Virtua Fighter 4 dreamcast ...any info??

I think the answer is money. Porting VF4 to DC would cost more money than a regular port of the first Naomi or a standard develop of a DC game. With the system already dead, they saw in PS2 a more reliable source for the return of investment. If you see, in 2001, the last "high budget" DC titles, like Shenmue 2, Headhunter or Virtua Tennis 2 were games that started their development in 2000, or were created with technology that was already DC optimized. I´ve always have wondered, there is no possibilities of Sega make public their DC era engines for everyone? May be with that we can see finally lotta of canceled games and maybe modified "DC versions" of modern games.

 

Not to mention the last time he did that he got burned big time. If we would piece together all the information (Ignoring the possibility of wrong/inaccurate info.) , he consumed near slave working conditions just to prove a point and then all Sega did is put him in an unwinnable situation. That's enough to jade just about everyone.

Although in perspective, it's just Sega is not really that good at business management positions, I mean the only time Sega did really well is in the US, with the Genesis. In Japan I think the Megadrive is third, PC-Engine being second and Super Famicom being first sales wise.

Even in the eighties their arcade division is going well, but their home market early moves have been both really unlucky and rash, like the SG-1000 being released the same week/day as the Famicom. The power difference between the two systems are so huge (Like comparing the Atari 5200 to the NES) it wasn't replicated until the Wii / PS3 / X360 generation. To the point they released the followup hardware to the SG-1000 in less than a year. It's a hardware turnover as bad as the Virtual Boy.

 

I think it's all down to the timing. With fighting games the arcade comes first (at least back when arcades were at all relevant in the West, but this counts as one of those), and the console ports are usually of a later revision (right when they get the first tweaks in usually, with rereleases coming later). VF4 was released in arcades in 2001, Sega of America killed the Dreamcast in January, by that time maybe some work was being done on a console port, but it would be in such an early stage to be useless. Once the DC was killed in the West, there was no incentive to spend lots of time and money on a dead platform (while the last game came out over a year later, it already had development work put in by then, since VC was working on a two year cycle with NHL 2k2).

 

Sega were pretty big in Europe and South America with the master system and mega drive, i think the master system even outsold the NES. Although it went all downhill when the saturn was released

 

Just to add to the conversation(Iam not sure if this was mentioned yet) I think the that mentioned the timing was justr bad was right.If it was worthwhile for sega to port it they would have.Polygon count wise the ps2 version of the characters were with in reach of the dreamcast but I do not know of the stages.Someone extracted the naomi 2 and the ps2 models of virtua fighter 4 and it was naomi 2 14,000 polygons and ps2 7,000 for jacky bryant. while dead or alive 2 for the dreamcast jan lee(also jeet kune do user) was 8,400!(some other characters almost 10,000 polygons like helena).Maybe with effects and polygon reduction of the stages it would have run just fine but it was just too late for the dreamcast.
jacky:


janlee:

 

That is impressive. Is it the in-game model, or the cut scene model? In-game is 60fps but cut scene is 30fps, IIRC.

Also, what is the highest poly character in VF4? Jacky is probably one of the lower count models - or am I wrong? You'd need to consider the highest count character x 2 + 3D scenes. Some of them have fabric moving around etc.

Ultimately Sega could have converted VF4 for DC, but the system was on its way out by that time, as others have rightly stated. DC died the same year as the arcade release.

 

dead or alive 2 doesnt use cut scene models. its the same model for gameplay and cut scene.Not sure why it halfs the frame rate , the only difference i can see is the lightning in the cutscene.I didn't personally extract this jan lee but I remember extracting one of the female models and it hit 10,000.So yeah they are pretty dense.For virtua fighter 4 I dontk now who is the most polygons because I didnt personally extract these but they all should be around the same polygon count.Also dead or alive 2 is higher polygon character wise than tekken tag tournament apparently which is very surprising.

 

Speaking of VF4 on Dreamcast, I happened to see a thread on a videogame forum from around 2000 where someone claimed that Sega was planning on releasing an upgrade kit for the DC that would give it Naomi 2-level specs. The general consensus seemed to be that it was completely false, but it's an interesting idea nonetheless. They were talking about it (remember that this is in 2000), and they were saying how, if Sega actually did this, it might help it to compete with the PS2. Those poor fools...

Anyway, it's an interesting idea. If Sega had done that, or if they'd released an entirely new home console based on the Naomi 2, it actually would have been comparable, graphically, to the other systems of that generation. Just another possibility that was thrown in the garbage when Sega decided to exit the home console hardware business.

 

Imho it would be an expensive failure just like 32x and sega CD. And if they released an upgraded DC the games for it wouldn't be compatible with the original. It would essentially be a new console. So it's a silly sega fanboy's silly idea. What they could have done was releasing a new revision that would play dvd video, that would've been a good idea.

 

The new games wouldn't be compatible with the Dreamcast, but it would also be able to play DC games (theoretically) since the Naomi 2 can also play Naomi games. I guess you're right that it's a silly idea, but fun to contemplate. Anyway, I mainly just thought it was kind of funny/sad that they seemed to think, at the time, that the Dreamcast might actually survive.

 

All that might have not been necessary.The dreamcast could have competed with lowish to mid low end graphics of the ps2.I think it was just a matter of modernizing tools and art style.For example some one pointed out that the ps2 version resident evil 4 barely pushes over 1 million polygons(theres a screen shot of that,its not just blowing smoke) while the game cube pushes version 7 to 10 times more geometry than that.Or how mortal combat 4 character models are the same polygon as soul calibur 1.Then eidos themselves pointed out that by multiplatforming soul reaver 2 they upped raziel to 3000 polygon on both consoles and while it didnt maxed out the ps2 it maxed out the dreamcast it kept 60 fps.It was just a matter of throwing money to work on the dc which just didnt make sense at the time.Well this all off topic .

 

I remember so many different rumours about post-32X hardware upgrades from Sega...

First, there was the Eclipse project for the Saturn (which many journalists wrongly assumed would use the cartridge port rather than the same slot utilised by the VCD card), then Pluto - later revealed to be a variant of the base system with build-in NetLink capabilities.

As for the Dreamcast era, while it was eventually determined to be a hoax, "SatCast" was described as either being a Saturn emulator on a boot disc or a plug-in device that contained a reduced form of the Saturn's architecture, both ridiculous when you think about them technically.

Then, further into the Dreamcast's life, it was claimed there would be a booster that connected the same way as the karaoke peripheral (or unreleased zip drive attachment) that increased its power to NAOMI 2 levels. Even if this worked, I personally don't think it would have been enough.

I've also seen some mention in the past of Sega being in the early stages of planning another console after the Dreamcast, but I don't recall specifications or target performance figures. At the very least, I'd have expected it to exceed NAOMI 2, as this hardly challenged the best of what the PS2 or GameCube could achieve.

P.S. You all probably expected this from me, or at least you should have, but has anyone ripped the character models from Virtua Fighter 3tb so we can finally do a more accurate comparison with the Model 3 originals? I'd also be curious to see how much of a downgrade Sega Rally 2 was as well, especially after Hideki Sato insisted the Dreamcast could easily surpass Model 3.

 

I extracted akira from virtua fighter 3 dc many years ago so my memory is foggy but he was around 4k polygons. He was in line with the polygon count with the characters of mortal combat gold on dc and higher than some soul calibur 1 characters. You would think he would have looked better.

 

Isn't mkg basically a port of mk4 for psx?

 

It was probably based on either the arcade or PC versions.

I remember there was also a rumor that Shenmue would include a Saturn emulator that would allow you to load Saturn discs.

 

Its not. It might be a straight up arcade port. The n64 port had less than 1000 polygons and the dreamcast version had over 4000 but the models look close not to mention they are higher polygon than mitsurugi from soul calibur 1. Bad art style and perception might have killed the dc. Ryo hazuki with high poly hands is the same count as the main character from the bouncer and despite the face of the character from the bouncer not being modeled he looks miles better.

Edit: these were all extracted by someone else btw , I have nott extracted anything else in years.
N64:


Dreamcast:


Mitsurugi soul calibur 1 vs cyrax mortalcombat gold:

 

out of curiosity I decided to extract akira from the dreamcast version.Seems he is close to 6,000 triangles despite the fact the game engine seems to clip any triangles that are not seen on him.Triangle count can be seen on top where it says tris.

 

I know that Genki cut corners in their conversion of VF3tb, but I never realised how literally this was the case - just check out poor Akira's armpits (and his elbows, for that matter)! Does anybody else remember the earliest Dreamcast prototype screenshots? I seem to recall Jeffry having particularly bad thigh connections, while in the final build Kage and Shun also have some rather questionable joints. Meanwhile, the rest of the world rightly drooled over Soul Calibur...

 

You are telling me basicall Ryo and other shenmue characters could have looked more like bouncer characters in terms of graphics? what was am2 thinking at the time?

 

This thread proves once again that even in older 3D systems (where the higher poly count were suppossed the better), geometry is not everyting. Now i´d dare to ask in my infinite ignorance....is not posssible to someone with 3D programming experience and a DC dev Kit to mod and optimize, for example, Virtua Fighter 3TB and turn in to a sort of DC VF 4 ? I mean, i know some russian guys have mod Half Life mods to DC (i´ve got The y Hunger, Paranoia and Gunman Chronicles on the DC) so?...it is impossible?