Most Beautiful Games On Dreamcast

[cloofoofoo]

don't know what your talking about mate, the Dreamcast was a native 60fps machine, the only one in existence at the time, the PS2 and original xbox couldn't do 60, Jade Empire ran at a shock 30fps!! Not sure where you got the idea that a game ran on the DC lower than 60fps. I mean correct me if I'm wrong someone but I'm pretty sure thats the whole reason why the Dreamcast graphics were always so crystal clear. but thats just me

Uhh, what? The dreamcast is not the only 60 fps machine....There plenty of games that ran at 30 and below on the dreamcast.Maybe you have some things/terms mixed up?If anything there a TON of 30 fps game on the dc.The ps2 and xbox do have games that run at a silky smooth 60 fps just like the dreamcast.Dunno where u got those weird ideas from...

Lemans doesn't actually do environment mapping on the cars. If you move to the in car view which shows your hood, you can easily see that it is a repeating texture which repeats slower or faster depending on your speed. If you pass underneath an overpass, it does not reflect the overpass. Finally, it is the same repeating texture on every track - the texture always shows some crowd stands and sign posts, even when there are none in your surroundings XD

t does look really nice from a distance, or if you don't pay a lot of attention to it though. I think Vanishing Point and TXR2 (Maybe Daytona too, I've never played it) also did the repeating texture trick rather than environment mapping, (drive into a dark tunnel in VP and your car will still be reflecting shiny lights) however the repeating textures on the cars in those games were more generic light beam kind of textures.

Would environment mapping really take that much memory?I mean its only 1 extra texture isnt?Wasnt spherical environment mapping a touted feature on the dreamcast hard ware? I mean of course it wouldnt reflect anything, its just a texture, isnt that how spherical environment map works?Using a texture that approximates the enviroment?

[dark]

The way I understand EM is that it is actual dynamic realtime reflections of the surrounding environment, and not just another texture plastered onto the object that was drawn to appear like it reflects the environment. It seems to me this realtime rendering would use a lot of memory and cpu power.

The [Gamecube's] frame (draw) buffer's 7.68 GB/s bandwidth is also very effective for supporting environment mapping allowing real environment reflections on objects, water surfaces, glass, etc. Most environment mapping on the DC was faked using a small texture that roughly represented the environment.

http://www.segatech.com/technical/conso ... index.html

[DCUltrapro]

whatever man, the ps2 was never a true 60hz machine and everyone knows that, the graphics were always crappy and grey scale, very pasty nothing like the crystal clarity of all Dreamcast games, but that's me, if you don't agree that's up to you.

Anyway back on topic after being nicely diviated... Dead Or Alive is another phenomenal looking game that the Dreamcast churned out early on and the ports understandably looked much worse, same as with Headhunter and a bunch of other games that got ported when the dc sadly got dropped. An admirable machine and no one can say otherwise, Soul Calibur for me still looks incredible today

[BrianC]

the ps2 was never a true 60hz machine and everyone knows that, the graphics were always crappy and grey scale, very pasty nothing like the crystal clarity of all Dreamcast games
looks incredible today

I think your just getting a bit confused with the hardware and terms. Both machines are 60hz if they are NTSC but that doesn't directly effect the framerate. Both the Dreamcast and PS2 have some 30 fps and some 60 fps games. We all agree the Dreamcast is the better system the clarity just has more to do with a better video processor and a higher resolution

[cloofoofoo]

The way I understand EM is that it is actual dynamic realtime reflections of the surrounding environment, and not just another texture plastered onto the object that was drawn to appear like it reflects the environment. It seems to me this realtime rendering would use a lot of memory and cpu power.

The [Gamecube's] frame (draw) buffer's 7.68 GB/s bandwidth is also very effective for supporting environment mapping allowing real environment reflections on objects, water surfaces, glass, etc. Most environment mapping on the DC was faked using a small texture that roughly represented the environment.

http://www.segatech.com/technical/conso ... index.html

Oh yea but the "fake" way is the old school spherical environment mapping that the dreamcast allows.That is also called environment mapping.The newest way is still not real time , called I think cube environment mapping that uses 6 textures instead of 1 like the dreamcast.From what I understand from a non- programmer view spherical environment mapping you use a texture similar to the environment u wish to imitate then program the texture to " move" according to the camera view.So technically the dreamcast does environment mapping just not real time reflections via render to texture, I guess? So its never real time. a quote from a programming tutorial

Sphere Environment Mapping is a quick way to add a reflection to a metallic or reflective object in your scene. Although it is not as accurate as real life or as a Cube Environment Map, it is a whole lot faster! First you will need a picture of the environment you want to map onto the sphere

whatever man, the ps2 was never a true 60hz machine and everyone knows that, the graphics were always crappy and grey scale, very pasty nothing like the crystal clarity of all Dreamcast games, but that's me, if you don't agree that's up to you.

Seriously man, your confused , its not about agreeing for disagreeing.Also 60 hz is the refresh rate for the display isnt? You mean 60 fps and all 4 last generation machines run at 60 fps seconds.Seriously just look at this official sony document where they put their real stat. http://research.scee.net/files/presentations/PSP/HowFarHaveWeGot.pdf . heck they even mentioned the highest polygon count they seen was 125,000 polygons in one scene at 60 fps( meaning 7.5 million polygons at 60 fps in a real game!, something the dc could only dream of) I dont mean to derail , I simply wuold like to know the truth and not make the dc a mythical machine that was godly.Iam a fan but Iam also realistic to what the limit of the machine was.

Again i apologize for derailing it so far so ill just shut up and lurk from now on on this topic.

[Neohound]

Well, don't feel you have to lurk !! I think it's still on topic......after all, the many graphical/technical effects in the Dreamcast's armoury could used to create beautiful games couldn't they?.

Don't know if anyone saw this clip from a demo called 'Wobble" which I posted in the video section a few weeks ago ? It shows the DC doing full environment mapping plus many other great effects:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2PyYxI_ ... r_embedded

If you wanna download it and play it in your Dreamcast.....go here:

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=54656

Btw, Le Mans 24hr runs at 30fps but there are plenty of other beautiful games on DC that run at 60fps. They are: Ferrari F355, Virtua Tennis 1&2, NBA2k2, NFL2k2 etc

[pressure]

Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, Grandia 2, Rez

[rooster]

Most of the Naomi-originated games look stunning on the DC. Zombie Revenge and Spawn are two that get overlooked, it seems. SFIII and GGX have the best 2D graphics. But as several people have mentioned, there are too many to list! A better topic might be, which dreamcast games had shite graphics. lol

[yuki2012]

Yeah, i like Sonic Adventure

[Neohound]

Most of the Naomi-originated games look stunning on the DC. Zombie Revenge and Spawn are two that get overlooked, it seems. SFIII and GGX have the best 2D graphics. But as several people have mentioned, there are too many to list! A better topic might be, which dreamcast games had shite graphics. lol

Spawn is amazing to look at and it's so manically fast, it's a real treat.

Shite graphics on DC ? What are you saying !? Lol. Anyway, it's an easy question to answer: Spec Ops: Omega Squad yuk !!