Games That Pushed Older Systems to the Limit?

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I don't think that games that has slowdowns are pushing machines to the limits.

Anyone can make a game for a console that's too good looking for the machine to handle, the trick is to make the machine run it properly. Thus I don't believe games that was developed during the last days of PSX, N64 etc should count. Like Perfect Dark. Nice looking, but hell to play.

 

super aleste/space megaforce was quite pushy with all that fast action and contless sprites....

 

Oh yes, Super Aleste is amazing from a programming point of view as well as a fantastic shooter. Massive explosions, enemy ships everywhere, way over the top weapon systems all on top of multi parallax scrolling stages or stages using full on rotation effect and not one hint of slowdown unless you play on mania mode and even then it's minimal. If there was one down point to Super Aleste it would have to be the sample rate of the music. Cool that it is, it does sound a bit muffled using real hardware. Of course we can always use emulation on the PC and bump up t he sample rate to a nice 44htz.

Yakumo

 

Thanks for that great description of the stage rendering process in Virtua Fighter, which finally explains why the surround breaks up on occasion! I've never seen this problem occur in VF2 despite the fact it uses the same technique, so presumably AM2 found a way of better optimising this element of the game over its predecessor. From what I can tell only Dead Or Alive uses fully polygonal rings, with Takara's Saturn fighters all utilising the same method seen in AM2's titles and Last Bronx. Back on the subject of Burning Rangers and Panzer Dragoon Saga, does the former really not use the DSP at all (for a game that throws around so many effects, that's come as something of a revelation to me). Also, I'm aware the water in Panzer Zwei was produced through VDP2? However, surely there must be at least one game out there making some use of the Saturn's many internal processors? Anarchy In The Nippon isn't comparable with VF2, Last Bronx and Dead Or Alive, but in my opinion it was still a great effort when you consider none of the "usual suspects" were responsible for its development. Then again, Last Bronx was the first time AM3 had worked on a fighter, both in its original coin-op form and later with the Saturn conversion...

 

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So it was just the first VF that used polygons for the whole stage, hence the flickering not present in later games? Again, thanks for what is turning into a fantastic thread where some previously undiscussed technical details are being revealed on the "pushing" of the Saturn in particular. Also, you're not really missing much by not having Anarchy In The Nippon, but as a third party effort it's quite impressive because of the way developer KSS paid such attention to the VF2 style of graphical presentation. However, in terms of gameplay it's more comparable to something by SNK as opposed to AM2. On the subject of Toshinden Remix, now that I better understand how the effect was achieved stage transparencies don't seem that great anymore. Still, at least some programmers were prepared to use the extra power - even if this did come with a price elsewhere - to draw "real" translucency effects instead of the more common dithered variety.

Finally, there are brief instances throughout Panzer Dragoon Zwei where the infinitely scaling floor gives way to a quad rendered alternative. For example, if you take the second level's first available left route (I know that sounds complicated!) just before your dragon takes flight the underlying surface suddenly becomes very rough-looking. Based on the amount of warping and lower resolution textures being used, I'd guess this is where the VDP2 gives way to polygons, which are used to render the mountain after you begin flying. Hopefully this description makes sense, and fingers crossed this great conversation will continue with further in-depth analysis...

 

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What? Both of these games are among the nicest looking on the Megadrive. Name me a Megadrive game with a player sprite as big as Alien Soldier's. It's fucking huge. Both games have all kinds of nice graphical effects throughout.

 

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i think we should make a new thread about saturn technical work...

 

That's probably a good idea - I'd hate to hijack yet another thread with Saturn exclusive discussion!

 

Well played.

 

then....shenmue for the sega saturn..in your opinion..how much does that push the console? i think that it maybe would reach 90%!!!!!!!!

 

or was it 92.4%? can't say for sure

 

"99.37%" (Yu Suzuki)

 

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Sorry for being an idiot in this subject , but...what's the diference of a running game and a prerecorded video?.

 

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BLACK for PS2