Let's be real. It was life support for the aging megadrive/genesis and the add-on was too cost prohibitive for most and the Saturn was already known to be coming which is why there is only 40 games for the system.
@@kiwisoup that didn't stop me I bought the unit for a super low price thanks to the saturn the store I worked at for my first job as a bagger discounted teh 32x addon all the way down to 29.99 and marked its games with reduced stickers tossing them into bargain bins where people could sift through and collect the titles they wanted that ranged from 3 bucks 5 bucks and 10 bucks pending the title. At the end of my work shift I grabbed the 32x and 20 games I was pretty pleased with Virtual Fighter, Virtua Racing Deluxe, Shadow Squadron, Starwars 32x, Mortal Combat 2, Space Harrier, Afterburner, BlackThorne, Pitfall, Knuckles Chaotix, Tempo, and even liked the Doom port as I didn't have a pc I taken what I could get and I loved that addon though it had some shitty games too like Metal Head (I don't care if some liked it to me that game was garbage more than Doom ever was) BC racers, Cosmic Carnage, Motocross championship, as well as some lack luster ports of Primal Rage WWF Raw and T-mek.
@@kiwisoup lets be real.. it was a breath of fresh air. It was less cost prohibitive than buying a new system, and controllers. There was only 40 games because it was canceled by Sega themselves after only a year despite good sales. 40 games in a year was alot, especially with most being fun.
@@Lightblue2222 It had an ok launch, but it pretty much stopped selling after the initial hype was over, because it became clear that there would be few if any major titles coming out for it. You could find it for only a fraction of the price just months after launch. The only real system seller Sega had was Virtual Fighter, which was very obviously also being ported to the Saturn. Sega cancelled the 32X because the writing was on the wall. Even the absurdly expensive 3DO sold about as much.
Cool comparison! VF on 32X is amazing! It's obvious, that SEGA had way more time to made it. Saturn port is OK but unfortunately it's a rushed port because of the Saturn launch date.
Lmao did you know the 32x only had 6 months development before going into production you think the saturn port was "rushed" ha the entire 32x lineup was rushed including the addon itself.
floor looked very ugly on saturn. x32 looked much better here. but there is a remix version of the original game that is much cleaner on Saturn how its should have looked.
@@SpaceFractal-g2o OMG! The poorly texture mapped floor of the 32X version had better draw distance. That's the only thing going for that version. The player models, frame-rate and the sound was far superior to the 32X game.
That was the problem and why Sega scrapped it. $150 for system on the left. $399 for system on the right. People picked the $150 system in the US and they panicked due to how much money they were losing. It took the Saturn awhile to surpass the sales the 32x had in the US the few months it was supported. Saturn should have just been kept in Japan.
I had VF1 for Sega Saturn when it was launched, it came as a gift with the American Saturns. The game is much better than 32X, beyond the polygons that disappear. No one was worried that the polygons would disappear, it even seemed funny and fun, it was a newly moving technology and yet it was shocking. A colorful fact: the Saturn version of VF1 moves more polygons than VF2. The characters in VF1 have more polygons than those in VF2 and the floor in VF1 is made of polygons and that is why they disappear, while those in VF2 are made with VDP2, meaning that they are not polygons but rather a perspective sprite.
Thanks for the video. The 32X had some pretty impressive specs for its time. Right now I am enjoying a reproduction cart and CD Doom Fusion for the 32X / Sega CD combo. It is amazing. If indie developers released physical carts and CDs pushing the system I would buy them. They could even release digital versions on modern platforms to make up some of the development costs. Thanks again for the video.
immediately got yourself a sub for recording it in real hardware. I wish more gaming channels realized this: if you're looking at legacy games, it must be played on legacy hardware. Your modern pc while a good emulator, is not a 32X, n64, Jaguar, neo geo, snes, and will never be. Real hardware is the real deal.
@@ConsoleCombat This is a HUGE deal for me. I have spent a fair deal of money on an ultimate console and CRT setup, original hardware on a PVM crt. I love playing the most premium experience, which often means playing very specific ports. Sometimes not what you expect. Something being ported to newer hardware does not mean it is better than the original
Me too, I play on a low resolution CRT with bad audio and go through tons of hoops to get things connected, insert the cartridges, remove the cartridges, clean the cartridges, reinsert the cartridges, hope that it works etc and constantly try to convince myself that the restrictions of old technology were somehow an advantage in an effort to justify all the money that I spent on original hardware instead of just emulating.
@ yes. It can be a nuisance. these devices won’t last forever so if we can document how they really played, then perhaps we can save the experience virtually for posterity
12 годин тому
@@ConsoleCombat I don't usually count likes, but this time it matters, as it provides an indication that people are very interested in real hardware, which is great! It's for sure a bigger hassle, but I think it's totally worth it, and in fact the only way to play legacy games IMO. For example: a Neo Geo has a 12 MHz CPU, which I'm sure nowadays a kitchen freezer has more horsepower than that. Back in the 90s, it was cutting edge tech, you'd need to get a Sharp X68000 or Capcom CPS2 to get anything similar. The Nintendo64 had a 93 MHz CPU, for a reference, in 1995 I had access to a PowerMac graphics workstation, costing thousands of dollars back then, and it proudly had a 60 Mhz CPU. The N64 gave you more than that for 250 USD as a kids toy. The logic here is that real hardware is not just for accurate graphics, but it's also a celebration of what was pinnacle technology at some point in time. It's a form of honoring what came before, and how proud we were of having such amazing tech at home, as kids, for our entertainment. When someone emulates with modern hardware, that act of celebrating those once powerful and proud hardwares of the past, completely loses point. A modern PC is so light years ahead of a Neo Geo or N64, that it simply loses the point of enjoying old hardware via emulation. It just doesn't blend. What was once a powerful 93 MHz CPU becomes meaningless if you emulate with hardware thousands of times faster. In order to feel how these videogames were impressive, and cutting edge tech back in the day, one must use the original technology, only then one will be amazed at the SNES scaling FX, or SuperFX chip, or Neo Geo sprite handling power, or n64 3d capabilities, etc.
Thank You for that comparison ❤ I‘ve owned a 32X back in the 90s and i was stunned what my Mega Drive was capable of. And as we see - in some Games the 32X and the Saturn weren‘t far apart.
I agree but wished therewas more homebrew for my personal favorite console the Turbografx-16 I still dream that someday someone may actually make a port of Mortal Kombat for it. Street Fighter 2 CE I bought through Turbo Zone Direct along with the game convertor back in 1994 gave me proof that the TG-16 could do the fighting game genre justice.
i played every version of virtua fighter and when i played the 32x version i instantly saw the hands. but its kinda cool to see how much they were able to do
Both the official Saturn and 32X ports of Doom were pretty bad, but the 32X Doom Resurrection (and the related Doom CD32X Fusion version) puts them both to shame so badly that I want to see that version brought to the Saturn even if it is still entirely running on the SH-2's. You can change the resolution on Resurrection and CD32X Fusion at some FPS cost. Try it out. Edit: I hope some day when the 32X port of Tomb Raider is finished (it's still preliminary) we can compare those versions!
A lot of people slated Virtua Fighter on the Saturn for being as rough as a bear's arse, but it actually ran with a high horizontal resolution. It just needed some extra time to polish out the issues, which sadly never happened (though there's no way it'd have been arcade perfect - theoretical specs aside, the Model 1 was a better polygon pusher than the Saturn).
@@litjellyfish If you pause and look at any of the actual bout footage (shadows, diagonal lines, that sort of thing), you'll see the horizontal resolution is a lot higher on the Saturn version than the 32X version. VF1 ran in progressive hi-res whereas VF2 ran in interlaced hi-res.
not correct. there is a Virtua Fighter Remix...... with proper texture and not wanky polygons. May look generic, but still looks and plays better if you ask me.
@@stephandolby Ah yes you are right. still I think the Y resolution seems to be 320. So like not progressive hires in that sense. Or how to explain. VF1 seems to run in 320x240p and VF2 I think was then 640x480i again I can be wrong. I just have clear memory that VF1 was not full 640x480
@litjellyfish Correct, the Saturn cannot handle 480p, and as its VDP1 output at 448i/480i/504i is 8-bit, lighting is impractical... hence why VF2 used "baked-in" lighting on its texturing to give some sort of depth (I believe Remix does the same thing). Virtua Fighter uses a standard vertical resolution, but I'm not sure whether it's 224p or 240p (and the PAL version would just muddy the waters further). I may have inadvertently confused matters earlier by mentioning progressive hi-res; the horizontal resolution was high but the vertical wasn't.
@@ConsoleCombat Not Really. It had more MIPS power than PS1, but in the End, it was just a Weak Variation of MARS using Genesis' Bus and DMA. It pretty much did really Suck.
It can compete with it on early games, but for later more demanding games it just couldnt hold up, first it didnt have graphics accelerated hardware inside and second it was limited by the cartridge size. Ofcourse if it was in japanese hands it could produce many games but you wouldnt see a proper Sega Rally port, never.
The 32X is extremely underrated in my opinion, and Sega never made ANYTHING bad, not ever. I have both versions, and though the Saturn is my favorite system of all time. The 32X deserved better, and should have had more support from developers
Based on just these examples, 2D and sprite-scaling's pretty close between the two. Saturn certainly has an advantage for polygon processing, FMV playback, and FPS games. I really like Space Harrier on the 32X. That's what I was expecting for the Genesis version (and was pretty disappointed when I bought that cartridge).
I like to imagine an alternate reality in which the communication from Sega of Japan and Sega of America was better to make it such that a 32X + Sega CD effectively converted a Mega Drive to a Sega Saturn, and that the Saturn's cartridge port could run Mega Drive games, that could have been enough to boost interest enough since developers already familiar with the Mega Drive would have an easier time with the console
Had potential, but hampered by a complicated hardware scheme and even by the host Genesis system. The Open Lara project really shows what the 32X could do.
@@segaunited3855 Fully utilizing the 32X *IS* complicated. Only a few developers have pulled it off. You need to write efficient code for both SH-2's for rendering (since there's no acceleration, just a couple of framebuffers), while also feeding the PWM audio chip. Whether 2D or 3D, everything from polygons to sprites and special effects (scaling, zoom, etc) are done entirely in software on the SH2's. Plus, you still have to simultaneously wrangle the Genesis hardware, attempting to make decent use of the 68K and Z80 for gamecode and additional audio. Honestly Doom Resurrection is the best example of what is possible, but it took quite a while to get to that stage.
You can see small improvements in certain games but it's not a dealbreaker. Maybe Sega should have gone with the 32x while preparing the release of the nextgen "Dreamcast". But obviously Sega Japan and USA weren't really working well together.
It makes me think that if the Sega 32X had been developed by Sega Japan (and not Sega US), it would likely have been much more powerful and that if the Saturn had been designed from the start with 3D in mind, it might have been closer to the Sega Model 2 arcade hardware.
Yeah, why did Sega invest in a whole other chip which only helps with games with a float floor and ceiling? With a whole second chip even a noob could implement a naïve method to correct perspective on textures on polygons and hence the need for quads. I think hitachi just imported their DIV circuitry from a macro library kinda like Sinclair built his ULA.
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt Regarding the Saturn, it's just that Sega thought 3D was only relevant for arcades, and they were by far the best in 3D at the time. They didn’t see the Saturn as a 3D console and developed it as a 2D system until they changed their mind at the last minute after seeing Sony focus on 3D with the PlayStation, ( inspired from arcade ) . In the end, Sega rushed to add components to make the Saturn capable of 3D, but since it was done in haste, tapping into its full potential became very complicated. As a result, most multi-platform games generally turned out better on the PlayStation. However, the Saturn's maximum potential could actually go beyond what the PlayStation could achieve. That said, if the Saturn had been designed for 3D from the start, it would have far surpassed the PlayStation and even the Nintendo 64. Sega, in terms of 3D, was years ahead of everyone else worldwide during the 1990s. Their talent in arcade 3D made every other arcade and even PCs look cute and insignificant next to them.
@ I read that they made their own arcade ASICS. Still weird that they work similar to one of the simulators for US air force. No patents? The arcade games also have this flat floor everywhere. Sega genesis is great for 2d. Just add some colors. SH2 is fast enough to prevent slow downs in Sonic. So I really wonder how they thought to make a mark beyond SNES or NeoGeo CD in the 2d world. Translucency? Superscaler was already in SegaCD. Mode-7 is actually a clipped polygon width four vertices.
As other commenters said: surprised 32x holds up as well as it does. Sega missed a trick in not making the 32x its neageo equivalent. Arcade perfect conversions of Revenge of Death Adder, Spiderman etc. I would have bought that for a dollar!
Exactly. So it shows that 32x power was quite far from Saturn. It runs lower fps. do not have lighting on the main character and using a highly optimized open source reverse engineered port of tomb rainder that mosty likely if porten properly to Saturn would be able to run 60fps on Saturn. But it shows that 32x could handle texure polygon games a lot better than the commercial games releasef for it back then. But it also shows that Saturn in quite a lot more powerful.
@@litjellyfishI added the doom cd 32x fusion to show what could have been if devs used all of the hardware. But the costs for the Sega cd genesis and 32x was well beyond the Saturn.
@@ConsoleCombat Yeah then also the game is a special case in the way it rendered stuff that actually fits pure CPU based software rendering. And the display window is still smaller. Push it up higher and the framerate would had dropped. And as you said it used more hardware so... well.. then lets throw in some more CPU power in say put a DSP in a game cart for saturn and it would had run DOOM better.
I love the 32X, but I honestly think it should never have existed. The games released for it should have been developed for the Saturn, and the console should have come out in 1994 in the US, a year before the PS1. That way Virtua Racing Deluxe would have been a Saturn game, Knuckles Chaotix could have been Sonic 4, etc... Just having Sonic, Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter at launch would have put the Saturn in a good position, even more so a year before its competitor hit the market.
Yeah, the Saturn Version was it´s own thing, made by Warner Brothers. It may have better Graphics and more Cars, but lacks in Gameplay, driving Physics and Sound Effects. I recommend the Video that "Jenovi" made about what the best Port would be ("The 2.5D Gamer" and "Sega Lord X" also did, but imo "Jenovi" nailed it.).
The answer is not so close. Throw up titles with a lot of textures polyhons like Burning Rangers and Sonic R and we will see it. That said of course a lot more juice could have been squeezed out of 32x
Wish sega had made 32x into its own console and used it instead of saturn. It seems like its easier to program for, and it plays arcade titles like a pro.
"Captured on real hardware using RGB" That's the way it should be, unlike others, who are too cheap to buy the games & hardware & instead use fraudulent emulation.
The doom comparison is very good. Rumour has it the dev has a h/w accelerated Saturn version but John carmack insisted on a s/w only. Hence performance is very similar. Actually the 32x might be better 😂
If Sega had marketed the 32x as a "budget option" for 32-bit play, I think it would have been more successful. SOJ was clueless when it came to the American market and should have let SOA drive.
Compare 32X with Saturn is not fair, because 99% of the games were released on cartridges (32X) instead of CD's, so graphics and sound is limited to 4MB and not to 650MB. I still believe SEGA could've made 32X greater to the limit using both, CD's and cartridges and compete against PS and 3DO all the way without Saturn!. Genesis was established and could have been extended a few more years with the 32X.
Instead of releasing the Saturn, would it have been cheaper for sega to release mega driver/genesis consoles with the 32x hardware already built in and for existing mega drive/genesis customers to buy the 32x add on at a discounted price and they just focus on making 32x games? Would that have been better for them?
As far as this specific game, virtua fighter, it was the first street fighter like game in 3D in the arcades. At the time, it was such a sight to behold since 3d was very new
Nowhere Near close as 32X was just System 32 Hardware with VERY Weak Model 1 Chips. It also used the Main bus of the Motorola 68000 in the Genesis. You're Welcome OP. Saturn was 3X times more powerful and actually 64-bits.
Sega should have really pushed the unique features of the Sega CD and the 32x. The Sega CD could also do Super Scalers and they really should have leaned more heavily into that! Games like Final Fight CD show it could have done amazing home ports of whatever Capcom was doing in the arcades and I wish they would have leaned into that more. Between the CD and the 32x they could have delayed the Saturn and fine tuned it more for 3D games really give Sony a run for their money. It is so said how these two consoles were misused back then and the in fighting between Sega of Japan and Sega of America.
The 32x was a breath of fresh air for the aging megadrive. Had it lived longer I think there would have been many great games produced for it
Let's be real. It was life support for the aging megadrive/genesis and the add-on was too cost prohibitive for most and the Saturn was already known to be coming which is why there is only 40 games for the system.
@@kiwisoup that didn't stop me I bought the unit for a super low price thanks to the saturn the store I worked at for my first job as a bagger discounted teh 32x addon all the way down to 29.99 and marked its games with reduced stickers tossing them into bargain bins where people could sift through and collect the titles they wanted that ranged from 3 bucks 5 bucks and 10 bucks pending the title. At the end of my work shift I grabbed the 32x and 20 games I was pretty pleased with Virtual Fighter, Virtua Racing Deluxe, Shadow Squadron, Starwars 32x, Mortal Combat 2, Space Harrier, Afterburner, BlackThorne, Pitfall, Knuckles Chaotix, Tempo, and even liked the Doom port as I didn't have a pc I taken what I could get and I loved that addon though it had some shitty games too like Metal Head (I don't care if some liked it to me that game was garbage more than Doom ever was) BC racers, Cosmic Carnage, Motocross championship, as well as some lack luster ports of Primal Rage WWF Raw and T-mek.
@@kiwisoup lets be real.. it was a breath of fresh air. It was less cost prohibitive than buying a new system, and controllers. There was only 40 games because it was canceled by Sega themselves after only a year despite good sales. 40 games in a year was alot, especially with most being fun.
@@Lightblue2222 It had an ok launch, but it pretty much stopped selling after the initial hype was over, because it became clear that there would be few if any major titles coming out for it. You could find it for only a fraction of the price just months after launch. The only real system seller Sega had was Virtual Fighter, which was very obviously also being ported to the Saturn. Sega cancelled the 32X because the writing was on the wall. Even the absurdly expensive 3DO sold about as much.
I am quite impressed with how well the 32X was able to hold up in comparison.
Cool comparison! VF on 32X is amazing! It's obvious, that SEGA had way more time to made it. Saturn port is OK but unfortunately it's a rushed port because of the Saturn launch date.
Lmao did you know the 32x only had 6 months development before going into production you think the saturn port was "rushed" ha the entire 32x lineup was rushed including the addon itself.
floor looked very ugly on saturn. x32 looked much better here. but there is a remix version of the original game that is much cleaner on Saturn how its should have looked.
@@SpaceFractal-g2o OMG! The poorly texture mapped floor of the 32X version had better draw distance. That's the only thing going for that version. The player models, frame-rate and the sound was far superior to the 32X game.
I really think they should have given the 32x a couple years more on its own. It looked great with the right devs working with it.
Agreed
Vf glitches less on 32x
@ConsoleCombat 9:14 is nfl 96 not virtua racing (has vr as title)
That was the problem and why Sega scrapped it. $150 for system on the left. $399 for system on the right. People picked the $150 system in the US and they panicked due to how much money they were losing. It took the Saturn awhile to surpass the sales the 32x had in the US the few months it was supported.
Saturn should have just been kept in Japan.
Thank you. I’ll blur it out.
I had VF1 for Sega Saturn when it was launched, it came as a gift with the American Saturns. The game is much better than 32X, beyond the polygons that disappear.
No one was worried that the polygons would disappear, it even seemed funny and fun, it was a newly moving technology and yet it was shocking.
A colorful fact: the Saturn version of VF1 moves more polygons than VF2. The characters in VF1 have more polygons than those in VF2 and the floor in VF1 is made of polygons and that is why they disappear, while those in VF2 are made with VDP2, meaning that they are not polygons but rather a perspective sprite.
All polygons on the Saturn are perspective sprites. You probably mean it's a rotation/perspective background layer (akin to SNES' Mode 7).
Thanks for the video. The 32X had some pretty impressive specs for its time. Right now I am enjoying a reproduction cart and CD Doom Fusion for the 32X / Sega CD combo. It is amazing. If indie developers released physical carts and CDs pushing the system I would buy them. They could even release digital versions on modern platforms to make up some of the development costs. Thanks again for the video.
@@malcolmar yes cd 32x doom fusion really showcases where things could have been and it would have been incredible. Thanks for watching
@@ConsoleCombat Agreed!
immediately got yourself a sub for recording it in real hardware. I wish more gaming channels realized this: if you're looking at legacy games, it must be played on legacy hardware. Your modern pc while a good emulator, is not a 32X, n64, Jaguar, neo geo, snes, and will never be. Real hardware is the real deal.
Oh wow. Thank you so much. I feel the exact same as you. It’s a lot of wires and work but totally worth it.
@@ConsoleCombat This is a HUGE deal for me. I have spent a fair deal of money on an ultimate console and CRT setup, original hardware on a PVM crt. I love playing the most premium experience, which often means playing very specific ports. Sometimes not what you expect. Something being ported to newer hardware does not mean it is better than the original
Me too, I play on a low resolution CRT with bad audio and go through tons of hoops to get things connected, insert the cartridges, remove the cartridges, clean the cartridges, reinsert the cartridges, hope that it works etc and constantly try to convince myself that the restrictions of old technology were somehow an advantage in an effort to justify all the money that I spent on original hardware instead of just emulating.
@ yes. It can be a nuisance. these devices won’t last forever so if we can document how they really played, then perhaps we can save the experience virtually for posterity
@@ConsoleCombat I don't usually count likes, but this time it matters, as it provides an indication that people are very interested in real hardware, which is great! It's for sure a bigger hassle, but I think it's totally worth it, and in fact the only way to play legacy games IMO. For example: a Neo Geo has a 12 MHz CPU, which I'm sure nowadays a kitchen freezer has more horsepower than that. Back in the 90s, it was cutting edge tech, you'd need to get a Sharp X68000 or Capcom CPS2 to get anything similar.
The Nintendo64 had a 93 MHz CPU, for a reference, in 1995 I had access to a PowerMac graphics workstation, costing thousands of dollars back then, and it proudly had a 60 Mhz CPU. The N64 gave you more than that for 250 USD as a kids toy.
The logic here is that real hardware is not just for accurate graphics, but it's also a celebration of what was pinnacle technology at some point in time. It's a form of honoring what came before, and how proud we were of having such amazing tech at home, as kids, for our entertainment.
When someone emulates with modern hardware, that act of celebrating those once powerful and proud hardwares of the past, completely loses point.
A modern PC is so light years ahead of a Neo Geo or N64, that it simply loses the point of enjoying old hardware via emulation. It just doesn't blend. What was once a powerful 93 MHz CPU becomes meaningless if you emulate with hardware thousands of times faster.
In order to feel how these videogames were impressive, and cutting edge tech back in the day, one must use the original technology, only then one will be amazed at the SNES scaling FX, or SuperFX chip, or Neo Geo sprite handling power, or n64 3d capabilities, etc.
Thank You for that comparison ❤ I‘ve owned a 32X back in the 90s and i was stunned what my Mega Drive was capable of. And as we see - in some Games the 32X and the Saturn weren‘t far apart.
You’re welcome. I enjoyed making the comparison
We need more 32x scene and honebrew.
I agree but wished therewas more homebrew for my personal favorite console the Turbografx-16 I still dream that someday someone may actually make a port of Mortal Kombat for it. Street Fighter 2 CE I bought through Turbo Zone Direct along with the game convertor back in 1994 gave me proof that the TG-16 could do the fighting game genre justice.
@lunarvvolf9606 Yes, it's a great machine. It deserve more new content. I hope the homebrew increase too for Turbografx.
i played every version of virtua fighter and when i played the 32x version i instantly saw the hands. but its kinda cool to see how much they were able to do
Both the official Saturn and 32X ports of Doom were pretty bad, but the 32X Doom Resurrection (and the related Doom CD32X Fusion version) puts them both to shame so badly that I want to see that version brought to the Saturn even if it is still entirely running on the SH-2's. You can change the resolution on Resurrection and CD32X Fusion at some FPS cost. Try it out.
Edit: I hope some day when the 32X port of Tomb Raider is finished (it's still preliminary) we can compare those versions!
I had the 32x with VF as a teenager, and I thought it was amazing. Even more so, MK 2, really an excellent arcade conversion.
A lot of people slated Virtua Fighter on the Saturn for being as rough as a bear's arse, but it actually ran with a high horizontal resolution. It just needed some extra time to polish out the issues, which sadly never happened (though there's no way it'd have been arcade perfect - theoretical specs aside, the Model 1 was a better polygon pusher than the Saturn).
I think you are confusing it with Virtua Fighter 2. The first one ran on 320x224 i think
@@litjellyfish If you pause and look at any of the actual bout footage (shadows, diagonal lines, that sort of thing), you'll see the horizontal resolution is a lot higher on the Saturn version than the 32X version. VF1 ran in progressive hi-res whereas VF2 ran in interlaced hi-res.
not correct. there is a Virtua Fighter Remix...... with proper texture and not wanky polygons. May look generic, but still looks and plays better if you ask me.
@@stephandolby Ah yes you are right. still I think the Y resolution seems to be 320. So like not progressive hires in that sense. Or how to explain. VF1 seems to run in 320x240p and VF2 I think was then 640x480i again I can be wrong. I just have clear memory that VF1 was not full 640x480
@litjellyfish Correct, the Saturn cannot handle 480p, and as its VDP1 output at 448i/480i/504i is 8-bit, lighting is impractical... hence why VF2 used "baked-in" lighting on its texturing to give some sort of depth (I believe Remix does the same thing). Virtua Fighter uses a standard vertical resolution, but I'm not sure whether it's 224p or 240p (and the PAL version would just muddy the waters further). I may have inadvertently confused matters earlier by mentioning progressive hi-res; the horizontal resolution was high but the vertical wasn't.
Wow 32x had a lot of potential
It sure did
@@ConsoleCombat Not Really. It had more MIPS power than PS1, but in the End, it was just a Weak Variation of MARS using Genesis' Bus and DMA. It pretty much did really Suck.
It can compete with it on early games, but for later more demanding games it just couldnt hold up, first it didnt have graphics accelerated hardware inside and second it was limited by the cartridge size. Ofcourse if it was in japanese hands it could produce many games but you wouldnt see a proper Sega Rally port, never.
The 32X is extremely underrated in my opinion, and Sega never made ANYTHING bad, not ever. I have both versions, and though the Saturn is my favorite system of all time. The 32X deserved better, and should have had more support from developers
Based on just these examples, 2D and sprite-scaling's pretty close between the two. Saturn certainly has an advantage for polygon processing, FMV playback, and FPS games. I really like Space Harrier on the 32X. That's what I was expecting for the Genesis version (and was pretty disappointed when I bought that cartridge).
And then people say that quads help especially with sprites and super-scaling. Saturn is a 2d powerhouse.
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt It was a 3D powerhouse too. At least on paper.
Also resolution and frame rate. 32x version of Afterburner is 30fps.
I like to imagine an alternate reality in which the communication from Sega of Japan and Sega of America was better to make it such that a 32X + Sega CD effectively converted a Mega Drive to a Sega Saturn, and that the Saturn's cartridge port could run Mega Drive games, that could have been enough to boost interest enough since developers already familiar with the Mega Drive would have an easier time with the console
Had potential, but hampered by a complicated hardware scheme and even by the host Genesis system. The Open Lara project really shows what the 32X could do.
I wish we had included it in this video. It slipped my mind.
@@ConsoleCombat It's not worth it yet, anyway. Give the developer some time... currently it's running on a single SH-2.
32X wasn't Complicated, it was a Half Baked Solution for MARS/Giga Drive.
@@segaunited3855 Fully utilizing the 32X *IS* complicated. Only a few developers have pulled it off. You need to write efficient code for both SH-2's for rendering (since there's no acceleration, just a couple of framebuffers), while also feeding the PWM audio chip. Whether 2D or 3D, everything from polygons to sprites and special effects (scaling, zoom, etc) are done entirely in software on the SH2's.
Plus, you still have to simultaneously wrangle the Genesis hardware, attempting to make decent use of the 68K and Z80 for gamecode and additional audio. Honestly Doom Resurrection is the best example of what is possible, but it took quite a while to get to that stage.
You can see small improvements in certain games but it's not a dealbreaker. Maybe Sega should have gone with the 32x while preparing the release of the nextgen "Dreamcast". But obviously Sega Japan and USA weren't really working well together.
It makes me think that if the Sega 32X had been developed by Sega Japan (and not Sega US), it would likely have been much more powerful and that if the Saturn had been designed from the start with 3D in mind, it might have been closer to the Sega Model 2 arcade hardware.
Yeah, why did Sega invest in a whole other chip which only helps with games with a float floor and ceiling? With a whole second chip even a noob could implement a naïve method to correct perspective on textures on polygons and hence the need for quads. I think hitachi just imported their DIV circuitry from a macro library kinda like Sinclair built his ULA.
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt
Regarding the Saturn, it's just that Sega thought 3D was only relevant for arcades, and they were by far the best in 3D at the time. They didn’t see the Saturn as a 3D console and developed it as a 2D system until they changed their mind at the last minute after seeing Sony focus on 3D with the PlayStation, ( inspired from arcade ) . In the end, Sega rushed to add components to make the Saturn capable of 3D, but since it was done in haste, tapping into its full potential became very complicated. As a result, most multi-platform games generally turned out better on the PlayStation. However, the Saturn's maximum potential could actually go beyond what the PlayStation could achieve. That said, if the Saturn had been designed for 3D from the start, it would have far surpassed the PlayStation and even the Nintendo 64. Sega, in terms of 3D, was years ahead of everyone else worldwide during the 1990s.
Their talent in arcade 3D made every other arcade and even PCs look cute and insignificant next to them.
@ I read that they made their own arcade ASICS. Still weird that they work similar to one of the simulators for US air force. No patents? The arcade games also have this flat floor everywhere.
Sega genesis is great for 2d. Just add some colors. SH2 is fast enough to prevent slow downs in Sonic. So I really wonder how they thought to make a mark beyond SNES or NeoGeo CD in the 2d world. Translucency?
Superscaler was already in SegaCD. Mode-7 is actually a clipped polygon width four vertices.
As other commenters said: surprised 32x holds up as well as it does. Sega missed a trick in not making the 32x its neageo equivalent. Arcade perfect conversions of Revenge of Death Adder, Spiderman etc. I would have bought that for a dollar!
That would have been amazing
Tomb Raider also runs on the 32x
I missed that fan made port yes. Thanks for your feedback.
Exactly. So it shows that 32x power was quite far from Saturn. It runs lower fps. do not have lighting on the main character and using a highly optimized open source reverse engineered port of tomb rainder that mosty likely if porten properly to Saturn would be able to run 60fps on Saturn. But it shows that 32x could handle texure polygon games a lot better than the commercial games releasef for it back then. But it also shows that Saturn in quite a lot more powerful.
@@litjellyfishI added the doom cd 32x fusion to show what could have been if devs used all of the hardware. But the costs for the Sega cd genesis and 32x was well beyond the Saturn.
@@ConsoleCombat Yeah then also the game is a special case in the way it rendered stuff that actually fits pure CPU based software rendering. And the display window is still smaller. Push it up higher and the framerate would had dropped. And as you said it used more hardware so... well.. then lets throw in some more CPU power in say put a DSP in a game cart for saturn and it would had run DOOM better.
I love the 32X, but I honestly think it should never have existed.
The games released for it should have been developed for the Saturn, and the console should have come out in 1994 in the US, a year before the PS1.
That way Virtua Racing Deluxe would have been a Saturn game, Knuckles Chaotix could have been Sonic 4, etc...
Just having Sonic, Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter at launch would have put the Saturn in a good position, even more so a year before its competitor hit the market.
Vr was wayyy better on 32x than saturn
Yeah, the Saturn Version was it´s own thing, made by Warner Brothers. It may have better Graphics and more Cars, but lacks in Gameplay, driving Physics and Sound Effects.
I recommend the Video that "Jenovi" made about what the best Port would be ("The 2.5D Gamer" and "Sega Lord X" also did, but imo "Jenovi" nailed it.).
@wolfxx7297 yeah 32x for life for new doom, vf, vr etc
VF used 20% of the Saturn's power, while the 32X was on the verge of collapse, yet the differences are still remarkable
The answer is not so close. Throw up titles with a lot of textures polyhons like Burning Rangers and Sonic R and we will see it. That said of course a lot more juice could have been squeezed out of 32x
Wish sega had made 32x into its own console and used it instead of saturn. It seems like its easier to program for, and it plays arcade titles like a pro.
"Captured on real hardware using RGB"
That's the way it should be, unlike others, who are too cheap to buy the games & hardware & instead use fraudulent emulation.
I try my best to do so. I don’t have every piece of hardware and I try to be transparent when I don’t
The doom comparison is very good. Rumour has it the dev has a h/w accelerated Saturn version but John carmack insisted on a s/w only. Hence performance is very similar. Actually the 32x might be better 😂
If Sega had marketed the 32x as a "budget option" for 32-bit play, I think it would have been more successful. SOJ was clueless when it came to the American market and should have let SOA drive.
Compare 32X with Saturn is not fair, because 99% of the games were released on cartridges (32X) instead of CD's, so graphics and sound is limited to 4MB and not to 650MB. I still believe SEGA could've made 32X greater to the limit using both, CD's and cartridges and compete against PS and 3DO all the way without Saturn!. Genesis was established and could have been extended a few more years with the 32X.
I wish more devs would have used the CD 32x
Apart from Doom, the 32X version of the games are inferior to Saturn ones but not bad at all
Instead of releasing the Saturn, would it have been cheaper for sega to release mega driver/genesis consoles with the 32x hardware already built in and for existing mega drive/genesis customers to buy the 32x add on at a discounted price and they just focus on making 32x games? Would that have been better for them?
vendo por essa perspectiva, o 32x fazia um trabalho bastante competente....
Agreed
Can someone please tell me what makes this game so great?? Real question. I want to get into it. Whats different between this and Tekken or Toshinden?
As far as this specific game, virtua fighter, it was the first street fighter like game in 3D in the arcades. At the time, it was such a sight to behold since 3d was very new
Nowhere Near close as 32X was just System 32 Hardware with VERY Weak Model 1 Chips. It also used the Main bus of the Motorola 68000 in the Genesis.
You're Welcome OP. Saturn was 3X times more powerful and actually 64-bits.
😃My goodness, the difference between 'Primal Rage' (09:33).
Sega should have really pushed the unique features of the Sega CD and the 32x. The Sega CD could also do Super Scalers and they really should have leaned more heavily into that! Games like Final Fight CD show it could have done amazing home ports of whatever Capcom was doing in the arcades and I wish they would have leaned into that more. Between the CD and the 32x they could have delayed the Saturn and fine tuned it more for 3D games really give Sony a run for their money. It is so said how these two consoles were misused back then and the in fighting between Sega of Japan and Sega of America.
i would say - 32X is 3/5 in 3D , and 4/5 in 2D abilitys compare to saturn...
World Series Baseball is the only one significantly more impressive on Saturn.
SATURN SEM SOMBRAS DE DÚVIDAS.
Yeah Sega CD 32X Doom!!
It was not close at all as rhere were several limitations precenting it from its potential
GENESIS 32X has my most interesting infatuation yet, I never rest in peace until SEGA OF AMERICA RESURRECTED THIS SYSTEM... They owe it to us!!!!
Saturn Doom still pisses me off. Carmak ruined that port.
The 32x was nothing compared to the saturn. End of story.
my god... what a shit console was the saturn
Best console ever.
Wow. 32X is not bad at all