Most Beautiful Games On Dreamcast

[cloofoofoo]

I third that statement.........with the proviso that you all accept that Vanishing Point and F355 come very close to equalling it.

TBH Vanishing Point looks like a hi res viisually polished version of a PS1 port so i personally feel it doesn't compete graphically so said racing titles on DC... Although i most def agree with F355! It's one fuckin' gorgeous looking game!
How could I forget

It still galls me that the DC Le Mans 24hr doesn't have the Ps2 version's pit stop routine. A baffling ommision which Sony fanboys back in the day had great fun pointing out

I had no idea! Don't recall that really, other than the fact that the game SO jaggy! +1 for the Dreamcast!

wasnt the ps2 version 60 fps while dreamcast 30 fps?not sure.

EDIT: according to gamespot le mans on the dreamcast once ran at 60 fps and each car was made of 2500 polygons.If you look at the screen shot you will notice the game looks the same except it had no environment mapping.I guess once they added environment mapping to the players car the frame rate took a hit?

[DCUltrapro]

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

[BrianC]

Nah, I'm pretty sure the Shenmue games run at 30 and Rez does as well. The fps is more a decision by developers than by hardware restrictions. Most PS2 and Xbox games ran at 60 as well but certain ones that really pushed the system ran at 30 because, if handled well, 30 fps is very much playable. Take MGS2 vs MGS3, you wouldn't notice a huge difference in gameplay between the two but 2 is running 60 while 3 at 30 and because of the hit 3 takes in fps it is able to look wayyyy better than MGS2. As a side note I thought MGS3 was one of the only games that truly benefited gameplay wise from the 30 fps limit because it made the pacing feel just right as opposed to stressful in MGS2 but that's just my opinion

[dark]

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.

[Omnibot2000]

If I remember it correctly, MSR runs with 30 fps too. So does Ecco (if at all). But I thought Le Mans has 60 fps. Have to google it.
Nevertheless, I think 60 fps games imo are part of the DC's magic. Didn't even the beautiful Sonic Adventure 2 run with 60 fps? And Soul Calibur certainly did.

[dark]

Vanishing Point on the DC had really high resolution textures and lots of cars on the screen at a time. I never thought the background graphics were extremely high poly, but between the high res textures and lots of cars, that was probably using a lot of the DC's available memory.

It still galls me that the DC Le Mans 24hr doesn't have the Ps2 version's pit stop routine. A baffling ommision which Sony fanboys back in the day had great fun pointing out

I think the PS2 version had an extra track or two as well... But did the PS2 version have 4 player split screen?

[Omnibot2000]

Which games on DC actually use real environment mapping? Are there any?

[dark]

^I honestly can't think of any off the top of my head. Most of the games faked it with the repeating texture trick a la LeMans because environment mapping takes a lot of memory, and the DC didn't have so much compared to the GC or Xbox. I can't think of any of the racing games which do ... but maybe in Soul Calibur, when you choose the metallic version of a character, or Zack's metallic costume in DOA2, that might involve some sort of environment mapping.

[Omnibot2000]

^I guess you are right, Zack's Costume seems to use EM. If not, it's a real convincing fake.

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri= ... fQ3DQVFokI

I know that video shows an emu, but that doesn't matter in this case, does it?

[CD AGES]

I'm pretty certain the EM on Metallic character models in Soul Calibur is fake.

The one that may in fact have proper EM is Dural in VF3tb.