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[Alexios]

Too many what ifs (like what if modern PS2 tech demos ported to DC in low fps), too few games played. Polygons don't count (ha) when DC wins, results do. Results where DC fighting, racing, flight, sandbox, action games fare fine don't & anything different to PS2's year+ later tech is weak! Lol..!

Random videos, real hardware, not emulation except possibly Aero Dancing i, I can't find good high framerate footage of it anywhere. Other than some old school special effects it's beautiful as the series showed tangible improvements with each new iteration despite how fast they were churning these out. Compared to contemporary PC flight sims like IL-2 Sturmovik from many months later, the planes have great detail, the terrain textures are of good resolution and the pop-in for the 3D structures is quite good (granted some Aero games, i included, also released on PC). That Le Mans video isn't the best in image quality but it shows a full 24 car race with changing tod and weather. I can't find great MSR footage that shows off the insane amounts of fully modeled track detail either. I guess people mostly go back to the arcadey Dreamcast games instead of those that demanded quite some time investment when recording and uploading. Also, anyone who says Dreamcast couldn't do sandbox based on Headhunter forgets the Crazy Taxi games with their great vistas and tons of traffic that could easily be halved and still look dense if it was necessary to accomodate different types of gameplay or increase individual polycount. The pedestrians and what not don't look too bad either and yes, there's pop in, but considering all it throws up every single second (again, 60fps vs GTAIII's ~15-30fps and less traffic for all its fancy lighting) it's great.


So ya, of course it was powerful and these among others prove it. The polycount of the characters in DOA2 and even the dodgy VF3tb surpassed that of TTT and VF4 on PS2 (which btw halves the arcade's so ya, they were still very powerful too even if cheaper than before, Naomi 2 was a beast) and destroy that of SoulCalibur which was a crossgen kind of remaster. As great as it looked due to the great modelers at Namco, it's modest technically for what DC could do, so it could have had more such advanced game ports if it had lived longer. Many lesser DC games push more polys than you'd think but don't look like it due to their very inefficient use from either a lack of talent, budget or time, or simply the era's still evolving know how that meant not all studios were equal in their artistry, hence many early PS2 games not looking better for the most part either.

A Voodoo 3 may beat, but not smoke, the DC despite coming out the following year as the top GPU. When did consoles trash PC 3D to single Dreamcast out for not doing so? All the PC greats had to be cut down to fit, from Quake 3 DC and UT on that and PS2 to the later Championship titles based on Unreal 2 tech. It was just an era PC didn't get much love from Japanese developers which still dominated in technology and artistry and the ports were shoddy if at all, contemporary-ish PCs were superior to all the consoles of the era. Consoles didn't get true love from PC devs. Here's a top PC with a Pentium III completing it. Grand Prix 3 beats the best of DC in some ways (I would say it took 2002's Grand Prix 4, whenever that could perform well with high settings, to beat DC games in every way - the crowd seats etc. are pretty bad in 3 but improved in 4 and similar to how console games had it) with crazy effects like puddle reflections, too bad it's a slideshow even with reduced settings when the best on DC are 60fps and still look slick, with the same res. Quake III commonly drops to ~20fps with reduced settings.
https://youtu.be/2FewagYW6pk:1126

Who would play Ferrari 355 Challenge in 480p 60fps instead of that, huh?! And ya, as said earlier the Voodoo 3 launched cheap, like up to $50 less than a Dreamcast if you were lucky, or roughly the same as! Huh, you need a CPU too?! Here's Intel's Pentium III launch announcement!
"The Pentium III core with 9.5 million transistors is based on Intel's advanced P6 microarchitecture and is manufactured on 0.25 micron process technology. The 450 and 500 MHz speeds, with 512 KB L2 cache, are available now. Pricing in 1,000 unit quantities is $696 and $496 respectively."
The 450MHz variant is in the last video, it only cost $496, in bulk! A nice cheap ~$715 CPU adjusted for inflation! Stupid DC, why couldn't you smoke a ~$1000 PC (before adjustment, not counting monitor etc.) for your ridiculously expensive $199?! Here are two GPUs you should compare PS2 to if you're gonna compare a Voodoo 3 to Dreamcast (not the GeForce 4, that's an even later but lower end release). I'd say DC compares more favorably to Voodoo 3 than PS2 does to these that also released the following year from its launch.
https://youtu.be/VCCiCn3y3SI
https://youtu.be/lGLSZAhtZ04
The same goes for the previous line of cards actually with almost the same results: https://youtu.be/Mv5T34ToU24

DC was powerful and has plenty still beautiful, smooth and slick games to enjoy playing in 2021 and be impressed they came out all those years back. Unless you have some huge stick up yours and some kind of long lasting beef with a company that's not been a first party since 2001. Yikes, lol.​

 

[polybius80]

Right, I just found it hilarious its supposedly the best example of hard coding to PS2 strengths vs Xbox, but it ends up far less impressive on Ps2 in resolution and fps.

is it?

xbox its a more powerful console overall but its also very very expensive(not for the user at least ), the problem with those comparison when you try to discuss tech is that it usually comes to a very simplistic game comparison instead of the tech used on them compared to other ports and later games and how that relates to the system comparison, it may sound pointless as one game performs better than another consoles counterpart and there are no patches but that is only if you mix comparing a particular game port vs comparing console capabilities as I said Xbox is more powerful overall but its not on every metric compared to PS2 and no game exploit every trick under hood of a system, games usually come better on Xbox but the discussion becomes more interesting(and yes there is a lot to discuss) when more advanced games come up later on the same system, games like SOE and SC: CT are very interesting and very technical impressive games but when you see later games like hitman: blood money, area 51 or matrix path of neo, sure xbox run them better too but Ps2 versions compare more favorably and while different games there are very similar mechanics (particularly with hitman), when you see PS2 running on Hitman: BM most of the effects that where absent in SC: CT then there is the question if that was really a much as the PS2 could do in SC: CT, ultimatelly is not really the fault of devs as there are time constraints and just as much as you know about how to use the hardware(and PS2 was very "special") its interesting when you see comparisons involving the PS2 as you can see it losing in a simpler old game but then coming on top on a more demanding game against other systems perhaps qith the only exception the xbox wich compare very favorably even against a new(at the time) system wii game which shows how powerfull you can make a system if you are prepared to loose money in its hardware

 

[Alexios]

I wish some things were different. Agartha could have been amazing, shame they cancelled it when Dreamcast went belly up instead of move it to another system. Some parts/assets/models are more unfinished/early than others that look better but the concept's rad.


They had some novel control ideas as well going by the playable dev prototype (showing it was more than just videos). Outdoors had a third person camera, indoors were more like Code Veronica but you had this novel pointing all around the character control that looks straight out of Wii.


They had the pedigree of the Alone in the Dark originators and the passion as well, sad it wasn't meant... It does look similar to D2 in some ways. And also to Wii's Cursed Mountain. But I guess that's just because of all the snow and horror connotations rather than anything more than that.


I keep wanting to play through D2, it's so unique (and despite being such an early title has its moments of looking pretty great) but it's just too weird for me, lol. Very slow start (and I guess exposition cut scenes in general with these The Thing like character interactions) too. R.I.P., Kenji Eno.

And then there was GunValkyrie. The Xbox game seems like it's just a quick and dirty Dreamcast port with some more effects (like water shaders) and boosted polygon counts here and there. The previously seen Dreamcast footage suggests it was going to be very impressive for it though!
​

 

[Knightime_X]

To be fair the dreamcast DID rotfcurbstomp last gen consoles like n64, ps1 and saturn in power.

I'm happy it got a head start in gen 7 because I loved many of the games it had... before the dreamcast itself got rotflmaocurbstomped

 

[polybius80]

Too many what ifs (like what if modern PS2 tech demos ported to DC in low fps), too few games played. Polygons don't count (ha) when DC wins, results do. Results where DC fighting, racing, flight, sandbox, action games fare fine don't & anything different to PS2's year+ later tech is weak! Lol..!
​

later PS2 game where more complex games with higher requirements, PS2 was a very difficult to work system specially at the beginning of the generation as result most ports dont compare favorably but that doesnt mean every port do that, if the hardware was weaker than DC then this shouldn't happen

 

[Romulus]

is it?

xbox its a more powerful console overall but its also very very expensive(not for the user at least ), the problem with those comparison when you try to discuss tech is that it usually comes to a very simplistic game comparison instead of the tech used on them compared to other ports and later games and how that relates to the system comparison, it may sound pointless as one game performs better than another consoles counterpart and there are no patches but that is only if you mix comparing a particular game port vs comparing console capabilities as I said Xbox is more powerful overall but its not on every metric compared to PS2 and no game exploit every trick under hood of a system, games usually come better on Xbox but the discussion becomes more interesting(and yes there is a lot to discuss) when more advanced games come up later on the same system, games like SOE and SC: CT are very interesting and very technical impressive games but when you see later games like hitman: blood money, area 51 or matrix path of neo, sure xbox run them better too but Ps2 versions compare more favorably and while different games there are very similar mechanics (particularly with hitman), when you see PS2 running on Hitman: BM most of the effects that where absent in SC: CT then there is the question if that was really a much as the PS2 could do in SC: CT, ultimatelly is not really the fault of devs as there are time constraints and just as much as you know about how to use the hardware(and PS2 was very "special") its interesting when you see comparisons involving the PS2 as you can see it losing in a simpler old game but then coming on top on a more demanding game against other systems perhaps qith the only exception the xbox wich compare very favorably even against a new(at the time) system wii game which shows how powerfull you can make a system if you are prepared to loose money in its hardware

Oh yeah, I never said it was the best example. I honestly think 95% of Xbox ports are extremely underutilizing the hardware. Not only was it never the lead platform, but developers also mentioned they just ported PS2/GC code and upped the resolution, done. They almost never pushed the hardware. I wouldn't be surprised if it was lead platform you would see 400+ 720p options and 2x as many 60fps games.

 

[Alexios]

if the hardware was weaker than DC then this shouldn't happen

When did I call PS2 weaker than DC? Quit the strawman arguments. All I've done is show DC games that stack up fine aesthetically and technically compared to many PS2 greats that also aren't trash, or do you think only Transformers, Grand Prix Challenge and similar are worth it on PS2, only games PR claims they do substantially more than DC in its short life? PS2's top 10 isn't the be all end all so that anything less is trash that can't be considered powerful even if it launched way earlier and anything more like the GC/Xbox unnecessary excess. As for showing how this dev made a so so game worse on DC, so what? Does MDK2 on Dreamcast having extra effects, dynamic shadows, speculars, that were removed on the PS2 version (and on the old PC version and on the Wii, finally fixed/bettered in the ~2010 HD releases) mean that Dreamcast could actually beat it in all those areas? Of course not, that's not what i said. It all shows DC could and did have great shit but people act like Dreamcast games compared to PS2 are like N64 games in 480p/better fps with no lighting/shadowing or something, when even early stinkers like Blue Stinger are well beyond that.


Sidenote, the game is also taxing somehow on both systems, but has far worse frame drops on the PS2.​

 

[polybius80]

Oh yeah, I never said it was the best example. I honestly think 95% of Xbox ports are extremely underutilizing the hardware. Not only was it never the lead platform, but developers also mentioned they just ported PS2/GC code and upped the resolution, done. They almost never pushed the hardware. I wouldn't be surprised if it was lead platform you would see 400+ 720p options and 2x as many 60fps games.

I agree it was underutilized in plenty of games, it has the particular advantage of higher resolution compared to PS2/GC as it didnt had a defined segment for resolution where in PS2 you can redefine more space remove from other buffers and on GC you had a small space sharing with z-buffer

 

[N00b Saib0t]

"Pirates are gonna have a hard time copying these disc's"

Smh.

 

[Unknown?]

Is that guy really trying to say the PS2 is more powerful than the XBOX?

I think it is in gigaflops or one single metric. Similar to how Genesis was stronger in one area but all other areas SNES was ahead.

 

[cireza]

"Pirates are gonna have a hard time copying these disc's"

Smh.

How many lens were destroyed by shit images that were burnt on discs...

 

[Alexios]

This is like, every game (not really) rather than just the best showcases only but oh well, Dreamcast!


There aren't real hw loving tribute vids for the PS2, trolls get shit x games in x minutes emulator vids ​

 

[SkylineRKR]

The piracy thing was ironic. GD Roms made it impossible on the surface but then the DC turned out to be the easiest system to pirate as no one needed to install a mod chip or use stuff like modifying the lid to hot swap. First boot discs and then self booting isos surfaced that worked on any stock console afaik.

But piracy went rampant somewhere in 2000, when Sega was already prepping to throw in the towel anyway. I think piracy didn't make much of a difference in the end.

 

[01011001]

Is that guy really trying to say the PS2 is more powerful than the XBOX?

the PS2 had an unbelievably high theoretical polygons per second throughput for the time afaik

the issue being, the rest of the gpu wasn't nearly powerful enough to actually shade these.
so you could have a game with a shitload of polygons but they would all have to be drawn with flat colors and very basic textures for it to matter

 

[muteZX]

don't let your weak minds be dominated by malicious SEGA propaganda.

 

[muteZX]

the PS2 had an unbelievably high theoretical polygons per second throughput for the time afaik

the issue being, the rest of the gpu wasn't nearly powerful enough to actually shade these.
so you could have a game with a shitload of polygons but they would all have to be drawn with flat colors and very basic textures for it to matter

um .. GS was just a simple, dumb rasterizer /not a GPU like Xbox GPU with pixel-vertex shaders, or NGC GPU with TEV/ .. so called "shading" was done mainly on VUs /VU0 + VU1/ and they were quite underutilized. Too much of complex programming.

 

[Somoza]

Yes. I remember seeing shenmue screenshots while we were on the ps1 era and i was blown away by the faces. Months later i saw sonic adventure on a play kiosk and i got one inmediately.

 

[JMarcell]

It was the world's most powerful console for a short period of time (from it's launch in December 1998 in Japan to PS2's launch - Sometime around 2000 ). It was a really powerful console and easy to develop for - something the Playstation2 was not, at least in the beggining of its life cycle. This resulted in most of earlier games that was released for both consoles looked and ran better on the Dreamcast.

 

[muteZX]

Yes. I remember seeing shenmue screenshots while we were on the ps1 era and i was blown away by the faces. Months later i saw sonic adventure on a play kiosk and i got one inmediately.

Shenmue - Saturn Version .. DF Retro: Shenmue - A Game Ahead Of Its Time​

 

[Romulus]

I think this thread has gotten me more interested in ports that the DC hardware wasn't really built for and yet it still performed admirably. I'm betting a year 2000 DC would be a pretty easy win over PS2. More powerful + easier to develop for. Not sure that's really saying much though because PS2 was at a disadvantage almost always because of the extra work involved.

 

[DenchDeckard]

It was a classic. I still have mine. What a machine.

 

[Alexios]

Love the fantroll posting unrelated stuff that don't even look very good just to fill the thread with shit while resorting to emulators, knowing real footage will look like ass, when all I've posted is actual Dreamcast captures and it all looks crisp/clean as fuck.


None of the flight games below look better than Aero Dancing i (or PA here), it's run of the mill like Iron Aces & Airforce Delta at best, I'm not gonna circle jerk showing the same games or enhance crap iq with emulation to pretend all PS2 games were HD+.​

 

[muteZX]

​

watch yer 6 sega boi.

 

[Pull n Pray]

I loved the Dreamcast. It was ahead of its time with online play. And even though PS2 was a more powerful console, a lot of games looked better on the Dreamcast due to it having better anti-aliasing.

 

[Esppiral]

I loved the Dreamcast. It was ahead of its time with online play. And even though PS2 was a more powerful console, a lot of games looked better on the Dreamcast due to it having better anti-aliasing.

Not better AA actually the Dreamcast games run at high resolution than most PS2 games.

 

[Mahnmut]

DC came too early. It was nice for the year it came out, but you knew that Sony was going to come out with something more powerful, and they had the momentum on their side.

Sega fans talked the hell out of PSVR, and how it was going to close the gap to the PS2, but that never really happened. The PS2 showed its strength from the get go, and buried the DC.

Sega missed a trick to make the DC as strong as their arcade hardware. That would have been a game-changer for them. However, the DC's inability to faithfully port their arcade hits did not help when you compared to the PS2, which was getting perfect ports of Ridge Racer and Tekken.

They were not perfect port, especially Ridge Racer. Don’t want to start a console war, I’m just really into arcade ports.

EDIT : My bad, I thought we were talking PS1 here.

 

[muteZX]

They were not perfect port, especially Ridge Racer. Don’t want to start a console war, I’m just really into arcade ports.

EDIT : My bad, I thought we were talking PS1 here.

"The Ridge Racer Hi-Spec demo (Turbo Mode outside of Japan) in addition to running in 640x480 (?) at 60fps, also had improved texture mapping, shading and lighting over the '94/'95 PS1 release. With twice the framerate plus improved graphics it bridged much of the gap between the first PS1 Ridge Racer and the original System 22 powered arcade version from 1993."

 

[UnNamed]

DC was the first system to show a console can rely on western games, in an era when Japan was still the center of the industry. Ahead of it's time even in this case.

 

[SkylineRKR]

"The Ridge Racer Hi-Spec demo (Turbo Mode outside of Japan) in addition to running in 640x480 (?) at 60fps, also had improved texture mapping, shading and lighting over the '94/'95 PS1 release. With twice the framerate plus improved graphics it bridged much of the gap between the first PS1 Ridge Racer and the original System 22 powered arcade version from 1993."

Was an impressive piece though it featured only one AI car IIRC.

 

[Alexios]

"The Ridge Racer Hi-Spec demo (Turbo Mode outside of Japan) in addition to running in 640x480 (?) at 60fps, also had improved texture mapping, shading and lighting over the '94/'95 PS1 release. With twice the framerate plus improved graphics it bridged much of the gap between the first PS1 Ridge Racer and the original System 22 powered arcade version from 1993."

It only pits 1 car against you (13 on the arcade and 12 on PS1's first port) and still has cut down graphics, the same pop in, plus, System 22 wasn't a powerhouse to rival Sega's superb Model 2 or anything


But the guy already corrected himself so this is once again off topic, just like your desperate to hide PS2's flaws emulator enhanced video spamming that still doesn't manage to showcase anything much

As for the ports you want to praise, as if they did something so outrageous, Namco's arcade boards were based on PS2 so of course the PS2 ports were great, just as Sega's Naomi ports to DC were great

 

[JackNightblade]

man,

Powerstone
Virtua Tennis
NFL 2k with online capabilities
Shenmue
Bomberman Online
Ecco the Dolphin
Soul Caliber

great times with those games then Halo came along and swept me away

 

[polybius80]

uhm? what? I had a PC with a GeForce 2 which had no issues running stuff like Max Payne 2 at high resolution at 60fps.

now look how the PS2 ran that game.

MGS2 also ran better than on PS2, higher res etc.
same with GTA3, same with Vice City.

I played many games on that PC that were also on PS2 and it ran literally everything better than a PS2

is MP2 the best looking third person game on PS2 or was made using the most of the hardware?

I also had a PC with gforce 2 mx 400 where unreal tournament 99, quake3 or red faction where better than their PS2 counterparts(I even used the TV output of the card back in the day) also other games like giant citizen kabuto or the first max payn that on games I had, but I have seen youtube videos and others like tomb raider legends or splinter cell have serious framerate issues, I dont know if matrix path of neo, area 51 and hitman blood money even run








in fact a quick search in youtube you can see that games like flatout or need for speed underground 2 run with less graphic effects than their ps2 versions and even with uncapped framerate on PC it doesnt take much to lower the framerate below the PS2 version in need for speed and in the case of splinter cell even if the game was partitioned in their levels later splinter cell games on PS2 improved greatly over the first one yet latter games werent better on the same card

 

[Alexios]

In response to your own post which didn't specify a model but the whole 2 series, in response to my own posts that, like you trolls compared Dreamcast to the following year's top of the line GPU, the Voodoo 3 to proclaim it's awful, I showed the PS2 also couldn't beat the top of the line GPU of its own time, he said he had a GeForce 2, not a bottom tier MX. Of course the following year's top for PS2's case is a GeForce 3, not 2, I simply added the 2 video, that you now overtake with 2 MX 400 to show those cards also could perform (and AMD equivalents). Be more disingenuous, please.

Edit: thanks for obliging, lol. When discussing a top of the line GPU, or a whole series without specifying a specific sub series, obviously we mean the bottom tier. Yet you didn't call me out when I showed the right top of the line GPU from the following to PS2 year and just claimed this "series" bs.


PS: a GeForce 3 was in ways worse than a 2 Ultra as it was clocked lower, but the top of the line model was the Ti500, which was at least equal in all aspects the 3 and Ti200 faltered. Still, they all shit on PS2 from a great height in real gaming. Except the trash tier MX you brought up for 0 reason.

 

[polybius80]

In response to your own post which didn't specify a model but the whole 2 series in response to my own posts that, like you lot compared Dreamcast to the following year's top of the line GPU, the Voodoo 3, to claim it's awful, I showed the PS2 also naturally couldn't beat the top of the line GPU of its own time, he said he had a GeForce 2, not the near bottom tier MX. Of course the actual following year model for PS2's case is a GeForce 3, not 2, I simply added the 2 videos that you now overtake with 2 MX 400 videos to show those cards also could perform. Be more disingenuous, please.

is the mx not a geforce 2?

GeForce 2 series - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[MastaKiiLA]

Dude, your mixing up a few timelines and generations here.

Actually the Dreamcast was the perfect Arcade console, it was the first time in videogame history Sega/capcom/etc NAOMI arcade games could translate 1/1 to a home console, Dreamcast. It was basically the same hardware.

Sega lost because of money, they had the right games, they had the right hardware, but they were losing to much money producing the console.

Are you talking about perfect ports of the arcade board that was basically a DC with more RAM, or are you talking about Model2 and 3 ports, because only one of those was true. The arcade games that people wanted perfect ports on were not the ones running on the PSVR-based arcade boards. Sega still had better--looking games in the arcade, whereas Tekken games were consistently porting to the PS consoles in perfect form.

If you have a video comparison, I'd love to see it. I'm going strictly off memory, but this was an ongoing complaint with the DC, the fact that the best of the arcade offerings from Sega still had to be compromised upon home release.

 

[Alexios]

Sega missed a trick to make the DC as strong as their arcade hardware. That would have been a game-changer for them. However, the DC's inability to faithfully port their arcade hits did not help when you compared to the PS2, which was getting perfect ports of Ridge Racer and Tekken.

Are you talking about perfect ports of the arcade board that was basically a DC with more RAM, or are you talking about Model2 and 3 ports, because only one of those was true. The arcade games that people wanted perfect ports on were not the ones running on the PSVR-based arcade boards. Sega still had better--looking games in the arcade, whereas Tekken games were consistently porting to the PS consoles in perfect form.

If you have a video comparison, I'd love to see it. I'm going strictly off memory, but this was an ongoing complaint with the DC, the fact that the best of the arcade offerings from Sega still had to be compromised upon home release.

Why are you being so ignorant and disingenuous? The first Tekken port to PS2 was TTT, a case similar to SoulCalibur on DC. A weaker arcade board game overhauled to utilize the better console hardware. Namco, having more experience and time, did an even better job as SC is a beautiful but hardly demanding DC game. Moreover, the closest to Model 3 on DC is Virtua Striker 2 and Virtual On 2. Both were Naomi ports but their graphics didn't lack anything or even improved upon the Model 3 originals. There's no reason to believe Model 3 could do much Naomi and DC couldn't given those and games like Dead or Alive 2. Even perfect ports of VF3tb and FV would lack in comparison (so Bass Fishing, despite being a fine port, isn't discussed). It simply wasn't easy to convert assembly made Model 3 games to a different architecture, hence ports with less effort, budget or time, often outsourced, turned out worse than those made expertly to replace the arcade machines. PS2 didn't get any Model 3 ports either so this is like making conclusions by how Namco System 22 ports to PS1 were generally better than Model 2 ports to the Saturn, when Model 2 was far superior so naturally more cuts were in order regardless of Saturn's deficiencies. Again, Namco's arcades past that point were PS2 based so PS2 ports worked much like Sega's situation. The first such Tekken was ported long after DC's death in 2002 so there was no time or reason to compare to DC's ~2 lacking Model 3 ports (plus, T4 itself wasn't received so well) while ignoring its ~2 great Model 3 ports. So, why would these PS2 board ports count for PS2 but Naomi DC ports wouldn't? At least try to look consistent, fanboy.

Namco had been doing this with PS1 based boards too (though by SC and TTT they got beefier), hardly anyone other than Sega was doing crazy top of the line specs. PS2 also got good Naomi ports but the biggest Naomi 2 port it got, Virtua Fighter 4, was heavily cut down so it too failed against the best arcade, as any theoretical DC port would given Naomi 2 was beefed up considerably. Then Sega made Triforce and Chihiro based on GameCube and Xbox respectively but they were side/joint projects like Atomiswave until (almost) all turned to mid range computers. The era justifying eye popping arcades was over and would have been so earlier without them. Even on PC hardware, games like Virtua Fighter 5 were eye catching. With consoles similar to PCs nowadays arcade direction makes no difference.

 

[Alexios]

IGN did a new shitty Dreamcast top 10 with awful video quality and not even 60fps for reasons...
​

 

[ManaByte]

The Dreamcast had twice the VRAM compared to the PS2. And it had 5:1 texture compression by hardware, which the PS2 didn't have.

So, in terms of visual clarity and textures, it was definitely superior when compared to the PS2. There are some Dreamcast games that couldn't run on PS2. They would need some extensive tweaking..

Itagaki said the PS2 port of DOA physically hurt him to look at.

 

[Team Andromeda]

The piracy thing was ironic. GD Roms made it impossible on the surface but then the DC turned out to be the easiest system to pirate as no one needed to install a mod chip or use stuff like modifying the lid to hot swap. First boot discs and then self booting isos surfaced that worked on any stock console afaik.

But piracy went rampant somewhere in 2000, when Sega was already prepping to throw in the towel anyway. I think piracy didn't make much of a difference in the end.

Piracy made no difference at all. Piracy was rampant on the PS and if anything it helped SONY sell tons more hardware.

What killed the DC was 3rd party support and more so that MGS2 E3 trailer IMO

 

[buenoblue]

Yeah I get what your saying. It's hard to look back in hindsight as both machines are old now but coming from a ps1 to a Dreamcast was a wtf moment. The increase in graphical fidelity was mind-blowing to me. Having never had a gaming PC back then these were the most detailed and fastest graphics I'd ever seen.

The jump from the ps1/N64 was massive to me and if anything the the jump to ps2 and Xbox was minimal from Dreamcast.

Thinking about it consoles before ps4/XB1 were always released a fair bit apart which allowed for tech advances which differentiated the systems. I preferred it this way.

 

[Fat Frog]

Itagaki said the PS2 port of DOA physically hurt him to look at.

He also said" the PS2 version has more polygons, better lights...but the game still look better on Dreamcast".

The downplayed power of a great IQ...

Great IQ is the very definition of entering a new gen. In that regard, Dreamcast was one the most impressive generational gap in history.(from PS1/N64 era.)

 

[SmokedMeat]

Everyone voting “no” is clueless.

Going from PS1 and N64 to crisp clean Dreamcast running Naomi ports was incredible. All for $199.

 

[Neff]

It was only two years after the N64 and two years before the PS2, so yeah it was very powerful. 480i and that number of polygons and effects in the home at the time was mindblowing. Soul Calibur seemed like straight up witchcraft. Code Veronica and Shenmue the year after again set the standard.

 

[dave_d]

It was only two years after the N64 and two years before the PS2, so yeah it was very powerful. 480i and that number of polygons and effects in the home at the time was mindblowing. Soul Calibur seemed like straight up witchcraft. Code Veronica and Shenmue the year after again set the standard.

I still find it insane that there are people that think Zelda OOT looks as good as a Dreamcast game.(I mean they don't notice the resolution is 240i and it runs at 20fps with lower polygon counts? That's not even including fewer effects and far lower texture resolutions than a DC game.)

 

[chromatic9]

Yes it was powerful and had impressive looking games. Crazy Taxi and Code Veronica standing out.

Being a Sega fan of old from the SMS, Mega Drive and Mega CD, I was very tempted but stuck with Playstation and PS2 took a while to get going in graphics, Gamecube and Dreamcast had cleaner looking games for a while. I also recall a large early marketing campaign for the Dreamcast.

Back then Dreamcast seemed to have everything going for it being first out, powerful impressive looking games that were well reviewed. Heavy presence and excitement on television gaming shows with the amazing looking/playing Virtua Tennis, Soul Calibur and Crazy Taxi, the various gaming segments on morning and weekend Tv shows, adverts and gaming mags loving it. I still like the look of the console and name, it's strange how it didn't take off. It felt like they had captured the excitement and coverage that SNES had in 93-94 with Super Tennis, Mario Kart, F Zero and classic TV friendly title Pilotwings.

I take my hat off to Sega, they went out and did everything they could right but it wasn't enough I guess in the presence of the big newish player in Sony.

 

[Neff]

there are people that think Zelda OOT looks as good as a Dreamcast game

There are?

 

[Fat Frog]

Everyone voting “no” is clueless.

Millenials or "gamers" who knew the Dreamcast only by magazine's screenshots...

I would be curious to see the TREMENDOUS difference between PS2 and Dreamcast on a HD TV...

Let's say DC DOA2 JP edition via VGA and PS2 Tekken 5 (what's the best for PS2, component ?)

I'm pretty sure this time proof test would reduce the gap

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/915821-playstation-2/69356999
https://www.resetera.com/threads/my-ps2-looks-shit-on-my-4k-tv.170023/

 

[Fat Frog]

There are?

Yeah against cross gen tiny publisher DC games and played on N64 emulator...

 

[Neff]

Let's say DC DOA2 JP edition via VGA and PS2 Tekken 5

You're talking about a five year gap in software here so yeah the difference is going to be striking. It's obvious the PS2 was stronger than Dreamcast but by 2005 Namco were flexing like nobody's business on Sony's machine.

A fairer test would be F355 Challenge vs Ridge Racer V, although I'd argue RRV still comes out on top.

 

[Fat Frog]

You're talking about a five year gap in software here so yeah the difference is going to be striking. It's obvious the PS2 was stronger than Dreamcast but by 2005 Namco were flexing like nobody's business on Sony's machine.

A fairer test would be F355 Challenge vs Ridge Racer V, although I'd argue RRV still comes out on top.

Nah, i was not looking for a fair and serious comparison. I was just pointing out for fun that Dreamcast was future proof and famous now for its good IQ on HD monitors...

Somehow, our old blurry TVs saved PS2's ass in terms of IQ: The blur was reducing the Alliasing


I think modern TVs would reduce the gap between the two consoles: Good IQ for the DC, more alliasing for the PS2.

#console war2023