Are DC ports of Naomi shmups arcade perfect?

[professor ganson]

Isn't the hardware really similar? What advantages are there to having the GD roms?

EDIT: I ask in part because I have every port of Shiki 2, but not the original. I'm thinking I'm not missing too much.

[nem]

What advantages are there to having the GD roms?

Birds in Border Down, and that's pretty much it.

[EOJ]

The DC ports of Naomi games are pretty close to perfect. I definitely wouldn't buy a Naomi to play the games unless I had a hi res cab and a lot of money to play with. If you just have a supergun and a TV it's really not worth it.

[zakk]

What advantages are there to having the GD roms?

Birds in Border Down, and that's pretty much it.

Some graphical effects in Trigger Heart are left out of the DC port.

[Ganelon]

For any arcade system that's "similar" or "based off" a home system or vice versa, there are always port inaccuracies of some sort. And almost always, speed (based on too many variables) plays a part.

[Kiken]

98%+ accurate on pretty much all accounts. As stated above and in some other older threads, there are some very minor differences... but considering the trade-offs (added arrange/remix modes in both the Border Down and Trigger Heart Exelica ports for example) and how cheap DCs are...

[ROBOTRON]

DC ports are so dang close you shouldn't really worry about it. I'm very close to buying a consolized Naomi just so I can play Dolphin Blue and a few fighters it supports but are not on any console.

[Kiken]

I'm very close to buying a consolized Naomi just so I can play Dolphin Blue and a few fighters it supports but are not on any console.

I assume you mean a consolized Atomis Wave.

[Fighter17]

You can say the same thing about ST-V games on the Saturn.

Don't get the mobo unless you got the greens.

[Ex-Cyber]

For any arcade system that's "similar" or "based off" a home system or vice versa, there are always port inaccuracies of some sort. And almost always, speed (based on too many variables) plays a part.

I'm not sure where you get the speed thing from. I generally haven't noticed slowdown in ports among truly similar systems (some systems have mostly superficial similarities, like Genesis/Megadrive and System 16/18). When there's a ROM to CD/GD conversion, load time obviously becomes a factor, but that's not usually an issue during gameplay.

[elvis]

Isn't the hardware really similar?

Same CPU, same video chip. The DC has half the video RAM and half the system RAM of NAOMI. Typically speaking, certain memory-hungry graphics will be left out, or textures scaled down when porting from NAOMI to DC.

For a gamer on a budget, the DC works out pretty well as a "ghetto NAOMI". Speaking from the point of view of a guy with three kids and a mortgage, I have a DC in a cabinet and not a NAOMI for that very reason.

[GaijinPunch]

One must ask themselves, do any Naomi games truly push the hardware?

[ROBOTRON]

I'm very close to buying a consolized Naomi just so I can play Dolphin Blue and a few fighters it supports but are not on any console.

I assume you mean a consolized Atomis Wave.

Yes. sorry.

[professor ganson]

Super helpful responses all around. My DC shmup collection is one of the best parts of my game collection, and I was starting to worry that I would eventually want to upgrade to Naomi. Now I can worry instead about saving up for Mushi Futari or Ketsui.

[neorichieb1971]

Naomi has double the ram. RAM management on Naomi games is configured slightly different. What this amounts to is that the arcade variants have no loading times as the next level is usually loaded prior to you finishing the current level.

Obviously on the DC, each level is loaded individually. Of course there are exceptions, some DC games load instantaneous, just depends on the type of game.

Something like Daytona USA on DC loads levels individually, if it was naomi there would be no noticeable loading times.

As far as graphics are concerned, its the same really.

Atomiswave is closer to DC spec, except it uses cards instead of discs. So the RAM problem is obsolete. I bet the sound is a bit crap though. I've never played a ATW game, even though I have an ATW cab

[J-Manic]

And here I always thought Ikaruga was "arcade perfect" (besides the slowdown during boss explosions?) on the DC. But I've never actually played the arcade, so what do I know (nothing).

[Ganelon]

I'm not sure where you get the speed thing from. I generally haven't noticed slowdown in ports among truly similar systems (some systems have mostly superficial similarities, like Genesis/Megadrive and System 16/18). When there's a ROM to CD/GD conversion, load time obviously becomes a factor, but that's not usually an issue during gameplay.

Not necessarily slowdown (although that's generally not emulated perfectly either since it's so difficult to copy); the game speed in general is different. For any Naomi fighter port (CVS2 and MVC2 for 2 clear examples), if you time the length of a match on both versions (all other variables being equal), you'll get different numbers.

System 16 and 18's MD ports tend not to resemble the originals at all...

[Ex-Cyber]

And here I always thought Ikaruga was "arcade perfect" (besides the slowdown during boss explosions?) on the DC. But I've never actually played the arcade, so what do I know (nothing).

I haven't played the NAOMI version of Ikaruga either, but I'm 99% sure that the slowdown during boss explosions is intentional.

For any Naomi fighter port (CVS2 and MVC2 for 2 clear examples), if you time the length of a match on both versions (all other variables being equal), you'll get different numbers.

Do you have examples, and have these been measured on different display types (particularly VGA vs. NTSC/PAL)? I don't especially doubt that what you're saying is true, but I'm curious about the phenomenon.