"Dusty" Hardware questions :-) -> Sega Saturn

[DustyBits]

Hi there,

first i have to say, that my english is very "dusty" but i hope you'll understand

My questions:

1. What is the "main-ram" bandwidth of the Saturn ?

The IC Label shows -70 i think its 70ns right ? Half CPU frequency (14,x MHz) ? 16 or 32 Bit memory interface ?

2. The "CPU-RAM" bandwidth ?

There i read -7 ...7ns ? really ?

I want to know how many MB/s is the Saturn able to read/write (theoretical with or without "bursts").
Anyone knows ?

thx i nadvance

 

[exdeath]

Really doesn't matter as it only had 2 MB RAM anyway so you weren't really moving enough to measure.

Even SNES could do 2.58 MB/sec when it only had 128K.

RAM was pretty much as fast as the CPU bus in those days and the quantities were small enough most were implemented with SRAM. Bandwidth wasn't really a measurable or useful quantity compared to polygons per second or CPU cycles per vblank.

For all intents and purposes RAM was 1:1 with CPU back in those primitive systems, there was no concept of RAM bandwidth vs CPU bandwidth.

 

[Arkaign]

Exactly what ExDeath says there. It's meaningless. Saturn would have been really interesting to see last longer (as would the Dreamcast).

I feel that had Sega simply skipped the needless Sega CD and 32X, and polished the Saturn for a while longer before launching, that Sega might even still be here today. The 32X and Sega CD were expensive flops that earned the distrust and ire of many of their fans who felt duped for the expense and shocking lack of quality titles released for them.

Then the Saturn came, expensive and ludicrously complicated architecturally. A handful of gem titles (more if you import), but it's early death only piled on the bad voodoo for Sega.

And of course that led to the Dreamcast, a system that truly was what the Saturn should basically have been to begin with, but the damage was done, too many people had defected to the Playstation brand. Some people blame the easy copying of titles. I don't, the library simply wasn't there, and it flamed out quickly. The only person I knew with a Dreamcast was my brother, out of dozens of gamer friends. We all liked it, and we all would have bought one had there been a real library to work with.

 

[exdeath]

Exactly what ExDeath says there. It's meaningless. Saturn would have been really interesting to see last longer (as would the Dreamcast).

I feel that had Sega simply skipped the needless Sega CD and 32X, and polished the Saturn for a while longer before launching, that Sega might even still be here today. The 32X and Sega CD were expensive flops that earned the distrust and ire of many of their fans who felt duped for the expense and shocking lack of quality titles released for them.

Then the Saturn came, expensive and ludicrously complicated architecturally. A handful of gem titles (more if you import), but it's early death only piled on the bad voodoo for Sega.

And of course that led to the Dreamcast, a system that truly was what the Saturn should basically have been to begin with, but the damage was done, too many people had defected to the Playstation brand. Some people blame the easy copying of titles. I don't, the library simply wasn't there, and it flamed out quickly. The only person I knew with a Dreamcast was my brother, out of dozens of gamer friends. We all liked it, and we all would have bought one had there been a real library to work with.

I keep imagining how colorful the Xenosaga series would have looked on the Dreamcast's 16 MB VRAM vs the PS2's 4 MB.

 

[zerocool84]

Exactly what ExDeath says there. It's meaningless. Saturn would have been really interesting to see last longer (as would the Dreamcast).

I feel that had Sega simply skipped the needless Sega CD and 32X, and polished the Saturn for a while longer before launching, that Sega might even still be here today. The 32X and Sega CD were expensive flops that earned the distrust and ire of many of their fans who felt duped for the expense and shocking lack of quality titles released for them.

Then the Saturn came, expensive and ludicrously complicated architecturally. A handful of gem titles (more if you import), but it's early death only piled on the bad voodoo for Sega.

And of course that led to the Dreamcast, a system that truly was what the Saturn should basically have been to begin with, but the damage was done, too many people had defected to the Playstation brand. Some people blame the easy copying of titles. I don't, the library simply wasn't there, and it flamed out quickly. The only person I knew with a Dreamcast was my brother, out of dozens of gamer friends. We all liked it, and we all would have bought one had there been a real library to work with.

The Dreamcast had a great library of games in its short existence. The problem was that they were games the general public hadn't heard of outside of the excellent sports games. Games like Shenmue, Seaman, Chu Chu Rocket, Powerstone, Samba De Amigo, Jet Grind Radio, Phantasy Star Online, etc etc were awesome games that no one outside of people that owned the system knew about.

 

[Arkaign]

The Dreamcast had a great library of games in its short existence. The problem was that they were games the general public hadn't heard of outside of the excellent sports games. Games like Shenmue, Seaman, Chu Chu Rocket, Powerstone, Samba De Amigo, Jet Grind Radio, Phantasy Star Online, etc etc were awesome games that no one outside of people that owned the system knew about.

True, for it's short time it had a fair number of gems. Still, on my retro gaming group, even the people that are DC maniacs have a VERY hard time naming 20 solid titles for it. There's usually people putting in titles that are clearly filler at best to just put a game in there that's not absolutely awful.

Compared to systems like the Genesis, NES, SNES, PS1, PS2, Xbox, 360, PS3, which had many many dozens (or even hundreds) of excellent to legendary titles.

DC reminds me a bit of the TG16, which I loved as well. Like the DC, it had some spectacular imports that the states never got to see. Like the DC, it got discontinued relatively quickly in the states, and even during it's run was usually relegated to a small shelf in the corner. Like the DC, it had some awesome unique qualities to it, including the most stellar AV output of the gen (RF vs RF, or stereo AV vs. Stereo AV). Selling the AV output separately through the booster was retarded though.

 

[sxr7171]

Exactly what ExDeath says there. It's meaningless. Saturn would have been really interesting to see last longer (as would the Dreamcast).

I feel that had Sega simply skipped the needless Sega CD and 32X, and polished the Saturn for a while longer before launching, that Sega might even still be here today. The 32X and Sega CD were expensive flops that earned the distrust and ire of many of their fans who felt duped for the expense and shocking lack of quality titles released for them.

Then the Saturn came, expensive and ludicrously complicated architecturally. A handful of gem titles (more if you import), but it's early death only piled on the bad voodoo for Sega.

And of course that led to the Dreamcast, a system that truly was what the Saturn should basically have been to begin with, but the damage was done, too many people had defected to the Playstation brand. Some people blame the easy copying of titles. I don't, the library simply wasn't there, and it flamed out quickly. The only person I knew with a Dreamcast was my brother, out of dozens of gamer friends. We all liked it, and we all would have bought one had there been a real library to work with.

I thought the Dreamcast had a lot of top quality and innovative titles for it's short life span. From Soul Calibur to Shenmue to Seaman, Samba de Amigo, Metropolis Street Racer, Marvel vs. Capcom, Jet Grind Radio, Phantasy Star Online, Crazy Taxi, and Skies of Arcadia.

I can honestly say I had more fun on that system than any other since it. Also games were really cheap at some point. It really had some innovative ground breaking games almost as if Sega just released all their pent up creativity on the system. By that time fans were pissed. Evereyone just wanted "the next Playstation". Which IMHO took a year to match Dreamcast graphical quality and even then only a few games really bettered what was common on Dreamcast. The system launched with Soul Calibur which looked amazing for years after.

 

[Sonikku]

Unfortunately for Sega, marketing is a strong suit of Sony. Just look at the current generation. They had actually patented tech to restrain the sale of used games for the PS4, but wisely opted to let Microsoft take on all the risk of announcing the change first. When the reaction was outrage, suddenly Sony was all "We would never dream of it!" Same deal with ending free PSN. When they said they were going to charge for what they had always given away for free they small claused it in a way that went right over consumers heads. They're simply better at being a salesman than Sega ever was.

 

[Arkaign]

Unfortunately for Sega, marketing is a strong suit of Sony. Just look at the current generation. They had actually patented tech to restrain the sale of used games for the PS4, but wisely opted to let Microsoft take on all the risk of announcing the change first. When the reaction was outrage, suddenly Sony was all "We would never dream of it!" Same deal with ending free PSN. When they said they were going to charge for what they had always given away for free they small claused it in a way that went right over consumers heads. They're simply better at being a salesman than Sega ever was.

The tech patent for Sony's implementation of used game blocking was interesting, it was an offline system vs an online check-in. I'm indeed glad they dropped that.

I don't agree at all with them not being upfront about PS+ being required for online MP. And indeed, you still get a lot more openness with PS4 than XB1 should you not subscribe to the online system :

http://kotaku.com/what-you-can-do-without-a-paid-playstation-plus-account-1455089775

However, given the current environment, and the much better leadership changeover (Phil Spencer is by FAR the best choice to make big moves to help Xbox!), it looks like this has a good chance of shifting considerably :

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...phil-spencer-may-free-apps-of-xbox-live-gold/

 

[cmdrdredd]

Unfortunately for Sega, marketing is a strong suit of Sony. Just look at the current generation. They had actually patented tech to restrain the sale of used games for the PS4, but wisely opted to let Microsoft take on all the risk of announcing the change first. When the reaction was outrage, suddenly Sony was all "We would never dream of it!" Same deal with ending free PSN. When they said they were going to charge for what they had always given away for free they small claused it in a way that went right over consumers heads. They're simply better at being a salesman than Sega ever was.

You can patent anything but that doesn't mean a product for that patent will ever come out. It just means that anyone wanting to copy their idea can't or has to pay $$$

Apple, Google, and Microsoft patent stuff all the time that never see a product to go with it. It's arbitrary