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6'th gen hardware wars: Game Cube vs Xbox OG vs PS2 vs Dreamcast

Tesseract

Banned
can someone please post some more q3 dc shots, i'm curious as fuck as to how they got those textures running inengine
 

pawel86ck

Banned
Have a look at the best looking 6th gen game, hacked to run at 480P on a real ps2!! In this rendering mode, the game looks as sharp as on Xbox, has some additional graphical effects (like Snake's doubled image,in the third screenshot), and performs WAAAAY better than on Microsoft's Machine (But you would still rather play it with the original interlaced but 60 locked mode) ....


............
So the ps2 must be more powerfull than xbox. /S

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That is only part of the trick; you can also hack a lot of games to render in progressive mode (some need just another hack to skip FMV, because they would freeze your ps2 in this mode), then use gsm to center the image (the hack moves it on the upper half of the screen ), and display it in 480P,720P,1080i and 1080P(NOT KIDDING) ; 480P>480I downscaling (ala XBOX) is also another option. Note that performance in the 480P to 720P/1080I/1080P options are terrible in most of the games, so you should rather just select 480P mode in GSM to center the image or use the 480I to higher resolutions modes, if the ps2 is not cut to run said game in progressive.
Silent Hill 3 upscaled to 720P/1080I/1080P makes you throw the HD collection in the garbage bin, since performance are stellar and you can use a 16:9 hack. Too bad I can't take screenshots at the moment :( .
That's PS2 screenshot? MGS2 sure looks good, but like Gran Turismo 3 is using clever art direction and postprocessing tricks to achieve it's impressive presentation. If you pay attention to details you will see objects are square, textures arnt the best, and lighting is totally baked.

BTW- how about Xbox 360 version, it's also downgraded compared to PS2?
 

K.N.W.

Member
K.N.W. K.N.W. That is upscalinng, nothing similar to render in higher resolution, metal Gear 2 still renders at sub native 640x480...
Nope I'm talking about real progressive on PS2, look at my screens , they have no interlacing artifacts. You can look here ps2wide.net / 480p for more info.
That's PS2 screenshot? MGS2 sure looks good, but like Gran Turismo 3 is using clever art direction and postprocessing tricks to achieve it's impressive presentation. If you pay attention to details you will see objects are square, textures arnt the best, and lighting is totally baked.

BTW- how about Xbox 360 version, it's also downgraded compared to PS2?
Yep that's on a real ps2, the sceenshot was taken by me.
The snake doubling and distortion effect is missing on PS3/360 too, but that collection is good in the end, nothing as bad as the silent hill one.
 
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Romulus

Member
Nope I'm talking about real progressive on PS2, look at my screens , they have no interlacing artifacts. You can look here ps2wide.net / 480p for more info.

Yes the snake distortion effect is missing there too.

Theres no mention of mgs2 in that link.
All very vague info about this. I did a search and almost nothing came up. Where can I learn how to run it on ps2 at true 480p? I still have my ps2 and a copy of the game.
 
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K.N.W.

Member
Theres no mention of mgs2 in that link.
All very vague info about this. I did a search and almost nothing came up. Where can I learn how to run it on ps2 at true 480p? I still have my ps2 and a copy of the game.

The info on the page are very vague, and almost nobody knows about this, but I've tried more than 40 games and it usually works, even if some games crawl to very low framerates, and some need another hack to skip fmv, so they don't hang.

If you do have a modded/soft modded ps2, all you have to do is:
1) Make an ISO
2) Open the ISO with an HEX Editor
3) Change the Value found at this link ps2wide.net / 480p
4) Save the ISO, burn it or load it on USB or HDD
5) Set GSM/Openloader to Display 480P/720/1080I (so the game screen gets centered)

PM me if you need help with the loader/soft mod.

PS: The code works on any ps2 emulator, and improves image quality :)
 
I was thinking for some time on this and might as well share my thoughts on what i think are the most impressive games of this generation.

Broken up into categories -

*realistic* graphics : Re4 gamecube

Best realistic racer : rallisport 2
Best fantasy racer : f zero gx

Best action adventure 60fps/30 : star fox/twilight princess

Best water : super mario sunshine

Best action : ninja gaiden

Best platformer 60fps/30 : klonoa 2/conker reloaded

Best cel shading : jet set radio future

Best *realistic* fps : criterion's black
Best fantasy fps : prime 2 echoes

Best fighter : dead or alive 2 ultimate
 

Romulus

Member
The info on the page are very vague, and almost nobody knows about this, but I've tried more than 40 games and it usually works, even if some games crawl to very low framerates, and some need another hack to skip fmv, so they don't hang.

If you do have a modded/soft modded ps2, all you have to do is:
1) Make an ISO
2) Open the ISO with an HEX Editor
3) Change the Value found at this link ps2wide.net / 480p
4) Save the ISO, burn it or load it on USB or HDD
5) Set GSM/Openloader to Display 480P/720/1080I (so the game screen gets centered)

PM me if you need help with the loader/soft mod.

PS: The code works on any ps2 emulator, and improves image quality :)

Is that your website?
 

Romulus

Member
The info on the page are very vague, and almost nobody knows about this, but I've tried more than 40 games and it usually works, even if some games crawl to very low framerates, and some need another hack to skip fmv, so they don't hang.

If you do have a modded/soft modded ps2, all you have to do is:
1) Make an ISO
2) Open the ISO with an HEX Editor
3) Change the Value found at this link ps2wide.net / 480p
4) Save the ISO, burn it or load it on USB or HDD
5) Set GSM/Openloader to Display 480P/720/1080I (so the game screen gets centered)

PM me if you need help with the loader/soft mod.

PS: The code works on any ps2 emulator, and improves image quality :)


I looked up the Xbox version of MGS2. I own it too but never played it. So, it looks like the Xbox version is borderline broken. A terrible port.
There are so many problems with the controls and framerate that it looks like very little time was even but into at all. I wouldn't call that a good representation of the Xbox's power looking at other games on the system. Even the PC version MGS2 was bad despite the massive gulf in power over PS2, bad framerate and terrible controls until fixes were later introduced. Unfortunately, there's no way to fix the Xbox port..
 
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K.N.W.

Member
I looked up the Xbox version of MGS2. I own it too but never played it. So, it looks like the Xbox version is borderline broken. A terrible port.
There are so many problems with the controls and framerate that it looks like very little time was even but into at all. I wouldn't call that a good representation of the Xbox's power looking at other games on the system. Even the PC version MGS2 was bad despite the massive gulf in power over PS2, bad framerate and terrible controls until fixes were later introduced. Unfortunately, there's no way to fix the Xbox port..
Obviously, even an underlooked game like Shrek on Xbox is a generation ahead compared to PS2. MGS2 engine was never designed to run on the xbox architecture and the port was probably rushed.
BUT I know that there are XBOX mods to install a 1.4 ghz CPU and reqch 128 MB of RAM. That should iron frame rate problems in any game :D
 
BUT I know that there are XBOX mods to install a 1.4 ghz CPU and reqch 128 MB of RAM. That should iron frame rate problems in any game :D
Or even better, run them natively on a 2.3 GHz x86 CPU & gigabytes of RAM (OG BC on Scorpio).

I played Ninja Gaiden Black for a bit today and it looked superb. It's mostly the camera/right stick that annoyed me.

Too bad MS stopped adding BC games.
 

pawel86ck

Banned
Great pics pawel86ck pawel86ck holy shit. In some ways, I prefer that over current gen. There's a certain depth to the IQ that has been lost today, or something I can't point my finger on. I wouldn't mind seeing HL2 captures in that style if you have a moment.
Here's Half Life 2 and few other games. In half life 2 it was easy to take photos, but in action games like Dead Or Alive 3 my phone camera have problems, because it's reconstructing the final picture from 2 (maybe even more) images, so if there's a quick movement there will be a "ghost" of previous frame.

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More photos in the spoiler

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Black
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CMR4
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PGR2
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DOA 3
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K.N.W.

Member
Here's Half Life 2 and few other games. In half life 2 it was easy to take photos, but in action games like Dead Or Alive 3 my phone camera have problems, because it's reconstructing the final picture from 2 (maybe even more) images, so if there's a quick movement there will be a "ghost" of previous frame.
Is your xbox modded/soft modded?? In that case you could convert it into a debug unit, and take direct feed screenshots. I'm about to try that too.
 

pawel86ck

Banned
can someone please post some more q3 dc shots, i'm curious as fuck as to how they got those textures running inengine
Here you go, screenshots in the spoiler :). I have to say DC version looks very good compared to PS2, especially textures are sharper (maybe because DC has 5:1 texture compression).
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Is your xbox modded/soft modded?? In that case you could convert it into a debug unit, and take direct feed screenshots. I'm about to try that too.
It's soft modded but I can take direct feed screenshots on Xbox 360 console anyway (xbox 360 on top of that force MSAAx4 in most xbox games)

Why are those screens 4:3? Those games support widescreen., be sure to select widescreen output on the Xbox dashboard.
Picture quality reasons, 16/9 looks a little bit soft

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Soul Calibur 2 runs at 720p but it's 4/3 game even when I will set my xbox to output widescreen format
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pawel86ck pawel86ck played dead or alive 2 ultimate?
Of course ;)

DOA Ultimate
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Conker
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Doom 3
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Splinter Cell 1
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GTA 3

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GTA VC
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JSRF
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Yeah, the RalliSport Challenge titles were really impressive. Nice captures, pawel86ck pawel86ck .
Somewhere around 2002 I saw these screenshots in a magazine and I immediately thought to myself, I must buy xbox :).

428439-ralli_012.jpg

461534-r_010.jpg
451002-rallisport_001.jpg
 
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pawel86ck

Banned
I did a bit of research, and found out you can hack OG XBOX games to run in 720P, even if performance aren't great even on a 128 MB of RAM modded xbox (Black runs really smoothly)







More games in spoilers
















Riddick even with 720p hack will run below >480p frequently because it's using dynamic resolution.
 

V4skunk

Banned
Polygon counts

I've been doing actual research on the subject for the 6th generation through various 3d artist forums. Basically, the stuff I've read here and on other forums, people have no idea what they're talking about.

If you've said anything at all about polygons per second in relation to console horsepower in the 6th generation, you're not seeing the picture clearly.

Why?

Polygon counts can be very deceptive in terms of what a given game is doing onscreen. Bump mapping is a massive reason why, and whether the whole scene is being counted versus what the player actually sees onscreen.

Let me give you an example of just character models:

Gamecube
Leon RE4 10,000 polygons
Samus 9800

PS2
Jak 3 10,000

Kingdom Under Fire Xbox
Main Character - 10,000
Other characters - 3000-4000(massive amounts of them onscreen)


Yet...

Halo 2 Master Chief - under 2000 polygons(one-fifth of the all the above)

And even less than Halo CE's same character model. Does that somehow mean the Xbox was more powerful when it initially released with Halo 1? Of course not, it's a different solution. In fact, it's far more detailed in Halo 2.

That brings me to my point. There are games where you can gain more polygons, simply by making the choice on the style of game.

Rogue Squadron is a classic early 2000s forum propaganda metric of "15 million per second." Which isn't actually verified by more than one person, but we'll just assume its a fact.

Factor 5 went with a bunch of simple, often times very low-resolution polygons that had little to no texture until they reached a certain distance. Think of Star Fox on SNES with no textures at all, but when it gets a certain distance, they began to fade in. In the distance, its just rendering a metric ton of simpler geometry. But, lots of POLYGONS! It's the solution they chose and combined with great art, it works.


182093-Star_Wars_-_Rogue_Squadron_II_-_Rogue_Leader_(Spain)-1495366565.png


rogue-squadron-2.png



Based on my research, the whole polygon per second thing is a farce, because different engines on different games have their own strategy.

Jak 3 is said to do 15 million polygons per second, similar to Rogue Squadron. The way they push raw polygon counts is similar. Lower resolution simple geometry combined with 60fps. 250,000 polygons onscreen x 60fps=15 million per second.
60fps with a wide FOV helps, even more, to really push it too.
But its meaningless metric to in terms of raw performance unless you can find a like for like instances, it's nonsense.

Jak 3 from the ps3 remaster, but you can literally see this scene has an incredible amount of polygons. The ps2 version did as well.




60fps+wide FOV+lots of simple geometry=massive polygon per second count. Xbox literally had almost no games going for that sort of look, and to be honest neither did Gamecube or PS2. Just 1-2 examples.

You are ignoring the fact that Rogue Squadron was rendering hundreds and hundreds of ships in real time @ 60fps while you are posting barren and empty screens of the game.
The fact is that GC's Rogue Squadron1+2 are technical marvels of that era not matched by xbox or ps2.
 

Romulus

Member
You are ignoring the fact that Rogue Squadron was rendering hundreds and hundreds of ships in real time @ 60fps while you are posting barren and empty screens of the game.
The fact is that GC's Rogue Squadron1+2 are technical marvels of that era not matched by xbox or ps2.

That has absolutely nothing to do with it, ships, Death Star, buildings, they're all polygons. There's no rule for "rendering ships makes the gamecube more powerful." That's basically what you're saying. The technique is the same to render a polygon on a ship or a building. And there's no proof its a marvel other than a Rogue Squadron Dev,.
 
Metroid Prime a corridor shooter?
Also Prime 2 with out a doubt is pushing more polygons/geometry than Halo or Halo2.
Prime 1 pushes more polys than halo 2, Riddick, chaos theory etc etc

In prime 2 you can easily tell things like Samus and her ship have significantly more polys, while the rest of the game is a more subtle improvement.

But yeah that's funny, calling prime a corridor shooter its more like an adventure game than a shooter
 

Romulus

Member
Metroid Prime a corridor shooter?
Also Prime 2 with out a doubt is pushing more polygons/geometry than Halo or Halo2.

Metroid is a corridor shooter. The style of game and long hallways doesn't exclude it from that. In terms of its size, its a corridor shooter, especially compared to Halo.

Of course, Metroid is pushing more polygons than Halo. Halo 1 is pushing more polygons than Halo 2 in many cases, yet Halo 2 looks far better. Has nothing to do with power. The Xbox wasn't more powerful when it launched with Halo 1 versus halo 2 in 2004.
 
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Metroid prime has corridors but it also has open ended areas like phendrana drifts and other more open ended areas where you need to use the morph ball up walls and stuff.

It ain't no quake
 

Romulus

Member
Prime 1 pushes more polys than halo 2, Riddick, chaos theory etc etc

In prime 2 you can easily tell things like Samus and her ship have significantly more polys, while the rest of the game is a more subtle improvement.

But yeah that's funny, calling prime a corridor shooter its more like an adventure game than a shooter


A very taxing technique commonly used on Xbox that was not worth the work(almost impossible) on Gamecube is called, Normal Mapping. Xbox visual style was to creat a look that has more depth. Gamecube was forced to push more polygons because it couldn't do normal mapping effectively. Hell, there aren't even that many examples of Bump mapping on Gamecube.

In 3D computer graphics, normal mapping, or Dot3 bump mapping, is a technique used for faking the lighting of bumps and dents – an implementation of bump mapping. It is used to add details without using more polygons.


Basically, Gamecube is forced to push more polygons, it doesn't have an option. I would hope it pushes more considering that, doesn't mean if you remove all advanced tech in Xbox games that can't do higher poly games also, but it's not forced into that situation.
 
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Romulus

Member
Metroid prime has corridors but it also has open ended areas like phendrana drifts and other more open ended areas where you need to use the morph ball up walls and stuff.

It ain't no quake

Even the larger areas are carefully crafted so that you're not doing much combat. It's always pushing you down a path, using walls to limit taxation of resources. And that's smart, but I remember those long, tall, but narrow paths with rocks on each side. There are even larger combat areas the original Doom than Metroid, and that's considered the quintessential corridor shooter.
 
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pawel86ck

Banned
Metroid Prime a corridor shooter?
Also Prime 2 with out a doubt is pushing more polygons/geometry than Halo or Halo2.
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I wasnt impressed playing Metroid Prime 2 and I have provided screenshots to back up my opinion. You want to suggest it's not metroid prime 2 on these screenshots?
 
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Esppiral

Member
No game on the 6th gen pushes more polygons on screen than Dead or alive ultimate, period.
 
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Tbh, i always thought prime never screenshotted well. But in motion it's quite impressive. I stand by saying it's the most impressive fantasy fps of that gen
 
Metroid Prime 2

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Doa 2 Ultimate

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No need to count, quite visible at first glance which one is throwing more polygons on screen.
Not exactly a fair comparison given fighters have less going on than just about any genre.

Besides the environment in doa is smaller. In any case, as I listed earlier that's the best looking fighter that gen.
 
Some decent (but not 60fps) footage from various maps in the classic game room review.

Speaking of maps. Some of the Dreamcast maps were also made available for the PC version back in the day, and players from both platforms could play against each other. Some people even extracted and converted more maps and the soundtrack from the Dreamcast version too.
 
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Environments in the doa games are quite big though, I'd say more than most of the roms in Metroid 2
No way.

You've got a really detailed foreground with flat backgrounds im that game. Most importantly - that you cant actually move around in.

Racers and fighters are the easiest games to run besides minigame compilations are some shite

Again, not taking anything away from the game it's truly gorgeous. And once again, another example of why some Xbox games shouldn't have heavily relied on normal maps.
 
No way.

You've got a really detailed foreground with flat backgrounds im that game. Most importantly - that you cant actually move around in.

Racers and fighters are the easiest games to run besides minigame compilations are some shite

The stages are more than just a flat underground the character dance around on; they consist of multiple levels. In short: they are huge. Don't underestimate fighting games either, they aren't as "easy to make" as other games, quite the opposite in fact.

As for the stages:
 
The stages are more than just a flat underground the character dance around on; they consist of multiple levels. In short: they are huge. Don't underestimate fighting games either, they aren't as "easy to make" as other games, quite the opposite in fact.

As for the stages:

I didn't say easiest to make as in develop, i said easiet to run.

That's not the same as having 20 or so rooms connected at once, with more freedom of traversal in each area. There's no need to make the game out to be something its not ; it's an extremely impressive fighter.
 
That's not the same as having 20 or so rooms connected at once, with more freedom of traversal in each area.

That's the point; the Metroid Prime games don't work that way. These games work on a room-to-room basis. When you approach a certain area close to a door, the disc starts loading the assets of the nearby room. In other words; these games have a lot less to deal with than a Dead or Alive.
 
That's the point; the Metroid Prime games don't work that way. These games work on a room-to-room basis. When you approach a certain area close to a door, the disc starts loading the assets of the nearby room. In other words; these games have a lot less to deal with than a Dead or Alive.
Not true, the adjacent rooms are loaded in at once, theres more than one room loaded at a time.

You've got 2 characters on screen at once, and a small area to move in at one point. This comparison is absurd and I'm moving on.

I didn't even say which one i found more impressive, only that it's a dumb ass comparison.
 
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V4skunk

Banned
I'm thinking you didn't even watch your own video. That literally does nothing to support a counterpoint, in fact, it does the opposite.
Superior polygon count and at 60fps has been my argument all along.
Here are more examples proving the facts of superior polygon pushing power.






 
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pawel86ck

Banned
When multiplatform games looks much worse on GC it's not a fair comparison, when game like DOA ultimate has more polygons than metroid prime it's not a fair comparison, but when I have asked about Metroid Prime 2 screenshots Rogue Leader and even Mario is mentioned, and that's a fair comparison 😂.
 

Romulus

Member
Superior polygon count and at 60fps has been my argument all along.
Here are more examples proving the facts of superior polygon pushing power.








But you've failed to prove anything is pushing more polygons than Xbox on a like for like basis. You keep saying "more polygon pushing power" without any real comparison. All the Xbox games we talk about are using normal maps, which are very taxing but greatly reduces polygons, so how would that even make sense to have games built around normal maps with more polygons? You don't have a basic understanding of how it works. It's like bragging about your car using more gasoline to someone with a hybrid car, yet the electric car, in this case, is faster and more efficient with better range. Btw I prefer gas.
 
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Not true, the adjacent rooms are loaded in at once, theres more than one room loaded at a time.

If you don't believe me, then I recommend checking out the technical analysis of Digital Foundry:


Also, like I said, you're underestimating fighting games. They are far more complex than you think; movesets, physics, assets, etc.
 
As impressive as rogue leader was, I equally impressed by Luigi's mansion, in a way. Yes its 30fps and has small levels, but it had those vacuu physics and dust particles as well as some really detailed animations. Not the most detailed game though.
When multiplatform games looks much worse on GC it's not a fair comparison, when game like DOA ultimate has more polygons than metroid prime it's not a fair comparison, but when I have asked about Metroid Prime 2 screenshots Rogue Leader and even Mario is mentioned, and that's a fair comparison 😂.
Can we compare until dawn and the witcher 3? How about soulcal 6 and doom eternal?

Stop with the straw man, I never compared rogue leader to doa.
 
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If you don't believe me, then I recommend checking out the technical analysis of Digital Foundry:


Also, like I said, you're underestimating fighting games. They are far more complex than you think; movesets, physics, assets, etc.

So again, its more than one room. The room you're currently in, and the next or the previous.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
But you've failed to prove anything is pushing more polygons than Xbox on a like for like basis. You keep saying "more polygon pushing power" without any real comparison. All the Xbox games we talk about are using normal maps, which are very taxing but greatly reduces polygons, so how would that even make sense to have games built around normal maps with more polygons? You don't have a basic understanding of how it works. It's like bragging about your car using more gasoline to someone with a hybrid car, yet the electric car, in this case, is faster and more efficient with better range. Btw I prefer gas.
That's silly to say, normal maps are cool for sure but you do want as many polygons as you can push underneath too, if they could they would have used tons more so the models of Doom 3 for example would be closer to the PC version rather than so low poly and angular.
 
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