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[Journey]

"Appropriately powerful" So we're moving the goal post from "Actually powerful" to , You think it was adequate?

Maybe it was in the ball park but given the actual specs VS the other systems , and comparing features.... "Actually powerful" no. Servicable? Sure.
it was still part of that console generation.... it was just well behind its peers.

It wasn't under-powered, it was a beast of a console in 1999, it was capable of perfect arcade ports, the first time a home console was able to actually surpass the arcade in some areas. What exactly are you reaching for?

The PS2 was appropriately powerful in 2000, same statement. What goal posts are you looking at?

Edit: Oh and by the way, Xbox was WAY more powerful than PS2, much more so than PS2 was over Dreamcast, that is a fact.

 

[loktaiextatus]

It wasn't under-powered, it was a beast of a console in 1999, it was capable of perfect arcade ports, the first time a home console was able to actually surpass the arcade in some areas. What exactly are you reaching for?

The PS2 was appropriately powerful in 2000, same statement. What goal posts are you looking at?

Edit: Oh and by the way, Xbox was WAY more powerful than PS2, much more so than PS2 was over Dreamcast, that is a fact.

Everything is relative.

If it doesnt have competition in 1999, how do you know its a beast? Compared to arcade? Maybe... but Model 3
was already 2-3 years old by then it wasnt cutting edge in the arcade. The arcade was dying and the Naomi board
providing perfect ports is a no brainer- it was a console / arcade twin hardware situation like with the PS1 and System 12

The PSX had excellent arcade ports, the Saturn had excellent arcade ports. The x68000 had excellent arcade ports.
By the time we are talking about, the late 90s, what was being used in the arcade was not hardware to compare yourself to.

The System 12 soul calibur came from is a 50mhz machine with 2mb of memory and 2mb of vram. Im saying this false "Arcade perfect"
thing was already a null and void notion by the time youre comparing those two machines.

Can you tell me what the Dreamcast did to improve over arcade games released during its timeframe?
Are there even any model 3 games(1996 system) that the Dreamcast runs better than the model 3?

So let me put it like this...

The Dreamcast, lets call it a 1998 console, it struggled and ran at lower frame rates, games that 1996 arcade hardware ran. The arcade games it improved
were running on hardware with its roots in a 1994 game console....

So if its competition is just in the past how do we parse this? Or do you also place it head to head with its direct competition the new playstation system?
I am focusing on the PlayStation 2 because its chronologically closest, and the most fair for that very reason. The dreamcast had an advantage in texturing.
AND ... thats it. Texturing. Nothing else.

To find something it can beat down on you need to go back to the 1994 consoles and their derivatives, to find its equal you can look to
non-purpose built systems like PC and the Model 3 arcade hardware from 1996, and to find its better you can look to any decent PC from its era, and the system released a year later
with a ton of improvements outside simple power.

And regarding XBOX. . . The CPU in the Xbox is a general use type CPU, the Emotion engine is more of a RISC cpu, You could argue that the xbox might be twice as powerful as the PS2.
No problem. On paper.

But if you look at the Dreamcasts CPU vs the PS2s CPU, the thing isnt even close, Its clocked 50 percent higher, it has a massive amount of bandwidth, its easily the same gap or a wider gap than the xbox has over the ps2 for gaming use. The PS2 also has a lot of other advantages, in sound, in storage and storage speed, and especially in effects the hardware can do.
Meanwhile on the XBOX I wont argue its power over the PS2 and Gamecube. It certainly does hold that power crown, you'll never find anywhere I said otherwise, but
you can compare multi platform titles on the PS2 and xbox its not usually night and day- and I would not go as far as to say the XBOX does much the PS2 cant touch at all...
Where the PS2 certainly CAN do a lot the DC cant do, especially if you factor in storage.

Im not bashing dreamcast. Im not extolling the virtues of PS2. Im comparing contemporary consoles, arcade boards that are being used to as comparison,
and etc in order to answer the question "Was it powerful". It was Fine. It was weaker than any other console released after 1996. If you consider the DC to be
in the generation with the gamecube, the xbox and the ps2, then the dreamcast is the weakest and not by a smidge, its in a different class from the next lowest, the PS2.

Edit: Please dont compare splinter cell though, PS2 and Xbox do have a night and day difference there.
That game was built from the ground up to use PC type hardware and it shows and uses it beautifully.
That game is GARBAGE on the PS2. though I would argue it would not run in any form we would recognize on the Dreamcast.

Splinter cell kicks ass. Man I should go play that.

 

[lame gag1990]

lol This had to turn into a Dreamcast vs PS2 fued didn't it.

 

[loktaiextatus]

lol This had to turn into a Dreamcast vs PS2 fued didn't it.

When youre comparing console power... you need a relative baseline / contemporary systems for comparison.

If you want a general comparison outside consoles to PC?

God no... Dreamcast was much weaker than PCs of its time. If youre talking about raw power right.

So you can compare it to arcade, and other consoles. Closest release was PS2- and at the time it was
also compared to the PS2.

Cant have a discussion if you dont want context. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette .

 

[lame gag1990]

When youre comparing console power... you need a relative baseline / contemporary systems for comparison.

If you want a general comparison outside consoles to PC?

God no... Dreamcast was much weaker than PCs of its time. If youre talking about raw power right.

So you can compare it to arcade, and other consoles. Closest release was PS2- and at the time it was
also compared to the PS2.

Cant have a discussion if you dont want context. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette .

You want context, I'll give you context. What consoles were on the market when Dreamcast released? Yes, that's right. PS1, N64 and Saturn. Was it more powerful than them? Yes it was. PS2 wasn't even in production when Dreamcast released so it's a bullshit argument. There's your fucking context.

 

[Romulus]

Another point is, didn't some consoles compare much more favorably to PCs at launch? Seems dreamcast was pretty far behind the top of the line by comparison.

 

[Jubenhimer]

Yes and no. It was designed to blow the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 out of the water, and succeeded in doing just that. It was even better than the PS2 in terms of ease of development. But in terms of raw power, it was the weakest of the 6th generation consoles. Really, the Dreamcast's ultimate downfall, was that it was not future proof. Sega was in financial hell at the time of the Dreamcast's launch, and the console needed to be as successful as possible, as fast as possible. Time wasn't on Sega's side though, as the PS2 with its superior power, DVD format, and brand loyalty of PlayStation all made it the hot commodity of 2000. It didn't matter how successful the Dreamcast was at launch, it still needed to be even bigger in the coming years if Sega wanted to recover, but the Dreamcast simply had no chance against the PS2. It wasn't as powerful, it had no DVD playback, and it didn't have the brand loyalty or third party support that the PS2 would have. It was designed to be a PlayStation killer, not a PlayStation 2 killer, and that's ultimately what doomed the system.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

LTTP on this anecdote, but funny enough I was reading an old Next Generation magazine a few nights ago and the president of EA at the time was talking about why they didn't support the Dreamcast. He said that it was because Sega decided to go with PowerVR for Dreamcast's hardware instead of 3Dfx, and that all of EA's devs were more familiar with developing for Glide at the time. Maybe he was speaking the truth and it was one of the many factors EA decided not to support Dreamcast.

That's actually possibly a point of reason why they didn't support it. But at the same time, they did't have any issues supporting PS2 which I'm sure didn't use a drop of 3DFX's hardware in it, either

Because parroting "ARCADE BETTER" loses all meaning when the arcade machine is just an arcade version
of 1994 home gaming hardware, used to cheapen development and porting.

Youre using this "arcade better" phrase a specific way.... to insinuate a feat worth mentioning.
The feat here is "1998 hardware is more powerful than 1994 hardware" essentially. The PSX can run
System 12 games with very little compromise, because its the same platform.

Namco did you a solid and didnt leave the antique looking System 12 game as it was- And So it looked "Arcade better".
That doesnt speak for dreamcast unless the thing youre trying to ask is "Is dreamcast more powerful than System 12- an arcade
machine based on 1994 hardware..." But the question is... was it powerful? Not especially. Not for its generation and it certainly
was not the pinnacle of what was possible in 1998-1999 timeperiod. It was just a good bit better than the systems we had gotten
nearly a half a decade earlier- Does that make it powerful for its time?

No reasonable person would think youd be comparing it to the 1994 launched consoles - youd compare it to its competition...
and if those consoles arent its competition what are they?

Mmn...I'd say the DC was more than "a good bit better" than PS1 or N64. It was a very noticeable leap from them. "A good bit better" would've been the Panasonic M2, which was cancelled in part due to being outpaced by the Dreamcast by the time Panasonic were read to actually release it.

GoW is out of question for sure but DMC (the original at least) was definitely possible. GTA3 is problematic though. DC hardware isn't exactly suited for open world gaming but not impossible. Weren't there rumours back then that GTA 3 was planned for Dreamcast? I think with some limitations it could have been done.

I think the rumor is at some point GTA3 was actually being considered as a DC exclusive, even if just a timed exclusive. But SEGA turned down the proposition since they were already planning on exiting the hardware market.

....still can't get over that fumble of a move on SEGA's part. Literally had the golden goose right at their hands (again), and just said "Nope".

 

[loktaiextatus]

You want context, I'll give you context. What consoles were on the market when Dreamcast released? Yes, that's right. PS1, N64 and Saturn. Was it more powerful than them? Yes it was. PS2 wasn't even in production when Dreamcast released so it's a bullshit argument. There's your fucking context.

PC was.

So the dreamcasts power crown is against .... the 30mhz PSX ? Thats my context?

So we have no VALID context for comparison outside computer systems, and arcade machines. Alright.

So it was a little weaker than a 2-3 year old arcade system, and considerably weaker than PC. Is that what you want to hear?
Lets not even ask about PS2 or its actual peers. youre in a rush to compare it so lets compare it.

Dreamcast - 200mhz. PC - up to 500MHZ.. Hm not looking great. Are you sure you want to do this man?
Dreamcast RAM: 16MB, 8MB Video RAM, 2MB Sound RAM
PC: RAM 64-256mb , 16-32MB Video Ram. Using average card from the time SB LIVE! - up to 32MB of samples . not good.
Dreamcast.. No hard drive
PC - hard drive.

Not good. So how about you compare apples to apples again?

 

[loktaiextatus]

That's actually possibly a point of reason why they didn't support it. But at the same time, they did't have any issues supporting PS2 which I'm sure didn't use a drop of 3DFX's hardware in it, either



Mmn...I'd say the DC was more than "a good bit better" than PS1 or N64. It was a very noticeable leap from them. "A good bit better" would've been the Panasonic M2, which was cancelled in part due to being outpaced by the Dreamcast by the time Panasonic were read to actually release it.

I said a good bit better. I stand by it. Yes it was better but... would you consider it to be as big of a leap as the PS2 was? Certainly not as big as a leap as from PSX to XBOX.
I said a good bit, not a little bit or a tiny bit or a smidge.... a good bit. It was a generational leap- but to measure its power for its TIME OF LAUNCH I think was my approach
not to measure it squarely against what was available for years. Like it doesnt seem like much of a power crown when you compare the Xbox 360 to PS2 does it?

Like you wouldnt take a mid range video card from 2020 and BECAUSE its faster than a video card from 2015, then it is "powerful?
You need context and we are able to see that context TOP DOWN today because we know what happened in the months or years following.
The Dreamcast was the most powerful console, through all of 1999. For 1999 it was the most powerful CONSOLE.
It was a weak machine compared to PC. It was about on par with the arcade hardware at the time- mind you the arcade hardware was years old already.

So comparing the Dreamcast to the PSX and saying "its amazing" to me seems weird. It doesnt seem much different from comparing
the like a RX580 vs 5600xt in the year 2020 and saying the 5600xt is "powerful for its time" while the 5700 xt, SEVERAL nvidia cards are all
more powerful than either and we are on cusp of new graphics cards releasing in the same year.

Dreamcast was fine, is fine. The objective truth is that when it came out- it was a console and like most consoles it was not
better than PC at the time- it also happened to be the weakest console in its generation, and lacked most of the features that
improved the generation SO much like a DVD drive.

 

[lame gag1990]

PC was.

So the dreamcasts power crown is against .... the 30mhz PSX ? Thats my context?

So we have no VALID context for comparison outside computer systems, and arcade machines. Alright.

So it was a little weaker than a 2-3 year old arcade system, and considerably weaker than PC. Is that what you want to hear?
Lets not even ask about PS2 or its actual peers. youre in a rush to compare it so lets compare it.

Dreamcast - 200mhz. PC - up to 500MHZ.. Hm not looking great. Are you sure you want to do this man?
Dreamcast RAM: 16MB, 8MB Video RAM, 2MB Sound RAM
PC: RAM 64-256mb , 16-32MB Video Ram. Using average card from the time SB LIVE! - up to 32MB of samples . not good.
Dreamcast.. No hard drive
PC - hard drive.

Not good. So how about you compare apples to apples again?

Oh, I thought we were comparing games consoles to games consoles. Show me a $199 PC from 1998 that can run Shenmue. What? You can't? Nae bother man.

The fact is it was better than it's competitors at time of release. Same with PS2. Same with XBox etc.

 

[Romulus]

PC was.

So the dreamcasts power crown is against .... the 30mhz PSX ? Thats my context?

So we have no VALID context for comparison outside computer systems, and arcade machines. Alright.

So it was a little weaker than a 2-3 year old arcade system, and considerably weaker than PC. Is that what you want to hear?
Lets not even ask about PS2 or its actual peers. youre in a rush to compare it so lets compare it.

Dreamcast - 200mhz. PC - up to 500MHZ.. Hm not looking great. Are you sure you want to do this man?
Dreamcast RAM: 16MB, 8MB Video RAM, 2MB Sound RAM
PC: RAM 64-256mb , 16-32MB Video Ram. Using average card from the time SB LIVE! - up to 32MB of samples . not good.
Dreamcast.. No hard drive
PC - hard drive.

Not good. So how about you compare apples to apples again?

Is that 200mhz cpu TOTAL cpu speed? I find that crazy if true considering the Xbox was nearly 4x that. Considering they're both 6th gen.

 

[JordanN]

Is that 200mhz cpu TOTAL cpu speed? I find that crazy if true considering the Xbox was nearly 4x that. Considering they're both 6th gen.

Nintendo 3DS & PSP both have clockspeeds in that range and the games look very similar to Dreamcast.

 

[bobone]

DC competed exclusively with PS1 and N64.
It was not an active console during the Gamecube or Xbox.
Sega was already releasing games on the GCN and Xbox as early as 2001.

Remembering that; it was a very powerful console.
The DC ports of N64 and PS1 games were leagues better.

 

[Radical_3d]

It was different in those days. Every year was a step forward in technology. The 3DO couldn’t compete with the PlayStation. Sony couldn’t compete with Nintendo 64 one year later. And then came the Dreamcast. The year after its launch the PS2 was a monster in comparison.

It’s not like today. Where you need to wait years to see a difference in pixel count that only shows on a 4X zoom comparison that your poor 30-something eyes can’t see.

 

[loktaiextatus]

Oh, I thought we were comparing games consoles to games consoles. Show me a $199 PC from 1998 that can run Shenmue. What? You can't? Nae bother man.

The fact is it was better than it's competitors at time of release. Same with PS2. Same with XBox etc. Get fucked.

Why is PRICE coming into it? We werent comparing games consoles, people brought in frickin, ARCADE BOARDS and stuff.

If we are bringing PRICE into it then even at 199 the PSX and N64 were MUCH cheaper than Dreamcast. So does power no longer matter?
Is this thread now about VALUE proposition?

 

[loktaiextatus]

Is that 200mhz cpu TOTAL cpu speed? I find that crazy if true considering the Xbox was nearly 4x that. Considering they're both 6th gen.

Yes. 200mhz is the CPU speed. Its graphics chip ran at 100mhz. and the sound chip even lower as youd expect.

 

[loktaiextatus]

DC competed exclusively with PS1 and N64.
It was not an active console during the Gamecube or Xbox.
Sega was already releasing games on the GCN and Xbox as early as 2001.

Remembering that; it was a very powerful console.
The DC ports of N64 and PS1 games were leagues better.

It released at the end of 1998... four full years after the playstation.
If you are considering the Dreamcast to be Playstation 1s competition I dont know why...
Nobody else did. Sega didnt. The SATURN competed with the Playstation (and didnt do badly in japan at that).

 

[Sophist]

PC was.

So the dreamcasts power crown is against .... the 30mhz PSX ? Thats my context?

So we have no VALID context for comparison outside computer systems, and arcade machines. Alright.

So it was a little weaker than a 2-3 year old arcade system, and considerably weaker than PC. Is that what you want to hear?
Lets not even ask about PS2 or its actual peers. youre in a rush to compare it so lets compare it.

Dreamcast - 200mhz. PC - up to 500MHZ.. Hm not looking great. Are you sure you want to do this man?
Dreamcast RAM: 16MB, 8MB Video RAM, 2MB Sound RAM
PC: RAM 64-256mb , 16-32MB Video Ram. Using average card from the time SB LIVE! - up to 32MB of samples . not good.
Dreamcast.. No hard drive
PC - hard drive.

Not good. So how about you compare apples to apples again?

dreamcast's SH-4 was much better than any 500hz intel/amd cpu when it come to gaming. It could output 1.4 gflops while a p3 550 would not go above 0.2 gflops.
ps2's emotion engine could output 6.9 gflops.

 

[loktaiextatus]

It was different in those days. Every year was a step forward in technology. The 3DO couldn’t compete with the PlayStation. Sony couldn’t compete with Nintendo 64 one year later. And then came the Dreamcast. The year after its launch the PS2 was a monster in comparison.

It’s not like today. Where you need to wait years to see a difference in pixel count that only shows on a 4X zoom comparison that your poor 30-something eyes can’t see.

Its not entirely the case. The issue was youre comparing apples to oranges.

The playstation and saturn for instance could compete with the N64 and run the same basic kinds of software....
Systems like the 3DO and CD-i and the various CD addons for consoles were part of the "multimedia" bubble.
They did play some "3d" games but mostly they were designed for digitized graphics, and FMV.

Saturn and Playstation generally speaking were actual gaming machines. I wouldnt say that the PlayStation
"couldnt compete" with the n64 so much as we were in a transitional time for 3d graphics, and the N64 did them brighter and clearer.
You would be hard pressed to create a game world on the N64 that couldnt be done on the Playstation. Look at Spyro for instance,
I would put that against most of what you could get on N64.

I agree its slower now though but part of the reason its slower now isnt because advancement isnt made... its because the market changed.

As games budgets increased you need to aim at a wider audience. Thats why the emphasis moved toward releasing a game with the lead platform being
a common one - and trying to go for numbers.

Someone COULD create a game that milks every juicy morsel out of a 2080ti and a 4ghz+ Ryzen 8 core CPU....
But they wont sell very many copies for a long time until the average PC catches up to those specs.

And truthfully- those big developers that are aiming for those big sales are the companies who COULD milk out massive
graphics from that high end hardware but wont. Smaller developers who might want to take a chance on doing that will likely
not have as much luck doing it.

Meanwhile the one place you FIND a company willing to milk every ounce from a system is on console- and they can only do it with their
console exclusives. Those usually end up being beautiful considering how weak the hardware is- But you will never get the same result
as "I wonder what 2080ti can do at full potential" because gaming systems are meant to be affordable, and reasonable.
So its a catch 22.... Gaming console is the one place you can milk- but you wont milk all that much because the gaming console IS a gaming console.

The last time we BROKE that rule was... you guessed it... the arcade systems. Exclusive, purpose built content and the ability to go for higher end hardware if it meant making
an impact. Thats why Sega Rally 2, and Virtua fighter 3 running on hardware made in 1996 seemed impressive to see on console even 2-3 years later even with downgrades.

 

[loktaiextatus]

dreamcast's SH-4 was much better than any 500hz intel/amd cpu when it come to gaming. It could output 1.4 gflops while a p3 550 would not go above 0.2 gflops.
ps2's emotion engine could output 6.9 gflops.

Who told you that?

The Pentium 3 500 could do over 1 gflop. five times what you cite.

Those are floating point operations by the way. Because it has 500mhz worth of cycles. NON floating point operations meaning
ANYTHING else, would be much faster.

 

[Radical_3d]

Its not entirely the case. The issue was youre comparing apples to oranges.

The playstation and saturn for instance could compete with the N64 and run the same basic kinds of software....
Systems like the 3DO and CD-i and the various CD addons for consoles were part of the "multimedia" bubble.
They did play some "3d" games but mostly they were designed for digitized graphics, and FMV.

Saturn and Playstation generally speaking were actual gaming machines. I wouldnt say that the PlayStation
"couldnt compete" with the n64 so much as we were in a transitional time for 3d graphics, and the N64 did them brighter and clearer.
You would be hard pressed to create a game world on the N64 that couldnt be done on the Playstation. Look at Spyro for instance,
I would put that against most of what you could get on N64.

I agree its slower now though but part of the reason its slower now isnt because advancement isnt made... its because the market changed.

As games budgets increased you need to aim at a wider audience. Thats why the emphasis moved toward releasing a game with the lead platform being
a common one - and trying to go for numbers.

Someone COULD create a game that milks every juicy morsel out of a 2080ti and a 4ghz+ Ryzen 8 core CPU....
But they wont sell very many copies for a long time until the average PC catches up to those specs.

And truthfully- those big developers that are aiming for those big sales are the companies who COULD milk out massive
graphics from that high end hardware but wont. Smaller developers who might want to take a chance on doing that will likely
not have as much luck doing it.

Meanwhile the one place you FIND a company willing to milk every ounce from a system is on console- and they can only do it with their
console exclusives. Those usually end up being beautiful considering how weak the hardware is- But you will never get the same result
as "I wonder what 2080ti can do at full potential" because gaming systems are meant to be affordable, and reasonable.
So its a catch 22.... Gaming console is the one place you can milk- but you wont milk all that much because the gaming console IS a gaming console.

The last time we BROKE that rule was... you guessed it... the arcade systems. Exclusive, purpose built content and the ability to go for higher end hardware if it meant making
an impact. Thats why Sega Rally 2, and Virtua fighter 3 running on hardware made in 1996 seemed impressive to see on console even 2-3 years later even with downgrades.

I didn’t mean that couldn’t compete in a sense of not being able to produce the same game. I was referring to the graphical jump to be noticeable. Aside from that what a great post. Those were the times.

 

[Romulus]

Yes. 200mhz is the CPU speed. Its graphics chip ran at 100mhz. and the sound chip even lower as youd expect.

Just goes to show how fast things were evolving at that time. The Xbox's CPU was 4x faster than that and it wasn't even its standout feature, the GPU was.

 

[Azelover]

No point in arguing with people that don't know how to argue..

 

[loktaiextatus]

Just goes to show how fast things were evolving at that time. The Xbox's CPU was 4x faster than that and it wasn't even its standout feature, the GPU was.

Well the Dreamcast CPU is a RISC cpu. They're always at a lower clock rate. For example the Saturns CPU was ‎ , well two of them running at 28mhz....
but meanwhile PCs had CPUs running 100mhz. Its just the nature of those reduced instruction set CPUs that can push multiple instructions per cycle

The Xbox uses a 1999 CPU. Released about the same time Dreamcast was(USA) for PC use. It was cheap enough to use by then.
Someone just brought up the GFLOP rating of the CPUs (not that its the best way to rate a CPU ... more useful in a GPU for most intents)
and going by the gflop rating the XBOX CPU is more or less equal to the dreamcast CPU. We know thats not correct though.

 

[Alexios]

So, DC wasn't powerful, it just came before PS2, PS2 wasn't powerful, it just came before Xbox, Xbox wasn't powerful, we're already 3 years past the DC launch, might as well compare with the following generation, lol, it and every other console of that gen were lucky PS3 didn't release sooner!

 

[loktaiextatus]

So, DC wasn't powerful, it just came before PS2, PS2 wasn't powerful, it just came before Xbox, Xbox wasn't powerful, we're already 3 years past the DC launch, might as well compare with the following generation, lol.

More like, if Dreamcast WAS powerful its only if you count it as a years-late member of the Playstation/Saturn/N64 generation of consoles.
But by gaming hardware standards of 1998- it was average but a good value proposition, and outclassed immediately by a new console a year later.

Edit:

Another way to put it is like this....

Imagine here at the end of this generation, Sony RUSHED to market an 8TF console and released it this past holiday.... then a year or so later Xbox series X comes out
and instead of the 20 percent GPU difference its 50 percent.... So the 8tf CRUSHES the machines released in 2013 (lets imagine there is no XBone X as no such console
existed in the 90s right that was an inbetween) but Would you then say the PS5 was "Fast when it was released" in retrospect? No it would be panned as the slowest
console of this coming generation and POS (the xbox fans right now smell blood in the water with 10.3 vs 12.1 tf as it is)....

But because its dreamcast "Feels" you see.... So we cant speak ill of it.

 

[Alexios]

More like, if Dreamcast WAS powerful its only if you count it as a years-late member of the Playstation/Saturn/N64 generation of consoles.
But by gaming hardware standards of 1998- it was average but a good value proposition, and outclassed immediately by a new console a year later.

More like, DC wasn't powerful, it just came before PS2, PS2 wasn't powerful, it just came before Xbox, Xbox wasn't powerful, we're already 3 years past the DC launch, might as well compare with the following generation, lol, it and every other console of that gen were lucky PS3 didn't release sooner!

What "standards" were there at DC launch? PCs? I don't see PS2 faring any better compared to PCs of its own time, lol.

 

[loktaiextatus]

More like, DC wasn't powerful, it just came before PS2, PS2 wasn't powerful, it just came before Xbox, Xbox wasn't powerful, we're already 3 years past the DC launch, might as well compare with the following generation, lol, it and every other console of that gen were lucky PS3 didn't release sooner!

What "standards" were there at DC launch? PCs? I don't see PS2 faring any better compared to PCs of its own time, lol.

I said gaming hardware. I said its average. It is more or less on par with the Model 3 arcade board from 1996, and the Naomi board launched along side it is the same speed.

We can compare the graphics chip used and get a feel for what that is...

And the question was never "was the PS2 actually fast" I never said the PS2 was actually fast. I never made an argument that the PS2 is faster than PC or
faster than anything EXCEPT that it is more powerful than the DREAMCAST which is its contemporary competitor.

So instead of getting mad I am not attacking PS2 since its only being used as comparison- understand- the PS2 was also not "powerful" and by the time
the XBOX came out- it had a decent graphics chip but the CPU in it was from 1999. So none of them were beasts.

 

[Alexios]

I never said you made that argument, I'm just saying that with that "logic" you use to claim DC wasn't powerful then no 3D gaming hardware was ever powerful save for Model 2 and Model 3 arcades and similar, ie, non consumer products.

 

[loktaiextatus]

I never said you made that argument, I'm just saying that with that "logic" then no hardware is ever powerful save for Model 2 and Model 3 arcades and similar.

Somewhat of an aside but...

Speaking of 3 years past launch, I just heard from someone earlier who said the DC is powerful because soul calibur runs better on the Dreamcast than the arcade board..
the arcade board is based on a 1994 console.

So either we are OK comparing the DREAMCAST ( and therefore comparing the PSX and Saturn etc to the dreamcast) to those old consoles and saying its powerful
because it is more powerful than they are... or we arent. If its ok to compare it to the System 12 arcade board and say "See, Dreamcast is powerful, arcade better!"
then its absolutely fine to compare the Dreamcast with the one year newer PS2 with many times the floating point performance, fill rate, raw clock speed, graphical
abilities the DC can only wish for.... And I'll say it again I will NEVER EVER knock the Dreamcasts texturing ability. I just wish it didnt have to paste those beautiful textures
all over mediocre lit, low poly models.

 

[Alexios]

It's not powerful because it runs better than arcade it's powerful because it was a jaw dropping game and like nothing ever seen before at home. TTT was similar for PS2 when that came out, it too is a port of a PS1-but-not-really arcade game with similar enhnacements and one of the best looking flagship PS2 games then.

Similarly Dead or Alive 2 (as Ultimate) on Xbox was a remake of the original ancient by then arcade title (but the effect is not nearly as pronounced).

 

[LittleBigGamer]

I was crying when I saw Shenmue. It was way ahead of everything.

 

[loktaiextatus]

It's not powerful because it runs better than arcade it's powerful because it was a jaw dropping game at launch.

Its all relative. I never claimed that soul calibur wasnt hawt. I just said that objectively the Dreamcast was not very powerful.
It was powerful compared to machines released 4 years prior. Just as the Xbox One X is 4x more powerful, and released 4 years after
the original Xbox one. . . But now imagine that The Series X released Christmas 2018 , a year after One X did? Would we be calling the One X powerful
in retrospect or calling it powerful for its era?

I hope I am not coming off as a dreamcast hater. I have a dreamcast RIGHT HERE in my office.

 

[Alexios]

So it had hawt looking jaw dropping as you concur games but wasn't powerful for its time. Kay.

 

[Kazza]

This is not the case.... it was not more powerful. The VooDoo 3 was already out half a year before Dreamcast....

Voodoo 3 (1000) release date: March 99
Dreamcast release date: November 98

I miss the times when consoles were mxing it with the most powerful consumer PCs (luckily the difference next gen doesn't seem too stark)

 

[loktaiextatus]

So it had hawt looking games but wasn't powerful for its time. Kay.

Exactly.

There can be a lot more to what makes a game hawt than weather or not the system is the most powerful.
Consoles arent about raw power, never have been until SOMEWHAT recently but even now when the new consoles come out,... 10-12tflops will be old news just as fast as 6tf was old news and 2 tf was old news.

PS4 was never a powerhouse compared to a PC but we had stuff like Uncharted 4 which you could put up against something on PC and feel OK about-
and it wasnt because the PS4 was "powerful for its time" it was because the game was well made and used every bit of power that it COULD use. Same as Soul Calibur did.

 

[Alexios]

So that power it can use ammounting to jaw dropping for its time games is not showing it's powerful because it's magic secret sauce, not power that drives polygons and effects and game logic, kay.

 

[Kazza]

I wonder how much more powerful the Dreamcast would have been if it had targeted a $300 price tag instead of $199? That extra could have been spent on a DVD, but maybe it would have gone on improving other specs instead.

 

[loktaiextatus]

Voodoo 3 (1000) release date: March 99
Dreamcast release date: November 98

Was going by the US release here- but it didnt matter much for what we were talking about The Riva TNT could have been the example.

But thanks for the correction regardless.

 

[loktaiextatus]

I wonder how much more powerful the Dreamcast would have been if it had targeted a $300 price tag instead of $199? That extra could have been spent on a DVD, but maybe it would have gone on improving other specs instead.

Originally Matrox was working on the graphics chip for the Dreamcast and likely would have cost more. Matrox got cocky and announced the deal without permission so sega cancelled it.

Look up Matrox G400 tech demos, the shaders etc it used were really great and thats likely the tech that would have been in the Sega console- I cant say if it would be the G400,
g400 max or something totally custom, but that was likely similar to what was planned initially.

 

[Kazza]

Was going by the US release here- but it didnt matter much for what we were talking about The Riva TNT could have been the example.

But thanks for the correction regardless.

You're welcome, I'm always here to help out. Next time, do the math:

 

[loktaiextatus]

So that power it can use ammounting to jaw dropping for its time games is not showing it's powerful because it's magic secret sauce, not power that drives polygons and effects and game logic, kay.

So are you arguing for the optimization of the System 12 - Dreamcast port of Soul Calibur, or are you arguing that a pretty game means the hardware is more powerful?

Because if all it takes is beautiful well made games, then are new consoles weaker than previous consoles until you see them running a better game or ...
can you confirm that the Xbox One S is more powerful than the PS5 because it has good looking games today and the PS5 has yet to release?

We're talking about its actual, real world, calculative power not if it had great games. We all know DC had great games. They were not great simply because
Dreamcast was some kind of processing beast. It was a hell of a lot faster than 4 year old consoles - but that doesnt mean it was some kind of powerful
beast box (At 199 somehow) in 1998-1999. (the question is about "at launch" so I am counting the launch era not just launch day japan... unless you think the question
didnt mean when it "Came out" in general)

 

[Alexios]

So you agree that all your talk about DC so far is pretty similar to comparing Xbox One to PS5 to give that analogy, thanks.

 

[loktaiextatus]

So you agree that all your talk about DC so far is pretty similar to comparing Xbox One to PS5 to give that analogy, thanks.

If the PS5 came out a year after the XBOX one it sure would be similar wouldnt it ?
Imagine how the Xbox one would be considered if it came out and then a year later a 10.28TF machine released?

I somewhat doubt we would say "Well... the XBOX ONE was fast for its time, a powerhouse, because... for that year.... " (assuming it was releasing against the existing PS3/360 and not the PS4)

 

[Alexios]

Well, the difference in years was less than Xbox One to PS5 and so was the difference in capabilities less too, same thing, no ifs. Again as in my earlier posts it's like saying no GPU model is powerful cos we have the next more powerful one a year or so later anyways.

 

[loktaiextatus]

Well, the difference in years was less than Xbox One to PS5 and so was the difference in capabilities less too, same thing.

Not really. When the question is about time. The PS2 is what 7gFlops and the DC is 1.4?
The Xbox one is 1.3 vs 10.28 - So the difference is smaller between the PS2 and DC but....Those are two different generations
and the PS2 is supposed to be the SAME generation isnt it as the DC? And the PS5 is separated by 7 years from the Xbox one... and this is ONE year we're talking about.

 

[Grand Theft Scratchy]

Yes, when the Dreamcast launched it was pretty impressive on a technical level. Sonic Adventure looked better than anything on PS1 and N64. I also played Grandia II both on the Dreamcast and later on the PS2 and always thought it was interesting how the PS2 port suffered from slowdowns in larger areas, graphical glitches and slightly worse looking textures.

 

[Alexios]

So now the overall system gflops (cpu & gpu) matter, earlier it wasn't a good accurate method according to you. I don't see any PS2 game that looks 4 times+ better (more like 6.2 gflops to help you there) than the best of DC, and if we compare actual multiplatform games performance to not account for art over specs less so.

 

[AeonGaidenRaiden]

I believe it was the first SEGA console that could properly replicate the Arcade systems. Saturn had ports but they all looked like shit compared to the real arcades at the time. DC kinda brought that home.