Sega Dreamcast RE4 PS2, within Dreamcast reach?

S

sheath

In the interest of making this my Forum home away from home, I thought I'd test the waters with a bit of a controversial discussion. I've previousy posted this at Rec.Games.Video.Sega in the hopes of some folks with more technical experience and exposure to those in the devopement community can correct me if I'm wrong.

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.video.sega/msg/7f89f38b8dbeb605?dmode=source

I've been doing research on tech specs and stumbled over a couple of articles and forum posts that are very interesting. I decided to post it here since there seems to be a high concentration of individuals who can think straight about such matters. This basics of what the following links indicate is that the PS2 is limited to 4-bit and 8-bit color textures, and if a developer attempts to increase the bit color of the texture maps to Dreamcast, GC, and Xbox levels, the polygon count comes tumbling down to Dreamcast levels.
The polygon counts quoted below for the Gamecube version of RE4 would be 5 million polys per second with 24-bit color textures at 60 frames per second (it's actually 30fps?). The PS2 version is cited as being 30,000-50,000 polys per frame, at 30 frames per second, or 900k to 1.5 million polys per second. If these comments are legitimate, that means that the entire generation has been floating around the 3 million polygons per second mark all along, and media hype alone has propogated the idea that it has been higher in the average title (or even the exceptions, such as RE4's Gamecube version).
One thing to keep in mind is that relatively few Dreamcast titles broke the 1 million mark in its short lifecycle. Games known to have done so are VF3tb (1 million pps) Sonic Adventure 2, F355 and DOA 2 (3 million pps) and Test Drive: Le Mans (5 million pps). The average title, ported from the PC, PS1 and N64 were lower than 800k from what I've seen, including the well reputed Soul Calibur.

The full article is posted here and quoted below:
http://www.planetdreamcast.com/rems/news.html

I've also found references to this comment at the following links:
http://www.totalvideogames.com/news/Polygon_Problems_For_PS2_RE4_7159_4272_0.htm
http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=4310

And relative developer comments on the PS2's texturing ability in relation to its polygon count:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-1738.html


"[]Biohazard 4 Desktop - Problems with PS2 Port
(2-6-2005 - Posted by: crazie @ 8:55ETp.m.)

On February 10, 2005, Capcom Japan will release a Biohazard 4 Desktop Theme for Windows XP and 2000 in Japan. After installing the desktop you will have the Biohazard 4 design with RSS, a search function and system information in the Biohazard style. Price is set at 2,000 yen (Euro 15, US $19).

The japanese magazine GC World published an article regarding the port of RE4 to the PS2. The following comes from IGN Boards member Pikminister:

1). The original team headed by Shinji Mikami was able to incorporate 24-bit textures into the GameCube edition of RE4.

However the team working on the port of RE4 will have to incorporate downsampled 4- and 8-bit textures into the PS2 version, whose texture memory capacity is far smaller than that of the Nintendo console.

------------------------------------

2). The polygon count used for the main protagonist (Leon) will have to drop down from 10.000 seen in the GC version, to half that amount in order to perform well on the PS2 version.

The magazine mentions that Leon has almost 3 times the amount of polygons than the Solid Snake character featured in Metal Gear Solid 3 for the PS2. Snake is made up of only 4000 polygons.

(As a side note, according to Factor 5, the pilots from Rogue Squadron were comprised of 4000 polygons. The X-Wings themselves, were made up of 30,000 polygons!)

------------------------------------

3). Due to the PS2's huge Direct Memory Access bandwidth, the team working on the RE4 version will be able to provide an exceptionally high number of textures into the game.

However, adding such textures to the polygons will slow down the frame rate of the game, even more so than it occasionally happens in the GC version. This due to the PS2's limited texture memory capacity.

The PS2 version will have dramatic frame-rate problems if they try to include all the texture layers and polygonal lighting featured in the GC version. Some major adjustments will have to be made.

------------------------------------

4). The GC graphics engine can produce 50 percent more polygons to all the characters than the PS2. The PS2's graphics engine can draw 10 million triangles per second, but after adding gameplay, collision, logic, sound, and so forth, the PS2 edition of RE4 ultimately will move around 30,000 to 50,000 triangles per frame, at an average rate of 30 frames per second.

The GameCube also has a faster CPU that can boost the frame rate to 60 frames per second (twice that of the PS2), and utilizes its texture compression ability to deliver high-resolution textures with improved color variance.

Seems the PS2 team will have some obstacles to overcome."



--
Scott

http://www.gamepilgrimage.com
 
While it may utilize a lower amount of polygons, the developers probably still use graphics technology the Dreamcast is incapable of rendering. I'm sure there's normal maps and so on utilized.
 
Very interesting. But, no offense, what's the point of this? Im truely curious as to why it would even matter to be able to run it on a dreamcast. And as Recky said, the PS2 is capable of much more than the dreamcast. It's not all about polygon rendering.
 
creepindeth04 said:
Very interesting. But, no offense, what's the point of this? Im truely curious as to why it would even matter to be able to run it on a dreamcast. And as Recky said, the PS2 is capable of much more than the dreamcast. It's not all about polygon rendering.
Click to expand...

Microsoft, Sony and the media have been claiming that current gen polygon counts were 10-15 million in the top titles. If this information is accurate, then the entire generation has been running games at the level of the Dreamcast's 1st and 2nd year software. In other words, the hype claiming the PS2 was 2-3 times as powerful as the Dreamcast was just that, and nothing more. What is the PS2 "much more capable" of, if it doesn't show up in the games? If it can only display 1-3 million in a game like RE4, then the theoretical 10+million numbers were unimportant. I can think of all kinds of issues I take with being told a product is capable of something it isn't, not to mention being told software is performing at levels they aren't. Secondarily, and relevant to this group, this means that the Dreamcast is not just a part of this generation, it's just as capable as the rest of the systems of this generation, and is a casualty of media hype and false advertising by larger corporations.
 
sheath said:
Microsoft, Sony and the media have been claiming that current gen polygon counts were 10-15 million in the top titles. If this information is accurate, then the entire generation has been running games at the level of the Dreamcast's 1st and 2nd year software. In other words, the hype claiming the PS2 was 2-3 times as powerful as the Dreamcast was just that, and nothing more. What is the PS2 "much more capable" of, if it doesn't show up in the games? If it can only display 1-3 million in a game like RE4, then the theoretical 10+million numbers were unimportant. I can think of all kinds of issues I take with being told a product is capable of something it isn't, not to mention being told software is performing at levels they aren't. Secondarily, and relevant to this group, this means that the Dreamcast is not just a part of this generation, it's just as capable as the rest of the systems of this generation, and is a casualty of media hype and false advertising by larger corporations.
Click to expand...

I thought that it was common knowledge that console makers always hype up their consoles and never really reach the numbers they proclaim. Especially way before they are even released. For one thing about the PS2 is it can process more particles and effects like that than a dreamcast. No, it's not all that powerful compared to it but in the end it is still more powerful. I agree that the Dreamcast was a good system and should have lived on, but that's the way of the business. The PS2 had a lot of hype and franchises behind it that the dreamcast just could not match. In the end that's what really matters. The gameplay, which obviousy a dreamcast is capable of but doesnt look like any developer tried. If anybody should be blamed for the demise of the dreamcast, it's the developers who jumped ship to Sony. The gameplay is what makes or breaks a game. Not the graphics.
 
creepindeth04 said:
I thought that it was common knowledge that console makers always hype up their consoles and never really reach the numbers they proclaim. Especially way before they are even released. For one thing about the PS2 is it can process more particles and effects like that than a dreamcast. No, it's not all that powerful compared to it but in the end it is still more powerful. I agree that the Dreamcast was a good system and should have lived on, but that's the way of the business. The PS2 had a lot of hype and franchises behind it that the dreamcast just could not match. In the end that's what really matters. The gameplay, which obviousy a dreamcast is capable of but doesnt look like any developer tried. If anybody should be blamed for the demise of the dreamcast, it's the developers who jumped ship to Sony. The gameplay is what makes or breaks a game. Not the graphics.
Click to expand...

It is common knowledge, but not in this sense. People expect the company to bloat the specs, but Sega didn't, and neither has Nintendo more recently. I used to believe that great gameplay was all that a system needed to succeed, but what things like this have been showing me is that it's actually mass "perception" of overall superiority that does that. Whichever company can create that perception wins, and none of the companies doing it are being honest about their products. I agree about the developers comment, it was definitely a contributer, but the biggest reason I heard them doing so was the perception of the PS2's technical superiority, and the perception that the developers were all going there already (i.e. it was "cool" to develop for). I just can't excuse false advertising, not even in the name of "business". If you applied this very same thing to the technical aspects of any other product line, consumers would be going to court about it.
 
sheath said:
It is common knowledge, but not in this sense. People expect the company to bloat the specs, but Sega didn't, and neither has Nintendo more recently. I used to believe that great gameplay was all that a system needed to succeed, but what things like this have been showing me is that it's actually mass "perception" of overall superiority that does that. Whichever company can create that perception wins, and none of the companies doing it are being honest about their products. I agree about the developers comment, it was definitely a contributer, but the biggest reason I heard them doing so was the perception of the PS2's technical superiority, and the perception that the developers were all going there already (i.e. it was "cool" to develop for). I just can't excuse false advertising, not even in the name of "business". If you applied this very same thing to the technical aspects of any other product line, consumers would be going to court about it.
Click to expand...

It still is gameplay that makes a system succeed. That's how the original PS succeeded. Look at the N64, technically superior to the N64 but the PS was the one who won the console battle because of franchises like Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, etc. True nowadays, hype sells a lot of consoles but if they dont have the games to back them up then they wont succeed. I dont know where you heard it was "cool" to develop for since all Ive heard was that it was a pain to develop for the PS2. The PS2 succeeded because of two things, the momentum it had from the PS1 and it's franchises, and the ability to play DVD's. It isn't necessarily false advertising because they run their own benchmarks and stats. If you can actually recreate their tests and show them that their numbers are wrong then you can go to court. It's hard to prove when they use their proprietary tests to get their numbers.
 
creepindeth04 said:
It still is gameplay that makes a system succeed. That's how the original PS succeeded. Look at the N64, technically superior to the N64 but the PS was the one who won the console battle because of franchises like Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, etc. True nowadays, hype sells a lot of consoles but if they dont have the games to back them up then they wont succeed. I dont know where you heard it was "cool" to develop for since all Ive heard was that it was a pain to develop for the PS2. The PS2 succeeded because of two things, the momentum it had from the PS1 and it's franchises, and the ability to play DVD's. It isn't necessarily false advertising because they run their own benchmarks and stats. If you can actually recreate their tests and show them that their numbers are wrong then you can go to court. It's hard to prove when they use their proprietary tests to get their numbers.
Click to expand...

Right, and I understand that it's a chicken and egg scenario. That doesn't change my interest and concern over the issue of falsified specs, false promises, and hype selling consoles. The PS2 was very much a system that sold well into the mass market before it had exemplary software, or even software that surpassed what was available on Dreamcast. The PS1 on the other hand initially sold fairly mildly in the US, with the Saturn close by nearly the whole time. Then, when the N64 came out the PS1 hit its stride in software and its sales then exploded. It's worth noting though, that the PS1 only outsold the N64 in the US by a few million units. It was only worldwide that the PS1 had a lead in the tens of millions, thanks to the relative success of the Saturn rather than the N64 in Japan.

As for taking them to court, I know it won't happen but, if I bought a car and was promised 35 miles to the gallon on a highway and got 25 instead it'd be a big deal. It'd be a pretty shoddy abuse of the judicial system if the company won by showing that the thing would get 35 miles to a gallon in a vacuum. That's essentially what Sony and Microsoft are doing with their system specs. Moreover, if that advertised 35 mpg vehicle put other manufacturers of similar vehicles out of business, because of a huge public trend of dumping sub 30 mpg vehicles, well, I don't even know what to call that.
 
sheath said:
Right, and I understand that it's a chicken and egg scenario. That doesn't change my interest and concern over the issue of falsified specs, false promises, and hype selling consoles. The PS2 was very much a system that sold well into the mass market before it had exemplary software, or even software that surpassed what was available on Dreamcast. The PS1 on the other hand initially sold fairly mildly in the US, with the Saturn close by nearly the whole time. Then, when the N64 came out the PS1 hit its stride in software and its sales then exploded. It's worth noting though, that the PS1 only outsold the N64 in the US by a few million units. It was only worldwide that the PS1 had a lead in the tens of millions, thanks to the relative success of the Saturn rather than the N64 in Japan.

As for taking them to court, I know it won't happen but, if I bought a car and was promised 35 miles to the gallon on a highway and got 25 instead it'd be a big deal. It'd be a pretty shoddy abuse of the judicial system if the company won by showing that the thing would get 35 miles to a gallon in a vacuum. That's essentially what Sony and Microsoft are doing with their system specs. Moreover, if that advertised 35 mpg vehicle put other manufacturers of similar vehicles out of business, because of a huge public trend of dumping sub 30 mpg vehicles, well, I don't even know what to call that.
Click to expand...

Well, you can take Sony to court if your numbers prove it. Which is what Im saying, it may be in a vacuum but it also depends on what they are comparing it to. If they get their numbers comparing it to their own PS1 or their own technology well then it's not really false. Now I dont know what they compare their specs to so I cant really say. I guess that's why it doesnt matter to me much because the only way Ill buy a system is if the games are fun for me. Not necessarily the specs. I can see where you're coming from though, your article is informative. Question, are you still buying consoles? Or are you boycotting?
 
creepindeth04 said:
Well, you can take Sony to court if your numbers prove it. Which is what Im saying, it may be in a vacuum but it also depends on what they are comparing it to. If they get their numbers comparing it to their own PS1 or their own technology well then it's not really false. Now I dont know what they compare their specs to so I cant really say. I guess that's why it doesnt matter to me much because the only way Ill buy a system is if the games are fun for me. Not necessarily the specs. I can see where you're coming from though, your article is informative. Question, are you still buying consoles? Or are you boycotting?
Click to expand...

I've tooled around with the idea of boycotting, but no I own an Xbox and Gamecube, and I had a PS2 from 2001 until December of last year when I traded it for a DS and some games. I'm probably not going to go next gen, for cost factors mostly, and because they just aren't making action games like they used to. That's why I recently bought a DUO/R from Dean at www.multimods.com actually. ;)
 
sheath said:
I've tooled around with the idea of boycotting, but no I own an Xbox and Gamecube, and I had a PS2 from 2001 until December of last year when I traded it for a DS and some games. I'm probably not going to go next gen, for cost factors mostly, and because they just aren't making action games like they used to. That's why I recently bought a DUO/R from Dean at www.multimods.com actually. ;)
Click to expand...

ah ok. I say you do because unless you take them to court then that's the only way you can hurt them. By cutting down their sales. Putting this article is a step in the right direction. Stick up for your principles.
 
All this talk makes me want to hug my Dreamcast and cast an evil glare to my PS2.

Very informative too. But I'm the type of consumer that will buy a console based on it's library of games, and performance takes a back seat to that primary benefit. And the PS2 has a huge variety of games, and it was a common sense decision.

My DC, I got for $20. So far the games I have purchased for it are awesome. And I wish that Sega had not pulled out so soon.
 
creepindeth04 said:
ah ok. I say you do because unless you take them to court then that's the only way you can hurt them. By cutting down their sales. Putting this article is a step in the right direction. Stick up for your principles.
Click to expand...

Well, I appreciate you saying so. My interest goes a bit beyond my desire as a consumer to not be duped though. I've been maintaining a web page for the purposes of multi-platform comparisons for each generation for about five years now. It's the one linked to at the bottom of my original post here. It's mostly screenshots, specs, movie file, and audio comparisons. But I also compiled all of the linkable facts I've been able to find from the NES days on, and compared them with more popular, *ahem*, revisions of history. One of the more interesting things I've noticed is that when polling gamers on Usenet, and when reading reviews on Gamefaqs, Gamespot and IGN searching for comments on games having unique or highly polished gameplay, no system really comes out on top untill it's dominated the market for a few years, in total "notable" library I mean. Even then, it's not a huge gap when compared to the library of the "loser" console. Gameplay is the great equalizer.
 
sheath said:
Well, I appreciate you saying so. My interest goes a bit beyond my desire as a consumer to not be duped though. I've been maintaining a web page for the purposes of multi-platform comparisons for each generation for about five years now. It's the one linked to at the bottom of my original post here. It's mostly screenshots, specs, movie file, and audio comparisons. But I also compiled all of the linkable facts I've been able to find from the NES days on, and compared them with more popular, *ahem*, revisions of history. One of the more interesting things I've noticed is that when polling gamers on Usenet, and when reading reviews on Gamefaqs, Gamespot and IGN searching for comments on games having unique or highly polished gameplay, no system really comes out on top untill it's dominated the market for a few years, in total "notable" library I mean. Even then, it's not a huge gap when compared to the library of the "loser" console. Gameplay is the great equalizer.
Click to expand...

That's sweet. I admire your dedication. Ill check out your webpage some more.
 
Well, neither forum nor Usenet has come up with any counter evidence to the RE4 comments and the current generation being safely within the Dreamcast's technical grasp. So, I've added the comments quoted below to the Dreamcast and PS2 comparison page, along with comparison screenshots, and relative comments for MDK2 and Armageddon, Ecco the Dolphin DOF, and Resident Evil Code: Veronica for both the PS2 and Dreamcast. Comments and suggestions are welcome, and I am always happy to recieve more correct information on technical statements.

http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/DCPScompare.htm
http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/DCPScompare.htm -> Dreamcast and PS2 comparison screenshots

" Very few informed people ever doubted the Dreamcast's graphical capabilities as a next generation system. Although plenty of media hype still exists labeling it as inferior to the PS2, no substantial proof exists to demonstrate the point. Knowing the Dreamcast and PS2's graphical and software advantages is an important thing, since the hype, media, and Sony fans exclusively favor the PS2. These are highlights of this comparison, quoted directly from a Usenet discussion on that very subject:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.games.video.sega-dreamcast/msg/538573c34e6eb110

'The PS2 handles everything needed to render 3D graphics, and that's about it. The EE sends polygon data (three or four 2D coordinates, and pointers to texture, bump, light and dark data), and the GS pumps the data to the screen. It offers little in effects, and places the burden of rendering on the CPU. (...) Since the bottle-neck is with the processor, I'll take a moment here to discuss this further. The EE can render 36 million polygons with some effects on (though it still doesn't do many things the PowerVR can). This is full bore, which means the CPU is doing nothing but dumping polygons. With game physics and AI bundled into the mix, expect polygon counts to drop. More complex games will hurt more in the graphics department. Of course, the polygon count, even in the potential worst case (all bezier surfaces, 50% CPU spent on AI and physics) is still faster than the PowerVR. In fact, about twice as fast. What does this mean. Well, look at the current DC game models. For every straight edge you can see, subdivide it once (so that each edge is broken into two), and that's the detail improvement you'll see. Pretty substantial? Of course, as game developers make better use of the CPU(s), I'd expect polygon performance to increase.

On the DC or PowerVR's side, the 3.5 million polygon count allows for scenes of up to 58,000 polygons (about 4x's the detail in Quake 3). At 640x480 the pixel fill rate can redraw the entire screen at 650 fps. Unlike the EE/GS, the PowerVR only draws a pixel once per frame. This is called overdraw, and in Quake 2, costs performance of about 1/3 (that is, each pixel is typically redrawn about three times). The PowerVR also handles subsampling and has the video ram to do so. Games could be rendered internally at 1280x960, and down sampled to 640x480 for television output. (...) As noted earlier in this text, the fpu that is on the PowerVR eliminates several steps from the CPU's burden. And most importantly, while currently no game is known to fully support this, the DC can use modifier volumes. Effects such as light beams, shadows, lasers, and glowing suns are all possible with this, which would otherwise require significant CPU effort, and visual tricks to accomplish (such as using a flat polygon for fake shadows). Also, the polygon per second count is for drawn polygon's only. Polygon's that are buried under other ones are not drawn at all, nor are polygons that are to far left/right/up/down to be seen on screen, nor are polygons which are facing the other way (about half). (35)'

It should be needless to say that no game ever used the advanced features of the PowerVR chip to the extent listed here. The point of quoting this is to show as clearly as possible that the DC's resources were not maxed out in its short 2 year lifespan, and that had it continued to be developed for many more sophisticated games could have been created for the platform. It might seem silly to some to make this point, but the theory that the Dreamcast was running at full throttle when it was discontinued is so prolific it is likely that many will scoff even at the detailed comparison just quoted.

The PS2, on the other hand enjoyed a full lifecycle as the lowest common denominator for the 128-bit generation of consoles. As late as 2005, Capcom was forced to drop the polygon counts of the PS2 port of Resident Evil 4 from the Gamecube to between 900k to 1.5 million polygons per second, at 30 frames per second, while the Gamecube original ran at nearly twice this polygon count. This means that the entire generation of game consoles was relatively close to the Dreamcast's specs. So, it was basically only blind brand name following which caused the mass market to reject three consoles in favor of the PS2 exclusively. This is evidenced by the choice for the PS2 being clearly made prior to the Xbox and Gamecube even launching."

--
Scott

http://www.gamepilgrimage.com
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top