Why Sega never ported Saturn games over to Dreamcast?

[cube_b3]

The Dreamcast was a port magnet and some of the best Saturn games such as Panzer Dragoon Saga came out when Dreamcast was right around the corner. Some decent games such as Final Fight revenge were ported exclusively to the Saturn in March 2000.

Seriously wtf?


I know there is the whole thing about losing Panzer Dragoon's source code or something but the games were ported over to PC. They should've taken advantage of Windows CE and ported them over...

The reason why I make this post is because all 3D games on the Saturn today look like shit. I can't stand looking at those blurry textures. I tried playing Panzer Dragoon 2 and I shut it off just as quickly as I booted. I saw clips of the PC port and it looked so much cleaner. I tried a Sega Saturn emulator unfortunately it plays the game without enhancements.

[EnternalHope]

The Dreamcast was a port magnet and some of the best Saturn games such as Panzer Dragoon Saga came out when Dreamcast was right around the corner. Some decent games such as Final Fight revenge was ported exclusively to the Saturn in March 2000.

Seriously wtf?


I know there is the whole thing about losing Panzer Dragoon's source code or something but the games were ported over to PC. They should've taken advantage of Windows CE and ported them over...

The reason why I make this post is because all 3D games on the Saturn today look like shit. I can't stand looking at those blurry textures. I tried playing Panzer Dragoon 2 and I shut it off just as quickly as I booted. I saw clips of the PC port and it looked so much cleaner. I tried a Sega Saturn emulator unfortunately it plays the game without enhancements.

The reason why SEGA never ported Saturn games over to Dreamcast, because it would have required them to recode the games.


Saturn and Dreamcast were completely different hardware with completely different configurations. The only way to have ported them to Dreamcast was for SEGA to run them at Model 2 quality or develop the IPs using Saturn's basic assembly language.




Also, you shouldn't be using Saturn emulation. That's your first problem right there. Saturn is notoriously difficult to emulate due to its coding and programming. It used a completely unique Unix Assembler and special memory processor called VDP for graphics and polygonal effects.


Try running it on real time and you'll see how well Saturn's 3D can function.




Without Bleem, PS1 games look grainy and shitty. Blurry and blocky looking.

[Team Andromeda]

I saw clips of the PC port and it looked so much cleaner.

Panzer Dragoon Zewi never was ported to the PC at all.

The reason why I make this post is because all 3D games on the Saturn today look like shit. I can't stand looking at those blurry textures

I think you mean low res, the Saturn didn't suffer from Blurry textures in most games.

The Dreamcast was a port magnet and some of the best Saturn games such as Panzer Dragoon Saga came out when Dreamcast was right around the corner

The systems shared little hardware and to bring SAGA to the DC would have meant the team re-working the whole game to take advantage of the Hardware. Using Win CE (which was total crap on the DC and never used the system Hardware) Win CE was only any good if the game you were porting was on the PC , or if you were using Win CE for the game development at the start to get some game code running early before you went on to max the Hardware which would mean coding to the metal and using Step 4 development tools Ect  .

[Centrale]

The reason why I make this post is because all 3D games on the Saturn today look like shit. I can't stand looking at those blurry textures. I tried playing Panzer Dragoon 2 and I shut it off just as quickly as I booted.

With all due respect, you're just missing out if you can't get past this. Appreciate the games within their historical context. There are many masterpieces among the Saturn library.

[cube_b3]

I was referring to the rail shooting Panzer games they were ported to the PC.

I don't own Saga.

I played it on the Saturn it looked blurry and low res, I shifted to the PC hoping for a little Bleem effect I didn't find it. The Dreamcast was in existence internally Team Andromeda should have developed the game in mind to port as their previous games had been ported to Windows.

Oh well, it is just a rant. I wish I could get past the lowres ugliness but I can't.
3D games don't age as well as 2D games.

[Team Andromeda]

I was referring to the rail shooting Panzer games they were ported to the PC.

I'm on about those games and only Panzer Dragoon (the 1st one) was ported over and it wasn't has good as the Saturn versions missing some details and sound effects. Zwei was never ported to the PC

Team Andromeda should have developed the game in mind to port as their previous games had been ported to Windows.

TA didn't handle the PC Port themselves and having to rework the code and graphics would mean the game getting delayed by a huge margin.

[EnternalHope]

I was referring to the rail shooting Panzer games they were ported to the PC.

I don't own Saga.

I played it on the Saturn it looked blurry and low res, I shifted to the PC hoping for a little Bleem effect I didn't find it. The Dreamcast was in existence internally Team Andromeda should have developed the game in mind to port as their previous games had been ported to Windows.

Oh well, it is just a rant. I wish I could get past the lowres ugliness but I can't.
3D games don't age as well as 2D games.

Low res ugliness?


Saturn games had 280p High Resolution, PS1's only used 240p.

[Barry the Nomad]

SEGA Saturn with S-video out looks great!

[EnternalHope]

SEGA Saturn with S-video out looks great!

Saturn is far more power than Playstation. It's Twice its power. Saturn has up to 4 MBs of RAM and memory, but on average used only 2 MBs. PS1 is bottlenecked at only 1 MB.[/size] Most developers didn't realize Saturn used completely different polygon technology from PS1. Saturn used Qaudlaterals, Square shaped polygons for 3D effects. PS1 used Trilterals.[/color][/size]Saturn also relied on VDP(Video Data Processing) for transparent,shading,frosting and different polygon effects. This required coding both CPUs at the same time. Saturn,PS1,and N64 all had MIPS. But Saturn and N64 were double the performance of PS1's.Saturn also has a higher polygon count and much better resolution than PS1. Saturn could push up to 500,000 Polygons Per Second and was capable of up to 200,000 Geometrics. PS1 was limited to only 398,000 Polygons and could only use 150,000 Geometrics.(This is why many PS1 games suffer from framerate slowdown and loss of textures.)




I actually remember Sony marketing and misleading people into thinking that PS1 was a  64-bit system. It's amazing how they got away with it.[/color]

[cube_b3]

It isn't a Saturn vs PS1 discussion.