Segatech Console Compare. Is it accurate?

Chuck D. Head · Post by **Chuck D. Head** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 5:34 pm

My friend was on goolge the other day because I asked him what the fillrate of the Dreamcast was and he found this. It is a comparison of the Dreamcast, the XBox, and the GameCube. There is no direct link on the Segatech site to this article, but is on the site. Here it is:

http://www.segatech.com/technical/consolecompare/

So is this an accurate comparison of these consoles?

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 6:49 pm

Only 2.8 MB left for textures, and even with VQ compression that is not very much. At 3 mpps per second, there is 5.8 MB available for textures, and that is much better. Just shows you, that there is not much point in creating a game engine on the DC that does more than 3 million polygons per second. Anyway 90 percent of the developers out there cannot even get over a million polygons per second on the Dreamcast.

I find this to be a bit contrived Sega developer's could not even get over 1 million PP

I think this is not correct at all.

ambientdistortions · Post by **ambientdistortions** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 7:46 pm

Even so the GC, PS2 and Xbox is supposed to be more powerful than the DC I still think many of the games that came out for PS2 and GC could have been done just as well on the DC especially as programmers learn more tricks , etc. etc. to push the DC to the max!

The Xbox is about the only one I can truly say that the DC could not compare to as far as same games because of the memory available.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:14 pm

The DC's major weakness is it's CPU and memory architecture, which isn't really fast enough in many cases. You need to make sure that you aren't processing anything which you don't need to, and that you reduce the number of polygons being send to the graphics system, and the number of polygon transformations being done by the main CPU.

Basically, main memory can't supply the SH-4 with data and instructions fast enough. Because of that, there is a fairly limited number of polygons the Dreamcast can actually handle. In addition, the bus connecting the SH-4 to VRAM isn't very fast either, so you need to be very careful, and try to transfer stuff over as efficiently as possible.

The second major weakness is memory, because there just isn't enough. You'll still have enough room for 5MB of textures, and that wouldn't be a problem if you could store unused textures in main memory, and swap them to VRAM very quickly when they're needed. PS2 games do that as well - they swap texture data between main RAM and VRAM when they're needed, although the PS2 has to do this in the middle of a frame because it's VRAM is so limited.

Lord_Ball · Post by **Lord_Ball** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 6:47 am

ambientdistortions wrote:Even so the PS2 is supposed to be more powerful than the DC.

I guess supposed is the opperative word as

http://www.segatech.com/technical/consolecompare/ wrote: Why the Playstation 2 is so poor at texturing. Some facts to consider:
- PS2 GPU's (GS) external bandwidth is 1.2 GB/s (64-bit @ 150 MHz bus to CPU (EE))
- PS2 GPU cannot deal with compressed textures over the above bus in real-time, as the GPU has no hardware to deal with compressed textures. The CPU (EE) can support compressed textures, but cannot deliver those textures to the GPU compressed, it has to uncompress them and thus taking up lots of bandwidth over the GPU bus.
- Will assume 4 MB for code, 8 MB for polygon and lighting information, so leaving 20 MB for textures out of PS2's 32 MB of total main memory.

PS2: 1.2 GB/s / 20 MB = 60 FPS with 20 MB of textures per frame

A 60 FPS result is not good enough! Any polygon processing will affect that rate, so the PS2 has to either render even less textures per frame or have the game run at a lower frame rate. The more polygons the PS2 wants to render the greater the impact will be against the amount of textures it can render each frame.

Note: the PS2's GPU has 4 MB of on-chip eDRAM, and after the frame buffers and z-buffers take up 3 MB, that leaves 1 MB for textures. This extra 1 MB adds a little more to the above result, but not a significant amount.

Couple that with all the other hardware features it's missing, and...

is there anything the PS2 can do that the DC can't (in regards to gaming and not in regards to things it can only BECAUSE it has a faster processor or more RAM).

EDIT: This is not intended to "bash" the PS2, so don't interpret it that way. It's a request to become informed on it's capabilities.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 6:59 am

err, all the things the ps2 can do better then the dc are because of its faster cpu and ram, so whats your point?

Lord_Ball · Post by **Lord_Ball** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:33 am

DrFreeze wrote:err, all the things the ps2 can do better then the dc are because of its faster cpu and ram, so whats your point?

?
I was asking a question, not making a statement. I just wanted to know if the PS2 hardware, such as the EE had any useful features the DC doesn't or if it has better support for some features that the DC has. That is all.

Chuck D. Head · Post by **Chuck D. Head** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 3:33 pm

Ian Micheal I am not sure if you read the article. That info about the developers not getting more than a million polygons per second is in another topic called
"How many polygons can the Dreamcast render?". This is a different article than that.

I do find it odd that they do not compare the floating point calculations of the consoles or the efficiency of there rendering techniques. And if they were going to do a comparison why wouldn't they include the PS2 or have a link directly from the site to this comparison.

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 4:16 am

Plus the fact many dreamcast games were not optimized and used C and not sh4 asm which can be up to 4 times faster. Dreamcast had a good 5 years of development left.

doragasu · Post by **doragasu** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 1:40 pm

Lord_Ball wrote:is there anything the PS2 can do that the DC can't (in regards to gaming and not in regards to things it can only BECAUSE it has a faster processor or more RAM).

Fast answer: Gran Turismo 3, Metal Gear Solid 2.

JuniorCrb · Post by **JuniorCrb** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 7:43 pm

could ps2 handle shemue 2 or SA2 (honest question)?

Post by **Quzar** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 8:46 pm

could... maybe...but not looking exactly the same. I think Shenmue 2 wouldnt be able to work without major reworking because of the size of the environments that are loaded.

Lord_Ball · Post by **Lord_Ball** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 8:59 am

doragasu wrote:
Lord_Ball wrote:is there anything the PS2 can do that the DC can't (in regards to gaming and not in regards to things it can only BECAUSE it has a faster processor or more RAM).
Fast answer: Gran Turismo 3, Metal Gear Solid 2.

Ok let me ask why you think it couldn't handle them?

Segata Sanshiro · Post by **Segata Sanshiro** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 10:34 am

Fast answer: Gran Turismo 3, Metal Gear Solid 2.

LOL
Recently i bought Sonic Heroes for PS2 (i couldnt find it for GC here in Bulgaria) and letme tell you (sure you all have seen it already, but letme express my feelings anyway)...
Well, i came running through the door and without closing it i ran directly to my TV. My wife looked at me with sad eyes, almost feeling sorry for my brain that stopped evolving when i was 15. I powered on my PS2 and while waiting for the game to boot i got a little depressed, submerged in weird swirly thoughts about premature death and corporate decisions, i almost felt afraid to see how a SONIC game will look on a PlayStation 2. I was afraid to see how much better it might look than the deceased DC and that would kill my affection and love for Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2..... The game started, i chose the sonic/knuckles/tails trio a really cool and well done CGI intro followed and shortly after the first level came up......................................................................................................................................................

i stood there, the wind blowing outside the window, the tree branches slamming against the glass, i couldn't move my hands no mater how hard i tried... the control pad fell to the ground, my wife got scared and rushed to help me thinking i was falling in a coma.... my eyes went dry and started to hurt.... i havent seen graphics like those since .... i sold my Saturn...... Sonic Heroes for PS2 runs at most at 20-30FPS, has the worst jaggies ever in a video game and the textures reminded me of DOOM for 32X. The speed that the Sonic gameplay implies combined with the above mentioned elements, results in a projectile vomit inducing experience. I picked up the pad regardless of the streams of vomit pouring out of my mouth and kept playing, my wife ran out the door to seek help.... i kept on, the vomit on the floor was already reaching my knees, when i noticed that the walls were oozing blood and pus.... with much power of will i reached the casino level, but my body started to fail me.... my vision got progressively blurred, i couldnt breathe from the stench .........

I woke up in a hospital bed, there was no sign of the PS2 and Sonic Heroes, my wife smiled beautifull beside the bed while touching my hand.... when i looked, i was surprised to see that she was handing the DC controller to me. In her other hand she had Sonic Adventure 2 birthday pack. her stare was deep and filled with love, then i realised that i wasnt dead and that Sonic Heroes and the PS2 were just a very, very ba dream!!!!

DaMadFiddler · Post by **DaMadFiddler** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 10:52 am

...Wow. That's a bit melodramatic. I have the game for 'Cube and it looks pretty decent...but Gamecube is considerably more advanced than PS2, and not what we're discussing here, so I'll shut up now

Joestar · Post by **Joestar** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 11:23 am

the developers make what a console is, not the specs

DaMadFiddler · Post by **DaMadFiddler** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 11:35 am

Jigoku wrote:the developers make what a console is, not the specs

Very true. This is why the MasterSystem, Jaguar and Saturn are not revered as the great systems they could have been...no matter how neat or powerful, no games equals no fun.

Sweater Fish · Post by **Sweater Fish** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 1:46 pm

Hey, hey, hey! The Saturn and the Master System had many of the best games of their respective generations. They may not have had as *MANY* games as the NES or Playstation, but there was tons of quality where it counted and it's quality that equals fun, not quantity.

Master System: Wonderboy series, Fantasy Zone series, Phantasy Star, Asterix, Castle Of Illusion, Kenseiden, Outrun, Sonic series (which was occasionally better than the Genesis Sonic series, in my opinion), Zillion, etc.

Saturn: Sega Rally, Guardian Heroes, (Christmas) NiGHTS into Dreams, Virtua Fighter 2, Panzer Dragoon Zwei, Radiant Silvergun, Marvel vs Street Fighter, Saturn Bomberman, etc. (that list was cut-and-pasted from a post I made in defense of the Saturn at Boob! recently, when will the Saturn-hatin' stop?)

Jaguar I'll give you, aside from a very few cool games (which even still had their problems), there wasn't much released for the Jag worth playing.

...word is bondage...

doragasu · Post by **doragasu** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 2:47 pm

Lord_Ball wrote:
doragasu wrote:
Lord_Ball wrote:is there anything the PS2 can do that the DC can't (in regards to gaming and not in regards to things it can only BECAUSE it has a faster processor or more RAM).
Fast answer: Gran Turismo 3, Metal Gear Solid 2.
Ok let me ask why you think it couldn't handle them?

DC is a great console, but I'm sure it will never be able to move near 20 million polys at 60 fps. I wrote what I'm going to write now again other times and a lot of people replied me saying I was mad and a lot other things like this, but I'll say it again: GT3 looks better than any other racing game I've never seen, it looks better than NFS Underground, better than MSR and even better than Project Gotham (it's a lot more realistic).

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 2:52 pm

What about PGR2?