Atari Jaguar VS Sega Saturn

[BuddyBuddies]

I don't think Gorf will have to worry about this thread, he got banned cause he couldn't ignore the Rev's insults.. the guy needs to keep his temper in check :/ I really have to wonder why the Rev didn't get banned as well.. he started it. It wasn't entirely fair to punish Gorf.

 

Gorf isn't banned and Rev got punished.

i hope Gorf wouldnt be banned,hes a BIG asset to the Jaguar community... ribbit,ribbit,ribbit.....

[RegalSin]

You can't really compare a Jaguar to a Saturn in terms of programming. Westerns have no real ability to promote there creations or the ability of drama. All our games was ever about is kill kill kill where nobody respected or cared about the story line to begin with.

 

The Jaguar is more of a comparision to the Sega CD and the Jaguar wins since nobody cared about it the most.

 

The only game I want to play on Jagaur was that Ninja game where you was a ninja in a dorm house tha tmde the news of violent games and a father was like ewh videogame my son play was evil god this and god that.

[gamersrevenge]

I've heard (probably from someone on this board) that the Jaguar actually has the edge on the Saturn when it comes to 2-D graphics.

 

I'm not quite sure how this is possible but I'd like to hear why (I remember reading over and over again in various gaming mags of the time that the Saturn was a true 2-D powerhouse).

 

No one is going to convince me that the Jaguar was better at 3-D than the Saturn... there's no way the Jaguar could have done full-on ports of Nights, Elan Doree, Burning Rangers, Grandia, Wipeout XL, Fighter's Megamix, Manx TT, or Sonic R (not the best gameplay ever but some extremenly impressive graphics.) Pale imitations, maybe, but no comparable ports. Notice I didn't even bring up Saturn Shenmue until the end.

 

 

ps

 

I love the Jaguar vs Whatever threads, even those that are obviously lopsided (Jaguar vs Master System!)

 

QFT.

 

Personally I think Saturn can outdo the Jaguar in both 2D and 3D. Just because you have many processors in a system doesn't mean it's better. My favorite type of games are shmups and in shmups there's no AI (all enemies are patterns programed to the game).

 

I'm also having a hardtime trying to believe the Saturn can pull off Radiant Silvergun.

jaguar is still the awesome 64 bit system

[kevincal]

You can't really compare a Jaguar to a Saturn in terms of programming. Westerns have no real ability to promote there creations or the ability of drama. All our games was ever about is kill kill kill where nobody respected or cared about the story line to begin with.

 

The Jaguar is more of a comparision to the Sega CD and the Jaguar wins since nobody cared about it the most.

 

The only game I want to play on Jagaur was that Ninja game where you was a ninja in a dorm house tha tmde the news of violent games and a father was like ewh videogame my son play was evil god this and god that.

 

Quite the ignorant statement if I may say so.

[TailChao]

You can't really compare a Jaguar to a Saturn in terms of programming. Westerns have no real ability to promote there creations or the ability of drama. All our games was ever about is kill kill kill where nobody respected or cared about the story line to begin with.

 

The Jaguar is more of a comparision to the Sega CD and the Jaguar wins since nobody cared about it the most.

 

The only game I want to play on Jagaur was that Ninja game where you was a ninja in a dorm house tha tmde the news of violent games and a father was like ewh videogame my son play was evil god this and god that.

 

Quite the ignorant statement if I may say so.

Indeed, sounds like someone has been eating too much pocky.

[EmOneGarand]

You can't really compare a Jaguar to a Saturn in terms of programming. Westerns have no real ability to promote there creations or the ability of drama. All our games was ever about is kill kill kill where nobody respected or cared about the story line to begin with.

 

The Jaguar is more of a comparision to the Sega CD and the Jaguar wins since nobody cared about it the most.

 

The only game I want to play on Jagaur was that Ninja game where you was a ninja in a dorm house tha tmde the news of violent games and a father was like ewh videogame my son play was evil god this and god that.

 

Quite the ignorant statement if I may say so.

Indeed, sounds like someone has been eating too much pocky.

I've heard that RegelSin is an infamous Troll over at DP....

Edited July 27, 2007 by EmOneGarand

[EmOneGarand]

You can't really compare a Jaguar to a Saturn in terms of programming. Westerns have no real ability to promote there creations or the ability of drama. All our games was ever about is kill kill kill where nobody respected or cared about the story line to begin with.

 

The Jaguar is more of a comparision to the Sega CD and the Jaguar wins since nobody cared about it the most.

 

The only game I want to play on Jagaur was that Ninja game where you was a ninja in a dorm house tha tmde the news of violent games and a father was like ewh videogame my son play was evil god this and god that.

Your statement has no backing, where do you get off saying that Western Programmers don't know how to program? Japanese games have stagnated much like western games.. theres more cliche's in Japanese games then here in West currently.

[RegalSin]

All I ever hear from any programmer was " The Sega Saturn was too hard to program " why not conclude that your not a good programmer instead blaming the system.

 

Just line up the titles and you will see what I mean. On any major system you take all the titles produced in the west and compared them to the titles in the east and no matter how you look at it the east titles allways wins some how.

 

The west has no creativity. Our society has so much commercialsim and stereotypes out there that is faslely based I get so uninspired. Videogames is no longer the same ones I grewed up to admire. Now they are mearly just pillars of the west saying " We admit our art is not respected anymore so we are going to do everything in 3d where we use a magical eraser that cost next to nothing. We have no room for pencil and paper artist's no more"

 

The only purpose of 3d was to add dimension. That is all 3d should be used for. Then again that is the creative side of me speaking and that is the side I love the most. I admire eastern games and hope one day I can create a game apreciated by eastern part of the world.

 

Atari was about representation as with all games in there pre-stage. I look my atari games and still play them today. Half the action takes place in my head just the way I like it.

Edited July 29, 2007 by RegalSin

[sd32]

I would like to know why it was so dificult to do transparencies and lightning effects on Saturn, i know it didnt suport them on hardware, but arent these effects doable on software?. I mean, look at the systems library, few games got decent examples of them, most of the time they were embarassing. Sega really dropped the ball by not making their system handle them on hardware, a mean even the Jaguar and 3DO had an easier time doing them. It always made their system look inferior to the PSone.

Also, what makes the Saturn faster at texture mapping and at pushing polygons than the Jaguar, i mean, it didnt even have a Geometry Engine like the Playstation, right?

Sorry if my questions are very dumb, i just wanna learn about hardware stuff, i find it very interesting.

[TailChao]

The west has no creativity. Our society has so much commercialsim and stereotypes out there that is faslely based I get so uninspired. Videogames is no longer the same ones I grewed up to admire. Now they are mearly just pillars of the west saying " We admit our art is not respected anymore so we are going to do everything in 3d where we use a magical eraser that cost next to nothing. We have no room for pencil and paper artist's no more"

There is no point in stating this anymore other than if you intend to fix it. It is one thing to bring up a problem, and a whole other to present a solution.

 

I would like to know why it was so dificult to do transparencies and lightning effects on Saturn, i know it didnt suport them on hardware, but arent these effects doable on software?. I mean, look at the systems library, few games got decent examples of them, most of the time they were embarassing. Sega really dropped the ball by not making their system handle them on hardware, a mean even the Jaguar and 3DO had an easier time doing them. It always made their system look inferior to the PSone.

Also, what makes the Saturn faster at texture mapping and at pushing polygons than the Jaguar, i mean, it didnt even have a Geometry Engine like the Playstation, right?

Sorry if my questions are very dumb, i just wanna learn about hardware stuff, i find it very interesting.

 

The Saturn had a bug in transparency rendering that would only support the effect above background layers, there is no layered transparent object over transparent object support without additional effort. Doing the effects in software is extremely taxing and would not play well with the structure of the Saturn's graphic drawing methods. The poor design and general handling of the Saturn was mostly fueled by issues between the US and JP divisions of Sega that sprouted up near the end of the Genesis's lifecycle.

 

The Saturn had a DSP that could be used for Geometry Transformations, although it was not commonly utilized since the DevKits didn't support it very well. The Saturn is more capable at pushing polygons than the Jaguar for the same reason the PSX is, it is newer and more refined technology.

[sd32]

Tailchao, can you give examples of games that used that DSP that you mention. Would be interesting to compare between game that used it, and games that didnt.

Also, i have heard taht early Saturn game used only one of its 2 SH2 processors, is it true?

What are the best examples of transparent and lightning effects for this console?

This is a nice page that compares games for Saturn vs games for Playstation:

http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/

Pretty interesting.

[TailChao]

Tailchao, can you give examples of games that used that DSP that you mention. Would be interesting to compare between game that used it, and games that didnt.

Also, i have heard taht early Saturn game used only one of its 2 SH2 processors, is it true?

What are the best examples of transparent and lightning effects for this console?

This is a nice page that compares games for Saturn vs games for Playstation:

http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/

Pretty interesting.

 

I wouldn't know which games used it without disassembling their code, but I'm assuming that Radiant Silvergun, Burning Rangers, and Nights utilized it in some form. Probably most of the more complex first party titles aswell, like Panzer Dragoon, etc.

 

It isn't true that "early" Saturn games didn't used both of the SH2s, but several 3rd party games did, since it would make porting faster.

 

There aren't that many games that utilize lighting effects, but Nights had some simple ones. I believe Radiant Silvergun utilized the BG layers to get its advanced transparencies, and Burning Rangers had a simple form of Software transparency rendering.

Edited July 30, 2007 by TailChao

[Gorf]

The Saturn had a DSP that could be used for Geometry Transformations, although it was not commonly utilized since the DevKits didn't support it very well. The Saturn is more capable at pushing polygons than the Jaguar for the same reason the PSX is, it is newer and more refined technology.

 

 

This geometry transformation is also built into the hardware of the Jaguar.

Both riscs have matrix multiply instructions that allow a wide variety of

matrix math.

 

The difference is it cant be pointed to a list of points and then do it's thing.

The GPU or the DSP has to reload for every point transform. This will

cost you lots of cycles. however, the DSP can be doing this, play sound and

read the joysticks handily while the GPU is drawing. The trouble is the deevlopers

did not do it this way. I think BattleSphere, Iron Soldier and maybe one or two

more games actually used this. Unfortunately as has been stated amillions times

before, the 68k should have been 'stop #$2000'ed after boot.

 

The Saturn does hard polies but can only draw quads. This makes triangular shapes

a nightmare to produce and winds up costing you more cycles as you need a lot

more polies to get a triangular shape. The other trouble is geting the two SH2's

to run out of the cahces simultaniously...you cant do it. However, the SH family

has a much more robust instructionset than eihter the Jag RISC's or the PSX

MIPS.

 

The PSX does only trips but and quad is simply two trips. This will double the

commands to the PSX matrix engine but it's still out classes the dedicated

hardware of Saturn in that respect. I think the Saturn with the right coders

behind it can easily match the PSX, maybe even slightyly excede it.

 

The Jaguar can draw any shape poly but it has to do so in software. However,

it has two processors with geometric abilities. IT also has a super fast blitter and opl.

IT wont ever put as many polies up as the other two at the same frame rate but it

is able to do effects that the other two cant in hardware.

 

 

When you compare the peak bus rate of all three systems, they are close.

 

 

PSX 132 megs a second

Jaguar 106 megs a second

And I cant find anything on the Saturn but Im sure its not very far from the other two.

 

They all have advantages and disadvantages. The right development team behind each system

will result comparble results with the Saturn and PSX getting the advantage in poly count and

the Jaguar getting the advantage in raw computing power.

 

any one who belives that the PSX is that much moer advanced power wise than the other two

are folling them selfs. The PSX wins because the tools to use the machine raw power were

in developers hands. Unlike Jag and Saturn.

[sd32]

Gorf, you were right, i have been playing Hover Strike CD, and yes, it features some amazing texture mapping and lightning fxs. Im having a hard time finding a Saturn game with textures this sharp (i dont think there is any), heck, they are better than on most PSX games. Playstation and Saturn textures are grainier, while N64 ones are blurrier (well usually).

Just imagine Cybermorph 3 and Iron Soldier 3, with Hoverstrikes quality texture mapping and FX, but those series framerate and draw distance .

Dont get me wrong though, i love the trademark Jaguar look of gouraud shaded polygons, with little if any tmapping, like in the demos from the 3DStogges (great job guys!), that look is so cool, few game on any home consoles have looked like that. I have always wanted to see a racing game with that style of graphics can somebody point me to one?.

Space War 2000 uses the Hoverstike engine right?, i have to check that one out.

So what is exactly the advantage that the Jaguar has over the Saturn in 2d?, wasnt the Saturn supposed to be the ultimate 2d machine?

Sorry if i am asking too many questions, but i love the Jaguar and the Saturn (in that order ).

[Gorf]

Gorf, you were right, i have been playing Hover Strike CD, and yes, it features some amazing texture mapping and lightning fxs. Im having a hard time finding a Saturn game with textures this sharp (i dont think there is any), heck, they are better than on most PSX games. Playstation and Saturn textures are grainier, while N64 ones are blurrier (well usually).

Just imagine Cybermorph 3 and Iron Soldier 3, with Hoverstrikes quality texture mapping and FX, but those series framerate and draw distance .

Dont get me wrong though, i love the trademark Jaguar look of gouraud shaded polygons, with little if any tmapping, like in the demos from the 3DStogges (great job guys!), that look is so cool, few game on any home consoles have looked like that. I have always wanted to see a racing game with that style of graphics can somebody point me to one?.

Space War 2000 uses the Hoverstike engine right?, i have to check that one out.

So what is exactly the advantage that the Jaguar has over the Saturn in 2d?, wasnt the Saturn supposed to be the ultimate 2d machine?

Sorry if i am asking too many questions, but i love the Jaguar and the Saturn (in that order ).

 

 

We too at 3DS love the G-shaded look. It gives it more of a classic game look yet with modern

tech. I will never understand the love affair with textures all the time. Yes, in a game like Medal

of Honor where you are trying to simulate reality, but not in Cybermorph which is very surreal.

Tempest is sureal. Hoverstrike for the Jag is very simulation like though. But you an see the

advantage of undedicated hardware. Now if only they blew off the 68k. that is most of the game

engine and logic right there. Without eevn changing the poly count, moving the code from the

68k to run from the GPU in main will make HS run at 30 or more FPS. I should recompile that

source I have and cut out all the 68k AI. If only I had the time.

 

All three of those systems were comparable, just one was stronger in one area then the other.

The PSX kick balls in poly count. It is also a lot easier to code for one processor than two or three.

Why Sega thought nine processors was even necessary is beyond me. Use the 2 SH2's wit a VDP

each on sepereate ram buses. Or at very least allow both chips to run out of main simultaniously.

The Jag can do this much at least.

 

The Saturn is better then PSX at 2D and I bet with the right coders even the 3D in the sense

of polygon features. Again that quad only polygons in hardware is just plain stupid. Triangles

rule! Well at least they did not screw this up on the DC.

 

The Jaguar is balance between the two and more a computational beast. Jaguar gives you

quality not quantity. The best of both worlds just not as much on the screen as either. However

the OPL and Blitter wil toast either system in 2D in shear objects on the screen. You'll never

see this as the OPL is only limited by buswidth and memory...It works out to about 3000 128

x 128 x 16bit sprites but then you are left with little bus to do much of anything else.

 

Realistically you'll never need moer than a few hundred sprites on the screen at anyone given time.

Even the NeoGeo with all its 380 sprites never used that many. I could not imagine this would

ever be necessary except in like a really cool explosion with debris flying everywhere and even

then 380 sprite is a hell of a lot more than you would need even for a really cool kaboom.

 

The one thing that stands out with the Jaguar, is even though you'll never reach the polycounts

and the framerates with those poly counts of other systems, nothing beats its flexibility until the next

generation.

 

 

The N64 is amonster locked ina box of bad hardware decisions. There is so much untapped

potential from the chipset but you wont ever see it because the design is limited.

Not unlike the JAguar which ifyou put the Tom and Jerry in another design, it would have no

trouble keeping up with the PSX and Saturn. Loose the 68k for a MIPS or another TOM core

and PSX and Saturn would have a hard time keeping up with it instead. Avery hard time.

Case in point Area 51 is just a 68030 doing a lot of the work. Its acting like a typical Jag

game but with a much stronger host. Put a MIPS r3000A like the PSX and its over.

[spiffyone]

The poor design and general handling of the Saturn was mostly fueled by issues between the US and JP divisions of Sega that sprouted up near the end of the Genesis's lifecycle.

 

Actually, Sega of America (and Sega Europe) had absolutely no input into the design of Saturn. In fact, neither of the Western sides of the company knew about it until Sega Japan announced it to the press.

 

32X was Nakayama (then CEO of Sega Ltd. in Japan) telling (ordering, more like it) Sega of America to build an upgraded Genesis that would make it more powerful than SNES and 32-bits like 3DO. Sega had this weird obsession with 3DO at the time, mind you. Probably stemmed from Trip Hawkins being head of 3DO and being one of the heads of EA when they pulled a mafioso style negotiation tactic with Sega to have EA games on Genesis. EA had circumvented Sega's lock-out and was releasing unlicensed software, and then pretty much told Sega "give us a license contract with less fees paid to you or we'll keep doing this". Sega balked, and I gather the JP side of the company thought it shameful or something. Maybe revenge against Trip was their desire with 32X. Who knows?

 

Anyway, SoA hardware guys gave 32X more power and made it an add-on as they saw no point in releasing a "new" Genesis that would just split the market for Genesis. They didn't really want to create an add-on either, but, again, they were ordered to do something.

 

All the while Sega Japan is developing Saturn in secret with no input from the SoA or EU staffs. Hell, SoA didn't get dev kits until right before 3rd parties did, and they just weren't ready for the hardware like the various AM studios in Japan. Hence Sega US teams like STI ended up closing shop.

 

Sega Japan was focused entirely on Japan (the wrong region, as they never won in that region) and on the wrong competition (3DO in the US and Europe, Nintendo in Japan). They beat Nintendo in Japan, but lost to Sony, who they should've seen coming, everywhere else, including EU which was a Sega stronghold.

[spiffyone]

Saturn was much better than PSone at 2D, especially with the RAM cart, and comparable (when programmed correctly) in 3D. Problem was the dual processor, dual VDP set up and the fact that to really develop on Saturn meant developing in assembly. PSone had a simpler design (one CPU, one GPU) and coding libraries based on C language. Much easier to develop on and get things up and running.

 

From my experience playing the games, the best Saturn games are in higher resolution with less texture warping than the best PSone games. There seems to be more clipping in the Saturn games though. Video output seems cleaner on Saturn as well.

 

Jag, iirc, has as high or higher a resolution than Saturn, and its vid output is really good too. Less textures than Saturn or PSone (or 3DO for that matter), but even with games that are filled with textures there is little to no warping. Less polys on screen, obviously, and lower frame rates on the Jag games.

 

N64 could outdo them all, but seemed to have design decisions that limited it. Textures don't have any warping in the best games from what I could tell, but are blurry as hell with few exceptions, and most, outside of Jet Force Gemini, use the expansion pack for those sharper visuals (Turok 2, Perfect Dark, etc.). Polys where more limited in number, but the amount of effects one could apply on the polys, IMHO, made up for that. I'd rather have 75,000 polys fully textured, lit, with various other effects and no texture warping, clipping, etc. than double that number with worse texture quality overall, less effects, and issues like clipping and warping galore.

[Gorf]

N64 could outdo them all, but seemed to have design decisions that limited it.

Textures don't have any warping in the best

 

Really? Ive seen plenty. Look past the bluriness a little more...

 

The N64 texture RAM is extrememly small...the same size as the Jag's locals....5 years later?

Come now Nin!

 

N64 would have killed if Nintendo allowed other micro codes to be used. They hurt themselves

with this idiotic decision. In it's current config it's hardly a leap over everything else if a leap at all.

I'd say in a lot of ways a step back when it could have been MANY steps foward. It would be able

to blow the Jag away in the crispness, and the other two in poly counts by large margins. If only

they allowed other microcode.

 

For those that do not know what microcode is.....

 

Microcode is the actual logic that makes up a processors instruction set and is usually hardwired.

 

Usully in RISC, the instructions ARE the micro code. The MIPS in the N64 had a super

cool feature of allowing you to redesign the instruction set(essentially) specifically to the

games needs. A simple change to the microprogram and you have a new processor.

Or you could improve or repair the bugs.

 

So if you would use a lot of trig functions you could actuall design super fast executing

one instruction versions. Customize the instruction set...just awsome...dont let anyone

else use the feature...ass-o-nine!

 

A total waste on Nin's part.

 

Why are games companies their own worst enemies?

[kevincal]

Yes but c'mon...the N64 had a ton of cool visual effects that the Jag, PS, and Saturn just didnt have. Mario 64 is super clean looking, has awesome visual effects, huge polygons, huge environments, great sound for a cart....I could go on and on...and that was the first N64 game. I played the Jag and PS extensively before getting an N64 on launch day and I was blown away by Mario 64 and WaveRace 64... The N64 is a step above anything I've seen on the Jag, PS, or Saturn. I know the specs will be argued, but just from what my eyeballs tell me, the N64 is a step above.

[kevincal]

I also don't get why people (mostly Sega drones... ) think the Saturn is "way better" at 2d than the PS? From everything I've seen, there's hardly a difference at all. The Saturn may have a "slight edge", but in no way do I think it's above and beyond. The way I see it, forgetting any specs, just from what I've seen on my well-adjusted tv, , it's like this:

 

2d: Jag, Saturn, and PS are all very close. The slight edge to the Saturn and possibly an edge to the Jag over the PS. But I still think they are so close that the difference is negligible.

 

3d: The N64 with its huge poly's full of special effects stands above the rest imo. I realize it pushes a smaller number of poly's than the PS or Saturn, but what polys it does push are super high quality. (for the time) The PS is the obvious 2nd place imo, some say the Saturn is equal to the PS in polys, but I just don't see it. The main thing I see is the polys on the Saturn, for the most part are quite ugly and jagged. The PS' poly's just plain look better, for the most part.

 

The Jag...well, I just don't see it competing with the PS, Saturn or N64. I just haven't seen a 3d Jag game come close to the best efforts on the PS, Saturn or N64. Games like Battlesphere may have some nice, rather large polys, but they seem rather limited from the screens and video I've seen. The game appears to be mostly black space. And I hav played many other 3d Jag games... So ya, I know the Jag can do some nice big polys with some nice effects, but it just doesn't seem to have the grunt to fill the screen with many of them. Just my opinion. I still love the Jag, but I do like the N64 and PS a bit more, while I like the Saturn less than the Jag. And it's not so much the systems I'm referring to, but the games on them. But, my love for the Jag, N64, and PS is pretty equal.

[Gorf]

Yes but c'mon...the N64 had a ton of cool visual effects that the Jag, PS, and Saturn just didnt have. Mario 64 is super clean looking, has awesome visual effects, huge polygons, huge environments, great sound for a cart....I could go on and on...and that was the first N64 game. I played the Jag and PS extensively before getting an N64 on launch day and I was blown away by Mario 64 and WaveRace 64... The N64 is a step above anything I've seen on the Jag, PS, or Saturn. I know the specs will be argued, but just from what my eyeballs tell me, the N64 is a step above.

 

The PSX will out count the polies on the N64 by at very least double. Granted, they will look

like ass, but they will be there at a smoking frame rate(usually.)

 

Mario. Huge polygons with a very low polycount. Yes Mario was a lot less crisp than you think.

The poly clipping was even worse than the idiotic camera angles. There are pleny of flaws in

all those games. Jag could do those games with the right code....which can only be done with

the right tools. Chicken eggish. The polys count may be lower but they will be prettier. The

blitter in the Jaguar is a fantastic artist.

 

It has millions of drawing modes and hardware z-buffering and shading and along with the

GPU is essentially limitless in is flexibility. 3D dedicated hardware cant do this. It is what it

is...Then you need to tatke away from the processor anyway to do software passes over

the polygons to achive the other efffects not allowable by the hardware and there goes your

advantage in the shitter.

 

That system could have been more than a step ahead like I said but in may ways was a step

backward. The micrcode for instance..Nintendo had a Turbo3D version which trippled the poly

count with less effects.

 

The Playstation peaked a while ago. You have bacisally seen all it will ever do (at a decent frame

rate that is.) Those tools were designed to take full advantage of the hardware. Other clever devs

using software techniques pushed it a little futher than that but it is what it is. This is a LARGE

disadvantage of dedicated hardware. Nowadays is a nother story. The graphics chips of today

if you really must know are a lot more like the Jaguar hardware with hardawre windows(OPL on

the Jag) and a blitter like unit (block mover, line drawer, polyfiller) so flexiblilty is no longer an

issue. Tom and Jerry with a few improvements at todays speeds would be perfect for todays

high end graphics. shit....forget gigahertz.....500 MHZ is all I need.

 

The N64 easily had the most potential but Nintendo hardly met the challenge. Heh...when you

think about it, like the Jag you may never know what it was REALLY capable of. Throw the

Saturn into that mix as I don't believe it's best was ever achived either.

[spiffyone]

I also don't get why people (mostly Sega drones... ) think the Saturn is "way better" at 2d than the PS? From everything I've seen, there's hardly a difference at all. The Saturn may have a "slight edge", but in no way do I think it's above and beyond. The way I see it, forgetting any specs, just from what I've seen on my well-adjusted tv, , it's like this:

 

2d: Jag, Saturn, and PS are all very close. The slight edge to the Saturn and possibly an edge to the Jag over the PS. But I still think they are so close that the difference is negligible.

 

Eh?

 

In terms of animation frames, Saturn pissed all over Playstation. And that's without the RAM cart. Add the RAM cart and it was no contest.

 

There's a reason why most hardcore 2D fighting game fans back in those days bought those games for Saturn rather than PSone.

 

Even without the RAM cart games like X-Men:COTA load faster on Saturn and have more frames of animation making it closer to the arcade than the PSone version.

 

With the RAM cart games like SFA3 and X-Men vs. Street Fighter have all the frames of animation from the arcade, all the extra modes, and the ability to have more than two distinct characters on screen at once.

 

It's really no contest. It isn't about being a fanboy, it's about FACTS.

 

The FACT is that Saturn was much better at running such games than PSone was.

 

And the difference is NOT in any way negligable when talking about fighting games where every frame of animation is important to the fighting engine as a whole.

 

3d: The N64 with its huge poly's full of special effects stands above the rest imo. I realize it pushes a smaller number of poly's than the PS or Saturn, but what polys it does push are super high quality. (for the time) The PS is the obvious 2nd place imo, some say the Saturn is equal to the PS in polys, but I just don't see it. The main thing I see is the polys on the Saturn, for the most part are quite ugly and jagged. The PS' poly's just plain look better, for the most part.

 

Shenmue on Saturn demo. I haven't seen much on PSone that looks comparable.

 

Furthermore, Saturn games didn't suffer from much texture warping like PSone games did. Is it there? Sure. But to a lot less effect than on PSone.

 

Saturn also ran at a higher resolution natively than PSone (and 3DO). The look of the games for the latter were really helped out a bit with the "blur" that comes from going from 320 x 240 and blowing that up to 640 x 480.

 

The Jag...well, I just don't see it competing with the PS, Saturn or N64. I just haven't seen a 3d Jag game come close to the best efforts on the PS, Saturn or N64.

 

Well, that's the problem, isn't it?

 

The best efforts on those latter systems vs. games that really didn't tap into the hardware at all with Jaguar.

 

Hell, the best looking games on PSone aren't very competitive compared to the best on N64. Turok 2 destroys each and every last PSone FPS in terms of graphics, AI, enemies on screen, etc. But it would be unfair to compare that effort with a early PSone FPS games that didn't tap the system at all.

 

And it would be unfair to compare something like Rogue Squadron on N64, or Colony Wars on PSone, with something like Cybermorph on Jag for obvious reasons. I don't think Jag even survived as long as when those games came out in the life cycles of their respective systems. Colony Wars was a year 3 or 4 PSone game, RS the same for N64. Not fair to compare a game like Cybermorph that was a year one game for Jag, and a game that was originaly in development for the unreleased Panther. Now, something like those and, say, Battlemorph or Battlesphere, yeah. But even then it's a stretch.

[kevincal]

I also don't get why people (mostly Sega drones... ) think the Saturn is "way better" at 2d than the PS? From everything I've seen, there's hardly a difference at all. The Saturn may have a "slight edge", but in no way do I think it's above and beyond. The way I see it, forgetting any specs, just from what I've seen on my well-adjusted tv, , it's like this:

 

2d: Jag, Saturn, and PS are all very close. The slight edge to the Saturn and possibly an edge to the Jag over the PS. But I still think they are so close that the difference is negligible.

 

Eh?

 

In terms of animation frames, Saturn pissed all over Playstation. And that's without the RAM cart. Add the RAM cart and it was no contest.

 

There's a reason why most hardcore 2D fighting game fans back in those days bought those games for Saturn rather than PSone.

 

Even without the RAM cart games like X-Men:COTA load faster on Saturn and have more frames of animation making it closer to the arcade than the PSone version.

 

With the RAM cart games like SFA3 and X-Men vs. Street Fighter have all the frames of animation from the arcade, all the extra modes, and the ability to have more than two distinct characters on screen at once.

 

It's really no contest. It isn't about being a fanboy, it's about FACTS.

 

The FACT is that Saturn was much better at running such games than PSone was.

 

And the difference is NOT in any way negligable when talking about fighting games where every frame of animation is important to the fighting engine as a whole.

 

3d: The N64 with its huge poly's full of special effects stands above the rest imo. I realize it pushes a smaller number of poly's than the PS or Saturn, but what polys it does push are super high quality. (for the time) The PS is the obvious 2nd place imo, some say the Saturn is equal to the PS in polys, but I just don't see it. The main thing I see is the polys on the Saturn, for the most part are quite ugly and jagged. The PS' poly's just plain look better, for the most part.

 

Shenmue on Saturn demo. I haven't seen much on PSone that looks comparable.

 

Furthermore, Saturn games didn't suffer from much texture warping like PSone games did. Is it there? Sure. But to a lot less effect than on PSone.

 

Saturn also ran at a higher resolution natively than PSone (and 3DO). The look of the games for the latter were really helped out a bit with the "blur" that comes from going from 320 x 240 and blowing that up to 640 x 480.

 

The Jag...well, I just don't see it competing with the PS, Saturn or N64. I just haven't seen a 3d Jag game come close to the best efforts on the PS, Saturn or N64.

 

Well, that's the problem, isn't it?

 

The best efforts on those latter systems vs. games that really didn't tap into the hardware at all with Jaguar.

 

Hell, the best looking games on PSone aren't very competitive compared to the best on N64. Turok 2 destroys each and every last PSone FPS in terms of graphics, AI, enemies on screen, etc. But it would be unfair to compare that effort with a early PSone FPS games that didn't tap the system at all.

 

And it would be unfair to compare something like Rogue Squadron on N64, or Colony Wars on PSone, with something like Cybermorph on Jag for obvious reasons. I don't think Jag even survived as long as when those games came out in the life cycles of their respective systems. Colony Wars was a year 3 or 4 PSone game, RS the same for N64. Not fair to compare a game like Cybermorph that was a year one game for Jag, and a game that was originaly in development for the unreleased Panther. Now, something like those and, say, Battlemorph or Battlesphere, yeah. But even then it's a stretch.

 

Big deal, the Saturn had a few extra frames than the PS in the same game...to the human eye it's barely noticeable, unless you are a hardcore 2d/sega fanatic fighting game freak (and i know the type to a t ) ... Obviously you are in this catagory and are extremely biased towards Sega...whereas I am a fan of many consoles from many makes so...ya. Not to mention I read almost every single videogame mag back in the mid 90's cover to cover and nowhere did I ever read anyone say the Saturn was "so much better at 2d than the PS".........

Ah the Shenmue demo for saturn ...which was worked on for how many years? lmao Ya it's impressive but I'd hope so with what how much work was put into it........ But again, that game was never released on the Saturn now whas it? Nor does anyone own it except a handfull of people. So really, it doesn't count... Its more a tech demo than a game anyways, and everyone knows tech demo's for a system usually look twice as good as an actual game because tech demo's focus all the hardware power on the graphics whereas an actual full game needs power in the AI, sound and control department...So ya.

Edited August 3, 2007 by kevincal

[Gorf]

does anyone own it except a handfull of people. So really, it doesn't count... Its more a tech demo than a game anyways, and everyone knows tech demo's for a system usually look twice as good as an actual game because tech demo's focus all the hardware power on the graphics whereas an actual full game needs power in the AI, sound and control department...So ya.

 

 

We are talking the techincal attributes of machines for the most part. Software is

one thing. Hardware is another.

 

One SH2 alone is a much more robust and effecient a chip than the Playstation's

R3000. The SuperH series of instructions operate in half cycles in some cases.

Coded right it will do some damage to an r3000. SH has a more robust math set

too. Saturn is another machine with more power than you will ever be able to pull

from it. If the two SH2's in the Saturn were able to access external RAM

simultaniously, it would have bitch slapped the PSX.

 

Hand code a Saturn in assembler(tough) against the PSX also in assembler...the

Saturn will blow its doors off. Run one SH2 soley from its internal cache and let

the other do the external work and it will out compute the Playstation handily.

 

The Saturn will out do the Playstation in 2D easily. The playstation is 4096 8x8

sprites. The Saturn is a quad based system....it will smoke the PSX in 2D. The

Jag will smoke the PSX in 2D.

 

Playstation is the champion poly pusher and really nothing else.

Edited August 3, 2007 by Gorf

[kevincal]

But see....I'm trying to get you all to see past the "woulda, coulda, shoulda" and focus on the games actually released for the systems! We can talk about what ifs until we are blue in the face! I appreciate your knowledge of hardware specs and everything, but what I think it boils down to the average gamer is "talk is cheap"... Games speak louder than specs! I mean, the Jag is what it is, a system ahead of its time power-wise with some serious design flaws holding it back. Until mr. money bags comes along and releases the Jag 2, I guess all we can do is talk about what ifs with the Jag. But to me, the talk gets old. Now I dont want to sound like a jerk or whatever cus I know you've put in lots of hard work on the ole Jaggy, but I'm just trying to be realistic on where the Jag stands in the scheme of things. I'm sure If I put in my time to code on the Jaggy I'd be just as passionate as you about it.

 

I mean, you can say the Saturn is more capable than the PS at 3d, but I think I'm safe in saying that if you had a poll at say....Digitpress, the PS would win by a lot if asked which systems 3d games looked better... And as far as the Jag being better at 2d than the PS...saying the Jag would smoke the PS at 2d just doesnt compute to me because I'm going off the games I've seen and I'd say from the games put out, they are very close in 2d. I know i know...that spec wise the Jag has the upper hand...but again, im going off the games and not speculation. But I think ive said too much already...lol I'm a little fish in a small pond when it comes to this tech talk, and I think the Great white Gorf is gonna eat me up real quick lmao. But hey, I still love the Jag! I just try to be a realist in this crazy classic gaming world.

Edited August 3, 2007 by kevincal