A what-if thread - If only Sega had used high quality 3D graphic technology in Saturn

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

The only times Saturn out-did PS1 in 3D is when you would compare the very best assembly-coded Saturn game with the worst, poorly done PS1 game.

Nah, the best looking 3D games on the Saturn like Virtua Fighter 2 and Sonic R look at least as good as the very best looking PS1 games. Maybe even better. The worst games on both systems looked about the same.

The Saturn games were harder to develop, though, and the good ones required a lot of ASM coding, that's true. It wasn't because of the Saturn hardware, though. It was a conceptual mistake on Sega's part in not understanding that they needed to provide more support to developers, particularly third party developers.

Realize that if Sony hadn't provided all the libraries for Playstation developers to use, developing on the PS1 would have been very difficult and would have required lots of ASM level coding, as well.


...word is bondage...

[parallaxscroll]

I disagree that it wasn't about Saturn's hardware. If Saturn had proper 3D hardware (from Lockheed, 3DO/Matsushita or even SGI) it would not have been as difficult to port over MODEL 1 and MODEL 2 games, and even for scaled down versions of MODEL3 games to have been done. Saturn's lack of proper 3D hardware made it very difficult for Sega to do even greatly downgraded conversions of MODEL2 games. Even the best example, Saturn's Viruta Fighter 2 with its 60fps and higher-than-arcade resolution, was still a big downgrade from the arcade from a lack of true polygons. I'll hand it to SEGA for preserving the gameplay of the arcade though, that was a miracle but one that was never really repeated.

Yeah I agree that Sega not sharing development libraries with 3rd parties was a problem, it was also a problem on the Nintendo 64, a proper 3D system, but the nature of Saturn's 2D hardware is a seperate matter.

[Rob2600]

From what I've seen, the early Saturn version of Shenmue looks on par with anything on the PlayStation, if not slightly better. It was probably a nightmare to get the Saturn to perform that well, though.

[crazyjackcsa]

I disagree that it wasn't about Saturn's hardware. If Saturn had proper 3D hardware (from Lockheed, 3DO/Matsushita or even SGI) it would not have been as difficult to port over MODEL 1 and MODEL 2 games, and even for scaled down versions of MODEL3 games to have been done. Saturn's lack of proper 3D hardware made it very difficult for Sega to do even greatly downgraded conversions of MODEL2 games. Even the best example, Saturn's Viruta Fighter 2 with its 60fps and higher-than-arcade resolution, was still a big downgrade from the arcade from a lack of true polygons. I'll hand it to SEGA for preserving the gameplay of the arcade though, that was a miracle but one that was never really repeated.

Yeah I agree that Sega not sharing development libraries with 3rd parties was a problem, it was also a problem on the Nintendo 64, a proper 3D system, but the nature of Saturn's 2D hardware is a seperate matter.

Alright, maybe I'm missunderstanding you. You're telling me Virtua Fighter 2, lacked "True" polygons...

I'm lost. What's your definition of a polygon? And again, model 2 games were hard to program for, due to the Saturn being Titan board based, not model 2 board based, it's a hardware issue to be sure, but not a lack of 3d issues.