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Was the Dreamcast actually powerful at launch? Or the beneficiary of no competition?
- Thread starter Romulus
- Start date
Xaeroxcore666
Member
You clearly have no idea of what youre talking about.
Esppiral
Member
This is sarcasm right?
JohnSpartanLee
Member
He confused it with the Saturn.
GMAK2442
Member
Esppiral
Member
Esppiral
Member
Most probably, or I'll like to think so.
RetroGamingUK
Member
Sega Rally 2 was such a disappointing port but, conversely, probably the best looking racer money could buy on release.
F355 is probably the best looking racer on the system. It’s a shame it lacked a third person view and a replay mode though.
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Saturn Dragon
Neo Member
Dreamcast was released in Nov-Dec 1998 in Japan. Basically an arcade naomi board with less ram and tweaked features, but it was 99% the same.
Naomi was released to replace the super expensive alien hardware technology that was the omnipotent MODEL 3 (96 to 98 revisions).
It was probably not viable to adapt Sega Model 3 similar hardware to a home console, it was still expensive and almost alien tech for the time, a Model 3 (last revision) console would have been around double or triple the price of the Dreamcast. Though it would have been fun to see a Sega console released on date 9/9/99 for 999usd.
NAOMI/Dreamcast, while powerful and similar performance as MODEL 3, still lacked some features, being a simpler hardware. CPU+GPU and that's it. On the other hand, engineers are still debating how Model 3 was created, it's like the pyramids, nobody knows how such ancient monuments were envisioned. (Just kidding)
Still, Dreamcast without that much brute force filling rate and dedicated graphic chips as MODEL 3, it was was powerful enough, and a lot more accessible for developers.
Problem is, it only lasted 2 years. Perhaps less, because by early-mid 2000 with the release of the Ps2, most developers started to question if it was financially sound to make efforts with the Dreamcast, a console that was struggling in most markets against Ps1! So having the Ps2 just around the corner which was probably the MOST HYPED CONSOLE EVER... what could they do?
I guess Dreamcast was destined to die soon. And we will never know how far could developers push it's hardware.
Ps2? Yeah it was a powerhouse. A polygon, particle effects brute force machine. Some games look awesome. Yes. I knew it from day one after seeing the jagged Ridge Racer V fest, but hey it has awesome 60fps performance, amazing draw distance and all kinds of cool little effects and lighting not seen on Dreamcast.
But Dreamcast wasn't that far behind. Remember that we are talking about custom hardware from like 20 something years ago. Though with enough time and software wizardy it's probable that particle, lighting effects and reflections seen in Ps2 games could have been done on Dreamcast.
Naomi was released to replace the super expensive alien hardware technology that was the omnipotent MODEL 3 (96 to 98 revisions).
It was probably not viable to adapt Sega Model 3 similar hardware to a home console, it was still expensive and almost alien tech for the time, a Model 3 (last revision) console would have been around double or triple the price of the Dreamcast. Though it would have been fun to see a Sega console released on date 9/9/99 for 999usd.
NAOMI/Dreamcast, while powerful and similar performance as MODEL 3, still lacked some features, being a simpler hardware. CPU+GPU and that's it. On the other hand, engineers are still debating how Model 3 was created, it's like the pyramids, nobody knows how such ancient monuments were envisioned. (Just kidding)
Still, Dreamcast without that much brute force filling rate and dedicated graphic chips as MODEL 3, it was was powerful enough, and a lot more accessible for developers.
Problem is, it only lasted 2 years. Perhaps less, because by early-mid 2000 with the release of the Ps2, most developers started to question if it was financially sound to make efforts with the Dreamcast, a console that was struggling in most markets against Ps1! So having the Ps2 just around the corner which was probably the MOST HYPED CONSOLE EVER... what could they do?
I guess Dreamcast was destined to die soon. And we will never know how far could developers push it's hardware.
Ps2? Yeah it was a powerhouse. A polygon, particle effects brute force machine. Some games look awesome. Yes. I knew it from day one after seeing the jagged Ridge Racer V fest, but hey it has awesome 60fps performance, amazing draw distance and all kinds of cool little effects and lighting not seen on Dreamcast.
But Dreamcast wasn't that far behind. Remember that we are talking about custom hardware from like 20 something years ago. Though with enough time and software wizardy it's probable that particle, lighting effects and reflections seen in Ps2 games could have been done on Dreamcast.
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Xaeroxcore666
Member
On this very thread you can find the answers to that. Community itself is porting GTA 3 to DC and also an improved versión of Doom 64 with Vertex Lighting and Bump Mapping.
Saturn Dragon
Neo Member
I've been following the development of those ports closely day by day.
Amazing improvement.
But I think the console can do much much more.
Randall365
Member
The Xbox/PS2 ended up with GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas, a ton of suped up EA games, Halo (on xbox) and Medal of Honour. The Dreamcast was just replicating mid 90s arcade games. If the Dreamcast was on a par with those it’s too bad nobody told the developers.
Xaeroxcore666
Member
Take a better look at this thread. GTA 3 is actually running on Dreamcast right now. No one says DC is on par with PS2/GCN/Xbox, not even any of those consoles are on par with each other, but clearly its a proven fact, not an opinión, DC is on the same tech league as them. Is the weaker of 4? Yes. But its still there.
Saturn Dragon
Neo Member
That's one problem of being the first console of the generation, released like a year and a couple months before PS2, and dying early too.
Dreamcast only "competed" with PS2 during 2000. That's it. And as I said in my previous post, most developers by early 2000 either just gave up on the console, moved their projects to Ps2 or worst, didn't wanted anything to do with Sega from the very beginning.
Also, having so much lazy ports from PC-PS1, didn't help. I have a huge Dreamcast collection. HUGE. over 300 games. I've been tracking all the releases, and sadly, there's around 100 titles which are just that, lazy ports from PC or from the previous generation.
We don't know how would things have been if all 3rd party developers actually cared and supported the console for over 6-7 years down the line, just like they did with PS2 and pulling out games like if their life depended on it. Everyone wanted to have their games on PS2.
Talking about big japanese developers (which were determinant back then) DC just had Sega doing an extreme effort with all their teams, and to some extent Capcom. Others like Konami, Namco, Bandai, Koei, Tecmo and so on, just didn't care or waited for PS2.
Saturn Dragon
Neo Member
I have a question. First of all, amazing work done on Lemans and GP Challenge, played those games a lot, not only because they're both stunning looking, but gameplay is fantastic.Well, as I lead and designed both Lemans Dreamcast and Transformers Armada PS2 I might be able to shed some new light on the question of this thread and more for all that wonder!?
Was there a reason for all the 3d games on Dreamcast having a 640*480 resolution? It's like Sega made that res obligatory for the devs.
Wonder if a lower res could have help on the performance, like many Ps2 games that use different lower resolutions.
Esppiral
Member
Another impossible effect on the Dreamcast debunked.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
I mean the car models are probably not significantly higher than GT2's, but the IQ is way ahead of anything on PS1 otherwise. Textures are better, they don't have that shimmering effect either. And framerate much smoother & higher than GT2 or most PS1 racers ,plus better trackside detail.
That should be the common sense takeaway. Plus even among the four, each had some oddball advantages over the competition. Gamecube could output the most raw geometry of the lot. PS2 had the highest particle fillrate by far. Xbox had the most memory bandwidth (IIRC) and advanced GPU features like bump-mapping. Dreamcast had the cleanest video output and deferred rendering.
6th gen is great in that all the systems had their own "character" architecture-wise but still delivered really good results out of the gate. 7th gen was something of a repeat of that, but it took the PS3 a while to start producing consistent results, and Wii was just a souped-up Gamecube.
......kinda on topic but, has there been any update with GTA3?
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Esppiral
Member
Car models are like X10 the polycount of the ones from GT2, or you meant 3?
Lysandros
Member
Hi there. By memory bandwidth you don't mean VRAM bandwidth surely, right? Because PS2 stands at 48 GB/s on that front which is by far the highest of this generation as you know. As to fill rate Xbox' is the lowest (with the exception of Dreamcast's transparency) as far as i know.
SirTerry-T
Member
Justin is/was one of the last decent videogame journalist's going. He did some good work for GameSpot UK.
RagnarokIV
Battlebus imprisoning me \m/ >.< \m/
This threade still going LMAO
The Dreamcast was the most powerfulest ultimate evar at launch but don't forget the Wii U is the most powerful console ever, Nintendom and third parties never harnessed the power. It's capable of hardware ray tracing, AI upscaling and more just wait for TOTAL DESTRUCTION 2025 to prove it.
The Dreamcast was the most powerfulest ultimate evar at launch but don't forget the Wii U is the most powerful console ever, Nintendom and third parties never harnessed the power. It's capable of hardware ray tracing, AI upscaling and more just wait for TOTAL DESTRUCTION 2025 to prove it.
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