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Was the Dreamcast actually powerful at launch? Or the beneficiary of no competition?

Was the Dreamcast a powerhouse at launch?

  • No

    Votes: 115 11.1%

  • Yes

    Votes: 921 88.9%
  • Total voters
    1,036
cinnamonandgravy

cinnamonandgravy

Member
Esppiral said:
Work in progress tanker stage ported to the Dreamcast, the full stage + 2 Cutscene models of Snake, one for the reflection ( the ingame model is lower polycount than the Cutscene one) running at 60 FPS on the Doa2 engine.

7IWHcwg.png
XGqs9mY.png
OmrHguq.png
uPevU8t.png
Click to expand...

super cool, but of course the true test is the rain effects

nJrfcME.gif
 
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Alexios

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I never was into simple deathmatch mode with respawns type games myself (not even the big boys of the genre like Quake, never mind the rest) but I always found the tank tracks in Alien Front looked cool the way they adjusted to the terrain. I wish it had a proper single player a la Desert Tank 2.
​
 
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Fat Frog

Fat Frog

I advertised for Google Stadia
"First of all, I want everyone to take note that this is NOT a port of the PS2 version. This is a port of the PC version, which has extra content, increased draw distance, improved textures, and other things that have actually increased the challenge here... Whether the DC version will ultimately have these additions or not will remain to be seen, but we're running into plenty of shit that the PS2 didn't have to worry about (like these big-ass PC replay saves won't fit onto a Visual Memory Unit!)

(...)
There is going to be a LOT that can be done still to both improve performance and polygon counts, so stay tuned!"

Esppiral Esppiral
What is your job in the team ?
 
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Alexios

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I guess I will have to replay this game on DC next rather than just go oh, what a cool port, but never actually care to touch it myself because it's readily available elsewhere. It's weird the PC remaster didn't add something like this (if not the original game having it too, it was after all around this time that Quake, Powerslave and other games pushing graphics forward were making dynamic lighting a pretty big deal on multiple platforms, even some supposedly lesser to the N64 like the Sega Saturn), it seems so fitting for its visual style that I had to go back and check it didn't already have it, wow.
​
 
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Alexios

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
It's surprising (well, mostly because of 2.5 decades of widespread bashing of the system unfairly leading to underestimating and underrating it) that some of the first things that actually work, even with this kind of homebrew amateur project and early days at that, are so called advanced features like most of the lighting effects, that all the haters pretended would be the very first thing to go, even before polygon and streaming optimizations, had there been an official Dreamcast version of the game, likening an imaginary final AAA product to early pre-release media that aren't from DC.
 
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DavidGzz

DavidGzz

Member
Was the PS2 powerful or just stronger than the Dreamcast because it came a year later? Was the Xbox strong or just a lot more powerful than the PS2 because it came later? The world may never know.
 
EverythingsOverrated

EverythingsOverrated

Member
Fat Frog said:

08/15/24: AVE MARIA.
Click to expand...

Seeing how far this has come in a relatively short amount of time is insanely impressive to me. It makes me wish even more that the Dreamcast had a few more years on the market. It would've been awesome to see what developers could've squeezed out of the hardware. You had hints of it with games like Sonic Adventure 2, Headhunter, Phantasy Star Online, Metropolis Street Racer, Shenmue 2, and several others, but the DC getting it's life cut short is one of the biggest what ifs in gaming history to me.
 
Team Andromeda

Team Andromeda

Banned
Anyone making games for old systems has an advantage over what even professional studios had back in the day, especially for the 16-bit and 32-bit era given the cost and what modelling tools were around at the time, not many studios could afford SGI systems. If the same team who made GTA 3 on the PS2 were going back to make it today on the same system we would see big improvements, let's face it and that's true for most systems and developers and the same for movie-making, people in their own homes can make special effects up there or better than what major studios could do in the early 90's and you can also watch a you Tube video to show you how its done.

I've never been a fan of using a game made today as proof of the power of what an old console could do. I just go on games that were made at the time, because that for me is the fairest way.

I do find it a little funny when you see all this talk of GTA3, when the PS2 couldn't handle a decent port of Maken X ;). Most games made and developed for one console will lose something in their port to a different console.

I love the DC but the PS2 could handle more polygons and double the RAM which was a big bottleneck for DC games IMO
 
Elfstar

Elfstar

Member
Team Andromeda said:
Anyone making games for old systems has an advantage over what even professional studios had back in the day, especially for the 16-bit and 32-bit era given the cost and what modelling tools were around at the time, not many studios could afford SGI systems. If the same team who made GTA 3 on the PS2 were going back to make it today on the same system we would see big improvements, let's face it and that's true for most systems and developers and the same for movie-making, people in their own homes can make special effects up there or better than what major studios could do in the early 90's and you can also watch a you Tube video to show you how its done.

I've never been a fan of using a game made today as proof of the power of what an old console could do. I just go on games that were made at the time, because that for me is the fairest way.

I do find it a little funny when you see all this talk of GTA3, when the PS2 couldn't handle a decent port of Maken X ;). Most games made and developed for one console will lose something in their port to a different console.

I love the DC but the PS2 could handle more polygons and double the RAM which was a big bottleneck for DC games IMO
Click to expand...
I think in the end, it's just hella fun to watch an old console run games you thought it couldn't.
 
Esppiral

Esppiral

Member
Team Andromeda said:
Anyone making games for old systems has an advantage over what even professional studios had back in the day, especially for the 16-bit and 32-bit era given the cost and what modelling tools were around at the time, not many studios could afford SGI systems. If the same team who made GTA 3 on the PS2 were going back to make it today on the same system we would see big improvements, let's face it and that's true for most systems and developers and the same for movie-making, people in their own homes can make special effects up there or better than what major studios could do in the early 90's and you can also watch a you Tube video to show you how its done.

I've never been a fan of using a game made today as proof of the power of what an old console could do. I just go on games that were made at the time, because that for me is the fairest way.

I do find it a little funny when you see all this talk of GTA3, when the PS2 couldn't handle a decent port of Maken X ;). Most games made and developed for one console will lose something in their port to a different console.

I love the DC but the PS2 could handle more polygons and double the RAM which was a big bottleneck for DC games IMO
Click to expand...
That already happened it's called GTA San Andreas
 
S

SomeGit

Member
Elfstar said:
I think in the end, it's just hella fun to watch an old console run games you thought it couldn't.
Click to expand...

Yeah but even last gen games are really cool to see, I’m loving the gta port but even the Doom 64 has made me get the DC out of the attic and play it for a good afternoon.

With a possible port of SOTN and Sonic Mania there’s a good library of potential ports to play in the future.
 
Fat Frog

Fat Frog

I advertised for Google Stadia
Geometric-Crusher said:
This GTA 3 will show how weak the Dreamcast is.
Myths are made to fall but I know you will say that if Rockstar's professional developers made the port it would be better, imagining that phrases like that will add the missing power.
Click to expand...
We'll see...We'll see 😁

SomeGit said:
Well, at least we are moving from the it’s “impossible” to “it will show how weak it is” stage. Who knows maybe someday we’ll see an FSR tech demo on PS2😜

The early signs are good, seems like memory is very close to the stock 16mb , at around 20mb, even with 16bpp textures and models straight from the PC version, which were more demanding than the PS2’s. When they start bulk converting assets into DC friendly formats we may actually start seeing good progress and early signs of how it actually performs on real hardware.
Click to expand...
🤝
 
Esppiral

Esppiral

Member
nkarafo said:
That's not even 15fps. 15fps is a playable frame rate, this is more like 5 or 6.



That's not how it works though.

Porting isn't the same as creating a new game. All those millions you are talking about to develop the game were spend creating a huge virtual city with lots of assets, a lot of voice acting, etc. Porting the game to a different platform doesn't mean they have to make all that from scratch. A lot of porting jobs in the past were made by much smaller teams, even single individuals. It's not the same kind of job at all.

And you also underestimate the possibilities of modern homebrew development. In many cases the most impressive graphical showcases for a system is a demo or game made by some fan decades after the system was dead. Just look at all those fancy games and hacks on 8bit home computers and consoles, for instance. Look at the N64 development and how one single person (Kaze) has managed to squeeze the system more that any other dev in the past with his Mario 64 games that push more polygons the N64 ever managed at high frame rates. Or how another person ported the first few areas of the original Portal on the same system and the game looks and runs better than 90% of N64 games. Or how a bunch of people took the 32X port of DOOM and improved it so much that if it was released like that back in the day it would be the best port.
Click to expand...
You telling me they spent millions developing assets and then they threw the code to the PS2 and it just worked? Cool story bro, they had full time paid developers to make the game run the best possible on PS2 with official tools and assistance, if you feel better thinking that that is comparable to a PC port to a weaker console with homebrew tools you are delusional.
Elios83 said:
I see a super downgraded mess running at 10fps?
Click to expand...
I see tears.
 
nkarafo

nkarafo

Member
Esppiral said:
You telling me they spent millions developing assets and then they threw the code to the PS2 and it just worked? Cool story bro, they had full time paid developers to make the game run the best possible on PS2 with official tools and assistance, if you feel better thinking that that is comparable to a PC port to a weaker console with homebrew tools you are delusional.
Click to expand...
If you think the original GTA3 on PS2 is as good as it can be or it's using nearly the PS2's full power, you are the delusional one here.

Both sequels (especially San Andreas) were far more advanced games, technically. With GTA3 they did the best they could at that point in time, with the knowledge and experience they had. But that's not even close to the full potential of the console, especially so early in it's life.

That's where modern homebrew comes in. Yes it's not "fully paid" (because paid jobs never produce shitty results, am i right?) but it has the advantage of having access to the most modern tools and all accumulated knowledge. Plus, passion projects can be just as potent as paid ones. That's how a bunch of talented fans optimized the Mario 64 engine to such point that it could run the original Mario 64 at 60fps (that's just one example i'm familiar with because i follow the N64 scene in particular). Or how one person turned the 32X port of DOOM, to possibly the best port of that generation.

So yeah, if GTA 3 ends up running decently on DC, i won't be surprised at all. I always thought the game was within it's potential anyway.
 
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