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[matmanx1]

Great video. I loved Quake back in the day for PC and picked up the Saturn port just for giggles when it came out. It was ugly and chunky but weirdly fun and compelling. Having been a fan of Exhumed, I was and still am very impressed with what Lobotomy was able to do.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Model 1 rendered in quads. Most things of that time used quads, actually. They were seen as more efficient.

I've only ever heard of Model 1 rendering polygons. Never quads.

 

[Grief.exe]

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.

Hopefully they are, that game looks very interesting.

 

[Spunky Monkey]

If this video does well I'll do Quake 2 PSX and the two N64 Quake games

Please do more retro videos. Comparing Xbox one 900p games with basically identical 1080p ps4 games is all well and good but the 16 and 32 bit era had so much more interesting things going on in terms of tech, changes and comparisons. For example Duke 3D is hugely different between the Saturn and psone, let alone the n64 version. The technical differences are so interesting to talk about as well as how devs had to work around limitations with much more creativity.

 

[NinjamicWZ]

Awesome video. Saturn is so cool.

I would love more stuff like this on DF.

 

[Correctomundo]

Of course I see this as I'm getting ready for bed. Commenting so I can watch later.

I remember showing some of my "PC only" friends the port, and only one of them realized how cool it was. He also appreciated the PS1 Quake 2, so count me in on the group that wants to see that.

 

[Dragon1893]

Please do more retro videos. Comparing Xbox one 900p games with basically identical 1080p ps4 games is all well and good but the 16 and 32 bit era had so much more interesting things going on in terms of tech, changes and comparisons. For example Duke 3D is hugely different between the Saturn and psone, let alone the n64 version. The technical differences are so interesting to talk about as well as how devs had to work around limitations with much more creativity.

That's what I was saying earlier, that gen had a lot of great material for face-offs.
It'll only get dem clicks from us old timers though.

 

[s_mirage]

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.

IIRC the Saturn's hardware was also ass backwards in a number of respects: it didn't support hardware texture mapping, it's implementation of Gouraud shading was non-standard if I recall, and then there was the famous translucency issue. Sega screwed the pooch big time with that last one especially, and it would have made some conversions from even the 3DO difficult. PO'ed, for example, used translucent surfaces to such an extent that it would have been impossible to faithfully convert to the Saturn. Sega had no excuse for this, as alpha blending wasn't exactly unknown by 94.

 

[CEO]

There is a Quake 2 Port on PSX. How is a Quake 1 not possible on Sega Saturn?

 

[levious]

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.

Don't think you need the analog controller. There's a cheat code for "jevons control". Should work on any saturn pad. Dpad is free look/aim, xyab for wasd like movement. Pretty sure at least.

 

[Beerman462]

Cool video.

If I had to pick an impossible port I would pick Doom on SNES though.

 

[Honome]

Great video, thanks for sharing it. I remember i had a saturn but unfortunately never played this version of Quake, wish i had...

 

[Daingurse]

Cool video Dark. I like learning about old ports, and seeing them compared/contrasted.

 

[The Baron Count]

Hope you guys do more of these. I've been wanting to see more videos on the technology in older games forever.

 

[El_Chino]

That's pretty cool. Would love to see more videos like this.

.

 

[Gono]

Quake on the Saturn is a beast.

Oh man, Sega Saturn. This console gives me so much FEELS.

 

[Bulletzen72]

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.

LOL! I know. I still have those magazines today, along with all 7 issues of Maximum magazine which Leadbetter wrote for. Did he edit it too? Maximum and SSM were my favorite magazines of all time, along with CVG in that same period (95-97).
Needless to say the Quake Saturn port blew me away at the time.

 

[BTails]

Amazing video, definitely "Liked" it on Youtube, as I'd love to see more DF Retro content!

 

[Krejlooc]

I've only ever heard of Model 1 rendering polygons. Never quads.

First up, quads are polygons. They simply aren't triangles.

Second up. It definitely rendered in quads.

 

[Dragon1893]

First up, quads are polygons. They simply aren't triangles.

Second up. It definitely rendered in quads.

Lol, was about to post about this, those posts are confusing.
The DC also used quads right? I remember some people saying it was more efficient because one quad equals 2 triangles.

 

[Saoshyant]

The DC also used quads right?

No, it didn't. By then the whole industry was on triangles and the Dreamcast was conceived to be a 3D powerhouse on the cheap (the PowerVR was a technical feat) that could support ports from everything that was "relevant": Naomi and Windows PC.

You could in theory program quads on the Dreamcast, but by then no one did.

 

[MDave]

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.



Model 1 rendered in quads. Most things of that time used quads, actually. They were seen as more efficient.

I wonder if we would ever come full circle with going back to quads for more efficient rendering.

 

[Dambrosi]

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.

Me and you are old bro

Me, too :k

THIS

Old farts of GAF Unite.

Spoiler

Me too

 

[Krejlooc]

Lol, was about to post about this, those posts are confusing.
The DC also used quads right? I remember some people saying it was more efficient because one quad equals 2 triangles.

No, the DC used triangles primarily as its primatives. It did have a quad primative as well, but the smallest primative was a triangle.

Actually the Saturn had two other draw modes besides quads - it could treat sprites as one point primatives (unscaled) or two point primatives (scaled).

 

[MrCunningham]

No, it didn't. By then the whole industry was on triangles and the Dreamcast was conceived to be a 3D powerhouse on the cheap (the PowerVR was a technical feat) that could support ports from everything that was "relevant": Naomi and Windows PC.

You could in theory program quads on the Dreamcast, but by then no one did.

There was an attempt from Nvidia to develop a graphics processor that could be used for the Saturn 2 called the NV2, but Sega wasn't interested in using it.

 

[Dragon1893]

No, it didn't. By then the whole industry was on triangles and the Dreamcast was conceived to be a 3D powerhouse on the cheap (the PowerVR was a technical feat) that could support ports from everything that was "relevant": Naomi and Windows PC.

You could in theory program quads on the Dreamcast, but by then no one did.

That must be where I'm getting that from.
Memory isn't what it used to be.

 

[Surta]

The DC also used quads right? I remember some people saying it was more efficient because one quad equals 2 triangles.

No, the Dreamcast had a PowerVR GPU which uses triangles. It does tile-based rendering, i.e. it rasterizes the triangles in tiles of 32x32 pixels, maybe someone confused that with quads, but it's not the same thing.

 

[BrettHeazy]

This has gotta be one of the most valiant port efforts I have seen, probably crazier than Tekken 3 PS1.

more on the Tekken story?

 

[dark10x]

There was an attempt from Nvidia to develop a graphics processor that could be used for the Saturn 2 called the NV2, but Sega wasn't interested in using it.

Heh, that's right.

I kind of want an Nvidia NV1 card to play with. Was a fascinating thing but I've never seen one in real life.

 

[Backfoggen]

This has a really weird look that I dig. Weirdly overlayed lighting effects, the distance fog. Hopefully we'll get a great shooter with a software rendered look some time in the future. Devil Daggers was great but too small in scope.

 

[Y2Kev]

Dark you should compare this vs ps1 quake.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

The colored effects were really nice at the time compared to the PC game, but the real magic was the save file enabling the greatest bonus game of all time that was hidden on Saturn Duke 3D, Death Tank Zwei.

 

[Kent]

Yes please Digital Foundry oh my god, I love shit like this.

I love this kind of stuff. Mainly because the Saturn, as much as I love the system, was such a horrific amalgamation of hardware. It's really interesting to see what kinds of crazy things developers had to do to get specific games and types of graphical effects working on the system.

This needs to be its own video series, about the technical wizardry needed to port games to older consoles (especially ones with such arcane hardware as the Saturn).

 

[Spiral Insanity]

This and Duke3D were outstanding ports.

 

[Dragon1893]

No, the Dreamcast had a PowerVR GPU which uses triangles. It does tile-based rendering, i.e. it rasterizes the triangles in tiles of 32x32 pixels, maybe someone confused that with quads, but it's not the same thing.

This must've been what happened, I'm pretty sure I read a story about quads being used when the specs were revealed and it was in SSM now that I think about it.

 

[SmokedMeat]

First up, quads are polygons. They simply aren't triangles.

Second up. It definitely rendered in quads.

Ah ok. I was always under the assumption that polygons meant triangles. I knew Saturn handled 3D differently, but never heard about Model 1 doing so.

It's a little confusing.

 

[Dragon1893]

Ah ok. I was always under the assumption that polygons meant triangles. I knew Saturn handled 3D differently, but never heard about Model 1 doing so.

It's a little confusing.

Polygons are closed shapes made up of straight lines.

 

[MrCunningham]

Heh, that's right.

I kind of want an Nvidia NV1 card to play with. Was a fascinating thing but I've never seen one in real life.

The idea that Nvidia tried to piggyback of the potential success of the Saturn with the NV1 is an interesting footnote. The card itself really is a collectors item now and is hard to come by. The deluxe edition models had onboard MIDI and Sega Saturn control ports. But the card just didn't support many games, and quad rendering really wasn't the way to go.

The NV2 was being developed exclusively for Sega's next console, but Sega passed on it for a 3DFX partnership instead. The wasted development probably would have bankrupt Nvidia if they didn'y bounce back with the NV3, or the Riva128, which supported DX5 and became a big success for them.

 

[Krejlooc]

Heh, that's right.

I kind of want an Nvidia NV1 card to play with. Was a fascinating thing but I've never seen one in real life.

I've got an nv1, I can post some visa of the exclusive nv1 ports of games. They actually run higher resolution than the Saturn originals.

 

[Nerdkiller]

If this video does well I'll do Quake 2 PSX and the two N64 Quake games

Oh my, all this time on GAF, and I never knew you were John of Eurogamer. The more you know.

And yeah. I say go for it. Some vintage comparisons are well worth doing. Like say the versions of Doom that were ported to consoles during that time. Particularly the SNES version which just like Quake on the Saturn, had to be rebuilt from the ground up on a new engine in order to get it to run alongside the Super FX hardware (it was the only console port at the time whose codebase wasn't based on the Jaguar version). It wasn't pretty, but it actually had some features that most of the ports to later consoles didn't have, such as the Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind, not to mention more faithful recreations of much of the first 3 episodes, as well as online play over a third party service in the US.

I remember Saturn's Duke Nukem 3D played better because its gameplay was better suited to the Saturn's gamepad, but Saturn Quake was a marvel because it ran at all in spite of all the adjustments to its levels.

There was also a version of Duke 3D on Saturn that supported online deathmatch and co op using Sega's Netlink modem. Hell, you can still play online on it to this very day via direct dial.

 

[Battlesmurf]

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.

The guy that worked on Turok seems to be hinting that PSEX is still going to be a thing, at least it looks that way to me on his blog

 

[seb]

I love these stuffs. If you're into this, have a look at Quake2 on Atari Falcon, an incredible effort to port the Quake2 engine to a seriously underpowered machine. Watch in chronogical order for full effect.

 

[mavericktopgun]

I'm gonna play Quake 1-3 on my S7 now. In 2K with Xbox One Pad
Good times.

 

[reelbigtink]

This got me pretty nostalgic for Quake. If I get the Steam version will I be able to connect to whatever servers may still exist out there?

 

[Krejlooc]

The deluxe edition models had onboard MIDI and Sega Saturn control ports.

All models have onboard audio and the Saturn daughter boards actually.

 

[Nachtfalke]

Would love to see more of these retro videos. Interesting stuff. But I also like to see more handheld coverage. 3DS/Vita or retro aswell.

 

[MrCunningham]

All models have onboard audio and the Saturn daughter boards actually.

Oh, I didn't know that. But I guess looking at images online, I guess every model has connection pins for the Saturn pad daughter board. By the looks of it, there are also a couple models with PC game pad ports as well.

 

[c0de]

In my opinion Virtua Fighter 2 was closer to be impossible and it's still amazing what they achieved on that hardware.

 

[c0de]

I've got an nv1, I can post some visa of the exclusive nv1 ports of games. They actually run higher resolution than the Saturn originals.

With nowadays knowledge of the hardware and all its chips, combined with new ways of parallelizing computing in general and more efficient algorithms, how much would that benefit the Saturn?
I mean with effort and budget and dedication to make a game of that era.

 

[Krejlooc]

Oh, I didn't know that. But I guess looking at images online, I guess every model has connection pins for the Saturn pad daughter board. By the looks of it, there are also a couple models with PC game pad ports as well.

All models support the PC gamepad too. It connects via a cat5 connector on the main board. The adapter is hard to find.