The 32-bit console thread

[louisg]

This thread is dedicated to 32-bit consoles, perhaps the most screwed up console generation.

The generation probably starts in 1993 with the introduction of the Atari Jaguar and 3do systems, both of which jumped the gun, and flopped horribly. The Jaguar was incapable of drawing anything but the most basic polygons, and the 3do was terribly expensive. Amiga also released their CD32 system, which although is 32-bit, performs more like a souped up 16-bitter.

The following year, the Sega Saturn and Sony PSX were released, which were the first two successful 32-bit 3d-accelerated systems. Much more expensive than the previous generation, these systems couldn't properly texture anything, resulting in horribly ugly and warped texture mapping. It was to the point that, looking at screenshots in magazines, you could not tell half the time what the hell was supposed to be happening. Which, of course, was still considered amazing in 1994: the PC, then a >$1000 system, was still pushing basic polygons in games like Mechwarrior 2 and Falcon 3 even as late as the following year (games such as Doom and Commanche: Maximum Overkill are not in fact polygon).

The Saturn in particular was a confused design. It had more processors than it knew what to do with, was $100 more than a Sony Playstation, yet struggled to outperform it. All I can really say for it is: at least the drives are sturdy.

Honorable mention goes to the Sega 32x, an overpriced and underpowered add-on for the Sega Genesis which failed after a year and only had one or two decent games for it.

In 1996, Nintendo finally releases their 32-bit system, the Nintendo 64. Although the pixel storming, warping, and general chunkiness of the previous systems was improved upon, the low-res antialiasing made everything look like you were playing with your eyes dilated. In addition, it used cartridges for some reason, had apparently next to no audio processing, and framerates were generally hideous. Over in the WTF category, there was a magnetic media disk drive announced, but then smartly scrapped. During this time, Nintendo also released their Virtual Boy, which was another terrible idea.

This year PC accelerators also finally started to hit the market. The first of these were more like decelerators, and didn't noticably outperform what you could do purely with the lower end Pentiums. It wasn't until the next generation of accelerators that they could render filtered textures at high resolutions.

I didn't mention the Multimedia CD-ROM systems yet such as the Philips CD-i or Amiga CDTV. There seemed to be an idea back then that people would buy expensive set top boxes and use them to browse an encyclopedia. Needless to say, these all tanked.

The software was as confused as the hardware: most developers really didn't seem to know what to do with 3d. Games had glitchy cameras which might show you a wall or the sky for no apparent reason, level designs were constrained by the low number of polygons systems could draw, bad acting in FMV cinema scenes was rampant, and framerates dipped from full rate on most older 2d games to as low as an unsteady 15 FPS on the newer 3d games (Crystal Dynamics actually boasted that their games ran at 24 FPS like film). It also took developers some time to realize that an analog stick and manual camera controls were essential to controlling 3d games.

So, to sum it up, the 32-bit era was a huge upheaval. The entire way that games worked changed abruptly, and it really took a generation to recover. It saw an unusually glutted hardware market and a lot of failures, and every system released during this time was not powerful enough to do what was asked of it.

[EinhanderZwei]

That era was branded as 'The Bit Wars' by AVGN, since most of the companies were competing in johnson measurement with each other, and the most whore-ish were Atari with their ridiculous Jaguar ad that once had managed to even spoil my appetite

I actually miss the crappy FMV stuff from that era. No one makes anything like Crime Patrol, Space Pirates or Mad Dog McCree nowadays. Sure, the graphics have advanced and all, but no high-poly models have the same effect as the actors goofing around before the camera

After all, that chick from Shockwave 2 was damn hot!

[brentsg]

Yet somehow I still enjoyed my Saturn.. and to a lesser extent my Playstation, more than the current generation of uber consoles.

[neorichieb1971]

Me too. Because they were the first true 3D consoles the imagination that went into the games was fresh and new. 15 years later we have nothing new at all, its all the same games with more polygons. The only games that I would consider better by technology are -

Burnout paradise
Dead Space (for its atmosphere)
Infamous (A big world)

Of course online has gone farther, but thats in addition to what was available before. As plain Jane games go though, we are stuck in a rut of crap games. This gen is by far the worst generation of gaming I have seen. I could possibly by as few as 3 full priced games this year, terrible.

[Rob]

This gen is by far the worst generation of gaming I have seen.

Were you around for the last one?

[emphatic]

I did own a CD32, but mostly used it as a CD player.

[ED-057]

This thread is dedicated to 32-bit consoles, perhaps the most screwed up console generation.

The 3D mostly sucked because of lack of basic features like Z-buffering, but I find the era to be highly interesting from a hardware perspective. You forgot the FM-Towns Marty and PC-FX.

The Jaguar was incapable of drawing anything but the most basic polygons, and the 3do was terribly expensive. Amiga also released their CD32 system, which although is 32-bit, performs more like a souped up 16-bitter.

CD32 was a souped up 16-bitter, the CPU and display generation were improved but the blitter remained the same as in the original Amiga. It and the Jaguar both had a shared memory bus design which limited performance. The Jaguar also had a bug which forced the 68000 to act as the main CPU, since the RISC CPUs built-in to the custom chips could not execute code from main memory, only from their own 8KB local memory. The biggest problem with the Jaguar was probably lack of good developers though.

The following year, the Sega Saturn and Sony PSX were released, which were the first two successful 32-bit 3d-accelerated systems. Much more expensive than the previous generation, these systems couldn't properly texture anything, resulting in horribly ugly and warped texture mapping. It was to the point that, looking at screenshots in magazines, you could not tell half the time what the hell was supposed to be happening.

Saturn had an issue with clipping, and polygons which were partly off the screen would disappear or be distorted as a quick fix. Rendering semi-transparent polygons was also bugged.

at least the drives are sturdy.

Yes, my Saturn is still going strong, as the corpses of my DC and various PC optical drives litter the path behind it.

Nintendo also released their Virtual Boy, which was another terrible idea.

I find it a bit disappointing that stereoscopic 3D continues to be shouted down just because of ergonomics. Every time a story related to 3D comes up on /. all the posts are either "worthless without head tracking" or whiners complaining about headaches and motion sickness. But I've never played the virtual boy so it's hard to say how much value it has beyond a novelty.

So, to sum it up, the 32-bit era was a huge upheaval. The entire way that games worked changed abruptly, and it really took a generation to recover. It saw an unusually glutted hardware market and a lot of failures, and every system released during this time was not powerful enough to do what was asked of it.

As a nice side effect we got some more excellent 2D games before 3D finally took over.

[EinhanderZwei]

The 3D mostly sucked because of lack of basic features like Z-buffering, but I find the era to be highly interesting from a hardware perspective. You forgot the FM-Towns Marty and PC-FX.

Ooh, PC-FX... I call it 'a console with legal T&A'

[No_not_like_Quake]

Trivial note but when I first rented a PS1 and Saturn (to see which I'd prefer) back in fall 1995, I felt the PS1 hardware, specifically the "click" when you put a cd in the drive felt cheaper and less solid than the Saturn.

[CMoon]

There's a whole convoluted history of why the Saturn ended up bombing, that seems mostly to do with internal struggles within Sega itself (more notably, Sega JP vs Sega US.) It's still a marvelous system, especially for 2D, and it is a bit sorry that the PS1 kicked its butt, but I'm still not really sure if Sega learned its lesson.

[EinhanderZwei]

I'm still not really sure if Sega learned its lesson.

They release THIS: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... _Cover.jpg

Can't wait for Sonic Dating Sim, Sonic RTS and of course Sonic MMORPG

Life is stupid...

THOUGH

I'm planning to get a Saturn, and I have a stupid stupid question: Is it moddable, so it can run backups?

[kengou]

In 1996, Nintendo finally releases their 32-bit system, the Nintendo 64.

Wait, what? They sort of named it after the amount of bits it had...

Anywho. I'm a big fan of the PSX, it had some awesome gems. Also PC gaming at that period in time was terrific.

And it's sort of halfway into the next generation, but the Dreamcast kicked way too much ass and it WAS 32-bit console

[neorichieb1971]

In 1996, Nintendo finally releases their 32-bit system, the Nintendo 64.

Wait, what? They sort of named it after the amount of bits it had...

Anywho. I'm a big fan of the PSX, it had some awesome gems. Also PC gaming at that period in time was terrific.

And it's sort of halfway into the next generation, but the Dreamcast kicked way too much ass and it WAS 32-bit console

Jaguar was hailed as 64 bit and were 2 x 32 bit processors bolted together.

N64 was a 64 bit system.

DC was a 128bit system.

[Ex-Cyber]

The whole notion of an "N-bit system" was really just marketing bullshit that happened to become a shorthand for somewhat fuzzy technology generations. Every system mixes elements of different bit widths/lengths, and different companies picked different elements (and sometimes arbitrarily added unrelated ones) to come up with their "bits" numbers. Things like "32-bit instruction length", "32-bit data bus", or "32-bit general-purpose registers" have a technical meaning; "32-bit system" on its own doesn't really mean anything.

[sven666]

This gen is by far the worst generation of gaming I have seen. I could possibly by as few as 3 full priced games this year, terrible.

i fully agree, this gen is terrible.

the 32bit era is proboably a tie for the win along with the 16bits imo.

..and i STILL have a crush on that chick from Krazy Ivan

[louisg]

Yeah, here's what I think is what goes on with bittage:

For 3d, you really do want 32-bit so you can represent a decently high number with a fractional component. I think beyond this, you get diminishing returns. For 2d, I'm not sure it really makes much of a difference. So, I think when people say N bits, they usually mean the ability of a processor to pull that N bit data into the processor all at a time and do an operation on it. You could say for example that the 68000 is 32-bit because it can do 32-bit math (on more than addresses I think?), but that's a bit misleading because afaik it can only pull in 16-bits at a time.

So, it kind of depends where the system is N bittage, and what kind of games it's playing. A good example is the Turbografx vs. the Genesis showing why bits aren't everything.

[EinhanderZwei]

..and i STILL have a crush on that chick from Krazy Ivan

Yeah, the girls from FMV games were damn hot. Also let's not forget Tia Carrere as she was in Daedalus Encounter. She looks awesome no matter what shit she stars in

[kengou]

In 1996, Nintendo finally releases their 32-bit system, the Nintendo 64.

Wait, what? They sort of named it after the amount of bits it had...

Anywho. I'm a big fan of the PSX, it had some awesome gems. Also PC gaming at that period in time was terrific.

And it's sort of halfway into the next generation, but the Dreamcast kicked way too much ass and it WAS 32-bit console

Jaguar was hailed as 64 bit and were 2 x 32 bit processors bolted together.

N64 was a 64 bit system.

DC was a 128bit system.

I looked it up, you're right, DC is 128-bit. Thought it wasn't. Oh well, The More You Know...

[Kiken]

From Turbo2k:

http://turbo2k.net/features/column/column2.html

These next-gen consoles, however, varied widely in the graphics hardware they used. The Jaguar, for example, had a 32-bit Graphics Processor and supposedly 64-bit Object and Blitter coprocessors, and 3D effects including a Z buffer and Gouraud shading. So is it really a 32-bit system, 64-bit, or does its Genesis-equivalent 68000 CPU make it 16-bit? Beats me.

The 3DO, another smashing success, used a straight 32-bit RISC graphics processor, coupled with a 32-bit ARM CPU. That makes it, in my mind, a "true" 32-bit system (despite the "mere" 24-bit colour).

The Japanese PC-FX, supposedly (and by its specs) the bomb, also featured 24-bit graphics, coupled with a decent 32-bit CPU. That its effects include fade implies greater than 24 bit internal colour computation.

Sega's Saturn had two graphics processors, one for geometry and sprites, and one for backgrounds. Looks spiffy. Todo: bit width. Playstation: one graphics chip, apparently. In the same league as the Saturn, which probably means the Saturn lacked texture filtering, too.

Nintendo 64, sort of half a generation late again, features a 32-bit GPU producing 21-bit colour. This is because it used SGI hardware, see, and SGI engineers get woodies from being "clever". Incidentally, the Nintendo 64's so-called "64-bit" MIPS R4300i only processes thirty-two bits at a time, and has a 32-bit instruction set. Its only claim to 64-bitness is its 64-bit address space, which is completely irrelevant since the N64 only has a max of 8 MB RAM, entirely accessible with 23 bits. So really, it's the "N crock".

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

So the PSX, N64 and Saturn have bad graphics? I personally think the top notch games from those consoles still hold up pretty well. Stuff like you know, the Naughty Dog games, Zelda 64, Radiant Silvergun... and many more. Of course, the failed systems sucked ass but that is why they failed.

[neorichieb1971]

It depends. Something like REZ on the PS2 looks awesome even today, something like Ico doesn't hold up too well. It depends on what the game is doing. Something like SoTC on PS2 looks quite blocky and horrible by todays standards. I know, I played it last night.


The 3DO wasn't that bad. It was just overpriced. If it came in at £200/$300 sort of price range i'm sure it would have taken off and gathered pace. I still think Road Rash on it was a blast.

[Skykid]

I'm with Richie and Sven, this generation is totally duff. Beneath the glossy veneer of most big titles they're all revealingly devoid of substance.
I'm forced to play a fair proportion of current gen and I never imagined it would be this gruelling - it's literally driven me to heavy retro gaming and a healthy arcade habit.

Personally the 16bit era was the most wonderful console generation for me, the SFC and MD literally being joyful at every turn.

The 32bit era was interesting - at times mindblowing (3D graphics? WTF?! ) but a bit scrappy by the end. Saturn ftw, but PS had a good innings too.

N64 had some of the finest games ever made on it, notably Mario 64 and both Zelda's.

[neorichieb1971]

The things wrong with this generation (imho) -

Nintendo found a cash cow that didn't involve putting a lot of effort into games. Although, every now and again they show their heritage a bit and show us what they are made of.. Alarmingly this isn't often enough, by far. There is a lot of lost hope on Nintendo.

Sega might not make the greatest games anymore, but once they were a power house that forced companies like Sony/Nintendo to actually make great games. Without Sega being the force they once were, the other companies are fighting for pole position places on financial figures rather than actual stuff that people care about.

Microsoft have taken Sega's place and not done much with it outside of technologically/muscling in on the competition. The walls around the industry have closed in and everyone is hibernating around Microsofts wants and needs. Microsoft wants lots of live/online action and it gets it.. Its loyal players take the good with the bad and lap up just about anything with fast cars and guns in it. Microsoft see no reason to change a winning formula and the audiences don't see any reason to stop buying the merry go round games that Microsoft puts out. Good for Microsoft, bad for people like me who want to see vastly different types of games of ALL BUDGETS.

Sony... Even though I care about what Sony does, for everything they get right they get so much wrong. Blu ray is great, blue tooth is fantastic, The last Guardian will most likely be incredible and thanks for the free online and region free gaming.. Thats all great. But sort out your policies, get more companies on board, teach people how to get the most out of your creation. Sort it out. Even the games... Uncharted 2 is fantastic looking, but its got no pulse, its flat line game of putting X's on heads and pressing shoot. Its great for 20 minutes at a time but 3 or 4 hours of doing it is enough to put you to sleep. GT5 looks fantastic, but I don't want to reach a state of coma by 8 hours of going round and round tracks. Put some excitement into the franchise. Street fighter IV was ok, but moves per character are on the shallow side and the same shit happens every bout.. Its nice to have extra characters for the forth coming SUPER IV, but come on that should have been in the first game. RE5 was a mess in 1p mode. The controls were lacking (Dead space ate you up and spat you out), the co-op mode with miss hopeless was a very forgetable and lacking experience. I wanted her to get eaten by the crocodiles very visiously. Bomberman online is retarded, its net code is shite and crashes my system every 20 minutes.. net code isn't supposed to do that!!!!


If you gave me something like Mario kart 64, put it on the PS3, changed the characters, insured 60fps and some higher res graphics, i'd take it right now. I really would. It would brighten my day so much. But, wait... Lets see what Uncharted 2's team is going to do next.. Wait for it.. Uncharted 3? Wow, i'm so excited.. NOT! Stupid retarded industry.. Give me a million bucks, I'll reignite this piece of crap industry. I know exactly how games should play, even if I don't know how to make them.

[Ex-Cyber]

The "32-bit" generation was definitely a time of transition. You can see several trends shifting:

2D -> 3D (obviously)
Direct-mapped ROM -> mass storage
Arcade technology leadership -> console technology leadership (this is when console-based arcade hardware really took off: ZN-1/2, ST-V, G-Net, etc.)
Arcade-style games -> cinematic/"epic" games

Overall, some good stuff was released but I still feel like it was the beta test of the Dreamcast/PS2/GameCube/Xbox generation (whatever you want to call that), which finally delivered on the promise of really solidly engineered and decent-looking 3D/disc games. Of course, we couldn't have gotten there without the transitional struggles.

I think it's actually somewhat analogous to the current generation, which is transitioning from SD to HD, local -> online, and disc -> download. My biggest gripes with the current generation are the constant firmware upgrades and the attempts to nickel-and-dime players with cheesy "DLC" add-ons (some of which are actually already on the disc and you're just being sold an unlock key). The industry's compulsion to wrap everything in layers of encryption and DRM isn't helping, either; I have no confidence that I'll meaningfully "own" anything I buy on PSN/WiiWare/XBLA ten years from now, so I think of it more as an extended rental.

[ASK]

Maybe you should edit the post to correct the mistake about the Nintendo 64. Also, seems like this entire thing was written from the perspective of the future. It's as if you're reviewing the Atari 2600 on the same level as the PS3. Being part of gaming during the time of the PSX and Nintendo 64 was great, games were blazing trails into a whole new dimension, high res textures be damned. Through the eyes of a gamer at the time, they looked amazing. There were many gems from that period because so many new things could be tried. Some flopped, some excelled. Mario 64 was a masterpiece and an amazing introduction to the capabilities of a new system. Why did it use carts? Because it was right to. Back then, the now ubiquitous 'Now loading . . .' wasn't so ubiquitous. Read speeds on chips versus read speeds on a disc via laser will never compare. Cost of manufacturing is another story however, so it's understandable that Nintendo eventually gave in.

[Skykid]

Some very interesting points there. I don't agree with RE5 cos it was great - you just needed an hour to settle in for the ride (and a 360 controller as opposed to a PS3 one ) and I don't agree with Mario Kart 64 being updated because it was the weakest in series.

However, the things you said about Uncharted 2 really made me think about games journalism, and the way it shapes consumerism and production. I've witnessed firsthand how PR and game companies will butter up journalists with trips and gifts, sometimes dropping thousands on events to literally garner favourable reviews. It's certainly a modern way of doing things, developed through the growth of the industry. In the 16bit era a PR company would send you a game and a nice letter and then you could rip it to pieces if it was rubbish.

You may not want to believe it, but these PR events to have an impact on review scores. I thought Uncharted 2 was a pretty, technically marvellous, paint by numbers adventure. You press one button to do everything, which is fine if it's a Miyamoto game with boundless depth, but not if you're meant to be engaged in some adult adventuring. It really bored me very quickly, yet garnered game of the year and top marks across the board from everyone, prompting huge sales.
If you look for patterns you can see the hype and media praise producing a ton of hits each year. As opposed to the days when Ocarina of Time would be 'the big one', now we have games like The Darkness, Prototype and Killzone 2 all exploding on launch day and then dissapearing into obscurity within a month.

I don't like it, there's no proper objective overview of the playing field anymore.

[neorichieb1971]

I played RE5 right up until the final hit of the last boss and gave up lol. It was underwhelming overall because I felt RE4 had more punch, more fluidity, better characters, locales and bosses. The joypad was fantastic. The co-op feature of RE5 ruined everything for me since i want to play the game myself and make all the choices. I didn't have a problem playing it on the PS3 since the exact same problems would have been found on the 360 version. Apparently the new waggle edition (using Sony's new wii type controller) is going to rectify the problems with the game. Capcom admitted the co-op feature was a last minute bolt on and it unevened the balance of the game, not to mention the AI was probably rough code at best.

The main problem with UC2 is not the companies expertise to envelope the player with ACTION ACTION ACTION. The problem is your shooting at humans like you would aliens with no fear of dying. Hoards and hoards of them in fact. I swear you shoot at least 10,000 enemies in that game and each time its the same thing. It would cost billions of $$$ to gather an army of that size and the equipment necessary and one man destroys it all. This is not a Nintendo game, its a Sony game and therefore it should be more realistic.

It also has one of the most bizarre sequences i've ever played. You follow a monk type character into the mountains, you fight a grizzly bear thing by shooting it in the face, you climb up and down for 2 hours, you shoot more grizzly bear things, and then you leave. WTF is that all about? There was nothing there at all. If it were real, you would say "Why the fuck did I climb all that shit?"

It doesn't matter what mariokart gets cloned. They are all better than the racers coming out this gen. Gaming needs to be fun, its just not fun anymore. Its like a science project of getting from A to B, it has no heart, no soul.. Its just graphics. I thought Sands of time was better than UC2 by a considerable margin. GT5 is not better because you sit behind the steering wheel and night time turns up like it does in real life. Thats another science project = no fun.

[Ex-Cyber]

I don't like it, there's no proper objective overview of the playing field anymore.

Games "journalism" has been bullshit for a long time; it's just more obvious now than it used to be. Look at what happened with The Bouncer ~9 years ago; practically every gaming mag on the planet was apparently convinced that it was going to be the Greatest Game Ever and hyped the hell out of it, and it turned out to be mediocre. Before that, gaming mags routinely acted as rumor mills, often essentially hyping things that didn't actually exist in any meaningful sense. It made for exciting reading, but it wasn't anything close to actual journalism.

[CMoon]

I'm a bit hesitant to agree whenever someone starts comparing one generation of games to another. To be honest, they've all had their great moments and their pitfalls. I think it is often more a comment on the type of genre you prefer.

[kernow]

. Saturn ftw, but PS had a good innings too.

Units sold 102 million (as of July 20, 2008)
Units sold Worldwide: 17 million

'a good innings'



I thought the saturn was shockingly bad, poor 3D and everything good on it was basically an arcade port, which was fine at the time because arcade games were so expensive, but it .. just wasn't as good as the PS1.