(DF) Quake on Sega Saturn - the impossible port

Good video!

ShinUltramanJ said:
I picked Quake up back in my Saturn days, and I guess I just didn't have an appreciation for it. I didn't like the game at all at the time, and thought it was quite brown and ugly looking on my TV.

Wish I could go back in time and look at it again.

Loved the video and would like to see more retro titles!
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I have been working on these for a while, you will love what I have coming up soon (well I hope anyway ;-) )

Luis1986 said:
Why was the Saturn so weak at 3D rendering compared to the PS1/N64? Was Sega banking on developers becoming good at programming for the CPUs? I can't help but compare the Saturn a bit to the PS3 in terms of hardware complexity.
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Sega made a huge mistake with the Saturn designed to be a 2D Sprite monster (which it was) at the same time its Model 1-3 Arcade boards re-invented 3D and arcade games, playing catch-up to the PS1 created a Frankenstein of a machine with its SH-2 hybrid construction.
 
@MUWANdo said:
Powerslave EX is a bespoke conversion using the dev's own engine (much like Saturn Quake itself!) so a "Saturn Quake EX" wouldn't be worth bothering with in that regard.
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Ah yeah, that's right. It's not the same thing at all.

At the very least, I'd like to see that "EX" engine used to bring other long forgotten shooters back. I enjoyed his work on Turok as well.
 
lazygecko said:
Speaking of canceled PSX FPS ports, there was also Unreal being made. Would probably have been more of a spinoff than an actual port though, since the levels would have been entirely different to accomodate the hardware limitations.

https://www.unseen64.net/2009/06/03/unreal-psx-cancelled/
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That would have been cool. I liked Unreal, but my computer could barely run it. Would have been interesting to see what the PS1 version was like.
 
dark10x said:
Ah yeah, that's right. It's not the same thing at all.

At the very least, I'd like to see that "EX" engine used to bring other long forgotten shooters back. I enjoyed his work on Turok as well.
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Well, Turok 2 is definitely coming and I expect he'll probably get around to doing Blood at some point as well, officially or unofficially.

He did port Doom 64 EX to DS at one point, too, but I don't know that he ever posted his work online. (I think he said there was a lack of interest in the port, but he never bothered to tell anyone it was happening outside of his blog, so...)
 
jvm said:
Was looking for this. I did that interview with Ezra back when I was running Curmudgeon Gamer.

Also did DF not use the 3D controller with the Lobotomy games on Saturn? They missed out. Fully justifies the purchase of the 3D controller...
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As I said above I *tried* to use the 3D controller but, for whatever reason, it just isn't working and I need to troubleshoot. Won't register in d-pad or analog mode even in the system menu. I've tried the basics but there's something going on.

Need to bust out one of my other Saturn consoles to see if the controller port is an issue?
 
Dragon1893 said:
This makes me nostalgic because I still remember Leadbetter praising these guys to high heaven for their Saturn ports when he was in charge of SSM.
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Remember it well. And we never got that Lobotomy Software demo disc that SSM were so desperate to covermount :D
 
I loved and hated this game. Impressive graphics but grim as fuck game world. Sort of in a good way that such an atmosphere could be put across in game form, but so much so I felt kind of depressed playing it as a 12 year old or whatever I was at the time this came out.

The soundtrack, I ripped it off the disc years later, is fucking incredible.
 
J_Viper said:
This is awesome..

I hope DF does more videos like this!
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So far, it's tracking pretty well on views (we'll see how it continues) so it's looking pretty likely that we'll be able to make more of these (and perhaps go more in-depth in the future).
 
Luis1986 said:
Why was the Saturn so weak at 3D rendering compared to the PS1/N64? Was Sega banking on developers becoming good at programming for the CPUs? I can't help but compare the Saturn a bit to the PS3 in terms of hardware complexity.
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Sega thought 2D gaming would remain dominant. It was until they found out Sony was building with a heavy focus on 3D capabilities, that Sega tacked it onto Saturn. Naturally the hardware was a real mess to develop for, and so Sega touted it was for developers who liked to code to the metal.

Really it was just another Sega screwup.
 
Renekton said:
Digital Foundry - Quake on Sega Saturn

This has gotta be one of the most valiant port efforts I have seen, probably crazier than Tekken 3 PS1. This is from the developers of Powerslave.
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What was so crazy about Tekken 3 on PS1? AFAIK the arcade version was running on _basically_ a PS1 with somewhat higher clock speeds.

So while there was some downgrade, the port cannot have been that hard, as was probably created with the PS1 in mind from the very beginning.
 
Nice nice!

I think the topic about a retro DigitalFoundry actually was brought up on GAF here before?

At least I remember voicing my support for it, and I am really excited about this being actually a thing now.

I do hope it stays that way, since that's really interesting stuff.
 
Luis1986 said:
Why was the Saturn so weak at 3D rendering compared to the PS1/N64? Was Sega banking on developers becoming good at programming for the CPUs? I can't help but compare the Saturn a bit to the PS3 in terms of hardware complexity.
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It wasn't weaker than the PS1 in terms of raw processing ability, just look into the Shenmue prototype to be baffled that that sort of thing was being rendered by the "terrible" Saturn. The practical problems with the Saturn, though, were two fold and huuuuuge.

First, its ridiculous hardware complexity. For the time, without any assisting tools, middleware, and barely any documentation, someone would need not only the ability to program directly on top of the hardware (assembly), but also being able to coordinate the two CPUs and two GPUs at the same time, which was simply a baffling concept -- nothing else in the industry tried this approach. And no company in their right mind would spend years learning the hardware's complexities to create amazing games that wouldn't sell.

Second problem with the Saturn was the 3D approach they went with: quads instead of triangles. That decision came at the wrong time when that sort of thing wasn't 100% figured out by all of the industry adopting one standard... and Sega bet on the wrong horse, resulting in basically none of the popular 3D tools of the time being able to create assets for it, while ports from PC/PS1 had to be "downconverted" or entirely remade.

All of this meant that the 3D games on the Saturn would always be produced in a "lazy" way. Companies aren't a charity and they couldn't justify spending the resources to program incredibly looking games on the Saturn when it took ridiculous effort to do so, which couldn't be justified when the market wasn't there. Whatever ports it would get would always look bad, like, say Tomb Raider. And thus people associated Saturn with being unable to do 3D as good as the PS1, because real world results and deadlines are more important than theoretical possibilities.

Taking this into consideration it makes what Lobotomy Software did both an achievement and one of major the conditions for their eventual downfall.
 
Dragon1893 said:
This makes me nostalgic because I still remember Leadbetter praising these guys to high heaven for their Saturn ports when he was in charge of SSM.
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Same. The magazine praised Lobotomy software to high heaven and sold me on Exhumed in the first place when I wasn't even interested in first person games.
 
dark10x said:
As I said above I *tried* to use the 3D controller but, for whatever reason, it just isn't working and I need to troubleshoot. Won't register in d-pad or analog mode even in the system menu. I've tried the basics but there's something going on.

Need to bust out one of my other Saturn consoles to see if the controller port is an issue?
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Too bad. Sorry I missed that part. 😔

Definitely get it fixed and don't forget to play the ewok village and rain levels. Such good stuff.
 
Arunotaku said:
Would love to see the "Nights Engine" in depth analysis, Burning Rangers really was amazing technicaly :D
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I dunno, at the time I felt that they tried to push things too far with BR, making the Saturn's limitations really evident because it played to the system's weaknesses instead of its strengths.
That was a game that probably would've looked a lot better on the PSone.
What really blew my socks off was Sonic R.


Edit: wow, so many fellow SSM readers. It truly was a special mag wasn't it?
I had to pay a fortune for it here in Portugal but it was so worth it.
I'd go as far as saying that it was an essential part of being a Saturn owner.
 
Great video. I hope DF keeps this coming

AM2 work on Saturn probably is a good way to continue this series. Also Polyphony's GT on PSX and Namco's Soul Blade aswell
 
People always talk about how Quake couldn't have been ported to the Saturn and Lobotomy's conversion was the only way it could have happened but I think that was more Lobotomy saving themselves work than anything else.

I'd be curious to see if anyone's attempted a homebrew Quake (or Doom!) port to Saturn just for the hell of it; I know there's a homebrew OG Doom port for N64, for example.
 
dark10x said:
Pretty much all of the inclined surfaces from the original game are in here and the game does tilt slightly when walking on them (plus it uses auto-aim). You CAN look up and down and all around as well, but you have to hold a button.

Slims and scrags attack as they did on PC as well, which can be slightly annoying, but auto-aim takes care of it (though you can disable auto-aim).

If you use the Saturn 3D controller you can actually sort of "analog look around" like a modern game. I tried to use it by my 3D controller appears to be dead. :(

The weirdest thing is how the sense of scale is all so different. Rooms feel smaller or different than the original but it's all very similar. I really like how dark and grimy the game looks, though, and prefer that atmosphere to the clean OpenGL version (which is why I like source ports such as Engoo which are software mode).

Would be awesome to play this version at a high frame-rate with no texture warping. I know Powerslave EX exists (and was taken down) - would love if the guy that ported it over could try his hand at Saturn Quake or Duke 3D (which was also 3D).
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This all sounds pretty amazing to be honest. I would love to see it in person.
I love rare things like this.
 
cireza said:
Arcade machines, especially from Sega, had been using several processors for already many years.
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Sega also used quads in their arcade hardware (Model 2/3 series).

3DO also used quads so Saturn wasn't quite alone on that front either in the console space. It is strange though after coming from SVP and 32X using polys pre-Saturn. Mosel 1 also used polys iirc so maybe Sega had decided on moving to quad based rendering for a reason?
 
@MUWANdo said:
Quake 2 on PSX is more impressive, honestly.
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I think in the context of each console's abilities, Quake 1 on the Saturn might have been a little bit more impressive than Quake II on the PS1 because the Saturn port was so unexpectedly good for its time.

Back before Quake was ever ported to the Saturn, John Carmack was completely skeptical that anyone could get a version of Quake running on that hardware. There were even some reports from the Lobotomy development team that people at Sony were impressed by their Quake 1 port, because they had problems porting the game over to the PS1 themselves. People at Sony apparently gave the developers of the Saturn port of Quake II one of their internal optimization kits that was previously used for games like Gran Turismo to ensure that their Quake II port came out as spectacular (I wish I could find some of the original quotes citing this).

It is also interesting to note that Lobotomy Software did have their own port of Quake 1 ready for the PS1 which was based on the Saturn game and it did run circles around the Saturn port as far as frame rate went. Though I couldn't find a publisher for their PS1 port and the company eventually went bankrupt.

Which is a shame, because Lobotomy Software did have a sequel to PowerSlave planned that would have been a third person 3D action game in the same style as Tomb Raider.


Krejlooc said:
Calling this a port is a stretch. Remake is more accurate.
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Really, all of their games on the Saturn were remakes when you think about it. Powerslave was a completely new game, Duke Nukem 3D was rebuilt from the ground up with different level design to accommodate the real 3D environments and of course Quake was rebuilt from the ground up too.
 
Just watched the video and although not too in depth I enjoyed it and hope you do more of these.

I used to own Powerslave on Saturn and was sad when the unofficial "remaster" got shot down on PC after the rights holders shut it down.

Factor 5 and the Rogue Squadron Games on N64 and GameCube would be an awesome one to do next.
 
Really interesting video. I thumbed the hell out of it.
Hopefully more retro stuff gets on Digital Foundry.

I have a copy of Quake on Saturn, but I haven't played it much. I think I had a hard time getting adjusted to vertical aiming. I should give it another shot.

I wish the Saturn port of Doom was as impressive as Quake was. I have to play that game is very short periods because the framerate is so low that I actually get headaches. Bad headaches.

Speaking of Quake on N64, I remember back in high school me and my buds were wanting to try out something different from Goldeneye for a while and we gave Quake 2 a shot. It was so damn fun, especially Capture the Flag where when someone returns a flag, everyone just gets gibbed. At least that's how I remember it, it's been a long time.
 
MacTag said:
Sega also used quads in their arcade hardware (Model 2/3 series).

3DO also used quads so Saturn wasn't quite alone on that front either in the console space. It is strange though after coming from SVP and 32X using polys pre-Saturn.
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SVP and 32X don't have primitive types. They are essentially entirely software rendering. Most 32X games use scaled and skewed sprites/surfaces, acting as quads, however.

Mosel 1 also used polys iirc so maybe Sega had decided on moving to quad based rendering for a reason?
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Model 1 rendered in quads. Most things of that time used quads, actually. They were seen as more efficient.
 
Honestly this is my first DF video. I've only ever read about their stuff on here. Very nice! I love Quake 1 AND Powerslave.

I would just DIE to see a video like this about the SNES Wolfenstein.
 
Grief.exe said:
Is Night Dive working on Powerslave ports?
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The free PC "remaster" was released and quickly shut down because the rights holders screamed foul. I don't know if Night Dive is pursuing an "official" remaster or not, but that would be a great idea if owners of the property allow it.
 
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