The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Marc
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by Marc »

Yeah, I'm a bit puzzled as how to how anyone might think this was down to anyone other than Sega. The Mega CD was laughable, as pointed out concentrating on completely the wrong aspects of gamin, when at that point all Sega needed to do was bring their super-scaler games home perfectly. The 32X simply never gained traction but burned the folks that were daft enough to buy into it, the Saturn a Frankenstein's monster of a console that was lagging from the moment it arrived, and to cap all that off, they launch conversions of Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter for the add-on that's already bombing, that are better than their 'next-gen' machine! Oh then there's the all-in-one MD/MCD/32X they were making noise about. They were an utter mess, with no cohesion between the various regions, and when you've lost your customes' confidence to that degree and a store is running PS1 Ridge Racer right alongside Saturn Daytona.....
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by Sengoku Strider »

null1024 wrote:one thing I do keep seeing is the Saturn transparency issue getting mentioned in exactly the same way by dozens of people and it's wrong

The Saturn's transparency ability is basically on-par with the SNES.
You can apply per-layer blend modes just like the SNES, and sprites can additionally have per pixel blending done against the background [this is how Sonic R does the background fade]. This per-pixel blending is kinda dumb -- VDP1 overwrites these pixels in the framebuffer, it doesn't blend them. You know how the transparent Boos in Super Mario World look? The Saturn works exactly like that. Nicole's cape in Guardian Heroes is a good example, too.
All of this is handled by VDP2 when it combines all the layers to produce a final image.


Apart from VDP-1 being the start of the process, I think we're both saying the same thing. You mention Nicole's cape, it's exactly the type of thing I was talking about:

Image

You can see the soldier's sprite vanishes behind it, though the background layer is still visible.

Compare that to Contra III (to pick a random example that showed up first on Google image search), a relatively early SNES game, which blends the sprites and transparency without difficulty:

Image
-
Image
There's also an extremely half-assed VDP1-based transparency mode, which is only useful if VDP2 isn't doing anything, and is implemented in a dead stupid way. Pixels are blended against the VDP1 frame buffer immediately. For plain or scaled sprites, this is fine, but for polygons, you get ugly artifacts because VDP1 is terribly wasteful with how it draws pixels, so many pixels are blended over and over and over.
Is this what is used in Symphony of the Night (a game which seems to randomly deploy both mesh and transparencies)?
And do you have an example of where it was used in 3D? I'm having trouble visualizing it.
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null1024
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by null1024 »

Sengoku Strider wrote:
null1024 wrote:one thing I do keep seeing is the Saturn transparency issue getting mentioned in exactly the same way by dozens of people and it's wrong

The Saturn's transparency ability is basically on-par with the SNES.
You can apply per-layer blend modes just like the SNES, and sprites can additionally have per pixel blending done against the background [this is how Sonic R does the background fade]. This per-pixel blending is kinda dumb -- VDP1 overwrites these pixels in the framebuffer, it doesn't blend them. You know how the transparent Boos in Super Mario World look? The Saturn works exactly like that. Nicole's cape in Guardian Heroes is a good example, too.
All of this is handled by VDP2 when it combines all the layers to produce a final image.


Apart from VDP-1 being the start of the process, I think we're both saying the same thing. You mention Nicole's cape, it's exactly the type of thing I was talking about:

https://abload.de/img/screenshot2021-05-31airjre.png

You can see the soldier's sprite vanishes behind it, though the background layer is still visible.

Compare that to Contra III (to pick a random example that showed up first on Google image search), a relatively early SNES game, which blends the sprites and transparency without difficulty:

https://abload.de/img/snestransparenciesconykkhl.jpg
-
https://abload.de/img/contraiiishieldy9jqy.jpg
There's also an extremely half-assed VDP1-based transparency mode, which is only useful if VDP2 isn't doing anything, and is implemented in a dead stupid way. Pixels are blended against the VDP1 frame buffer immediately. For plain or scaled sprites, this is fine, but for polygons, you get ugly artifacts because VDP1 is terribly wasteful with how it draws pixels, so many pixels are blended over and over and over.
Is this what is used in Symphony of the Night (a game which seems to randomly deploy both mesh and transparencies)?
And do you have an example of where it was used in 3D? I'm having trouble visualizing it.
See, the big issue is that the Saturn has a bunch of weird, overlapping, separate graphics features that get really confusing really quickly.

Nicole's cape there is VDP2 taking pixels that were marked as transparent in the VDP1 framebuffer, and blending them when VDP2 finally draws the screen against the other display layers. Because they weren't blended on the framebuffer, and AFAIK, there's something stupid with how the Saturn handles the buffer that prevents you from marking it as transparent on VDP2 and having VDP1 blend the pixels on the framebuffer, anything underneath in the framebuffer is clobbered.
Sonic R uses this limitation to great effect, since it only needs to blend the polygons with the background, and any polygons off in the distance should be clobbered by anything in front of them.

That first Contra III example can be done on Saturn at the expense of one background layer. Draw the circle to a VDP2 layer, set it up to additively blend, and scale it. You get five real background layers on VDP2 [assuming you are using only one of the rotating background layers instead of two] -- one rotating, two scaling and scrolling, and two scrolling only. IIRC, on the SNES, that effect is done using the window mask settings. Neither machine would do it using sprites.
Burning Rangers abuses this feature to do its very advanced looking transparency effects, but after it does its crazy double rendering trick, all it ends up really doing is just blending a single background layer on top of everything. It's just a BG layer that gets scaled to 2x size, and additively blended.

The second example with the barrier can easily be done with straight VDP1 sprite transparency on Saturn, which is used in Sonic R for shields. Sprites and polygons get blended under it, backgrounds don't.
I think it's also handled as a window mask effect on SNES, and not done with sprites.

As for transparent polygons on VDP1... Ninpen Manmaru on Saturn uses VDP1 transparency for the character shadow, you can see the artifacting when moving around.
Very few games did it with polygons because a: it's very slow and you thus can't use it much, and b: it's ugly anyway and Sega even wrote in the dev manual that it has overdraw artifacts. VDP1 draws its polygons out of a bunch of textured lines IIRC [and thus, some of those lines will intersect, leading to pixels that are written multiple times], and it then does some extra overdrawing to fill in any gaps on top of that [leading to more pixels that are written more than once].

tl;dr:
there are three ways to do transparency on the Saturn:
* VDP1 transparency -- only affects the framebuffer [and background layers are NOT in the framebuffer] polygons using it look kinda ugly
* VDP2 transparency -- parts of the framebuffer can be marked as being blended, but also whole background layers
* mesh -- VDP1 just draws nothing for every other pixel, and then crappy composite output blends it.

Here are two good writeups on what each machine is doing:
https://wiki.superfamicom.org/transparency [the tl;dr here is that pixels between any two layers can be blended, so one transparent blended part and then whatever opaque pixel is showing]
https://mattgreer.dev/articles/sega-sat ... nsparency/
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by davyK »

The cream of Saturn. Some obvious ones but worth pointing out (non shmups of course). These are all affordable too apart from Saturn Bomberman.

Sega Rally - really is that good. It has to be one of the greatest ports ever as a technical achievement. How they implemented silky control on a dpad is beyond me. It works well with 3D stick too but the dpad is just as good. The PAL port is a work of genius - runs just as fast, almost full screen and somehow the controls might even be better (I play PAL and JP versions)

Nights / Christmas Nights - the full game is a really nice high score chase game. But the free Christmas themed demo is beautful. Truly inspired.

Saturn Bomberman Still the best version for me. 8 players. With a special 10 player arena. But also a lovely 1 player Solitaire score attack mode that is super addictive.

Baku Baku Under rated puzzle game - match animals to food - with brilliant Sega panache and the 2P versus is magical as it delivers entertaining matches every time.

Athlete Kings aka Decathlete Sports button bashing - never really bettered. Slick looking graphics too - another great arcade port.

Digital Pinball : Last Gladiators / Necronomicon Best pinball game of that gen. Clear tables and smart presentation. Necronimicon is the 2nd game and probably a bit better but both games are splendid.

Sega Ages : Outrun The JP version has an exclusive remix soundtrack option that is lovely. Has a super smooth 60fps mode too.

Virtua Cop 1 & 2 You need a CRT to play these now but excellent rock solid ports.

Capcom 4MB versus fighters - Xmen v Streetfighter, MSH v Streetfighter, Vampire Saviour) SFA3 is too damn expensive but the other 3 are gorgeous games that must have been head spinning in the day as they left everything else available at the time in the dust.
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by Sengoku Strider »

null1024 wrote:See, the big issue is that the Saturn has a bunch of weird, overlapping, separate graphics features that get really confusing really quickly.
Okay, thanks for the links. I think I mostly get it now.

VDP1 draws sprites & polygons into the frame buffer.

VDP2 draws up to 5 background layers, then slots the data from the frame buffer in as a 6th layer.

Because sprites will just be sent as one layer, if they overlap, only the pixels for the sprite 'on top' will be entered into the frame buffer and sent over to VDP2. If that sprite has transparency, that's all that will be seen, because the other sprite behind has already been overwritten in the frame buffer.

As a fix, sprites can be flagged as mesh, and VDP1 will only write every second pixel of that sprite into the frame buffer.

There is a legit transparency mode, but it can only be pulled off if VDP1 is doing everything and the sprites don't need to be mashed into a single layer and sent over to VDP2.

Is that about right?
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by FinalBaton »

Thankfully now it's super easy to use burned disc on a stock Saturn. Just get an Action Replay that has been flashed with the Pseudo Saturn Kai program ( or flash it yourself), and burn away! You go and burn that SFA3 disc
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null1024
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by null1024 »

Sengoku Strider wrote:
null1024 wrote:See, the big issue is that the Saturn has a bunch of weird, overlapping, separate graphics features that get really confusing really quickly.
Okay, thanks for the links. I think I mostly get it now.

VDP1 draws sprites & polygons into the frame buffer.

VDP2 draws up to 5 background layers, then slots the data from the frame buffer in as a 6th layer.

Because sprites will just be sent as one layer, if they overlap, only the pixels for the sprite 'on top' will be entered into the frame buffer and sent over to VDP2. If that sprite has transparency, that's all that will be seen, because the other sprite behind has already been overwritten in the frame buffer.

As a fix, sprites can be flagged as mesh, and VDP1 will only write every second pixel of that sprite into the frame buffer.

There is a legit transparency mode, but it can only be pulled off if VDP1 is doing everything and the sprites don't need to be mashed into a single layer and sent over to VDP2.

Is that about right?
Yep! That's exactly right.
FinalBaton wrote:Thankfully now it's super easy to use burned disc on a stock Saturn. Just get an Action Replay that has been flashed with the Pseudo Saturn Kai program ( or flash it yourself), and burn away! You go and burn that SFA3 disc
Yeah. Flashing on your own is a bit of a pain [it took me like 2 hours of trying to boot the installer with the swap trick], and I'm pretty sure it's not even cheaper anymore if you don't already have an AR cart, but once it's done, it's golden.

...as an aside, did Bulk Slash get mentioned in this thread? If it didn't, it better have. God, I love that game. It's expensive now, upwards of $120 on eBay [and these are sold item prices, rather than what people are currently offering at]. Used to be less than $70, although it shows up cheaper occasionally. I'm so glad I have a Pseudo Saturn cartridge.
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by Sengoku Strider »

null1024 wrote:Yep! That's exactly right.
Cool, thank you.
...as an aside, did Bulk Slash get mentioned in this thread? If it didn't, it better have. God, I love that game. It's expensive now, upwards of $120 on eBay [and these are sold item prices, rather than what people are currently offering at]. Used to be less than $70, although it shows up cheaper occasionally. I'm so glad I have a Pseudo Saturn cartridge.
Prices of all things retro have gone into space over the past year, Saturn & Mega Drive in particular. I mostly track Japanese prices, Cotton Boomerang was at ¥25,000. Then ¥30,000. Held for a while at ¥35,000. Now all of a sudden it's ¥55,000 (~$500 USD). It's somehow shot past Hyper Duel, once the standard bearer for shmup pricing excess.

One day I'd love to own a copy of Eliminate Down, but it is now way past either of those, at $138,000 (~$1260 USD).

I'm really interested to see how much of this holds post-pandemic.
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by Sengoku Strider »

Sengoku Strider wrote:I'm really interested to see how much of this holds post-pandemic.
A year after the last post in this thread, still waiting for that to start.

I came across this interesting video of the top 100 rated games by Mega Drive Beep! magazine during its lifetime, including Mega CD & 32X titles.

https://youtu.be/y4ig2hsWIXk

Some of the games that made their top 25 are wild. Like, things I only knew by name from pouring over release lists on Wikipedia. Some are expected if you saw my post earlier in this thread on Japanese MD soft sales (Beep! appear to have genuinely had their finger on the pulse of Japanese tastes), but it's pleasant to see some of those things being recognized all the same.

I might be reading into things, but one other element that stood out to me was that it seemed like being a Mega Drive booster in Japan meant being a bit of an Amerophile. Like, nowhere else in Japanese media would I expect all-time great scores for Tecmo Super Bowl, Flashback or Greatest Heavyweights. Or for their existence to even be much recognized.
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by Sengoku Strider »

Just a heads up for Segaphiles, the most recent Yakuza game - Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name - has a couple of pretty rare games in its arcade. Namely Fighting Vipers 2, which only ever saw a port to the Dreamcast in Japan & Europe, and Daytona USA 2, which has never been released on anything ever. In fact AFAIK this is the first fully emulated model 3 game on a console.
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by Kilmaattikahn »

Sengoku Strider wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2023 3:41 amAFAIK this is the first fully emulated model 3 game on a console.
FV2 is also emulated like Daytona 2, the Dreamcast version was a port.
Moreover, LAD8 will include 2 different Model 3 emulated games: Spikeout and VF3tb.

All this thanks to a yet unnamed programmer who independently developed the emulator on his free time, because Sega don't give a toss. Don't expect standalone releases of these ever.
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BIL
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by BIL »

Kilmaattikahn wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2023 10:47 am
Sengoku Strider wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2023 3:41 amAFAIK this is the first fully emulated model 3 game on a console.
FV2 is also emulated like Daytona 2, the Dreamcast version was a port.
Moreover, LAD8 will include 2 different Model 3 emulated games: Spikeout and VF3tb.

All this thanks to a yet unnamed programmer who independently developed the emulator on his free time, because Sega don't give a toss. Don't expect standalone releases of these ever.
God damn, that sounds intriguing. :o I've only the most passing familiarity with the series, but I'll happily pick up both of those if the emulation is good. I'm guessing so, if it was a passion project.
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by Marc »

I believe there's the odd issue with Daytona 2, but nothing that leaps out. It's bare bones, but enjoyable. Well, sort of. The handling, in comparison to the original, is awful unless I'm missing a trick.
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by Kilmaattikahn »

BIL wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2023 10:57 amGod damn, that sounds intriguing. :o I've only the most passing familiarity with the series, but I'll happily pick up both of those if the emulation is good. I'm guessing so, if it was a passion project.
https://cohost.org/gosokkyu/post/365383 ... hter-produ
(Specifically, RgG's Model 3 emulator was not an official project so much as the obsession of a single programmer that was allowed to keep working on it as an experimental side-project for the last couple of years; the interviewer comments on how he heard the X360 Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram port was also a backdoor project pushed by one guy and Aoki says he's pretty sure it was the same person.)
I guess side-project is not the same as free time, hopefully he did it during his work hours, sorry for any confusion.

https://twitter.com/YutakaIto_RGG/statu ... 1204041993
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BIL
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by BIL »

Kilmaattikahn wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2023 12:35 pm
(Specifically, RgG's Model 3 emulator was not an official project so much as the obsession of a single programmer that was allowed to keep working on it as an experimental side-project for the last couple of years; the interviewer comments on how he heard the X360 Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram port was also a backdoor project pushed by one guy and Aoki says he's pretty sure it was the same person.)
I guess side-project is not the same as free time, hopefully he did it during his work hours, sorry for any confusion.

https://twitter.com/YutakaIto_RGG/statu ... 1204041993
Sounds like a work of love either way :mrgreen: Cheers bud!
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Re: The world burns. Only Sega remains.

Post by DMC »

The title of this thread reminds me of the futuristic stage 1 in Soukyugurentai, in which all the skyscrapers in Tokyo have nothing but Sega advertisement--in the midst of an ecological war.

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