Graphics: Dreamcast vs PS2

[lordofduct]

That is what I am saying... because you are limited to pixels you will never have a perfect circle as the pixels have edges. A computer can only describe and mathematically deal with a perfect circle, but never actually draw it. It isn't just the pixels... it is because for a computer to draw a perfect circle it would have to register every individual point on it... and a circle has an infinite amount of points. No computer has that many registers and instead can only describe it as closely as x= r cos(t).

I may do that. But that means I have to watch my grammar and actually follow a structure. OH NO!

[Mozgus]

I may do that. But that means I have to watch my grammar and actually follow a structure. OH NO!

Just remember that no matter how much effort you put into it, there will be 50 morons there to tell you that you forgot random obscure Japanese game #42865, and that your list fails without it.

[lordofduct]

true...

I had to do something so I didn't get to finish my last post. So here it is.

As for the topic we are on. What I meant by what I said is that if you want to debate the soul capabilities of a simple console and if it can hold its own graphically is a question soully of beauty as graphics aren't the only process being done during the game. That and you are judging the graphical capabilities which is visual or 'beautiful'. So the sense of beauty is coming into play. So I wanted to seperate the beauty from the capabilities... showing that detail can be brought to a different level.

As some said Shenmue can be more detailed in certain aspects that FFX wasn't. Yet FFX's beauty is stronger to other people in other aspects based on their opinion of art and beauty. Can Dreamcast hold it's own graphically is a totally bizarre question when comparing it to another medium (PS2). It is like comparing the life like painting of Abraham Lincoln to the mosaic of Abraham Lincoln. They both hold there own yet one is more detailed then the other!

Hence why I began my long post saying that the idea of debating it is cliche.

[SegaVega]

What I am saying is that no console could hold its own. Because with out software the console is just a hunk of silicon and plastic sitting on the shelf.

So this really is a debate of beauty...

I think this is cute and all, but it's a diversion. I don't find myself arguing against you given the subject of the topic, but this is just not the subject. Debating beauty would leave any game or console comparison to opinion and nothing else. Yes, you can think that PS2 game X is better looking than Dreamcast game Y, but you can't argue the usage of technical merits that both titles would display. If I tossed Odyssey game Z in there, it can't compare. I could find it's flickering dot to be the artistic expression of the birth of console gaming, but there is no anti-aliasing, bump mapping, sprite rotation or Mode 7 for it's hardware to feasibly be thought of as a capable competitor to anything that supercedes it. What you're saying in this, is that there is no absolute way to compare systems - which is untrue. Whether or not there exists software is irrelevant in this case, where substantial and technically comparable software does exist. We were comparing that and arguing whether or not the Dreamcast hardware (through it's software) could have met or managed the technical feats demonstrated by the PS2.

As for the topic we are on. What I meant by what I said is that if you want to debate the soul capabilities of a simple console and if it can hold its own graphically is a question soully of beauty as graphics aren't the only process being done during the game. That and you are judging the graphical capabilities which is visual or 'beautiful'. So the sense of beauty is coming into play. So I wanted to seperate the beauty from the capabilities... showing that detail can be brought to a different level.

Beauty is arguable, as are the capabilities to communicate beauty. Pure capabilites are not. Judging the graphical capabilties of a console is a different notion than judging their beauty. If none of us found the Dreamcast or the consoles before it to be and to remain beautiful, we likely wouldn't be at this site, in this thread, or discussing Dreamcast graphics vs. PS2 graphics. The average consumer is inherently at work here, given that this topic was inherently debating what -purely technical- abilities of the PS2 the Dreamcast was able to pull off. What you're saying can pose a question of whether you like bitmaps better or polys. This doesn't work for a thread that began by comparing two technically similar consoles. In the respect of this subject, if Dreamcast was 16 bit - it couldn't hold it's own graphically. Whatever it may communicate to you is irrelevant, because a 16 bit system can't produce what a 128 bit system can. Communicate yes, but produce, no.

As some said Shenmue can be more detailed in certain aspects that FFX wasn't. Yet FFX's beauty is stronger to other people in other aspects based on their opinion of art and beauty. Can Dreamcast hold it's own graphically is a totally bizarre question when comparing it to another medium (PS2). It is like comparing the life like painting of Abraham Lincoln to the mosaic of Abraham Lincoln. They both hold there own yet one is more detailed then the other!

This is again what I've already dismissed, but I quoted you just because I wouldn't agree that the PS2 is a different medium than the Dreamcast. I won't get into the stupid hierarchy I just thought of... But anyway, a painting to a mosaic is like 2D to 3D, they can both hold their own, but you can't compare their technical abilities to demonstrate similar visuals or effects.

The thing is I'm pretty sure that there is no game with perfect code, so there is ALWAYS space for a game that pushes the console further graphically...

This is not at all important given that we're talking about minor graphical inhancements that would only add as much or less than the new titles we see on a platform each year. It doesn't even have to be considered that no console will ever reach it's absolute edge of imagery; imperfection holds true for every console. The perfect code, even though never seen, would not stretch so far as to turn an SNES into a Playstation. The "perfect circle challenge" as was mentioned, has been overcome in numerous titles through effects and wit; blur, lighting, movement - they've each been employed to banish the thought of that imperfection, and though not every instance is right for such an effect, titles like the one originally referred to could have benefited from it.

Oh man, I forgot about Under Defeat. That game destroys Ikaruga visually. It was already great looking to begin with, but it had completely perfect fire, smoke, and water reflections.

Well not that this this Ikaruga thing means anything to me either, but I wasn't searching for the flawless-looking shooter. I was just using Ikaruga as an example of smoothness in the respects of color and texture and whatnot. More people played Ikaruga than Psyvariar 2 and Under Defeat, and I was considering that alonzobots may have fell in lieu. I still favor Ikaruga against those games in those graphical respects, but Under Defeat definitely demonstrates some glory left in the Dreamcast. That fact that it was primarilly developed by 5 guys withstanding. I don't know why Ikaruga was discussed so far, I was just throwing it out there...And I was only ever arguing against alonzobots to begin with.

To the real subject...the Dreamcast could hold it's own against the PS2. And finally, anything other than a technical comparison is an undefinable idea. Sprite or poly, either could give you the same sense of inspired design, but the consoles' pure capabilities increase every few years. This is to satisfy the average consumer and to offer something of visual token beyond what the previous generation of systems could display. This is why the question of a short-lived system's visual performance came into comparison with a system that out-lived it. What's found as beautful is arguable. In what ways a system can perform to express beauty, is not.

[marurun]

OK, what's all this "The PS2 can do better effects than the Xbox because it has a more powerful CPU" crap? The Xbox is actually the most powerful of all the systems in the now-last-generation. It wasn't utilized to the utmost, but it was powerful. The thing is, when you're pushing more polys around you tend to need fewer "special effects" to make things look good.

Look at Soul Calibur 2. Maybe it wasn't programmed as optimally as it could have been, but the PS2 version was easily the worst in the bunch.

But part of the key here is the flexibility of the system. The PS2 is by far the hardest to develop for. It doesn't have a dedicated 3D chipset in the same fashion as the GC or Xbox, so it's harder to make it push high poly rates and high-res textures. So developers have focused on adding other elements to their games, including a focus on CPU-centric special effects, to compensate. The GC, meanwhile, has a very competent CPU that's good for game programming and is easy to develop for. It has a very traditional 3D chipset that has lots of hard-coded shaders and effects. It makes it very easy to design good looking games with relatively good poly counts and pretty effects, but there are limits to the effects you can add, limits the Xbox and PS2 don't have. The Xbox, meanwhile, works largely like a PC with unified memory. It has highly programmable shaders and a CPU which, while not optimally designed for a game console, can still perform some wonderul feats as it is far more flexible than the other systems' CPUs.

Now, theoretically the PS2 has an advantage creating an effect that is highly mathematical because its CPU is geared towards those types of calculations. Because it taps CPU power to also create polys it loses some of that poly count to do it. The Xbox, however, not only has fully programmable shaders but it also has a robust CPU and doesn't have to tie down poly count too much to do visual effects. The GC has a mild disadvantage, though a good developer could use the hardware shaders and effects and a little CPU time to probably make up for the lacking and create something that looks almost as good. And again, poly counts wouldn't suffer much.

But really, how massive an effect would you have to create in order to do something with the PS2 hardware that the Xbox or the GC might truly stumble over? Probably pretty damn massive, and it would hurt poly counts enough that there simply wouldn't be anything you could really do with it.

I'm going to try to put this particular bit to rest, then, by noting that it's a moot point. The graphics of a game are not defined solely by poly counts, texture size and resolution, or special effects. The end result is a combination, and the combination is what adds up to the end result. Play what you like and try to like what you play.

For some older reference articles on game hardware, Ars Technica has a wonderful, if dated, technical article by Jon "Hannibal" Stokes. He kicks ass. What you'll note is that in many regards the modern systems have gone beyond early speculation about their capabilities. Still, the fact remains that the power pecking order is still intact. Overall the PS2 is considered, technically, the weakest of the generation. It has some really neat special abilities but some glaring failings. The GC fares slightly better than the PS2, being more powerful and more flexible but still a bit limited. Probably the easiest to program for, however. The Xbox is really the most powerful in almost every regard, but the system is under-utilized.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/ee.ars/1

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/ps2vspc.ars

And well, crap, I can't find the other articles. That's what I get for not looking for them for, like, 4 years :/


Er, but in an attempt to be meagerly on-topic, notice that Soul Calibur was a relatively early Dreamcast title. Not launch, but pretty early. I was at the spring Tokyo Game Show in '99 and damn did the early footage look good. Namco's booth had more visitors than anybody else, just about. Early PS2 titles were also pretty weak. It took PS2 developers about 3 years to really come to grips with textures. That was one Dreamcast strong point, colorful and detailed textures. The PS2 has had a much longer maturity curve than the Dreamcast because even with Sega's tools (as opposed to the weaker MS tools) the system was a breeze to develop for. Only in the past couple years have we seen anything on the PS2 that really matches the colorful and rich environments the Dreamcast created years before. So, while the PS2 ultimately proved more powerful, it took a lot more developer maturity to really milk the advantage and the Dreamcast games still look good. Not as good, but still good. PS1 and N64 games really looked outdated the moment the DC came out, but the PS2 never really had that same effect on the DC.

[Mr. Scarecrow]

Er, but in an attempt to be meagerly on-topic, notice that Soul Calibur was a relatively early Dreamcast title. Not launch, but pretty early. I was at the spring Tokyo Game Show in '99 and damn did the early footage look good. Namco's booth had more visitors than anybody else, just about. Early PS2 titles were also pretty weak. It took PS2 developers about 3 years to really come to grips with textures. That was one Dreamcast strong point, colorful and detailed textures. The PS2 has had a much longer maturity curve than the Dreamcast because even with Sega's tools (as opposed to the weaker MS tools) the system was a breeze to develop for. Only in the past couple years have we seen anything on the PS2 that really matches the colorful and rich environments the Dreamcast created years before. So, while the PS2 ultimately proved more powerful, it took a lot more developer maturity to really milk the advantage and the Dreamcast games still look good. Not as good, but still good. PS1 and N64 games really looked outdated the moment the DC came out, but the PS2 never really had that same effect on the DC.

Yeah, that's something that was always immediately noticeable to me. The PS2's graphics (while I won't get into which were's better overall) always seemed muted compared to the DC's. Compare Sonic Adventure which was so bright and colorful and even modern PS2 games.

[SegaVega]

Dreamcast was maybe the king of 24bit color. I've always believed it's visuals to be among the boldest and most vibrant I've ever seen. Not to put the PS2 down, it was the more powerful console, but it has an intrinsic gray-blue bias. That's usually left for poorly made or improperly adjusted TV screens, but it seems it's in the PS2, and it makes the titles that don't directly consider that look grainer than they should.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

I was lurking and found this thread and not to really revive it to much but I did want to mention that althoug the PS2 is more powerful technically, the Dreamcast also has a feature where it hides and doesnt render anything you cant see, thus allowing much more horsepower to go to what you can see, vs. the playstation that renders everything wether you can see it or not.

[marurun]

Yes, the Dreamcast does Z occlusion. The PS2 does not.

You know, in reading back through this I also noticed something else. Most of the serious development effort on the Dreamcast, and thus development of more advanced programming libraries and techniques, was tapped out after only a very few years. The PS2 has had a LONG time to mature in developer hands. It kind of makes you wonder what the DC would be putting out if it has survived a few more years. So few games used WinCE that we don't need to worry about Microsoft's libraries getting in the way. Most developers were using Sega's tools. So what would have happened if Sega had had another 3 or 4 years of further development of those dev tools? What kind of output would we have seen? Certainly not Xbox level, but I think the system could have remained in the ballpark with the PS2. Sega just ran out of money too quickly.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Yes, the Dreamcast does Z occlusion. The PS2 does not.

You know, in reading back through this I also noticed something else. Most of the serious development effort on the Dreamcast, and thus development of more advanced programming libraries and techniques, was tapped out after only a very few years. The PS2 has had a LONG time to mature in developer hands. It kind of makes you wonder what the DC would be putting out if it has survived a few more years. So few games used WinCE that we don't need to worry about Microsoft's libraries getting in the way. Most developers were using Sega's tools. So what would have happened if Sega had had another 3 or 4 years of further development of those dev tools? What kind of output would we have seen? Certainly not Xbox level, but I think the system could have remained in the ballpark with the PS2. Sega just ran out of money too quickly.

Yes, ALTHOUGH even if the WindowsCE libraries were complete BS, they still tapped out good stuff with them ala Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 which looks just as good as 3 and 4 on the PS2 if you ask me.