*Theoretically Speaking* X-Men vs Street Fighter

[AdamGomez1987]

I was playing this hacked Mortal Kombat game for the Sega Genesis and what intrigued me about it was that the game itself was over 10MB big where the typical capacity of your typical cartridge is a little over 3MB ( I think around 3.4 but I'm not sure )

As I was enjoying myself playing X-Men vs Street Fighter on the Sega Saturn. I began to look at the memory chip I had to purchase to play the universal code. And I started to think more into this.

If the PSOne had a larger memory chip or if someone tried to hack a game like X-Men vs Street Fighter and gave it a larger memory capacity, would the game have been closer to the arcade such as being able to cross over and not sacrificing the details? Or is there another factor why the PSOne still couldn't handle the superior Sega Saturn. Thanks for reading this.

Edit: The game I was playing was Ultimate Mortal Kombat Trilogy (Genesis Hack)

[isiolia]

It may have done better, but the general statement would probably be more that the Saturn was designed better as a 2D machine than the PSX or N64, which were designed far more around 3D games.

Far as I know, it came down to how the systems handled polygon structure. The Saturn uses quadrilateral polygons, the others used triangular. 2D graphics in either are texture maps on polygons, and quadrilateral are more suited to that. The Saturn also had more base video memory.

On the flip side, 3D games/engines mostly pushed triangles (and still do). Porting 3D games to the Saturn tended to mean a lot of work (well, the Saturn was a complex machine to develop for period). Effectively though, the same design decisions that made it a 2D beast made it (at best) the odd man out for 3D development.

[DinnerX]

While I don't really know I think the PS didn't have the processing power or the ram to keep everything going smoothly.

[vlame]

I was playing this hacked Mortal Kombat game for the Sega Genesis and what intrigued me about it was that the game itself was over 10MB big where the typical capacity of your typical cartridge is a little over 3MB ( I think around 3.4 but I'm not sure )

a cart game can be any size the creator needs it to be, since the cart is just another PCB added to the system (Super FX chips, lockout chips, game genies...)

As I was enjoying myself playing X-Men vs Street Fighter on the Sega Saturn. I began to look at the memory chip I had to purchase to play the universal code. And I started to think more into this.

universal as in region? well more than likely you were using an Action Replay with 4mb. XvsSF requires 4mb of additional ram to play

If the PSOne had a larger memory chip or if someone tried to hack a game like X-Men vs Street Fighter and gave it a larger memory capacity, would the game have been closer to the arcade such as being able to cross over and not sacrificing the details? Or is there another factor why the PSOne still couldn't handle the superior Sega Saturn. Thanks for reading this.

PS1 vs SS ram

PS1

Code: Select all

# 2 MB of main RAM
total: 2 mb

SS

Code: Select all

    * 1 MB SDRAM as work RAM for both SH-2 CPUs (faster)
    * 1 MB DRAM as work RAM for both SH-2 CPUs (slower)
    * 512K VDP1 SDRAM for 3D graphics (Texture data for polygon/sprites and drawing command lists)
    * 2x 256K VDP1 SDRAM for 3D graphics (Two framebuffers for double-buffered polygon/sprite rendering)
    * 512K VDP2 SDRAM for 2D graphics (Texture data for the background layers and display lists)
    * 4 KB VDP2 SRAM for color palette data and rotation coefficient data (local, on-chip SRAM)
    * 512 KB DRAM for sound. (Multiplexed as sound CPU work RAM, SCSP DSP RAM, and SCSP wavetable RAM)
    * 512 KB DRAM as work RAM for the CD-ROM subsystem's SH-1 CPU
    * 32 KB SRAM with battery back-up for data retention.
    * 512 KB Mask ROM for the SH-2 BIOS
    * 4 MB of external RAM
total: ~5-9MB

The Saturn had way more ram, I have no idea how much ram the game needs, but im sure as hell that the whole game would need to be reprogrammed from the ground up if you wanted to play it perfectly on an ps1. It is missing options and frames.

[MrPopo]

Far as I know, it came down to how the systems handled polygon structure. The Saturn uses quadrilateral polygons, the others used triangular. 2D graphics in either are texture maps on polygons, and quadrilateral are more suited to that. The Saturn also had more base video memory.

I'm fairly certain it has nothing to do with the polygons themselves, as the 2D games wouldn't have even dipped in to the 3D graphics libraries. However, you are correct in that the hardware of the Saturn was more optimized for 2D graphics than the PS1 was. The extra RAM is the big thing. Early 3D graphics take up much less RAM space then 2D graphics of the same time, because 3D graphics consist of a description of the vertices of your surface (very small) and possibly textures. Half the time they used shading, which takes up much less space than a sprite, and the rest of the time they used textures of a lower resolution than the sprites of the time, as they could rely on the shape of the 3D object to give it definition that were a part of the equivalent sprite. So the PS1 could handle 3D graphics just fine but didn't have the RAM to support a lot of nice 2D graphics.

[AdamGomez1987]

Yeah, I own an Action Replay which I am able to play these games on my Sega Saturn which makes me think because you wouldn't be able to play these games on the Sega Saturn if it wasn't for the extra 1-4MB of whatever this replay card adds, correct?

I might be over analyzing this, but I just think it's interesting. like I heard Street Fighter Alpha 2 loooks like crap where the Saturn Version rocks, yet again, I heard Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold came for Street Fighter collection and that was good, at least what I was told.

[vlame]

the ps1 could barely do 2d gaming but the saturn was built to do 2d gaming.

[AdamGomez1987]

the ps1 could barely do 2d gaming but the saturn was built to do 2d gaming.

It seemed to do alright with Symphony of the Night, fortunately for me that my favorite character is Alucard..lol!

[vlame]

the ps1 could barely do 2d gaming but the saturn was built to do 2d gaming.

It seemed to do alright with Symphony of the Night, fortunately for me that my favorite character is Alucard..lol!

which seemed to do alright?

[AdamGomez1987]

the ps1 could barely do 2d gaming but the saturn was built to do 2d gaming.

It seemed to do alright with Symphony of the Night, fortunately for me that my favorite character is Alucard..lol!

which seemed to do alright?

Castlevania Symphony of the Night.