoiding cpu heavy effects/bottlenecks. Especially since they get the ground field for free, and can focus their 3d geometry where it's most needed. Throw in a 4 meg (or more) ram cart, and who knows what could happen?

[strat]

I just played that Sonic World part of Sonic Jam and it's easy to see why Sega didn't make a full game with that engine, though it looked amazing in screenshots back in '97. The camera is limited to a few overhead angles and a full rotation around the current viewpoint. This approach wouldn't work for Mario 64 or Spyro, nevermind what a real 3D Sonic demands.