Slave/master CPUs in Sega Saturn

[Anarchist420]

1. What if the SH2s had each been independent of each other (i.e., given their own memory and buses so they would've been independent of each other)?

2. Why didn't they just go with one faster SH2 (say @ 52-54MHz and 2x as much on-die cache)? I was thinking it would've been okay (in terms of heat) to do so because the N64's CPU was on a 350nm process while the Saturn's SH2s was from a 250nm process.

What the Sega Saturn should've been IMO was:
Hitachi SH3-DSP @ 100-125 MHz and integrated NB
4 MB system DRAM
ADI (2) SHARC DSPs @ 75 MHz each w/ a 64 bit IMC @ 75MHz
one on a bus with 4 MB SDRAM, the other on another bus with 4 MB SDRAM.
the same audio subsystem except with discrete (external) DAC and high quality output circuitry + Motorola MC68K (instead of 68EC000) @ 12.5MHz (512KB RAM).
3.2x CD-ROM drive with 128 KB cache buffer (uses CPU resources due to 50% faster drive speed and 2x as much cache)
640KB video front buffer
Fujitsu video encoder with reference circuitry.
256x224p (24 bit RGB) min, 320x240p (24bit RGB) medium, 512x384p (24 bit RGB) max output resolution.
<= 8 ms controller lag.

 

[Ancalagon44]

And the thing would sell for like $999, with that kind of hardware.

More to the point, I dont think it would have been technically feasible at the time. They didnt go with 28Mhz because they were lazy - likely it was because of the limits of the architecture and the need to cool the CPUs. If they didnt, maybe the Saturn would have had its own RROD fiasco, which would have killed it faster.

100Mhz is just ludicrous. You also mention, from what I can, something like 12MB of SDRAM. Sega unfortunately is not made of money - from a quick look at the wikipedia page, I estimate that the Saturn had about 4-5Mb of memory.

64 bit IMC? What for? You have (at most) 12MB of memory, why on earth would you need 64 bit addressing? Heck you could probably get away with 24 bit addressing with that amount of memory.

 

[Anarchist420]

And the thing would sell for like $999, with that kind of hardware.

More to the point, I dont think it would have been technically feasible at the time. They didnt go with 28Mhz because they were lazy - likely it was because of the limits of the architecture and the need to cool the CPUs. If they didnt, maybe the Saturn would have had its own RROD fiasco, which would have killed it faster.

100Mhz is just ludicrous. You also mention, from what I can, something like 12MB of SDRAM. Sega unfortunately is not made of money - from a quick look at the wikipedia page, I estimate that the Saturn had about 4-5Mb of memory.

64 bit IMC? What for? You have (at most) 12MB of memory, why on earth would you need 64 bit addressing? Heck you could probably get away with 24 bit addressing with that amount of memory.

Well, it costed $399 at launch (with virtua fighter). But you're right, that would've been way too expensive. It would've been better than Model 2 though.

 

[Sonikku]

The Saturn was a rush job with with ideas all over the place. I think Sega had built it in mind as being another 2D console and with one CPU. Then Playstation came along. Then Sega hastily designed it to do more in the way of 3D. Then they rapidly dropped in it's second cpu to help it hold out against Sony. Hindesight is always 20/20 I guess.

 

[lamedude]

One of the reasons Sega turned down the N64 hardware was cost so going bigger is out of the question.