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[Madserb2023]

I agree with the OP especially when it comes to the PS3. We are still seeing the ramifications of that, with so many games locked to that system for the time being. The PS6 will probably be able to brute force PS3 emulation. I do miss the mystique of proprietary hardware but most most of the time it disappointed more than it delivered. People only remember the good ports to the PS2 or games like Metal Gear Solid or Uncharted 2. Everybody conveniently forgets the stuff that was worse and there was more of it.

 

[cireza]

I am stating facts, that can be verified by anyone

Like the fact that F-Zero is not available on PS2. How come many of the GC/Xbox games that looked awesome could have been easily handled by PS2 according to you, and yet we never saw anything like them ? HOW SURPRISING.

It was definitely worth making a double-post for this.

"Do you have insight on the developers back then, the budget and time allocated to each version ? This is what happens with multiplats and ports."

So you do agree that we can't conclude anything based on multiplats and ports. Why even post comparison videos in this case ?

 

[polybius80]

Like the fact that F-Zero is not available on PS2. How come many of the GC/Xbox games that looked awesome could have been easily handled by PS2 according to you, and yet we never saw anything like them ? HOW SURPRISING.

lol F-zero is not a particularly complex game or with a graphic prowess

what its surprising is how you seems to be unaware of the amount of games shared on each system specially the ones that the press consider have better graphics

hitman blood money, matrix path of neo, burnout 3, area 51 and black are 5 examples of games that weren't released on GC but are in both Xbox and PS2 and all of them are considered to have awesome graphics by critics and people in game development, in the case of burnout 3 we even have an explanation of the developer about skipping the GC and that is it cant handle the vertex processing the game requires at the same speed which sounds correct as its an area the GC lacks compared to the other consoles as both PS2 and Xbox have hardware to handle vertex operations and its the third game, the others where multiplatform the first even looking better on gc over ps2 yet as each game was more complex the GC was the first that couldnt handle it

there are more games that are in both xbox and ps2 than xbox and gc considered graphically intensive, there are even games like ratatouille that look amazing in PS2 and Wii but lack in the GC which is a curious case

So you do agree that we can't conclude anything based on multiplats and ports. Why even post comparison videos in this case ?

because you said the ps2 cant handle complex graphics effects, the comparison proved that its not the case and at the same time proved GC have games with missing effects and worst textures compared to PS2, each game has its story and reasons behind the results you cant say you cant conclude things, they can be used to make conclusions granted enough knowledge of the system and techniques used but they dont imply its impossible to make better techniques to achieve more and better effects later which becomes self evident when later games improve graphics over past games, in that regard nobody can deny the ps2 was used better and better to keep competing

as I mentioned the story is already written the whole generation and its results are there for study I am not speculating I am stating facts, very old facts actually, and curiously PS2 improved its image quality as now with freemcboot the special functions of the console can be forced in games, so old games can be forced to progressive scan and even adapt the image scaling and filter better for HD LCD tv and even to FHD giving better image proving again the console was always more capable

 

[SpokkX]

PS2 was great and ran most games at 60fps and bested x86 in many tasks

PS3 on the other hand was a disaster and games barely held 30fps

So it was really all over the place

 

[cireza]

because you said the ps2 cant handle complex graphics effects

I never said that though... You clearly have an obsession over graphics effects because this is the only aspect in which the PS2 was well suited.

I said it was lacking in the most essential aspects of what make visuals clean and detailed. Delivering detailed textures, with a wide field of view, with high picture quality, and having everything move smoothly. All of this is taxing, and I enjoy the most games that do all of this. PS2 was not well suited for this.

You are most probably fighting the good fight against an imaginary enemy of yours.

 

[SkylineRKR]

PS2 is from early 2000. This ofcourse contributes to the fact it was weaker than Xbox and GC, which came out almost 2 years later. This was huge considering console generations typically only lasted 4 or 5 years back then. Rate of output was faster ofcourse, FF was near annual on PSX, and then I am only speaking about the numbered games. Its crazy.

But anyway, for a system released in March 2000, the PS2 is impressive. I was seriously impressed by Metal Gear Solid 2, 3 Subsistence, Ace Combat Zero, God of War 2, Silent Hill 3. Those games looked extremely good. The PS2 had its issues with IQ, but it does have component support and an array of games supporting 480p (esp. outside of Europe).

The PS3 is the biggest screwup Sony has done. The main issue was that Sony lost touch with what made them succesful in the first place. The PS3 wasn't aimed at the gamer, its purpose was to integrate Cell and Blu Ray. The initial idea was that Cell would assist in GPU tasks as well, and it would power many other devices. I am a layman, but I think Cell was not efficient enough for a gaming system? There was a lot of complaints about its SPEs. IBM itself also dropped after a few years. I think it was going nowhere.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Almost nobody had an Xbox. It was all PS2 in those days.

But Microsoft stuffing a bespoke Nvidia chip and a HDD into a box was WILD and it's sad few experienced it.

 

[OCASM]

similarly what game on GC does what hitman blood money? for example the murder of crows scene with massive amount of character that actually react with physics and what you do, normal mapping dot3, light sources everywhere, projected shadows, volumetric light, variety of different characters, light bloom, dynamic light all at once, etc...


where are the other games on GC that do all that at the same time as that launch game?

Hitman BM looks like ass. 99% of its lighting is baked, for starters. The physics are nice but so are they in Luigi's mansion.

Imagine having to use shit ports like True Crime to pretend PS2 produce better visuals than GC

As for the Hoth level I mentioned before, here it is again, now also with atmospheric scattering and being rendered twice:



Let's see PS2 match that

 

[Imtjnotu]

Hitman BM looks like ass. 99% of its lighting is baked, for starters. The physics are nice but so are they in Luigi's mansion.

Imagine having to use shit ports like True Crime to pretend PS2 produce better visuals than GC

As for the Hoth level I mentioned before, here it is again, now also with atmospheric scattering and being rendered twice:



Let's see PS2 match that

just look at RE4 on GC vs PS2. ps2 was never close

 

[TGO]

The Xbox versions of Konami games wasn't poorly done ports, they was hardware limitations.
The PS2 was made with tech that predated the advancements in graphics that both the Xbox & GCN shipped with.
But in comparison it had a insane higher pixel fillrate.
It wasn't weaker by design, it was weaker because it was an older design going up against tech and advancements not available to it when production started in 1996
The production of the PS2 was much longer than the Xbox & GCN and at the time technology was moving fast
in a way Sony should have waited 2-3 years and then did their thing with the tech available to GCN & Xbox.

just look at RE4 on GC vs PS2. ps2 was never close

The GCN was way better, PS2 didn't have Bump Mapping technology and that made a BIG difference (and this what made GCN & Xbox games look so much better while using last power in comparison)
But I wouldn't say it wasn't even close, it did well considering RE4 literally used all the GameCubes feature sets.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

today's console hardware is the the safe, efficient, reasonable thing to do.
reasonably powerful, developer-friendly hardware sold for cheap due to economies of scale and future royalties.
instead of hardware that excels at a couple things and has large deficiencies elsewhere, we have hardware that's average to above-average across the board.
a well-balanced machine.

it's like selecting mario in mario kart.

thing is, after you play the game for a while, AINT NOBODY SELECTING GODDAMN MARIO

 

[polybius80]

I never said that though... You clearly have an obsession over graphics effects because this is the only aspect in which the PS2 was well suited.

sure whatever you said

 

[OCASM]

The Xbox versions of Konami games wasn't poorly done ports, they was hardware limitations.
The PS2 was made with tech that predated the advancements in graphics that both the Xbox & GCN shipped with.
But in comparison it had a insane higher pixel fillrate.
It wasn't weaker by design, it was weaker because it was an older design going up against tech and advancements not available to it when production started in 1996
The production of the PS2 was much longer than the Xbox & GCN and at the time technology was moving fast
in a way Sony should have waited 2-3 years and then did their thing with the tech available to GCN & Xbox.

The GCN was way better, PS2 didn't have Bump Mapping technology and that made a BIG difference (and this what made GCN & Xbox games look so much better while using last power in comparison)
But I wouldn't say it wasn't even close, it did well considering RE4 literally used all the GameCubes feature sets.

The PS2 fillrate advantage is true but the Xbox version of MGS2 having worse textures shows it was indeed a shoddy port.

 

[TGO]

The PS2 fillrate advantage is true but the Xbox version of MGS2 having worse textures shows it was indeed a shoddy port.

I wasn't actually aware of the textures, interesting..

 

[Fafalada]

Let's see PS2 match that

Of all the levels in that game - Hoth is pretty much the best fit for PS2 architecture - landscape rendering is one of the poster-child examples for what VUs were designed to excel at, all the dynamic lighting is vertex based, object-space shadow maps worked really well on PS2 GPU (although it'd probably improve quality compared to base-game to switch over to shadow volumes), and texture load per-frame is minimal as there's precious little on screen outside of snow at any given point.
Oh and it's 16bit frame-buffer on GC, so 'maybe' color depth could even be improved - but that's a toss-up, might be worth the tradeoff for other non-performance reasons.

Now - would it still run 30-60fps in split screen, that's a more interesting question, but given the relative simplicity of the game simulation in RS, and the fact we're not rendering any kind of complex level topology (texture or geometry wise), probably?

And sure - it's mostly rigid geometry (no skinned animation, even on soldiers by the looks of it), which helps out GC - but that also helps out every console, as skinning wasn't free even on the XBox.

just look at RE4 on GC vs PS2. ps2 was never close

PS2 RE4 wasn't exactly all that great looking of a PS2 game - ie. it was a cheap port, kind of like MGS2 on XBox.
But there were things RE4 was doing with GC hardware that couldn't directly translate regardless. So even if PS2 got a good version without silly cutbacks like tree/background geometry, it'd have still looked different.

 

[Fafalada]

I wasn't actually aware of the textures, interesting..

Textures in original version of MGS2 were hand-drawn palette(CLUT) pixel art. The reason they got ruined on Xbox was that the hw had no support for CLUT textures - and recompressing them into DXTC gave the results we got. Using them uncompressed would have hurt performance, and it already ran worse than PS2 version as it was. So short of remaking all the textures from scratch - they really didn't have many options there.
Ironically - had the game been ported to GC - they could have kept the texture quality intact - as GC GPU did have hw for it.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[TGO]

Textures in original version of MGS2 were hand-drawn palette(CLUT) pixel art. The reason they got ruined on Xbox was that the hw had no support for CLUT textures - and recompressing them into DXTC gave the results we got. Using them uncompressed would have hurt performance, and it already ran worse than PS2 version as it was. So short of remaking all the textures from scratch - they really didn't have many options there.
Ironically - had the game been ported to GC - they could have kept the texture quality intact - as GC GPU did have hw for it.

So it was a hardware limitation.

 

[SHA]

People wanna feel the drug effect when playing new stuff, they don't care about the way tbh.

 

[justiceiro]

Meanwhile, apple dropped x86 on their mac's and are able to achieve high end performance with 1/3 of the power consumption.

Look at how underwhelming this gen has been and tell me you want every new gen to follow that. Consoles used to open new doors to different ideas and experiences, now it's all more of the same as much as possible to not fright this coward industry.

 

[OCASM]

Of all the levels in that game - Hoth is pretty much the best fit for PS2 architecture - landscape rendering is one of the poster-child examples for what VUs were designed to excel at, all the dynamic lighting is vertex based, object-space shadow maps worked really well on PS2 GPU (although it'd probably improve quality compared to base-game to switch over to shadow volumes), and texture load per-frame is minimal as there's precious little on screen outside of snow at any given point.
Oh and it's 16bit frame-buffer on GC, so 'maybe' color depth could even be improved - but that's a toss-up, might be worth the tradeoff for other non-performance reasons.

Now - would it still run 30-60fps in split screen, that's a more interesting question, but given the relative simplicity of the game simulation in RS, and the fact we're not rendering any kind of complex level topology (texture or geometry wise), probably?

And sure - it's mostly rigid geometry (no skinned animation, even on soldiers by the looks of it), which helps out GC - but that also helps out every console, as skinning wasn't free even on the XBox.

And yet, there's nothing like it on PS2.

Textures in original version of MGS2 were hand-drawn palette(CLUT) pixel art. The reason they got ruined on Xbox was that the hw had no support for CLUT textures - and recompressing them into DXTC gave the results we got. Using them uncompressed would have hurt performance, and it already ran worse than PS2 version as it was. So short of remaking all the textures from scratch - they really didn't have many options there.
Ironically - had the game been ported to GC - they could have kept the texture quality intact - as GC GPU did have hw for it.

The quality of the compression was pretty bad. Plenty of Xbox games had cleaner textures than that.

 

[lachesis]

I think consoles are not different enough. Used to provide unique quirks for different HW both in strength, weakness and actual HW differences in physical/media factor and all.
Right now, asides Switch, everything seems to be just a miniature PC.

 

[Fafalada]

And yet, there's nothing like it on PS2.

There's nothing like it on XBox either. Or PS3 (well ok - technically Lair was kind of like it but... in a really bad way... even visually). Or XBox 360... Do I need to go on?

The quality of the compression was pretty bad.

Again - that's the result of source art being exactly the type of data that DXTC is at its worst at. Hard edges, hard-contrast transitions, discrete colors with limited or no gradients.

Plenty of Xbox games had cleaner textures than that.

Yes - because plenty of XBox games sourced their textures from 24bit, often photography sources.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

based on the Chat GPT analysis... it seems your opinion is ass, actually.

 

[OCASM]

There's nothing like it on XBox either. Or PS3 (well ok - technically Lair was kind of like it but... in a really bad way... even visually). Or XBox 360... Do I need to go on?

It's not about the game type but about being technological showcase. There's just nothing at that level on PS2.

Again - that's the result of source art being exactly the type of data that DXTC is at its worst at. Hard edges, hard-contrast transitions, discrete colors with limited or no gradients.

Yes - because plenty of XBox games sourced their textures from 24bit, often photography sources.

Games with clean textures like Jet Set Radio Future didn't suffer that bad quality. It's just a shoddy port.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

These days OP? Sure, usually just more crap for devs to handle and equating to shit parity or delayed cross platform releases. Often those latest hardware features are just too complex for their own good e.g. Quick Resume great for single player games and crap for online multiplayer ones. Some great things like DLSS and FSR are awesome but then you end up with more segmentation.

Back in the day? Nintendo says hi.

So does the arcades.