Virtua Fighter 4 Dreamcast....It would have been possible with enough I+D?

[la-li-lu-le-lo]

cool story bro! are you traveling to parallel realities or something ? because this reality's Sega Model 3 have such RAMs amount (in MB):

• texture RAM: 4*2
• display list RAM: 1
• culling RAM: 4
• polygon RAM: 4
• main RAM: 8

M3's texture RAM is same size as whole DC video RAM, nowhere near "larger than all of the DC's memory" as you say. yes, M3 had more video RAM in total than DC, about twice of it = same as NAOMI1video RAM size.

My bad, for some reason I was thinking 8MB was the DC’s total amount of memory for the whole system. I looked it up before, I just forgot because I was tired when I wrote that. And yes, the number I listed for the Model 3 memory includes the ROM, again I didn’t think this through fully. I guess I shouldn’t post stuff like this when I’m really tired.

 

[Xaeroxcore]

People seem to forget that were major differences between the Model 3 and the DC/Naomi hardware. Just talking about poly-counts doesn't tell the whole story. The DC and the Model 3 each had their own advantages, but I would argue the Model 3 was the more advanced system overall.

The Model 3 had multiple revisions, some of which had a CPU that had similar power to the DC's CPU. The Model 3 had dual GPUs instead of the DC's one. Those GPUs in the Model 3 were designed by Lockheed Martin, based on their multimillion dollar military flight simulators. It supported more advanced types of lighting effects. A really major difference between the two is that the Model 3 had a massively larger amount of memory: ~250MB total, compared to 8MB for the DC. Just the texture RAM alone for the Model 3 was larger than all of the DC's memory. All of those things have effects that go beyond just the number of polygons.

Another thing people often ignore when talking about VF3 is that it was the very first Model 3 game, and as such it was one of the least graphically complex and demanding games for the system. Later games for the later revisions were much more complex, as were even games like Scud Race that came out only months after VF3. The Model 3 was a high-end system, and the DC was a low-cost consumer system. The DC was a great system for sure, but it couldn't really compare to the Model 3 in some pretty important areas. I own a Model 3 VF3 board - I've played it quite a bit. I play my DC all the time too. I could say more about this, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Model 3 is a more complex system, high budget tech for making games that were supossed to be impossible by the time....I mean, VF 3 and Scud Race are games from 1996, when the gaming technology for home devices had the biggest milestones in Super Mario 64 and PC Quake....Games generations beyond Model 3 tech.....But DC/Naomi were more modern systems, capable to display similar or even better visuals with less complex and way cheaper tech....I mean, Model 3 could be superior in numbers, but Ferrafi F355, Test Drive Le Mans, DOA 2 and Shenmue stomps any Model 3 game....Even Soul Calibur, having less polys than VF3 or Fighting Vipers 2, and using System 12 (PS1 on steroids) tech as a base, looks way better than any Model 3 fighter....

 

[HermitTheHog]

Virtua Fighter 4 on Naomi 2 makes use of perspective-corrected reflections, which is actually better than the Screen-Space Reflection solution that most modern games use...
That alone was impossible to replicate on Dreamcast, but some homebrew projects like the one from Tashi managed to implement Bloom on the system! So it becomes apparent that DC still has untapped potential.
Not to mention the ability to render 256 layers of transparency (Order-Independent Transparency) -- something even the PS3 and 360 struggled with at times.
Some examples:

»The edge of Snake's hair in MGS4 once the character is in front of the sun;
»The reflection on the glass of Alan Wake's car on the ferry boat.
»Even the All Mighty Crysis in some portions of the jungle; Just check for yourself!

(Not sure if related to transparency), but on RE3 Remake certain fire effects get stretched out at the top and bottom of the screen. Could it be a problem within the engine itself?

Going to the previous generation, you can see it even more on:
The large trees in GTA: San Andreas (during the first cutscenes, as CJ is getting arrested);
RE4's grass and certain indoor objects;
Shadow of the Colossus' grass;
MGS3's foliage on certain trees (very tame, considering the density of textures per-area).

Dreamcast never suffered from such problems, 'cause no game ever made full use of this feature, a feature that stood the test of time, even to this day!

What's more baffling is the fact the VF4 wasn't ported to the Xbox, given the large Sega catalogue on (it). Perhaps to avoid "conflict" with Dead or Alive 3? Not only 3, but Ultimate and 4, being part of an exclusivity deal...

By the way, as impressive as it is, there were some cheaper techniques used, just like Resident Evil 4: The use Volumetric Rolling Trees

 

[accel99]

Virtua Fighter 4 on Naomi 2 makes use of perspective-corrected reflections, which is actually better than the Screen-Space Reflection solution that most modern games use...
That alone was impossible to replicate on Dreamcast, but some homebrew projects like the one from Tashi managed to implement Bloom on the system! So it becomes apparent that DC still has untapped potential.
Not to mention the ability to render 256 layers of transparency (Order-Independent Transparency) -- something even the PS3 and 360 struggled with at times.
Some examples:

»The edge of Snake's hair in MGS4 once the character is in front of the sun;
»The reflection on the glass of Alan Wake's car on the ferry boat.
»Even the All Mighty Crysis in some portions of the jungle; Just check for yourself!

(Not sure if related to transparency), but on RE3 Remake certain fire effects get stretched out at the top and bottom of the screen. Could it be a problem within the engine itself?

Going to the previous generation, you can see it even more on:
The large trees in GTA: San Andreas (during the first cutscenes, as CJ is getting arrested);
RE4's grass and certain indoor objects;
Shadow of the Colossus' grass;
MGS3's foliage on certain trees (very tame, considering the density of textures per-area).

Dreamcast never suffered from such problems, 'cause no game ever made full use of this feature, a feature that stood the test of time, even to this day!

What's more baffling is the fact the VF4 wasn't ported to the Xbox, given the large Sega catalogue on (it). Perhaps to avoid "conflict" with Dead or Alive 3? Not only 3, but Ultimate and 4, being part of an exclusivity deal...

By the way, as impressive as it is, there were some cheaper techniques used, just like Resident Evil 4: The use Volumetric Rolling Trees
View attachment 11391

Why wouldn't the dreamcast be able to do the reflection? I think your confused , I took a look at it it looks like a regular render to texture approach. Doesn't even reflect the fighters they might have just rendered part of the stage ( the ring and skybox) to a separate texture and applied it then. Nothing advanced about that since dx6/7. Anyways the dreamcast share the same exact gpu so hardware features are the same... as a matter of fact take a look at the wow screen logo in sports jam uses the same aproach of this game.

I dunno wth you mean by rolling trees but all I see is a tree mesh with a bunch of planes with leaf alphamaps.

 

[HermitTheHog]

I assumed it was an actual reflection since it's lower res than the rest of the scene. It really didn't look like a duplicate -- gotta check it again...
It's more obvious in games like Shenmue and its mirrors, where the room is being rendered on the other side of the wall, or in Metal Gear Solid 1's puddles, duplicating vertically.

Regarding the trees: Isn't that the term used? 'Volumetric Rolling Tree/Fog/Clouds'? Just Cause 1, for example? Not actual 3D models for trees...?
You'll see it on VF4 during a stage intro.
Maybe I'm using older terminologies?

Sandbox changed to Open-World;
Slowdown » Frame Drops;
Bash'Em Ups » Beat'Em Ups;
Even Gameplay used to be "Playfeeling".

I'm not that old...

 

[accel99]

I assumed it was an actual reflection since it's lower res than the rest of the scene. It really didn't look like a duplicate -- gotta check it again...
It's more obvious in games like Shenmue and its mirrors, where the room is being rendered on the other side of the wall, or in Metal Gear Solid 1's puddles, duplicating vertically.

Regarding the trees: Isn't that the term used? 'Volumetric Rolling Tree/Fog/Clouds'? Just Cause 1, for example? Not actual 3D models for trees...?
You'll see it on VF4 during a stage intro.
Maybe I'm using older terminologies?

Sandbox changed to Open-World;
Slowdown » Frame Drops;
Bash'Em Ups » Beat'Em Ups;
Even Gameplay used to be "Playfeeling".

I'm not that old...

Your description has cleared things up. It's not that your terminology is old, I think your just using it wrong. IAM not an expert or anything but...

For Virtua fighter 4 the reflection looks pixelated and blocky because it is a render to texture effect. They render the scene again to a texture and can use multiple methods to determine the visibility of the reflection ( even screen space texture) this is how it's done in modern games. The other method your describing they invert the stage or character and make the floor transparent. Just look at the Dreamcast menu how there is a reflection of the icons on the bottom waves, that's render to texture just like Virtua fighter 4. IAM not even convinced vf4 is even real-time since you never see the character reflected, perhaps like I said they rendered the stage + skybox to a texture and used it for texture reflection.


For your rolling trees sounds like your talking about billboards. Basically it's a object that always faces the camera at specific axis. Making it look like it's always turning. Some Dreamcast games the whole tree isn't modeled and it's just a billboard or some other games the tree is modeled but the leafs are billboard that way they don't have to bother layering planes with alphamaps on it( if I remember right Sonic adventure 2 uses modeled tree truck with billboard leaves in stage 1). It's hard to tell from that screenshot u posted with out motion but that looks like they modeled the tree and just used a bunch of planes with punchthrough textures to make a bushy tree.

Both things have been done on the Dreamcast. It's nothing special by that point. You just don't see alot of render to texture effects on the DC I suspect for performance reason but only metallic can answer that really.

 

[HermitTheHog]

That's it! "Billboards" -- Yeah, the first time I saw it was in Sonic Adventure 2. I was surprised when even Persona 5 made use of it...
It's interesting: Half-Life 2 was praised for its ground-breaking tech, but even tufts of grass were made this way, when - even before HL2 - you've got Primal on the PS2 rendering everything in full 3D. That one and Ghosthunter (same devs) were technical marvels...

So in theory it is possible to apply Render-to-Texture on the Dreamcast, to replicate reflections? Maybe achieve it by having less elements composing the scene and with a lower polygon count?

 

[accel99]

That's it! "Billboards" -- Yeah, the first time I saw it was in Sonic Adventure 2. I was surprised when even Persona 5 made use of it...
It's interesting: Half-Life 2 was praised for its ground-breaking tech, but even tufts of grass were made this way, when - even before HL2 - you've got Primal on the PS2 rendering everything in full 3D. That one and Ghosthunter (same devs) were technical marvels...

So in theory it is possible to apply Render-to-Texture on the Dreamcast, to replicate reflections? Maybe achieve it by having less elements composing the scene and with a lower polygon count?

It's not in theory , I already told you two examples of render to texture reflections on the Dreamcast. The bios menu and the intro sega sports jam. I can't think of any other game that did it.

Sega sports jam:

Dreamcast bios menu:

 

[pato]

to my knowledge, Dreamcast was NOT designed to be long-living platform, and originally was planned to be replaced by upgraded version (~Naomi2 equivalent) somewhere around 2001.
if this true - there wouldn't be much more amazing titles for original Dreamcast.


yep, we've seen Mortal Kombat games for NES or ZX-Spectrum, so VF4 for DC doable for sure, but obviously it will require serious rework (or to be made from scratch) and result will look not as good as Naomi2 or PS2 versions.

Tell us more, please.

 

[la-li-lu-le-lo]

I was just thinking about this the other day. Force Five on the Atomiswave is pretty impressive looking, I think it’s not that far off from VF4 in terms of overall quality - and that was running on essentially stock DC hardware, you can even run it on a DC now. I think if they had made a VF4 DC port with quality similar to Force Five, it would’ve been a pretty good port. Obviously they still would’ve had to scale it down considerably, but I think it might have been feasible.

 

[MetalliC]

Tell us more, please.

about what exactly ?

Force Five on the Atomiswave is pretty impressive looking, I think it’s not that far off from VF4 in terms of overall quality

lolwat? FF not good even by Dreamcast standards, for comparison Dead or Alive 2 offers x2 times(!!!) or even more detailed visuals, not mentioning "nextgen" games like VF4.

 

[la-li-lu-le-lo]

lolwat? FF not good even by Dreamcast standards, for comparison Dead or Alive 2 offers x2 times(!!!) or even more detailed visuals, not mentioning "nextgen" games like VF4.

I said it’s “impressive”. That’s just a matter of opinion. Your opinion is no more valid than mine. And what do you mean by “2x” more detailed? Do you mean more polygons? And I wasn’t just talking about level of detail, but overall visual quality.

 

[MetalliC]

And what do you mean by “2x” more detailed? Do you mean more polygons?

all of it, more polygons, more detailed character models, more complex and good looking environment, better/more complex lighting, better animations, etc etc. and as obvious result => better overhaul visuals quality

And I wasn’t just talking about level of detail, but overall visual quality.

are you sure ? in my opinion FF looks worse than early Dreamcast games, like Soul Calibur for example, and for sure not any comparable with later games like DoA2.
imho, FF is more looks like a PS1-era game a bit improved and ported to AW/DC.

and speaking in general: if some game was not released - in very most cases there was good reason for this (i.e. game is not good enough, gently saying)

 

[la-li-lu-le-lo]

are you sure ? in my opinion FF looks worse than early Dreamcast games, like Soul Calibur for example, and for sure not any comparable with later games like DoA2.
imho, FF is more looks like a PS1-era game a bit improved and ported to AW/DC.

I'm not sure, that's just my impression of it. I think it's difficult to compare it to DOA2 and Soul Calibur because those are very good looking games, and they have a pretty different visual style. I think it looks as good or better than a lot of other DC games, even some fairly popular ones. I definitely think it looks way better than any PS1 game. Maybe it doesn't make sense to compare it to VF4 either, but I just thought some aspects of it seem vaguely similar to that game, like the shading and reflections.

and speaking in general: if some game was not released - in very most cases there was good reason for this (i.e. game is not good enough, gently saying)

You're speaking very generally, and that's not always the case. There's not always a good reason, and sometimes the reason has nothing to do with the game itself. I don't know what the reason for Force Five was, but it's possible that it's just because the other Atomiswave games weren't making enough money, so they thought it wasn't financially viable to release another one. I personally think it's a good game - I've played it quite a bit and I really enjoy it. I think it's better than some of the other Atomiswave games that were released.

 

[accel99]

all of it, more polygons, more detailed character models, more complex and good looking environment, better/more complex lighting, better animations, etc etc. and as obvious result => better overhaul visuals quality


are you sure ? in my opinion FF looks worse than early Dreamcast games, like Soul Calibur for example, and for sure not any comparable with later games like DoA2.
imho, FF is more looks like a PS1-era game a bit improved and ported to AW/DC.

and speaking in general: if some game was not released - in very most cases there was good reason for this (i.e. game is not good enough, gently saying)

I remember someone a long while back posted a few shots of virtua fighter 4 on pcsx2 emulator back when it had a per frame vertex counter. Its highest vertex per frame cases were around 50,000 per frame.(can slightly over, ill post the image below.) Since you have more exclusive info I ask you whats the best vertices per frame count youve seen on the dc at 60 fps and maybe for a more apples to apples comparison in a fighting game. Just to see how short we fall from this naomi2 to ps2 port.
48,598 vertices in the frame.

 

[MetalliC]

@accel99 not sure if I see the question or request
but yes, VF4 is like 50K and more vertices per frame, @60fps in Naomi 2 and, if I'm not mistaken, @30fps in PS2 ver

 

[accel99]

@accel99 not sure if I see the question or request
but yes, VF4 is like 50K and more vertices per frame, @60fps in Naomi 2 and, if I'm not mistaken, @30fps in PS2 ver

I probably wasn't clear,my bad. I was asking what's the best per frame vertex wise you've seen in a fighting game on the Dreamcast to compare how short it falls to vf4 PS2 port.

The PS2 version of Virtua fighter 4 runs at 60 fps at slightly more than 50k vertices per frame at max load(see screenshot above). Otherwise it was mentioned it cruises at 30k to 40k vertices per frame.

 

[pato]

about what exactly ?


lolwat? FF not good even by Dreamcast standards, for comparison Dead or Alive 2 offers x2 times(!!!) or even more detailed visuals, not mentioning "nextgen" games like VF4.

About NAOMI 2 being basis for a new Sega console in 2001

 

[Xaeroxcore]

I probably wasn't clear,my bad. I was asking what's the best per frame vertex wise you've seen in a fighting game on the Dreamcast to compare how short it falls to vf4 PS2 port.

The PS2 version of Virtua fighter 4 runs at 60 fps at slightly more than 50k vertices per frame at max load(see screenshot above). Otherwise it was mentioned it cruises at 30k to 40k vertices per frame.

With Dreamcast DOA 2 (Hopefully LE Edition, which has small poly improvements) we can find out if at least DC can be near to geometry levels of VF4 PS2 port...and that can help us to have an idea if VF 4 would have been possible on DC with enough I +D. I really hope in the near future indie development to DC reachs a level enough to create games with this complexity or finally homebrew port those missed gems that were meant to be on DC but never made it.

 

[Xaeroxcore]

I'm just passin by to remember you all that it should have been there