Was this ever released? I know the saturn is capable of support HDTV, it says so on the box, but was such a cable ever released?
The Saturn was capable of Enhanced Definition or 480p. This can be lumped in with HD, but it's not really. See this thread: http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8280 As for a cable, I've done some Googling, but I'm still uncertain. Is a RGB scart cable capable of carrying 480p? This thread claims that 480p isn't actually possible on a Saturn. http://www.hdtvarcade.com/hdtvforum/viewtopic.php?t=4355 Anyone shed some more light on the matter?
I've never heard of Saturn's being able to output 480p. Seems highly unlikely to me. I suspect that the Saturn is only HDTV compatible insofar as hi-def TVs support standard inputs as well. So, the Master System is HDTV compatible, too. ...word is bondage...
You can make any attempt you like at a pithy comeback, but it doesn't change the fact that the Sega Saturn cannout output HDTV. Next time you might actually want to listen to those that know what the hardware can do before playing the role of smartass. -hl718
hl718, I was not attempting to be a smartass, so simmer it down. Can you blame me for expecting that seeing the Sega Saturn box said it was capable of outputting HDTV and I figured that it must be able to out HDTV? Anyways, Phinn, on http://www.hdtvarcade.com/hdtvforum/viewtopic.php?t=4355 the bottom post says: "My RGB cable arrived and as expected the Saturn treats everything as either 240p or 480i... no 480p. Looks fantastic nonetheless." So it appears that 480i is the best you can get out of the saturn as far as I can see.
I'm starting to think the Saturn HD claim comes from the ability of the Saturn's MPEG adaptor to display still images at 720x576/704x480 as per the VCD standard. Yakumo, you seem to be knowledgable on this subject - can you help?
The saturn can and does display games in any of the following resolutions * 320 X 224 640 X 224 704 X 480 It can also interlace the picture to add that extra sharpness. Some games have a real RGB on or off mode as well such as Vampire Savior or Donpachi. The saturn can't do real HD but still looks shit hot running in one of it's higher resolutions. This is one thing that stands the system out above the PlayStation, Neo Geo and N64. Yakumo
I was always under the impression that the internals supported HD resolutions, even though no software supported it nor were there cables made.
true, true! add to that a rgb scart cable for the best results and really enjoy the treat for your eyes!
Those are internal resolutions. People often mix that up when talking about video games. In all cases, the output to your TV is 480 lines of resolution (or 575 for PAL) once it goes through the video encoder, that's true for all video game systems from a Pong machine through to the Xbox360 (when it's displayed on a normal TV) no matter what the possible resolutions listed in the technical specifications are. I have no idea what the 240p in the link Iggy posted means. Sounds like a made up thing to me. I don't think interlacing could be said to add sharpness to a picture. In fact, if anything it reduces the usable resolution because attempting to use all 240 lines during every refresh causes flicker and other visual distortions. I'm also not sure what you mean by RGB on or off. All Saturn games work in RGB, the Dreamcast is the only system I know of where some games don't support RGB. The Saturn certainly looks good in RGB, but all systems do (in fact, I'd say the Genesis looks comparitively even better, but that's because it had a shitty video encoder, so composite looks horrible; the Saturn has a very good video encoder, so composite or s-video look pretty good even when compared to RGB). The 32X sometimes looks shitty in RGB because developers were counting on a somewhat blurred image for some of their little graphical tricks. Same goes for some Saturn games, actually. I don't know about the Playstation, but the N64 is in fact capable of 640x480 (which would look pretty much exactly like 704x480...horizontal resolution is completely theoretical on analog displays anyway), but that was only used for pre-rendered videos. I expect that the same is true of the highest resolution for the Saturn, too. The Saturn is a great system, but there's nothing special about its resolution capabilities or video outputs. ...word is bondage...
There's supposedly some games on saturn that have parts in hi-res for menus, bonus pictures or even part of the game... i'll try to dig something out. digging... digging... SOUKYUGURENTAI supposedly have some sprite from mini bosses in hi-res... but i'm not so sure about it.. i had some listing of saturn games (a short one, something like 3-4) that used somewhere hi-res.. to bad i can't find it anymore
Yeah, menus and pre-rendered stuff, I wouldn't surprised at all. In fact i would think that more than 3 or 4 games used the higher resolution for that. In game, though, I don't know. If the highest resolution was used in game, it probably would have been for a background layer. Like possibly Virtua Fighter 3 would have used that mode for the backgrounds. The guy in that link that Iggy posted seems to imply that Virtua Fighter 2 uses 704x480 in the backgrounds. I haven't heard that before, but I suppose it's possible. VF2 on the Saturn is really nice looking and obviously extremely well coded (almost entirely in assembly from what I've heard). ...word is bondage...
After it leaves the video encoder, it still drops to 480 i/p. Even if it were broadcasting in "Hi-Def" mode, tv's back then would only have displayed 480i. The saturn just plain doesn't have enough ram to hold a true hi-def image.
We all know that the Saturn doesn't do real Hi-Def but you can tell the difference in Saturn resolution from game to game. There are over 20 games that run in the Saturn's highest resolution. On a normal TV via RGB this looks stunning sort of like the image from a DVD player. The RGB on or Off option does do something as the image quality on Vampire Savoir changes. I have no idea since I'm not tech nut when it comes to RGB (I know what it is though) but it does alter the image. I now play me Saturn on a TFT VGA monitor with some amazing results with the high resolution games such as Dead or Alive (higher than the PS version), VF2, Winter Heat, Hi-ten bomberman (Saturn Bomberman) and so on. Low resolution games or standard resolution games look normal though Anyway, forget all specs and go from your eyes and you'll find that the bottom line is that the Saturn can produce a higher looking resolution image than the PS or N64. As for the interlacing it really does make stuff look nicer but for some odd reason the interlacing on Sonic Wings Special squashes the image down in to a box. Yakumo
RGB carries video signals separately preserving ALL the quality your machine can display. non rgb signal is compressed and makes the video less stable, somehow flicker and have ENOURMOUS problems in displaying red colors (red seems to "go around" in the image covering near color borders instead to stay in his place. said that, ANYTHING you play on rgb mode is stunning quality compared to AV cables or s-Video. really, i'm not joking!
