Games that were Better on the Saturn than on PSX..

Not true. As an example, Vatlva uses MPEG SOFTDEC in a boxed window if you don't have an MPEG daughter card. If you add one, it will play full screen at full quality.

 

Probably the most important factor generally!

 

x

 

There are many games that use the Saturn MPEG Card. Off the top of my head there are the following (this is NOT all of them)

Vatlava
Gun Griffon (Japanese release ONLY)
Luna Special MPEG Edition
Wangan Dead Heat PLUS Real Arranged
Chisato Moritaka LalaSunshine
Sakura Taisen fan discs (2 of them but I can't remember which 2)
Moon Stone
Burning Rangers Sample
many of the magazine demo discs
and more that I can't remember at the moment

As for none MPEG compatible movies looking shit, well, yes some versions of Cinipac do look bloody awful but others and True Motion look fantastic. Also the PAL Saturn for some reason has worse looking FMV. I don't know why, it just does. Just check out a PAL Panzer Dragoon or Enemy Zero against the JPN one on a JPN machine and you'll see what I mean.

Anyway, as a testament to how good Saturn FMV can look, here are some direct links to video son my site all recorded from real Japanese Saturn hardware with no fancy filters.

Digital Dance Mix (TRUE MOTION)
http://www.segagagadomain.com/movie-pages/digitaldance.htm

Wangan Dead Heat + Real Arranged (MPEG SOFDEC)
http://www.segagagadomain.com/movie-pages3/wanganreal.htm

Bugger, got to go. post more later.

OK, back. here are more games with great lookin FMV

Fighters Megamix (TRUE MOTION)
http://www.segagagadomain.com/movie-pages3/fightersmega.htm

Dead or Alive (CINIPAC)
http://www.segagagadomain.com/movie-pages/deadoralive.htm

D-Xhird (CINIPAC)
http://www.segagagadomain.com/movie-pages3/dxhird.htm

Chisato Moritaka Lala Sunshine (MPEG SOFDEC) - Skip to 1:46 or 3:45 to see the video footage
http://www.segagagadomain.com/movie-pages/chisato.htm

Gun Griffon (Japanese MPEG SOFDEC version)
http://www.segagagadomain.com/movie-pages2/gungrif1.htm

and here is some pisspoor Saturn video that for some reason everybody thinks is normal for the Saturn.

Asuka 120% Limited Burning Fest. (CINIPAC)
http://www.segagagadomain.com/movie-pages/asuka120.htm

Yakumo

 

I knew a handful of Saturn games boasted MPEG-encoded videos, but there's actually more than I first thought. Of course, with the majority being obscure Japanese titles it's not something a lot of people realise. Also, didn't the later Mogitate discs have some content that required the Video CD Card as well?

 

pal has higher resolution and i think it needs extra bitrate for that, yakumo... bigger resolution with same bitrate = shit. oR maybe just bad conversion from native NTSC.

 

10 player ftw :thumbsup:

 

That Digital Dance mix is impressive...and being a Fan of Namie Amuro it's a double treat....

 

Yes, this is true. There are a few demo discs that make use of the MPEG card. Another crazy demo disc is Grandia Prelude. The FMV on that runs in the Saturns highest resolution! yet the normal game uses the same FMV but in standard resolution.

You could be right there regarding the bitrate. Something that a real tech nut would need to look in to though I guess.

I'm currently remaking many of the videos on my site in 720p so you'll be able to see that Namie Amuro one in much better quality soon. You probably noticed that the resolution for the Dead or Alive and D-Xhird videos was a lot higher than the likes of Gun Griffon and so on. That's what I aim to have all the videos looking like but even sharper. The first of the new captures goes up this Sunday. I build a new direct RGB capture splitter for my Saturn. One image goes to the TV while the other goes to the capture card. The results are most impressive.

It's probably the shitty YouTube encoding but the video on that Teken intro looked pretty poor. Worse than all the links I posted above. But like I said, that maybe down to crappy YouTube quality.

Yakumo

 

I was talking with somebody yesterday about the Saturn's 3d capabilities. I'm usually qucik to point out that Daytona and VF2 look like ass why Sega didn't just build a console version of the Model 2 is a great mystery...to me at least

However a few games seems to have changed my mind. Namie uh...whatever it is amongst them.

 

From my own research into the matter it seems most PAL games simply expand the window around their videos or rescale their files on-screen, but they would usually retain the same bitrate and resolution as their NTSC counterparts when played directly through a program such as TmPlay or Winvdt2. For most cases only the in-game graphics were optimised, though even this wasn't always correct - some did resort to blatant upscaling (such as the majority of 2D titles where sprites may have been pushing the Saturn's memory without the need for resizing on top of this) or stick with intrusive borders. Those playing their games through a televison will probably find it difficult to really notice any side-effects of this method... emulation, however, reveals countless offenders!

As for why Sega didn't just release a console version of the Model 2 board in 1994, cost was one factor. Also, let's not forget that back then Sega felt 3D graphics would be a passing fad - the likes of Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA were only made because the company didn't want to be seen as missing the bandwagon if its predictions were incorrect and 3D did indeed take off as many rivals had gambled on happening. Another issue to consider is that Sega's most popular title of the early 3D period (Virtua Racing) was never actually meant for public eyes, and was originally a tech demo to show how real time variable camera angles could be implemented into a polygonal world, perhaps for intended use in the Virtual Reality side-market that Sega could have entered with its planned headset.

If anything, the Saturn would more than likely have boasted similar technology to the Model 1 were it not for Hayao Nakayama's insistence the console's 3D power be "modest" in contrast with its status as a 2D powerhouse on par with the System 32, which Sega hoped would have proved more successful than it ultimately became. Naturally, much of the spotlight was hijacked first by Sega's own Model 1 and finally its own direct successor. Model 2 technology was still very much cutting edge and highly expensive in late 1994, with only a small handful of games then taking advantage of the platform. In one of its oddest cost-cutting measures, Sega even tried pushing the STV board as a viable (and far cheaper) alternative to the Model 2, but notoriety regarding the Saturn's complicated architecture plus known similarities between the arcade and domestic systems threatened to ruin this plan before it had a chance to be realised.

Despite everything, the STV did become quite a well-supported platform with third parties while Sega continued pushing the envelope a little while longer with the Model 3. By the time it was ready to jump another generation, lessons had clearly been learned and so both Dreamcast and its NAOMI arcade spin-off were far more forgiving on lesser programmers. Ironically, it's now been claimed that Dreamcast/NAOMI ports may be just as difficult as remaking old Saturn games because of quirks within the PowerVR2 chipset that aren't fully supported in more contemporary processors. Anyway, that's probably too off-topic to discuss further here, or did I lose the majority of you AGES ago as usual?

 

Daytona doesn't really count, since it was a total rush job to get it done for the Saturn US launch. VF2 looks like ass? My ass it does! It runs in the Saturn's high resolution mode and pretty damn fluently.

 

Had to laugh at this. If there was a kingdom called Verbose, they'd have to make you king.

 

VF2 wasn't a HORRIBLE port but play it next to the Arcade (which I did) and it does.

 

Anyone recall this Japanese game (perhaps it was a dating sim or something) where if you had an expansion disc you could load voice samples to a memory card for use when playing to give all the characters full speech? Perhaps I remember it wrong, but it was something like. I never had the game so I couldn't tell you how well it worked.

 

Noel will play without any RAM cart or with the 1MBIT or even more beefed up with the 4MBIT. Maybe that's the game you mean?

 

Ah, perhaps thats it. I probably remembered it wrong as it makes more sense to use a RAM card than a memory card.

Is there a reason the RAM card was even needed for extra voices when the game was on CD anyways? I guess streaming the audio wasn't an option for some reason.

 

Maybe it was because the Saturn was a Rubicks cube to program for?