Die Hard Trilogy (Saturn vs. PSX comparison) - DH2, level 2

[sethious1]

I used to love this game, well the 3rd person portion of it.....gotta pick this one up for either system will do lol

[MuttonAndTheHam]

I've seen alot of Saturn games that looked better then Playstation too. But Playstation lasted longer, so the games just kept looking better. As it usually goes. Overall though, I can't see a huge difference in this...there is so much action, how can one actually really see better graphics. I'm not totally sure which is which either.

[andy7666]

When you do comparison videos, label the screens!

[RJTamm93]

It's a shame that the few games that came out on both systems were usually terrible on the Saturn as far as visuals. There are plenty of great looking Saturn games, especially later in the life when developers really started to handle the machine.

[iheartnes]

Jesus. The Saturn version looks like garbage!

[sangwria]

Sega Saturn dev kits couldn't create transparency effects until Sonic Team's Burning Rangers and Shining Force III

[1337Shockwav3]

Saturn explosions look like a damn good LSD trip.

[emojo1990]

I do like the graphics on the psx but the light gun on psx isnt as good as the saturn

[GranTruismo4head]

PS 43v3r

[antzy25]

what one is the PSX and the saturn???

[sonicman2500]

my dad got 2 versons of that game

[The1979Warriors]

Swat team to the new terminal on the double!

[OldsXCool]

The Saturn was less capable than the Playstation when it came to 3D in many ways. The Saturn was also terrible to program for so multplat games really got short changed like this game. The Saturn may have been able to do a much better job than this if programmers weren't lazy, but the Playstation version would still have come out on top.

[sonikku956]

Aactually, it was more powerful than the PSX.

[OldsXCool]

@sonikku956 Power is an extremely relative term. In what ways was the Saturn more powerful?

[sonikku956]

@OldsXCool Have you seen the Shemmue beta for the Saturn? looks better that anything I ever seen on the PlayStation.

[OldsXCool]

@sonikku956 Uhh yes I have. I was not impressed. It still had the same bulky and boxy look that almost every other Saturn game suffered from. Plus Shenmue was never completed nor released in the first place so it doesn't count anyway. You never answered the question. What made the Saturn more powerful than the Playstation?

[gloup81]

@sonikku956 a car is more powerfull than a bike , bike ownes tho

[1andrewman1]

does this work with the light gun?

[popcornflakes]

ps1 was more powerful than saturn , players made their choice... i remember battle arena toshiden , i had the ps version , a friend of mine the saturn version, one of the character was supposed to have a trenslucent chemise. on psx we could see the skin througt while on saturn it was grey wand no clear

[33Dannyb]

I meant Air Combat, oops.

[33Dannyb]

If the Saturns hardware was technically better than the PS1's then why did Sega's own games such as Daytona USA and Panzer Dragoon II ZWEI, look worse than the best looking PS1 games such as Wipe Out, Ridge Racer, and Ace Combat?

Don't get me wrong, there are some ugly ass early PS1 games and some beautiful early Saturn games (such as VF2) but it always seemed like the PS1 had the edge in graphics even against Sega's own games. Pop up for example is a major problem in EVERY Saturn game.

[majesticlizard]

Sega of Japan should never have given the American branch that much freedom.

[majesticlizard]

Even with all of its lack of a developer's kit for 3-D and lack of backward compatibility, the Saturn could still have given the Playstation serious competition. It was the decisions of Sega of America that killed the Saturn. Sega of America was to blame for its death. Sega of America was evil.

[majesticlizard]

Then President of Sega of America decided:

1) ...successful RPG's and shooters in Japan should not be ported to America.

2) ...that Sega did not need to use Wal-Mart or toy stores in shopping malls to sell Sega merchandise. Serious. Look it up.

There is no conceivable way that they were going to succeed with this system. Its like they were trying to fail.

[majesticlizard]

Sega chose to release a system that:

1) ...was not backward compatible to a hugely successful existing library (even though it contained an additional 68000 CPU that would have allowed this).

2) ...was so expensive to manufacture that Sega lost money on every unit produced.

3) ...was so complex that the console could not be significantly revised to lower manufacturing costs. The model 2 lost about as much money as the model 1.

4) ...had no developers kit for its method of generating polygons.

[sparda9060]

saturn had better hardware but back then people didn't know how to code and program dual processors. the hardware was too fara head of its time for people to optimize it.

its sad really. i bet if developers today went back and made same game for psx n saturn the saturn would have better game.

[ozziw]

Ooh damn, the difference is astounding :O

I assume the video shows a snippet of the Saturn-version first, and from the PSX-version later?

Damn, massive slowdown on the Saturn, no shadows cast from the characters, the transparency effects are atrocious and the explosions are simple flat sprites :/

Even the sound is better on the PSX-version! :O

[Homyeinsnulleins]

What was the Saturn, what the PSX ?? Which of both systems was the laggy ??

[Enderu666]

The PSX version has better effects like transparency during explosions and is generally smoother.

[Homyeinsnulleins]

Ok Thanks !! But i don´t understand that. The Saturn has the better Hardware !!!

[GamingPalooza]

also the stupid playstation version was not compatible with Namco's GunCon/G-Con 45 controller or GunCon 2, meanwhile the game played with perfection on the Saturn Stunner light gun.

[Chaniyth]

@RollinRolex

Correct. The VDP's of the Sega Saturn could pump out 200,000 texture-mapped polygons per second and 500,000 flat-shaded polygons per second. Whereas the Playstation's GPU could only pump out 180,000 texture mapped and light-sourced polygons per second, and 360,000 flat-shaded polygons per second.

SEGA Saturn = VPD1+VPD2 + SCU + Dual SuperH-2 CPU

Playstation = GPU + 1 CPU

Back then coding for a multi-CPU system was new and difficult learning curve, today it's standard practise.

[Chaniyth]

From a technical standpoint the SEGA Saturn should have been able to handle just about anything Playstation could handle and more. However due to lack of multi CPU programming knowledge, lack of developmental support from SEGA, the SEGA Saturn wasn't a success in the North America, and European markets. However in Japan, the Saturn was sucessful and survived for a full 6+ years. :)

[The80sCommercialsGuy]

Beated?

[austin98989]

DHT is Bomb i have this for psx/ps2 i still like it its a pretty fun game

[Shoryukenn]

Why you compare saturn and ps1 with crap game?

I prefere you compare with good game like Duke Nukem 3D, Dead or Alive or Resident evil...

[polinisebbo]

Regarding Dead Or Alive, i have all games in the series and the Saturn verison kicks the PS1´s verion right in the nuts. ^^ And i agree... Die Hard Trilogy is a crap game. Best regards Sebbo

[The80sCommercialsGuy]

I agree with you on DoA.

As for Die Hard Trilogy it was one of the highest selling games of 1997, some people would probably disagree with you.

[RollinRolex]

To you and Sebbo, why you say its a crap game? it's based off a movie, and you get three types of games in one :D

[lethalbullet1]

that is why i never got the sega saturn version

[SOR4]

Saturn has 9 processors total. You must be a great programmer and manage them together if you want to push its limits, but the result will worth all the spent work.

[RollinRolex]

Ah. Now that is debaitable.

Developers obviously thought, why spend a lot of time rewriting code and porting it over to the Saturn, a not so popular console?

Dont get me wrong, they should have spent a bit more time rewriting code, but there was sometype of sense in that, other than been lazy developers.

[dziltener]

SEGA Saturn

2 Main Processors 28.6 MHz each (Hitachi SH-2)

1 Co-Processor 20 MHz (Hitachi SH-2)

2 Graphics Chips 7 MHz each (VDP1, 32-bit Video-Display-Processor and VDP2, 32-bit background and scroll plane video display-Processor)

1 Sound Chip 22.6 MHz (Yamaha FH1)

[SOR4]

It's NOT Saturn's fault, it's developer's fault. Saturn has 3 processors that has better capabilities than PSX's single one, but most programmers at this time (except SEGA and some others) were unable to program more than one of the processors, so 90% of the SAT games uses only around 20-40% of the SAT's power. That's why most of the Saturn games even don't have Gourad shading, transparency and lighting effects, although the console is capable to do them IF the game is PROPERLY programmed.

[DarkGaaraX]

2 Processors not 3..

Two Hitachi SuperH-2 7604 32-Bit RISC processors at 28.63 MHz

[SOR4]

Those are the 2 main graphic co-processors, but Saturn has few sound chips one of which has extra graphic functions such like true transparency, light sourcing and improved Gourad shading. Unfortunately, only few Saturn games uses all three processors for the graphics, most uses only 1 of them due to lack of programming skills and specific programing tolls in the first 1,5 years (SGL and SGL2) that manage the additional effects and gives between 2 and 4 times better polygon performance.

[morgs2020]

I guess you should have done the programming. I doubt the communication between the chips was great and it's hard to parallelise  traditionally serial code now, it was even harder back then. You can't really blame developers for not forking out for a less popular format and time isn't on there side. You would be more annoyed if the Saturn version was more expensive was delayed and still wasn't as good.

[RollinRolex]

No, I think consumers would be annoyed if it did not come out for the SS at all...

[PilGrimmm]

which games do you know of that utilize the saturn best, would you recommend? thanks also for the insight there =]

[DarkSoftStudios]

Virtua Fighter 2 used one processor for each fighter if memory serves.

[richardbirch2007]

VF2 kicks ass! =D

[praystation]

tekken 2 kicks vf2 (ver 2, and 2.1) in the nuts.

[GamingPalooza]

you crazy...

Tekken 2 had nothing in Virtua Fighter 2, especially in Japan. Sure, Tekken 3 was better but it took all the way to 1998, a third Tekken game in order to become better then virtua Fighter 2, however, if Sega really wanted to, they could of countered Tekken 3 and put something better on the Saturn, but they were busy with Dreamcast.

[djmick90]

@praystation soul calibur for dreamcast kicks both there asses.

[loopylouie101]

Try the Saturn version of Resident Evil. It is only worse than the PSX version in transparancies. Otherwise though, it has better graphics.

[RollinRolex]

Thinking about it, I fail to see only using one processor will affect overall, even if it is 5Mhz short.

The PS1 had only one processor, and it worked wonderfully on that.

Someone explains please?

[maxheadroom1987]

It doesn't use the same code as it's a different architecture. It's up to the programmer to make it run as well.

[RollinRolex]

Hm. This is interesting.

To clarify, could the developers edit the code slightly or did they have to rewrite the code from scratch?

[richardbirch2007]

I'm not too sure too be honest. I would have thought that quite a lot of it would need changing as the hardware is so different

[RollinRolex]

Not neccisarily. They both work off a similar type of RISC processor, but nothing other than the odd change here and there should do the trick nicely, a good port.

[richardbirch2007]

But what about the splitting between the two chips, surely the bus speed and other factors would cause some problems

[RollinRolex]

Ah. I was going to get onto that, :P

Ok, this is as far as I see it. Imagine you have two computers, one is single core Intel Celeron at 3GHZ. The next is dual core AMD Athlon one at, 2.5Ghz per core. due to a design flaw, the processors cannot work together correctly and has a graphic drawback.

Let's say you wanted to run a game on the Celeron. Yeah, it works fine. It will work on the dual core, but as it's not correctly been wrote for that processor, there will be some obvious flaws.

[RollinRolex]

Having said that, since developers did not have the time (and not helped by Sega's sloppy DevKits) to port it's games over to the less-popular Saturn, they did the best they could without rewriting the code.

[Chaniyth]

@RollinRolex

I know, it took a year to get this reply, but here it is. The affect is due to processor architecture. Like, how Apple Computer with their G4 and G5 CPU's used the term "Mhz myth" when they used those CPU's. G4/G5 is PowerPC architecture while x86/x86-64 is a completely different architecture. Mhz doesn't always equal performance quality, it's just a number. Mhz = number of complete cycles per second. Performance though depends on what features the cpu has, execution speed, etc. :)

[Chaniyth]

@RollinRolex

Also, the actual code itself depends on many things, just because it's a RISC cpu doesn't mean the assembly code is exactly the same. The SEGA Saturn used SuperH cpu's, whereas the Playstation used a MIPS cpu, therefore the assembly code for each CPU would be different. Assembly language is low-level and is as close to machine language as you can get, without writing in machine language. Assembly is architecture dependent. High-level lanaguages such as C, etc are "universal". :)

[RollinRolex]

So to cut it short, performance depends on how the processor is designed and how it carries out it's workload?

I understand that for different consoles their specifications would obviously be different, but surely (like with the Saturn and the Playstation) and it would require a rewrite for it simply to work properly, but on the Saturn I sense lousy reworkings of a code, presumably the PC format first, then the Playstation, then the Saturn as a poor hash.

[BIMBOBOOP]

Easy dudes!! this is a 3d game in the saturn, of course PSX wins!! the saturn was not developed especially for 3d games. This is like make a comparison between both darkstalker 3/vampire savior 3 versions or compare both kof 95. PSX was the KING of 3D games on those times!!, this game (by example) shows that!! but about playability.. do you know THIS VERSION OF DIE HARD TRILOGY in SATURN can be played with a STUNNER GUN. The PSX version just can be played with a MOUSE.

[onslaughtpower]

good point

[RollinRolex]

Eh?

Your telling me that the Saturn version does stunner gun, yet the ps1 has a MOUSE!?

[WeskerSega]

Compare Grandia on both consoles and then you tell me.

[sahguhTDNM]

PS1 wins. Guess the developers liked Playstation.

[VCW360]

Im a Saturn fan but ....Playstation wins that round :P

[SPAMPOLICE89]

wow the saturn's explosions look fake and the PS it looks better.

Hands down the PS version is better!

[lucace1996]

ok i wont say anything about sega getting its ass kicked (in sales) about the saturn but you do know PS3 is failing in sales as you read this? sony is NO match for nintendo or microsoft at this point but hey PS3 is VERY powerful just no1 is useing its hardware to make great games

[morgangamer22]

COOL

[UdtheImp]

Looks like the Playstation version is the superior one, at least in terms of framerate.

[goodcowgames]

Frame rate, resolution, number of effects going on... here's what the development team said about the port:

[goodcowgames]

"There are alot of things like lens flare,

explosions, and that kind of stuff which relies quite heavily on the

transparency effects of the PSX. On Saturn we are trying to support as

many effects as we can, but maybe we'll have to limit them a bit. Like

the lens flare for example. At the moment on the PSX, we've got six or

seven circular images whcih appear to make the lens flare effect but

maybe we'll have to have two or three on the Saturn version to keep the

frame rate up."

[goodcowgames]

In regards to Saturn: "We're are going to reduce the

details of the models quite alot, and reduce the texturing so the roads

on Saturn will prob. be flat shaded - so it's like a gray road rather

then having textures."