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[D-X]

Most dreamcast games that has been release years ago looks better then some ps2 games.

 

[djtiesto]

Shenmue 3
Skies of Arcadia 2
Phantasy Star 5
a US release of Napple Tale
a US release of Rez

 

[BuddyC]

With threads like this, it's like the Dreamcast never died.

 

[Nick Laslett]

Dreamcast was a system I got when I was 9. (I'm kinda young, 14 too be exact) It is probably my all time favorite system.
Skies of Arcadia 2

This post makes me feel really old, my family got an Atari VCS2600 (fake wood veneer ) for Christmas 1982, when I was 9 years old.

For fans of the VCS it has been brought back and you can buy a device with 50 games that plugs into your TV for only £20.

Maybe this will happen with the Dreamcast in 10 years time.

 

[Outcast2004]

Propeller Arena was completed, did it ever leak out? I'm not looking to snag a pirated copy or anything, just curious if anyone has ever seen it.

I actually have a copy of it... quite fun, unpolished but fun.

 

[dark10x]

Its mipmapping and bilinear filtering are of the same quality as Xbox's and GC's, and usage of mipmapping and bilinear filtering is still quite common in Xbox and GC games. Developers have improved their skill at implementing LOD and their skill in visual design since DC games stopped, though.

No no no no no. DC has awful mipmap banding, the likes of which is not a problem on XBOX or GC. Don't even try and suggest otherwise.

The DC could certainly do a GTA style game and Crazy Taxi 1 and 2 are proof enough that it could have done it. CT1/2 both achieve 60fps at many points, feature all kinds of traffic patterns, enough pedestrians, an animation system, and comparible environment sizes. It actually featured more and differnet kinds of vehicles at any given point than GTA.

Visually Crazy Taxi is far nicer that GTA as the memory for textures and at was far larger and CT uses self shadowing and vertex specularity unlike GTA. GTA 3 even used transform animated characters and that is exactly what CT used. Remember that GTA 3 rarely hit 30FPS

The only thing it is seriously missing from CT in comparison is the ability to walk around on your own power and fire a weapon. Hardly something unattainable seeing as though that doesn't rely on much that isn't already taken care of in the code (such as collision).

This comparison simply doesn't work. CT isn't even doing a fraction of the work that GTA3 did and the draw distance is very short in comparison. Terrible comparison.

When you are doing less overall, it becomes easier to display eye candy (though CT really doesn't look that hot anymore). Look at Wreckless on XBOX. The game is a visual masterpiece (technologically speaking), but really isn't doing as much as a GTA title.

 

[jarrod]

Er... wasn't GTA3 originallly a DC title anyway? I'm sure the platform could pull off a respectable version, it's not like GTA3 is a technical marvel or anything. I think a good general rule would be, if PSP can do it, DC probably can too.... in fact, I dopubt there's any current gen games that'd be impossible to faithfully (though not 100% exact) convert to Dreamcast.

 

[F.Be@PSG]

Rival Schools 3

 

[Sjoerd]

No no no no no. DC has awful mipmap banding, the likes of which is not a problem on XBOX or GC. Don't even try and suggest otherwise.

Not that I know that much about all those technical thingies but it seems your are not talking about mipmapping but something else. The problem you are describing sound more like the kind of 'thing' that is solved on pc games by turning on antistropic filtering.

Anyone technical care to confirm?

 

[Apharmd Battler]

The MAIN thing I would want is some type of sequel or deluxe edition to the GREATEST combat game of all time.......VIRTUAL ON!!! As if my avatar didn't give it away?! I'll take an online port of Virtual ON Force, or a sequel to the Virtual ON games. But dammit Sega this is one of the greatest franchises of all time that they've just let wither on the vine. Virtual OnL: Marz for the Playstation 2 was a slap in the face to all diehard VO fans!! But I'm digressing.....

Off the top of my head I would like to see some sequels or re-iterations of:

Crazy Taxi
Jet Set Radio
Sega Rally
Rez
Cosmic Smash
Outtrigger
Tech Romancer (yeah I know it's Capcom, but this game had flavor).


How about some ports we never got:
Scud Racer/Sega GT
Daytona 2
Jurassic Park: Lost World
Space Harriers
Brave Fire Fighters
Ocean Hunter
Star Wars Arcade & Pod Racer

And how about reviving some of the old classic games:

Streets of Rage
D.D. Crew (I worked at an arcade that had this, 4P mayhem)
Super Monaco GP
Mystic Defender
Golden Axe
E: Swat
Power Drift
Zaxxon
Alien Syndrone


Oh man, this thread has me thinking........

 

[FortNinety]

With threads like this, it's like the Dreamcast never died.

Hell, there's still game coming out for the system in Japan, and not just hentai stuff. Granted, its only shooters, but its something.

As much as everyone bitches about the Windows CE OS, its easily one of the best moves ever since its so easy to program for, ensuring the homebrew scene will keep in alive. Lord knows its not only super accesible, but still extremely powerful.

I forsee not too far down the road someone like Good Deal Games making "new" games for the DC.

 

[Meantime]

You really don't need to use Win CE to do homebrew DC coding, in fact you're probably better off without it. The Shinobi and Ninja libs (if I remember their names correctly) are floating around the net, and all you need is a DC with broadband adaptor after that.

 

[Ramirez]

Shenmue 3 please

 

[jarrod]

I wonder if a limited budget market DC rerelease would encourage 3rd party support again? Think if Sega dropped licesne fees entirely and opened the platform we'd see Capcom, SNK, etc releasing stuff again? Or maybe even new development (like PC or Atomiswave ports)?

 

[dark10x]

Not that I know that much about all those technical thingies but it seems your are not talking about mipmapping but something else. The problem you are describing sound more like the kind of 'thing' that is solved on pc games by turning on antistropic filtering.

Anyone technical care to confirm?

No, I am talking about the obvious divisions between the mipmap levels due to low quality bilinear filtering. Anisotropic filtering is two steps up from bilinear filtering. I believe LeMans DC used low grade aniso, however, but was the only game I know of on the system.

 

[Atari2600]

Samba De Amigo
Shenmue 3

 

[ChennehCis]

Daytona 2 Power Edition (too fun, but never made it to a console I believe)

 

[Lazy8s]

dark10x:

No no no no no. DC has awful mipmap banding, the likes of which is not a problem on XBOX or GC. Don't even try and suggest otherwise.

MIPmapping on the DC selects texture levels just as accurately as it does on Xbox and GC based on distance from the camera and texture orientation (only the PS2 selects MIP levels without considering orientation), and bilinear filtering on the DC samples textures at the same level as bilinear filtering on the other systems. Xbox and GC keep MIP boundaires from standing out as much by making more frequent use of better sampling with trilinear filtering or bilinear with anisotropic in select areas. Their bilinear filtering tends to look better because developers have improved their design skill at balancing texture budgets to push MIP boundaries further from view.

jarrod:

Er... wasn't GTA3 originallly a DC title anyway?

Interestingly, State of Emergency was.

Meantime:

The Shinobi and Ninja libs (if I remember their names correctly)

That would be Ninja, the high level SEGA library that could be used if Dragon's WinCE interface wasn't needed, and Kamui, the low level SEGA library more specific to the hardware's functionality. SEGA also compiled together some very limited documentation and support for the system's machine level functionality which they appropriately named Darkness.

 

[AssMan]

Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi were also titles for DC.

 

[Meantime]

Meantime:

That would be Ninja, the high level SEGA library that could be used if Dragon's WinCE interface wasn't needed, and Kamui, the low level SEGA library more specific to the hardware's functionality. SEGA also compiled together some very limited documentation and support for the system's machine level functionality which they appropriately named Darkness.

Was kinda sure there was another set of libs called Shinobi, but it's been a while since I've looked, so I may be wrong. Ninja isn't great but it's useful for quick prototype/proof of concept stuff, and ideal for homebrew coding.

 

[dark10x]

MIPmapping on the DC selects texture levels just as accurately as it does on Xbox and GC based on distance from the camera and texture orientation (only the PS2 selects MIP levels without considering orientation), and bilinear filtering on the DC samples textures at the same level as bilinear filtering on the other systems. Xbox and GC keep MIP boundaires from standing out as much by making more frequent use of better sampling with trilinear filtering or bilinear with anisotropic in select areas. Their bilinear filtering tends to look better because developers have improved their design skill at balancing texture budgets to push MIP boundaries further from view.

Lazy, outside of Test Drive Le Mans, every 3D Dreamcast title I've played has demonstrated serious flaws in its use of bilinear filtering. It was flat out ugly and extremely common.

 

[Jeffahn]

The DC is slower in the areas that GTA really needs.

Which areas exactly?

The visuals displayed in those games speaks nothing of what is actually going on below the surface. GTA2 was on DC, though, and it had an awful framerate.

The 2D overhead game ported form the PC or something? Is that how you gauge a true 3D GTA effort would look on DC?

I don't understand your generic references, though. SC looks as good as a PS2 game? How can you just say "PS2 game" in general? There are many fighters on PS2 that are graphically superior, if you want to compare genres.

SC and DoA2 on DC still holds up considering when they were made. The way PS2 games look nowdays is nothing near what was promised. What happend to the Tekken game with hundreds of spectators?

It's like you're living in 2000. Did we go back in time? This is kinda fun. Of course, back then, "I" was defending the Dreamcast.

Then guess who jumped on the PS2 hype-train?

Really, though, there just isn't any reason to continue working with the DC hardware. It IS dated.

Maybe if you'd had more faith in sega then you would have stuck with the DC and enjoyed the best period in gaming ever and gone on to enjoy a gaming experience infinitely better than PS2 on DC2. Did you actually think you we're going to be plugging into "the Matrix" right now? What happened?

There are games in certain genres on PSP that look better than anything similar on DC.

Then why didn't Sony release the PSP back in 1999 when they could have beaten Sega with a mere handheld? How's that for a selective comparison?

SOME DC games (the top titles) still hold up today, but all of them are poly starved and lack most of the special effects we've become used to.

What special effects? Destination-based blurring the M2 was doing back 1997? Other fill-rate-based effects the GC do 10X better? Can it do antistrophic filtering? That sure woudl help its display problems. Any kind of bump-mapping? But don't worry 'coz they sure gave that GS enough fill-rate to plaster over any of those graphical shortcomings, only to have the games look like Photoshop being run through a Game Gear.

And this all begs the question as to why you didn't jump ship to MS when you realised how much the X-Box outperformd the PS2? Did it not have enough pipes to satisfy your demand for flat, jagged, low-res textures?

PS2 managed to overcome its texture and image quality limitations in most cases while the other systems have never had issues there.

But I thought that all these issues were supposed to have been solved soon after launch? Why are we still sitting 5 years later with FIFA street displaying the same deficiencies as RRV? Are EA no longer a top developer?

The truth is that top developers labour to even mask the PS2's display issues whilst most lesser teams don't even bother anymore. You can use a generic engione like Renderware, but then your game can never look better than anyone elses. Make it as quickly as you can and hope your title isn't drowned out amonst its cookie-cutter contemparies.

I don't understand your logic, as you seem convinced that the DC hardware is still viable from a technical standpoint.

The DC's hardware potential was plainly never realised. You can't argue with that. Sammy are still making games for Atomiswave. It's just intersting speculating about what might have been if...

It's time for next-gen...

What do you mean it's time for "next-gen"? I've been enjoying DC2 in my head since it was released December 2003, Japan.

...

 

[Meantime]

What happend to the Tekken game with hundreds of spectators?

Tekken 4, VF 4 and (I think) Tekken 5 all have stages with lots of spectators. If you actually go back and look at the Tekken 'concept' movie shown before the PS2 launched, it doesn't look like anything special at all.

 

[Jeffahn]

Tekken 4, VF 4 and (I think) Tekken 5 all have stages with lots of spectators. If you actually go back and look at the Tekken 'concept' movie shown before the PS2 launched, it doesn't look like anything special at all.

The Tekken 4 stadium stage has many low detail spectators compared to the concept movie. The underground brawl scene has more detailed characters but never more than 30 at a time . The same goes for the Tekken 5 scene. The VF4 cage level has a mix of low & detail models but there's certainly not anything approaching 100 of them.

...

 

[Lazy8s]

Textures at steep inclines to the viewpoint, like a wall or floor stretching out into the distance, cause aliasing and mip-boundary issues. Using the same games as on DC as reference points, Xbox, GameCube, and PS2's graphics processors naturally produce the same problems when implementing their own mip-mapping and/or bilinear filtering:

Note the textures which extend far into the background, like flat ground -

The DC shot:

PS2:

Xbox:

-------

The DC shot:

GC:

Anyway, the mip-mapping and bilinear effects aren't done differently on Xbox or GC than DC, so the results couldn't be different from a technical standpoint.

 

[dark10x]

I don't know who this "Jeffahn" character is, but they are clearly insane. The complete lack of logic is astounding. Why am I even responding? I dunno, just for myself? There is obviously no point as this person does not function with logic...

SC and DoA2 on DC still holds up considering when they were made. The way PS2 games look nowdays is nothing near what was promised. What happend to the Tekken game with hundreds of spectators?

Good lord. What is WRONG with these people?!?!?!?! We have gone over this 100s of times in the past month. Do you actually remember what was promised? Go look at the tech demos again. Current games for the system have exceeded what was shown. Hundreds of spectators? There was never anything like that shown. The Tekken demo looked worse than the final TTT. Lemme guess, you think that they showed the FF8 dance scene in realtime too?

Go here for a crappy video of that Tekken demo. Really low poly crowd members, bad lighting, lower poly main characters, etc. It looks terrible compared to the final game. Bad memory? Yeah, I think so.

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/072/072859p1.html

Notice how the crowd isn't interactive? Notice how there are not hundreds of spectators? Notice how they look like shit? Did you know that the spectators in T4 and 5 were more detailed? Did you know that, in some stages, they were actually interactive when they should have been? Did you realize that you were completely wrong?

Oh, how about that FF8 tech demo...

Holy crap, it looks like TEH CG?!?!!111...right?

VS two REALTIME CAPTURED SHOTS (thanks maskrider) from early PS2 titles...

Hmm, interesting...

How about a tech demo video?

http://ps2movies.ign.com/media/news/video/ps2demos/psx2_1.mpg

How about this old man?

...or the classic Douglas shot?

Yeah, that SH3 model is nowhere near as impressive is it? I mean, those low-res textures on that old man model, lack of self-shadowing, and lack of a game or body make that top demo really awesome, huh? Doulgas there is a realtime, self-shadowed model used in a game.

OHhh, and here's a GT demo shot...

and something from FROM...

YEAH, PS2 REALLY DIDN'T LIVE UP TO THAT...

Then guess who jumped on the PS2 hype-train?

That's a good question. I never jumped on the hype train. When the system proved itself, I was onboard.

Maybe if you'd had more faith in sega then you would have stuck with the DC and enjoyed the best period in gaming ever and gone on to enjoy a gaming experience infinitely better than PS2 on DC2. Did you actually think you we're going to be plugging into "the Matrix" right now? What happened?

I did have faith in Sega during the DC days and I loved my DC to death. At this point, however, I believe the PS2 is simply a better system due to its longer life. Whether you prefer the DC or not, suggesting that the PS2 is anything but a great gaming platform is simply ignorant.

What special effects? Destination-based blurring the M2 was doing back 1997? Other fill-rate-based effects the GC do 10X better?

I don't think the GC can, actaully. Or, at the very least, it has not. The post filtering effects demonstrated in many PS2 games remain very impressive. M2 never did anything like that, nor did the DC. Show me a Dreamcast game with extensive usage of depth of field blurring and motion blur...

And this all begs the question as to why you didn't jump ship to MS when you realised how much the X-Box outperformd the PS2? Did it not have enough pipes to satisfy your demand for flat, jagged, low-res textures?

What are you attempting to suggest? That one must become a fan of a certain platform? I have a Dreamcast, Saturn, PS2, XBOX, and Gamecube all connected to my TV at this point and I love each one. I've used logic in this thread, not crazy fanboy speak as you have. I love my XBOX nearly as much as the PS2. Considering that I game on an HDTV, you can imagine that I prefer playing games on XBOX anyways as nearly every one of them supports at least 480p.

 

[Meantime]

The Tekken 4 stadium stage has many low detail spectators compared to the concept movie. The underground brawl scene has more detailed characters but never more than 30 at a time . The same goes for the Tekken 5 scene. The VF4 cage level has a mix of low & detail models but there's certainly not anything approaching 100 of them.

...

Please just look at the movie.

http://media.ps2.ign.com/articles/072/072859/vids_1.html

...

 

[Jeffahn]

Please just look at the movie.

http://media.ps2.ign.com/articles/072/072859/vids_1.html

...

Please try find out exactly what was promised. I'll paraphrase as bestI can:

"This demo has 30 spectators, but we could have included a hundred/s if we had enough time."

I can't remember if it was hundreds, a thousand or just a hundred spectators, but the point is that it's never happened. Those demos where supposed to be just teasers and they may have been technically exceeded (barely) but the fact is that some much more was hyhped and promised.

I'll try to respond to darkx10 as soon as I can (off to work now).

...

 

[dark10x]

I can't remember if it was hundreds, a thousand or just a hundred spectators, but the point is that it's never happened. Those demos where supposed to be just teasers and they may have been technically exceeded (barely) but the fact is that some much more was hyhped and promised.

There is a world of difference between some random developer throwing out a comment and what is actually shown. That doesn't mean it was Sony's hype. The demos shown by Sony have been more than outdone by actual software. Fact.

You wanna talk about showing demos that have yet to be matched? Go talk to Microsoft.

Hey, here's our "Raven" demo...

THAT was straight up CG, unlike PS2's demos...which WERE absolutely realtime (as made even more obvious by their poor image quality). That was never really matched in game on the XBOX.

When a new console is revealed, developers and fans love to bring the hype. If you are honestly holding Sony to a simple comment made by a random Namco employee, then you REALLLLLLY need to step back and take a look at yourself.

At the very least, you need to start talking with examples (pictures, quotes, etc.). The bullshit you are spewing is backed up by nothing.

You need to be called out here too...

The Tekken 4 stadium stage has many low detail spectators compared to the concept movie. The underground brawl scene has more detailed characters but never more than 30 at a time . The same goes for the Tekken 5 scene. The VF4 cage level has a mix of low & detail models but there's certainly not anything approaching 100 of them.

As you can CLEARLY SEE from that video, the characters shown were of very low poly and there were far fewer effects in play. It was simple.

The crowd in the actual games, however, were slightly more detailed and featured anywhere from the same amount to many more. The underground T4 stage featured more spectators that were actually interactive.

Yeah, you're talking out of your ass AGAIN.

 

[dark10x]

I figured I would address this pic for the benefit of our new biased friend...

THAT is from the Shenmue TECH DEMO.

The actual game? More like this...

Not quite the same thing...

I think Lazy8s deserves some props here. He still holds onto the DC hardware, but he approaches everything in a technical, generally truthful fashion. I can respect that. This new guy, though, is absolutely insane and literally tosses around lies just to prove a point...

 

[D-X]

I figured I would address this pic for the benefit of our new biased friend...

THAT is from the Shenmue TECH DEMO.

The actual game? More like this...

Not quite the same thing...

I think Lazy8s deserves some props here. He still holds onto the DC hardware, but he approaches everything in a technical, generally truthful fashion. I can respect that. This new guy, though, is absolutely insane and literally tosses around lies just to prove a point...

Check the passport disc it's in there. I never claimed it was in game, just what the DC could do. It's just as valid (if not more so) than the demo/renders that everyone judges the PS3's power by.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Check the passport disc. It's just as valid (if not more so) than the demo/renders that everyone judges the PS3's power by.

Right now the comparison is to PS2 demos. We know the PS2 was able to outdo all those tech demos with actual games. In comparison those Shenmue Passport demos faces weren't replicated ever on the DC in an actual game. The character faces in Shenmue are nowhere near the detail of those Passport demo faces.

 

[Doom_Bringer]

its fun to argue with people who don't own PS2 and haven't played it's latest games. :lol

 

[jarrod]

Christ dark, you're looking a little desperate here. Posting shots of what Shenmue "really looked like" right after those upsampled dev shots of GT4 replays and SH4 cinemas (not to mention the artifacted low quality grabs of PS2 demos for "comparison")... nope, no double standards here at all.

Lazy seems to have you cold on the mipmapping issue too. Quit while you're ahead.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Christ dark, you're sounding little desperate. Posting shots of what Shenmue "really looked like" right after those upsampled dev shots of GT4 replays and SH4 cinemas (not to mention the artifacted low quality grabs of PS2 demos for "comparison")... nope, no double standards here at all.

Lazy seems to have you cold on the mipmapping issue too. Quit while you're ahead.

The PS2 demo graphics look even worse if you get the pics that Sony released for them, just look at GT2000

 

[jarrod]

The PS2 demo graphics look even worse if you get the pics that Sony released for them, just look at GT2000

That most certainly does not look worse than this...

...just seems to me that Dark is the master at selective screens. This is probably the worst GT2000 screen on the net. :lol

 

[Doom_Bringer]

That most certainly does not look worse than this...

...just seems to me that Dark is the master at selective screens. This is probably the worst GT2000 screen on the net. :lol

All the screens are from the same tech video. It looks the same.

 

[Gattsu25]

...just seems to me that Dark is the master at selective screens. This is probably the worst GT2000 screen on the net. :lol

No...that's actually one of the 2 or 3 screens that doesn't make GT2000 look like just a PSX game

 

[jarrod]

All the screens are from the same tech video. It looks the same.

It doesn't look the same, the screen grab is far more aliased. Hell, look at the garbled text. That's my issue here, Dark without fail manages to skew screens in favor of whatever argument he has. Not that everyone's fairly even handed (most aren't, especially around here) but his display is this thread is worth calling out (here's some upsampled GT & SH dev captures outside gameplay but this is what Shenmue "really looks like"). I'm shocked we haven't seen the screens of shitty WinCE ports of like Speed Devils or Test Drive pop up yet. :lol

 

[SolidSnakex]

All the screens are from the same tech video. It looks the same.

Yep, atleast with that pic its much more difficult to tell that its running on a modified GT2 engine. That official pic is so damn bad because of exactly that, you look at it and notice right away that its a modified GT2 engine because of how much of a mess the lighting is.

 

[FortNinety]

You really don't need to use Win CE to do homebrew DC coding, in fact you're probably better off without it. The Shinobi and Ninja libs (if I remember their names correctly) are floating around the net, and all you need is a DC with broadband adaptor after that.

And we all know that the broadband adapter was so easy to find...

 

[Lazy8s]

SolidSnakex:

The character faces in Shenmue are nowhere near the detail of those Passport demo faces.

Character models in the game are similar to the demos in some scenes.

Demo Shenhua:

Game Shenhua at the end of the prologue:

The ears are less detailed in that game model.

Here's a video of Ryo's demo model being used in the game down at the harbor from an old cutscene:
http://gameads.gamepressure.com/tv_game_commercial.asp?ID=845

The Passport demo models were actually full-body character models; the camera was just restricted. They've been hacked from the Passport disc and replaced into the game, and the game actually runs with them. The lower LOD models are more practical for a full game where an unpredictable number of characters can enter the scene at any time.

 

[Meantime]

Please try find out exactly what was promised. I'll paraphrase as bestI can:

"This demo has 30 spectators, but we could have included a hundred/s if we had enough time."

I was going on what was demonstrated, not what was promised. Anyway, I'm no PS2 apologist, just the whole "look at teh movies, Sony lied to us!!!" thing is getting really, really tired.

 

[Meantime]

And we all know that the broadband adapter was so easy to find...

Significantly easier to come across than a DC devkit I would imagine.

 

[dark10x]

Christ dark, you're looking a little desperate here. Posting shots of what Shenmue "really looked like" right after those upsampled dev shots of GT4 replays and SH4 cinemas (not to mention the artifacted low quality grabs of PS2 demos for "comparison")... nope, no double standards here at all.

Lazy seems to have you cold on the mipmapping issue too. Quit while you're ahead.

Honestly, it wasn't about image quality (I'd user better pics if I could find them). I was posting pictures of what the in game Shenmue models look like. Even that second pic that Lazy posted is only from the attract demo, which most certainly does not represent the in game models. I'm not saying DC can't do those models in realtime, just that they aren't used within the actual game.

Looking at image quality, though, Shenmue is an example where higher quality output is bad. The game looks terrible running through the VGA adaptor (that's how I was originally forced to play it).

I posted that SH3 pic for a reason, as I wanted the poster to question its high-resolution simply because I happen to have an actual grab from that same part in the game and would post that in reply. Oops, blew my secret...but it doesn't matter. This pic is poorly captured (interlacing artifacts), but was capped from the game running. I could do a better on with my laptop if you demand it...

The GT4 replay pic, I agree, was a bit off...but I couldn't find any replay pics that weren't of shit quality AND it was 2am (so I didn't feel like digging deeply). I sorta added those pics to the post after originally posting and the GT stuff was added last (and I was tired). I DID have some really nice gameplay grabs, though, taken by maskrider. I would have posted those in response to the "AA" argument. That isn't the worst GT2000 shot either, as that is straight from the original techdemo video. The entire video looks like that. Go ahead and watch it...

You want the worst pic? How about this beauty from GT2000...

Lazy certainly didn't "own" me on the mipmapping argument either. I was bothered by that other poster and didn't care to respond. First of all, there is no really severe banding present in those other non-DC shots...but the real situation is that the mipmap banding on DC simply isn't easy to see in still shots. XBOX and GC most often stick to trilinear filtering and avoid the very obvious steps between textures. PS2 rarely even uses mipmapping and goes more for the "Model 3" look (which I don't believe used mipmapping in most cases, but I could be wrong). Of course, detailed games shimmered badly at times as a result...

Still, my complaint about mipmapping still holds completely true. It's hard to really show my complaints to others without actually having a DC handy, though. If I could capture some VGA shots I could probably make it pretty clear, however...

Honestly, though, jarrod...how could you possibly call ME out but not that other guy? I may have thrown up a few unfair pictures (though, like I said, I could back it up with another)...but he was straight up rambling nonsense and lies.

Let me know if you want me to capture any images, btw. I'll hook up my systems and snap anything you'd like...

 

[Lazy8s]

dark10x:

Even that second pic that Lazy posted is only from the attract demo, which most certainly does not represent the in game models.

It's a cut-scene from the game like the Silent Hill cinema. It wouldn't be optimized much for a cut-scene if it didn't use higher LODs.

PS2 rarely even uses mipmapping

Even when PS2 mip-mapping is being used, it won't show correctly by default on textures at too steep of an incline. Jak games apparently implemented extra mip selection calculations to account for texture orientation, but some mip-map issues present in the game seem to indicate that its precision is on batches of polygons and not per polygon.

Still, my complaint about mipmapping still holds completely true.

No, the assertion was that DC's mipmapping with bilinear filtering was worse technically than Xbox's and GC's, which is untrue. Games on any of the systems doing mip-mapping and bilinear will produce the same vasoline line when defining the same mip levels in the game's visual design.

 

[dark10x]

It's a cut-scene from the game like the Silent Hill cinema. It wouldn't be optimized much for a cut-scene if it didn't use higher LODs.

When I have the chance, I shall demonstrate the actual level of detail used on the characters during gameplay.

I'll throw forward my feelings on Shenmue's visuals. You can throw up that particular Shenhua shot all you want, but that does not represent the level of detail used in any of the other cutscenes. The only other scene that approaches that even comes close is the introduction to the original Shenmue. The cutscene LOD and in game LOD is both very low compared to most modern games with a focus on character models.

No, the assertion was that DC's mipmapping with bilinear filtering was worse technically than Xbox's and GC's, which is untrue. Games on any of the systems doing mip-mapping and bilinear will produce the same vasoline line when defining the same mip levels in the game's visual design.

Perhaps my wording betrayed my true thoughts on the situation. Binlinear filtering is not acceptable to me. Whether or not the XBOX and GC perform that operation in the same fashion means nothing when they typically avoid using it altogether. The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of games on the Dreamcast use bilinear filtering while XBOX and GC games tend to use trilinear filtering (which is MUCH more attractive to me, though not as nice as anisotropic, obviously). The banding lines that result from bilinear filtering are UGLY in all situations on all hardware...and it is used VERY commonly on Dreamcast. That is my complaint. I would prefer that mipmaps be avoided in that case. Some DC games did indeed refrain from using them (Shenmue, for instance).

 

[dark10x]

OK, I had to re-install dscaler...so my cap quality sucks (couldn't remember all of the settings). The colors are all screwed up and the sharpness isn't where it should be.

These aren't really intended to prove much of anything (outside of showing some nice realtime visuals), so much as I just felt like posting SH3 pics. The game rocks...

 

[dark10x]

How about some fresh Shenmue pics too? Why? It WAS brought up, ya know...

Let's start with Lazy's pic...

[Ryo]Damn, that soda was GOOD! [/Ryo]

[イネさん]It was THIS big...[/イネさん]

Nice chopper dude.

 

[dark10x]

[Douglas in anime mode]Now you see the difference between us.

[Ryo's dad]You...

[Douglas]Yeah, that's right, I have way more detail goin' on.

[Ryo]Ouch, there's a loose triangle in my eye and my shoulder is killing me...

OK, how about one ultra random shot that I found on my laptop? Always like this place in God of War...

Game even supports 480p + 16:9 at 60 fps. Nice.