3 ms·

> the rushed Saturn launch just annoyed all partners, retail and development. Oh yes that I definitely knew about, the rushed Saturn launch out of nowhere, as

> the rushed Saturn launch just annoyed all partners, retail and development. Oh yes that I definitely knew about, the rushed Saturn launch out of nowhere, as well as its early retirement to make room for the Dreamcast, soured a lot of people. A shame too, the Dreamcast deserved so much better. It was a great system, and pretty prescient too, at least on the GPU side: Sega America wanted to go with 3dfx, Sega Japan ultimately went with PowerVR, 3dfx turned out to be a dead end, while PowerVR endured until fairly recently (if mostly in the mobile / embedded / power efficient space).

to11mtm 3y ago
I think PowerVR was a good choice even at the time. In my teens, my older brother worked at a computer shop and back then was a hardware geek, and a Matrox M3D, and frankly compared to something like a Rush or Riva 128 the M3D was pretty good outside of some blending moire. That I'm talking about visual vs perf says something... and Dreamcast got the version AFTER that... The biggest thing was their Tile based deferred rendering, which made it easy to create an efficient GPU with a relatively low transistor count. Also, 3dfx pattern of 'chip per function', aside from it's future scaling issues, would have been a higher BOM. ----- All of that said, ever wonder what the video game scene, or NVidia would be like today, if the latter didn't derp out on their shot at the Dreamcast in an SEC filing, which caused them to be relegated to the video chip for the Pico?
- VelesDude 3y ago
  Credit to the PVR in Dremacast (and the entire design of DC), it was a very efficient processor considering the pricing limitations of the unit. I do love that the Saturn absolute sucked at transparency effects and the PVR was the complete opposite. Just throw the geometry at it in any order (per tile) and it would sort it out and blend it with no problem. It was efficient but the performance was definitely the lowest of all consoles that generation.
SpecialistK 3y ago
> as well as its early retirement to make room for the Dreamcast, soured a lot of people. That was really boneheaded on Sega's part. They introduced the DC in Japan first, killing the Saturn which was quite successful there. Had they waited, or at least launched in NA/EU in 1998, they could have kept money coming in from Saturn in JP while getting back into the market elsewhere.

to11mtm 3y ago

I think PowerVR was a good choice even at the time. In my teens, my older brother worked at a computer shop and back then was a hardware geek, and a Matrox M3D, and frankly compared to something like a Rush or Riva 128 the M3D was pretty good outside of some blending moire. That I'm talking about visual vs perf says something... and Dreamcast got the version AFTER that... The biggest thing was their Tile based deferred rendering, which made it easy to create an efficient GPU with a relatively low transistor count. Also, 3dfx pattern of 'chip per function', aside from it's future scaling issues, would have been a higher BOM. ----- All of that said, ever wonder what the video game scene, or NVidia would be like today, if the latter didn't derp out on their shot at the Dreamcast in an SEC filing, which caused them to be relegated to the video chip for the Pico?

VelesDude 3y ago
Credit to the PVR in Dremacast (and the entire design of DC), it was a very efficient processor considering the pricing limitations of the unit. I do love that the Saturn absolute sucked at transparency effects and the PVR was the complete opposite. Just throw the geometry at it in any order (per tile) and it would sort it out and blend it with no problem. It was efficient but the performance was definitely the lowest of all consoles that generation.

SpecialistK 3y ago

> as well as its early retirement to make room for the Dreamcast, soured a lot of people. That was really boneheaded on Sega's part. They introduced the DC in Japan first, killing the Saturn which was quite successful there. Had they waited, or at least launched in NA/EU in 1998, they could have kept money coming in from Saturn in JP while getting back into the market elsewhere.