This is the closest comparison that I can get....
PS1:
Saturn:
PS1:
Saturn:
PS1:
Saturn:
PS1:
Saturn:
Wait a minute... The Saturn version has transparent character shadows?
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Sega Saturn games in 4K resolution.
- Thread starter Xbudz
- Start date
Wait a minute... The Saturn version has transparent character shadows?
I will try this tonight. Thanks!
cireza
Member
Transparency is nothing special. Tons of Saturn games have it.
Anyway, those screens show how badly compressed the textures are on Saturn, what a waste.
Yes, that is also weird because they shouldn't have space constraints on Saturn. It used discs just like psx.
IronicSonic
Member
Yeah its my upload. I planned to record more games like that but thats when I found Zwei was a lucky first try. Anything else I tried didn't emulate well.
gunstarhero
Member
Thanks for the avatar OP!
Bl@de
Member
More importantly ... What the hell is going on with Jills face?Saturn version is the elephant man
Xbudz
Member
Hahaha, perfect. You're welcome.
Edit:
Apparently the developer (Devmiyax) of the Android version of Yabause (uoYabause) has made a port of sorts to Windows based on the recent Android versions.
It's going by the name Yabause Devmiyax:
The most recent version is from Decemeber 31st, 2015.
Download it here: http://down.emucr.com/v3/5078655684313088
The Android version is going strong so I'm going to try this out when I get home.
^ I can't manage to get Last Bronx to run at all
No worries. Thanks for trying and your contributions to the thread! (and starting it!)
ss_lemonade
Member
Wait, Japanese? Dragon Force? Or are you talking about the sequel? I believe people have fully translated the sequel already and that you can apply the translation patch to a copy if you had one
Xbudz
Member
Ah you are right, I thought it was Japanese only for some reason. I will investigate further!
That would be a good comparison . hasn't someone like digital foundry done this?
ss_lemonade
Member
But didn't a ton also have really bad looking transparencies? Even the snes seemed to do better transparency effects.
I think a lot of developers only simulated the effect using some sort of dithered, checkboard effect due to technical limitations, and only a handful of late games did it properly (Burning Rangers?)
MrCunningham
Member
Yeah it actually does for the circular shadows. I should point out that OpenGL mode in Yabause can sometimes convert dithered meshes into transparencies.
But transparencies still aren't a trivial thing to do on the Saturn.
Here's a good video explaining how they work across both VPD1 and VPD2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_OchOV_WDg
It might have something to do with the video memory of the system.
Also, I have been playing Alien Trilogy:
The game works, but unfortunately is prone to crashing when too many enemies are on scree at once. It seems like a bug.
s_mirage
Member
The Saturn can do transparencies but there are a ton of catches. In short, background planes generated by VDP2 (either 2D or Mode 7 like) can be transparent against each other with a customizable amount of blending. VDP1 objects (i.e. sprites and polygons) can be 50% transparent against each other but the performance is slow + they are prone to glitches if they are rotated at all. Finally, parts of VDP1's framebuffer output can be made transparent against VDP2 generated backgrounds (or VDP2 backgrounds transparent against it), but that can cause disappearing polygon glitches due to the polygons not really being transparent, only the framebuffer output.
Burning Rangers uses clever design and programming to achieve its results (software buffering to enable the above effects but with a multi pass approach?), but IIRC that ended up with some of the transparencies only being half the usual resolution.
Laevateinn
Member
Holy shit. That was great.
Xbudz
Member
Alright! I managed to get a couple more games to work with Yabause Devmiyax!
Last Bronx
DecAthlete
Here's a couple more from Burning Rangers:
Burning Rangers
And here's a couple more from Wipeout 2097 (XL):
Wipeout 2097 (XL)
Oh and here's Panzer Dragoon Saga:
Panzer Dragoon Saga
If you want to try for yourself, download Yabause Devmiyax here: http://down.emucr.com/v3/5078655684313088
Last Bronx
DecAthlete
Here's a couple more from Burning Rangers:
Burning Rangers
And here's a couple more from Wipeout 2097 (XL):
Wipeout 2097 (XL)
Oh and here's Panzer Dragoon Saga:
Panzer Dragoon Saga
If you want to try for yourself, download Yabause Devmiyax here: http://down.emucr.com/v3/5078655684313088
IronicSonic
Member
Nice selection of games. Greats pics! Thanks!
Mr. Pointy
Member
Saturn had split video memory (512KB texture memory, 512KB VDP1 frame buffer and 512KB VDP2 memory) while the Playstation had 1MB unified video memory. With the Playstation, this meant you had room for more / higher quality textures if your frame buffer wasn't that big.
MrCunningham
Member
Dark Savior scales nicely in HD:
Native internal resolution:
OpenGL:
But sadly the game doesn't run for after I press start. It crashes after the title screen. I managed to get these screenshots by just letting the game play the demo screen.
Sadly there isn't a way to maintain a proper aspect ration while playing. For me I set my full screen resolution to 2048*1535 and just play the game stretched. When I take a screenshot it will output as 4:3 because of the resolution that I set it too.
Native internal resolution:
OpenGL:
But sadly the game doesn't run for after I press start. It crashes after the title screen. I managed to get these screenshots by just letting the game play the demo screen.
Sadly there isn't a way to maintain a proper aspect ration while playing. For me I set my full screen resolution to 2048*1535 and just play the game stretched. When I take a screenshot it will output as 4:3 because of the resolution that I set it too.
Stephen Stills
Member
Wow! Crazy how good Dark Savior looks!
Burning Rangers cleans up pretty nicely too.
Burning Rangers cleans up pretty nicely too.
Dark Savior scales nicely in HD:
But sadly the game doesn't run for after I press start. It crashes after the title screen. I manages to get these screenshots by just letting the game play the demo screen.Native internal resolution:
OpenGL:
Sadly there isn't a way to maintain a proper aspect ration while playing. For me I set my full screen resolution to 2048*1535 and just play the game stretched. When I take a screenshot it will output as 4:3 because of the resolution that I set it too.
I really like your screenshots but could you please extra quote them so they don't get too large on the screen? Thanks!
Dragon1893
Member
I was really surprised by Sonic R's last track. The whole game looked amazing for the Saturn, but the transparency on that track is the cleanest I remember seeing on the system.
Wow, Dark Saviour looks fantastic.
Xbudz
Member
Yeah, playing stretched in 4K and resizing to 4:3 before posting. Some graphics cards and screen combos allow custom resolutions if you wanted to attempt enforcing 4:3, but I don't really mind playing stretched so I just resize.
Dark Savior scales nicely in HD:
OpenGL:
These look great! Too bad to hear it doesn't run after pressing start
IronicSonic
Member
I really like the texture work on Dark Saviour. Great pics as usual!
nadnerb 64
Neo Member
AHHH the sega saturn. I owned most of those games and now want to go back and play al ot of them. Hindsight, they system wasnt that great but still had some decent games for it
cireza
Member
Saturn could handle true transparency without any problem. The complexity came of the fact that two different video processors (VDP) are used to create what you see, and they normally cannot see what the other is doing. Which makes applying transparency on what the other VDP does impossible (normally). The result of their processing is merged in memory to be displayed.
In this case (Resident Evil), obviously the VDP that handles 2D backgrounds has no difficulty putting a transparent shadow over the background, as it handles both. Then the VDP handling the 3D objects simply put them on top and we are done. Nothing impressive here. Making shadows is in fact the easiest thing to do.
Burning Rangers came around this problem by sending the image from one VDP to the memory of the second VDP, so this one could apply the transparency on the whole picture.
Already know about this video, but thanks anyway. This video tends to demonstrate that transparency is a lot less complex than people normally imagine. As a developer, you simply had to be clever, but otherwise, transparency was directly provided by the console tools.
Playing many Saturn games, you can easily see that true transparency is everywhere. Right now I am playing Shining the Holy Ark, and I can't even count anymore the number of transparent enemies. Spells also have transparency effects. Shining Force III is full of transparency effects two. Grandia has transparent shadows for buildings (gone from the PSX version). Etc...
SSF is a much better emulator for compatibility but you can't do anything like this. It's original resolution only.
Cute Dragon Here
Member
After some browsing, I think I've found some DS shots that are pretty close to the scenes shown here. It's always interesting to compare between similar systems...
(Hmm, so they did things to the textures and backgrounds again when porting things to the DS...)
Either way, all the talk on Sega Saturn games at a really high res makes me think about certain 3D DOS games that are basically stuck on 320x200 and wish they did at least 640x480 or better...
(Hmm, so they did things to the textures and backgrounds again when porting things to the DS...)
PS1:
Saturn:
DS:
PS1:
Saturn:
DS:
Either way, all the talk on Sega Saturn games at a really high res makes me think about certain 3D DOS games that are basically stuck on 320x200 and wish they did at least 640x480 or better...
Lots of DOS games from the period support SVGA rendering, actually.
Cute Dragon Here
Member
Yeah, but for the few that didn't...
*sadface*
and a bit more
This is the closest comparison that I can get....
PS1:
Saturn:
DS:
PS1:
Saturn:
DS:
Xbudz
Member
Thanks very much for the warning re: Framemeister.
I'd be using it for everything 2D and 3D, so it might be worth the sacrifice unless you might have a suggestion for a different upscaler of similar quality?
You're right about that HD converter upscaler though, it does have blurring in motion.
Thankfully my TV does work to clean some of that up- so it's ok for now, but I am indeed looking for something better down the road.
I remember playing Duke 3D in great resolutions for the time. Other games like Screamer or Tomb Raider definitely had 640x480 options, I think that was standard.
MrCunningham
Member
Tomb Raider had hardware support for various different cards.
Here's the game running at 1024*768 on a Power VR PCX2: https://youtu.be/5GMesT4WKzI?t=307
Nice comparison.
This worked! I was able to make this vid of a boss fight in Panzer Dragoon Saga if anyone's interested to see the emulator in action. I was using the newer version linked in this thread:
https://youtu.be/oC0TxNnPfvE
For anyone interested in doing the same I created a custom resolution in Nvidia control panel of 1440x1080(only have a 1080p monitor so no 4K for me) and was able to display in 4:3 properly. It doesn't work if you just set that resolution in the Yabause settings though as that ends up pillarboxing a widescreen image, you need to also have your desktop displaying at that resolution as well.
Xbudz
Member
MrCunningham
Member
Here's a comparison between the Chris models:
PS1:
Saturn:
DS:
The poor Saturn Chris has seen some shit. The DS Chris went through a pretty big overhaul from the Playstation game. The DS model is clearly based on his Code Veronica model. You can also see newer modeling techniques applied as well, like no detached balljoint arms and legs. He doesn't have any horrible clipping issues seen in the ps1 version either.
Wow. I got such an urge to replay DS. Shame its not working.
Sync Strike+GBS 8200 is a great alternative(which is what I use)! Doesn't blur and keeps the picture intact!
ResidentDante
Member
Tried this yesterday. It gives me missing .dll files error. Anything you know a solution for?
MrCunningham
Member
I can't get the first Bug! game to work. But Bug Too! does...
Native internal resolution:
OpenGL:
Bug Too! actually does have some benefits when going to an HD resolution. Not as much of a pixelated mess as one would imagine.
Here is another platformer, Pandemonium...
Software rendering:
OpenGL:
This game crashes after about thirty seconds of playtime. So I couldn't really take any more screenshots.
And a non-platformer, Road Rash:
Software:
OpenGL:
The menu's are really bugged, sometimes I will get black screens and other times the game will freeze. But the actual in game racing works fine.