Sega Saturn question(s)

[rayfieldclement]

Is the Saturn really blurry when you use it? I saw a pic in a games magazine mid 90s that showed the game blurry . It was a Hockey game pic. How does it stack up to the PSX?

 

[Sulaco]

Is the Saturn really blurry when you use it? I saw a pic in a games magazine mid 90s that showed the game blurry . It was a Hockey game pic. How does it stack up to the PSX?

Uh...no? It's no "blurrier" than any other console of the time. I mean, really, based on a single picture from a 20 year old magazine of a random game?

I've had my same Saturn since 1995. Still works great, looks every bit as good as any other console, except on HD (obviously). I'm playing Albert Odyssey Legend of Eldean right now.

2d games look MARKEDLY better on Saturn than on PSX.

 

[Sonikku]

Too bad that was the generation everyone were all going 'ZOMG OMG ITZ IN TREE DEES OMG OMG OMG". For years Sony wouldn't even LET you release a game on their system unless it was 3D and even then you had to give it a distinction that made the playstation version the definitive version.

 

[Anarchist420]

No. The Saturn's output is actually quite a bit sharper (and a little darker) than the PS1's output. I actually would prefer something inbetween. I do however, second the comments made by #2 and #3

 

[Zohar78]

Yeah. The early saturn games (mostly launch titles) werent too great, but the later games really showed what it could do. I believe they redid two of the launch titles with better graphics and you can see the difference, virtua fighter with remix, and daytona usa. From my understanding it was a capable 3d machine, but it was way harder to program for versus playstation. Its actually kinda ironic, that what made the playstation brand popular was ease of programming, which in the current generation, the playstaion 3 is the hardest one.

 

[rayfieldclement]

Yeah. The early saturn games (mostly launch titles) werent too great, but the later games really showed what it could do. I believe they redid two of the launch titles with better graphics and you can see the difference, virtua fighter with remix, and daytona usa. From my understanding it was a capable 3d machine, but it was way harder to program for versus playstation. Its actually kinda ironic, that what made the playstation brand popular was ease of programming, which in the current generation, the playstaion 3 is the hardest one.

Yes I have heard that as well about the Saturn and the Playstation. Sony's machine was supposidly easy to program for and the Saturn was hard to program for.

 

[reallyscrued]

Haha, this just reminded me of the god-awful resolutions of home consoles before the current era; and even now we bitch about how things aren't full HD.

Remembering how my N64 looked when I moved from a 19 inch tv to a 32 inch trinitron brought a tear to my eye, not due to happiness.

Or trying to play Gamecube or Wii games on an HDTV. Bah.

 

[ViRGE]

Or trying to play Gamecube or Wii games on an HDTV. Bah.

At least the Gamecube had Component out. That was a great deal better than composite (or worse yet, RF) that most consoles used.

 

[Anarchist420]

At least the Gamecube had Component out. That was a great deal better than composite (or worse yet, RF) that most consoles used.

I disagree (I got the Gamecube when it came out so it had the "digital" output). Composite looked better on the GC (even in interlaced mode) because it wasn't so sharp. I liked interlaced for GC games better than progressive scan on the games that supported it because the artifacts were much more easily visible in progressive scan. MP1 and RE4 looked a lot sharper and more detailed in progressive scan, but the artifacts were awful and aliasing became much more apparent.

The DC showed a similar effect with the VGA box, but it wasn't quite as bad I guess because even though the Dreamcast usually used R5G6B5 backbuffer it still rendered internally at RGBA8 (the dithering quality wasn't quite 3dfx quality; they should've just used 16 MB or 32 MB of VRAM for the dreamcast so it wouldn't have to dither). The game cube's back buffer was RGBA6 but it wasn't internally rendered at 32 bit like the DC's was. The thing that really sucked about the VGA box is that it was still limited to 60 Hz. It should've gone up to at least double that.

 

[reallyscrued]

I disagree (I got the Gamecube when it came out so it had the "digital" output). Composite looked better on the GC (even in interlaced mode) because it wasn't so sharp. I liked interlaced for GC games better than progressive scan on the games that supported it because the artifacts were much more easily visible in progressive scan. MP1 and RE4 looked a lot sharper and more detailed in progressive scan, but the artifacts were awful and aliasing became much more apparent.

The DC showed a similar effect with the VGA box, but it wasn't quite as bad I guess because even though the Dreamcast usually used R5G6B5 backbuffer it still rendered internally at RGBA8 (the dithering quality wasn't quite 3dfx quality; they should've just used 16 MB or 32 MB of VRAM for the dreamcast so it wouldn't have to dither). The game cube's back buffer was RGBA6 but it wasn't internally rendered at 32 bit like the DC's was. The thing that really sucked about the VGA box is that it was still limited to 60 Hz. It should've gone up to at least double that.

Was just gonna post this.

I was disgusted hooking my Wii into my HDTV, blurry mess. Thought I'd buy some component cables and get some progressive scan goodness.

Never again. Returned the cables. The image was damn sharp, but so sharp that...well...640*480 on a 40 inch screen isn't meant to be sharp. I'm back to composite and its cheap free AA. Blur the textures, I don't care. Textures aren't exactly lifelike on a system with 96 megs of main memory to begin with.

This is all very much past tense though...my Wii is collecting dust.

 

[Sonikku]

I noticed the issue with component cables in 480p when playing games like Rogue Leader, but not all games were that bad. I remember playing F Zero GX in widescreen 480p and it looked fantastic.

 

[wirednuts]

first rule of console history- no game has ever used the console to its full potential

second rule of console history- the console is hard to program for

third rule of console history- the console is easy to program for

fourth rule of console history- "they" dont make any money on consoles