Generic Sega Console thread... sort of

[CruSega]

I don't know what you consider successful but when I flip through my EGM magazines from the 90s, every single game in the Japanese imports section was for the SNES. Nintendo dominated Japan with the SNES.

If not for America and Europe, the Megadrive/Genny would have joined the Turbographx 16 by 1992.

Back to Japan, the only killer app Sega ever had there was the Virtua Fighter series and it was huge there. Thinking there was finally an opportunity to penetrate their own country, Sega rushed the Saturn (which was supposed to be a hybrid of Model 1 and System 32. It only became the architectural mess when Sega got word of the PS1's incredible 3D capabilities and the SOJ design team were given a limited window to make it more beefy. It was beefy but impossible to program for. Saturn VF1 was terrible (what with clipping and parts of fighters disappearing) and Daytona USA chugged along at 12-15 fps.

As for Model 3, I'm pretty sure it used a Power PC processor cause if it used an SH3, DC versions of VF3 would have been flawless and to top things off there was nothing in the DC library that matched what AM2 achieved with Scud Racer. I know Sega had a DC Scud Racer demo that they showed developers behind closed doors but if it was half-decent why didn't they release it for the DC?

Model 3 was shortlived because Sega decided to go with the Naomi and STV designs which were cheaper to produce but based on the games, Model 3 was more powerful than DC or its arcade derivatives.

Check this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Se ... ifications

Regardless, if Japan was truly behind Sega, the DC could have survived and Sega wouldn't have had to go become a 3rd party publisher. Not even Shenmue could save DC in Japan and Sega banked on that game bigtime.

That is pretty much the way I remember it also. In 1994 the Virtua Fighter games were HUGE in Japan and everyone was clamoring for a home conversion, it was the conversion of Virtua Fighter 2 that helped give the Saturn the early lead in Japan over the PS1, only once the Final Fantasy games started coming out on the PS1 did things change.

As for the Model 3 arcade board it used a PowerPC 603 CPU running at 66Mhz and had 2 Real3D Pro-1000 graphics chips, it was indeed more powerful than the Naomi boards, but was also a very expensive board compared to Naomi, hence its short life.

Here's the specs for Model 3

http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=717

Exactly. I have no clue where Mr. Sega gets his specs from. The graphic chips on Model 3 were designed by Lockheed Martin who develop for the US military. How can that be inferior to NEC's power VR GPUs?

[MrSega]

@CruSega. You do know that I have full knowledge about how SEGA contracted Lockheed Martin for 3D graphics in 1991-1992. Thats how the System 32 Model series was born.

If you've never seen a Saturn game that looked better than PSX, you've got two problems: 1. Saturn emulation is nearly immpossible to do because of the console's complex design, you'll NEVER be able to duplicate Saturn using an emulation, its blind noobism assuming that not buying the actual console itself can automatically ultilize Saturn's emulation and assume that's all its capable of. 2. Most of the Saturn games that looked far better and superior than Playstation were released in Japan, later in its life. If that's not enough. type in "Shenmue Saturn" on youtube and you'll see the Saturn pushing its full capabilities together, making any PSone game look like crap.

You don't seem to realize that the reason why people seem to think Saturn was inferior to PSX and was originally a 2D machine is because they have NO idea just how complex and complicating Saturn is.

SEGA Saturn is PERFECTLY capable of 3D if done right. It's 2X more powerful than PSX, it has better faster memory, better polygon processing, better framespeed. PSX may have had a better preforming and easy to program engine, but it was techically primatitive, weak and slow in speed and lacked tremendous RAM and memory. The lack of RAM in PSX made for alot of terrible,buggy and poorly done arcade ports.

Here's a 100% accurate website that tells you all the secrets of Sega Saturn, after reading it throughly, you'll see why it was a better more powerful machine than PSX and why you're clutching at straws thinking you can emulate it and just assume thats all its capable of.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Sega_Saturn

[MrSega]

@stu. Model 3 was the first PC based high powered arcade board to be released in amusment history back in 1996. It was a mid range board that SEGA felt compelled to abandon it when they introduced NAOMI in early 1998 since NAOMI was choosen to be the chipset for Saturn's successor "Katana/Dreamcast". Its likely why SEGA is abandoning RINGEDGE so soon even though you don't want it to be.

By mid 1994, Virtua Fighter, Daytona USA were running on Model 2 hardware not Model 1. SEGA had already moved the games over to Model 2 hardware from Model 1 which they used to garner hype about Saturn. VF 2 was first title that was originally developed for Model 2. Most of Model 2 titles were prototype builds of Model 1.

@CruSega. The reason why Model 2 games look better than Saturn is remotely simple: Model 2 is state-of-the-art designed. It uses higher memory and polygon count than Saturn. If you were to combine both processors together on Saturn or add additional RAM, you can get the same visual effect on Saturn as you do on Model 2. Remember this term: Saturn is perfectly capable of 3D and 64-bit like graphics IF DONE RIGHT.

[stu]

Exactly. I have no clue where Mr. Sega gets his specs from. The graphic chips on Model 3 were designed by Lockheed Martin who develop for the US military. How can that be inferior to NEC's power VR GPUs?

I really have no clue either.

[CruSega]

@CruSega. You do know that I have full knowledge about how SEGA contracted Lockheed Martin for 3D graphics in 1991-1992. Thats how the System 32 Model series was born.

If you've never seen a Saturn game that looked better than PSX, you've got two problems: 1. Saturn emulation is nearly immpossible to do because of the console's complex design, you'll NEVER be able to duplicate Saturn using an emulation, its blind noobism assuming that not buying the actual console itself can automatically ultilize Saturn's emulation and assume that's all its capable of. 2. Most of the Saturn games that looked far better and superior than Playstation were released in Japan, later in its life. If that's not enough. type in "Shenmue Saturn" on youtube and you'll see the Saturn pushing its full capabilities together, making any PSone game look like crap.

You don't seem to realize that the reason why people seem to think Saturn was inferior to PSX and was originally a 2D machine is because they have NO idea just how complex and complicating Saturn is.

SEGA Saturn is PERFECTLY capable of 3D if done right. It's 2X more powerful than PSX, it has better faster memory, better polygon processing, better framespeed. PSX may have had a better preforming and easy to program engine, but it was techically primatitive, weak and slow in speed and lacked tremendous RAM and memory. The lack of RAM in PSX made for alot of terrible,buggy and poorly done arcade ports.

Here's a 100% accurate website that tells you all the secrets of Sega Saturn, after reading it throughly, you'll see why it was a better more powerful machine than PSX and why you're clutching at straws thinking you can emulate it and just assume thats all its capable of.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Sega_Saturn

I also own a Sega Saturn which I purchased on launch for $400 in the spring of 1995 along along with VF and Daytona USA. I had it modded so that I own most of the gems that never made it Stateside.

[MrSega]

@CruSega. The May 1995 US NTSC Saturn models were known to run slower and lower powered than the later more structured models. The reason being is because Sega of America rushed it out the same time the US NTSC Saturn went into production.

Doing the "Swap trick" to these earlier models was known to break them. To play imports, its very mandatory to use a mod chip.

A supercharged Saturn consits of a later US NTSC Saturn model, an Pro Action Replay 5-1 cart, and a backup memory cartridge(In addition to allowing imports, PAR helps you cheat, save memory and run Saturn games requiring extra RAM.) and an internal battery.

I brought a November 1996 Saturn US NTSC model in August 1997. In 2009, I snagged a Action Replay cart, a backup cart, later a really bad Game Shark just for backup memory.

I'm planning on snatching up a Japanese Saturn Grey,White or the rare smoky Black(These are known to run higher watts, more power and faster CD+R channels and can read VCDs with a special adaptor.) so I can play X Men VS Street Fighter which came with a 4 MB cartridges. The game works fine on my US Saturn, but its straining the poor thing. Henceforth I gotta buy a Japanese Saturn.