Why Was the Sega Saturn So Hard to Develop On?

[@smokeydops]

Saturn Dev here. Quoting some corrections to make, if you do future videos, as I watch: 1. The Saturn's CPUs are to be _explicitly_ referred to as SH-7604. The SH-7604 differs from SH-2 in that it has a 64-bit division unit attached. 2. The SH-7604's cache can be configured as scratchpad, I-cache, D-cache, or divided between I$ and D$. Usually, splitting the cache was used. 3. 5:17 Calling the SCU-DSP "pretty awesome"? I know, sure, but I smile at that :) 4. If you do get around to covering VDP1 / VDP2 explicitly, whoa boy, are these things whack. An extremely important note is that VDP1 has **no idea** how its output will be encoded. That means if VDP1 is drawing palette graphics, it has **no idea** what is in the palette. Only VDP2 knows. Though, RGB encoding was available. 5. 9:00 The _biggest_ gap in the SCSP's function is a complete lack of support for compressed audio. Even the SNES had compressed audio support, PSX had even better compressed audio support. Saturn? Nope. Had to do it in software. 6. SCSP also supported FM Synth. Rarely used. 7. 9:19 The SH-1 is ROM-locked; it is not user-programmable. I'm sure you get to that, but it is entirely locked in the A-bus. Games cannot use it. 8. 9:50 Not that it disrupts the vibe of the video, but it should be noted that the SH-2s have the B-bus and parts of the A-bus on its memory map. The SCU is not needed for communication between the SH-2's and these areas thusly. The SCU however is required for communication with the CD-block, most likely as an aggressive copy protection measure (That 512KB over there? **NOT MEMORY MAPPED!! UGH!!**) Great video, altogether :)

[@ZygalStudios]

First of all, THANK YOU for taking the time time to watch the video and point these out and then organize it into a comment. I appreciate the corrections, feedback, and comments! :) We'll have to chat sometime about developing on the Saturn. I'm curious to learn more about the system! If you are interested in that, DM me on Twitter, or go ahead and email me at [e-mail]. Thanks again for the comment and taking the time to do so!

[@avalond1193]

How hard would the Sega Saturn be to program and create games using its full potential had it been released today?

[@XDjUanZInHO]

@@avalond1193 just as much as before. Today most consoles already have some SDKs with lots of helpers, documentation and, y'kno, the internet (much more information available today) available to help on your task, but (with the exception of the current internet infrastructure) removing all of those factors surely is a pain to work on just as much as it was before :P

[@AlexvrbX]

I have heard a similar thing about the Dreamcast's SH-4, that it included custom matrix operations not found in a standard SH-4, but I don't know if it had a special designation. I was always a little sad games didn't do a little more FM synth, but I understand why. As far as compressed audio support goes, couldn't you use the 68K to decode compressed audio?

[@smokeydops]

@@AlexvrbX It is readily possible to use the M68k to decode ADPCM in software. It's still a software solution, and it's not possible to decode as many channels as other consoles could play back in software. (I've written software to do this) It is also not confirmed, but is highly plausible, that any official developers used the M68k for audio decompression. One or another dev almost certainly did, though for only 1-4 channels. It has recently been discovered that there is also another software method of ADPCM playback using the SCSP-DSP, although it is using a custom codec and only 8 channels (4 stereo channels) are possible. This is still inferior to the PSX' or N64' ADPCM capability, though he was able to get higher compression ratios. It's better than using the 68k, though.

[@jaysherman2615]

I love this mess and shows what every company did in response to the issue of real time 3D graphics. PlayStation was a simple CPU/GPU/Sound chip layout. N64 simplified that with a CPU and a GPU/sound chip. Saturn just threw as many chips at the problem as possible.

[@rockytom5889]

Saturn be like banking mainframe manufacturers. They just threw more processors at it until it reached the desired io capabilities.

[@markmeadows7093]

If they had a separate bus each processor it would have limited the pipeline stalls. It’s an amazing system when programmed right.

[@putinslittlehacker4793]

Honestly this was more just segas approach In genral. If you read about the Sega CD they added the same cpu as the genisis on that bitch but clocked it up to 12.3 mz. Then the 32x added the SH-2 chips. So the 32x Sega CD combo games had 4 cpus at there disposal.

[@MaxAbramson3]

​@@putinslittlehacker4793And they should've learned from that 32X-CD combo, since only one game was made for it (FMV at that)--compared to over 1,000 titles for stock Genesis.

[@MaxAbramson3]

The irony is that SoJ was handed the SGI RCP on a silver platter that they could've had put a year before PS1, but they insisted on following a changing roadmap that basically killed the company and drive away customers and developers.

[@ninjapants7688]

Look up the Saturn Developer "XL2". The dude taught himself how to code and started with the Sega Saturn. Dude makes the development look easy.

[@ChristopherPrice]

About a dozen savant coders today would have saved Saturn back then. Sonic Z-Treme made Sonic X-Treme a real game.

[@ladams391]

​@@ChristopherPrice the sad thing is that just as many, if not even more, miraculously talented programmers and developers did exist back then, but the realities of the game industry at that time and Sega's inability to fully commit to the Saturn and act as one cohesive organization, how they rushed the console to market, a mismanagement of their internal dev teams, and the alienation of third party devs all contributed to the relative failure of the Saturn. I like to say that the Saturn is probably the best console to have ever killed the company that made it. Obviously Sega is still around but not as a hardware manufacturer. The Dreamcast was a thing, of course, and is one of if not the absolute best console of all time if we take into account when it hit store shelves, but the downward spiral started and reached the point of being unsalvageable with the failure of the Saturn to compete. The Dreamcast was, in my opinion, a Hail Mary play that could have worked but was just too little too late.

[@yuvraj01]

The irony is Saturn was a hit in Japan for what it was, yet the Genesis that went toe to toe with the SNES flopped in Japan but was a hit in the rest of the world ..and the Genesis is the console Sega is most proud of evidently shown with the amount of Genesis collections there are

[@MaxAbramson3]

IIRC, there wasn't a single year where SEGA sold more Saturn's than Genesis in North America--even in 1998, where the 16-bit megabit was still on store shelves with new games!

[@Chelaxim]

Then you have Brazil and the Master System. Ironically it was the Dreamcast that everyone rejected.

[@jetfrog4574]

Ironic since the Saturn/Dreamcast era was when Sega hit it's creative stride as a company.

[@KISSFan1977]

I was part of the Saturn Cult at launch, still one of my favorite consoles to date.

[@hellbent650]

One of us. One of us

[@graalcloud]

based

[@ArtofZenDigital]

All in all, this was a great video. It’s unfortunate that the Saturn had a short lifespan in the US, because the Saturn’s lifespan in Japan was from 1994-2000. The last Saturn game ever released in Japan was Yuukyuu Gensoukyoku, which came out on Dec 12th, 2000. The Saturn had a total over over 1,100 games when the Japanese and US titles are combined, with very rare overlap, in terms of multi territory ports. A good example of this is how titles such as Dead or Alive, being Japanese only. The other important thing is what developers did when they had time, and a very good understanding of the Saturn. Grandia is a unique example, it uses 3 types of transparencies. The first is a VDP1 based half transparency. The VDP2 creates 3 out of 5 of its possible infinite planes to create floor samples, and water surfaces. The use of the VDP2 to create the full transparencies that are cast from the 3D homes and buildings. The smoke stacks are also full transparencies in several locations. The Saturn version, which is older than the PS1 port, best it in nearly every level. The larger ram pool on the Saturn allowed for every sprite to have unique faces for each angle they were rendered in. The PS1 had lower detail, and mirrored sides, as well as missing angles that are seen on the Saturn port. The textures are also higher resolution with more variation. The PS1 version actually had additional money poured into dubbing the game, as well as using more mature software libraries to create a very well optimized game. As a result, in a visually stunning game like Grandia, it’s evident that the Saturn was incredibly capable. Dead or Alive is another example of this as well. The next title that’s unique is Bulk Slash, it’s incredibly detailed, well made, and it has sprawling maps that are very open, with clean fade in. Another example is Stellar Assault, which has well done lighting, as well as being a HiRes and fully polygonal first person space shooter. Radiant Silvergun wouldn’t be possible on PS1 due to the insane use of the VDP2 to create amazing background planes that are constantly in motion, with stunning details. Panzer Dragoon Zwei also makes use of the VDP 2 to create amazingly detailed infinite plane backgrounds, as well aside of the best water effects seen in the 32 bit era during one of the boss fights. This effect was also used in Grandia on Saturn, to render the water effects seen by the look out tower. On PlayStation it’s a flat, low res sheet of blue. On Saturn, it’s a rippling ocean with nicely animated highlights. It’s unfortunate that of the 1,100 plus Saturn games, only 300 plus came to the US. Many amazing games like Psychic Killer Taromaru, a hybrid 2D game with 3D effects and elements is not only visually impressive, but it’s a great game as well. The US never got Saturn’s perfect port of Street Fighter Zero 3 either, as it came out in 1999 in Japan.

[@ZygalStudios]

Wow, thanks for the thorough comment! Really interesting to learn about all of this! Makes me wonder what would have happened if the Saturn caught on in the US like it did in Japan.

[@codmott286]

i dont know what you're smoking but I just looked up every one of these titles and the graphics are clearly inferior to anything the PS1 can output. Low poly counts, very pixelated, fixed camera POV's "on rails" to keep framerate up, etc etc etc.

[@CecilTheDarkKnight234]

@@codmott286 depends on the version, lunar 1-2 and grandia 1 where developed in house for the saturn and when ported to the ps1 they lost a bit of 2d/3d polish only that system could pull off.

[@KrunchyTheClown78]

I'm playing the Saturn version of Grandia right now. I hold that game in VERY high regard. One of the best games I have ever played.

[@SockyNoob]

The Saturn failed in America because of corporate sabotage

[@Dr_Mario2007]

Dreamcast is basically a condensed version of Saturn, only somewhat more powerful (with two SH-2 CPUs replaced with a single SH-4 CPU which is internally like two SH-2 CPUs sewn together, in other words, it's a superscalar in-order processor, and PowerVR is of course different from the original dual-processor VDP GPU, although architecturally similar to how they both handle the framebuffers, with extra performance add-ons like Z-culling and tile rendering). Both are especially interesting consoles, both due to how they are so similar architecturally and what they meant to the gaming history. I remember playing games on both Sega consoles, they were definitely way ahead of their time.

[@JohnCrawford1979]

Basically, the Saturn was kind of like a precursor to the dual core processors.

[@doodoobrn]

I keep imagining what life might be like now if Gamepro and EGM had included this level of detail, instead of having a blurb that says, "using both processors is complicated". I went to a technology school called Brown Barge in 94-96 with a huge yearly grant, mostly for teaching kids programming. They taught us BASIC, and some HTML. All we ever did during breaks and bus rides was debate the relative stats and capabilities of Saturn vs Playstation. I would've mowed 175 lawns for access to info like that.

[@ZygalStudios]

Would have been pretty awesome :D. It's cool that you had that option to do that! My guess is this info costed alot of money back then. These consoles would license out information on the system based on some type of fee and those who bought it most likely signed NDAs so there could be no thoughts of copycats or reverse engineering using this info.

[@Parker--]

Imagine if Gamepro and EGM had the world's information at their fingertips and were able to freely distribute that information. Let's not pretend that the internet and time don't play a factor when referencing things that happened nearly 30 years ago.

[@ladams391]

The Saturn was really something special, there never was and never will be another machine like it, and it's a shame that, at least here in the West, we never got to see it live up to it's potential. There's a kind of magic to it, a mystique one might even say.

[@Cooe.]

0:40 The Saturn did NOT sell 9 million units in North America. It sold 9 million units WORLD-WIDE, the VAST MAJORITY of which were in Japan. The Saturn barely broke like 1 million units in NA, making it an absolutely MASSIVE flop (for a major console).

[@MaxAbramson3]

Yeah, going from 22 million Genesis consoles in North America and 60% marketshare to 1% was the result of terrible micromanagement from SoJ.

[@segaunited3855]

@@MaxAbramson3 No.

[@MaxAbramson3]

@@segaunited3855 SoA ran things here from 1989-1994 and went from 3% to 60% marketshare. In January of 1994, SoJ started micromanaging things. Predictable results.

[@blakegriplingph]

The Saturn also relied on quads instead of triangles as a basic unit of geometry. This was an extension of Sega's previous sprite hardware which they had experience with in the arcade. A consequence of their use of quads is that attempting to draw translucent geometry results in overdraw, hence why devs often resorted to dithering instead. Also, the Saturn's ridiculously complicated architecture made it a ROYAL PAIN to reimplement in an emulator, and I don't blame the devs if the emulators they made aren't the most accurate around.

[@synxen6275]

This HAS to be the most informative Saturn authority thread (when including comments) on the Internet. InfoSoak heaven.

[@shukterhousejive]

IIRC the second main CPU, the DSP in the control unit and some random bits here and there were last-minute alterations. The Saturn was pitched and developed as an arcade-quality 2D system and they were lucky that VDP-1 had enough fancy sprite tricks that you could assemble 3D models with it. If SEGA HQ paid more attention to where the industry was going the Saturn would probably look more like a weird PS1 in its design

[@bensaunders1988]

The Sega Saturn is an awesome piece of 90's hardware. Such unique hardware lead to unique and special games such as Panzer Dragoon series.

[@BubblegumCrash332]

Great video. The Saturn was my favorite console. Shout out for Guardian Heros and Dragon Force.

[@ZygalStudios]

Thank you! :)

[@BubblegumCrash332]

@@ZygalStudios I wasn't aware of the SGL everytime I learn about the Saturn there is always something new. SEGAs philosophy with this one was unique. Quads instead of triangles, the dual CPUs the Dual DSPs. As I understand it's really a 2d machine that just puts 3d transformation quads (really just sprites) but I always liked the way Saturn games looked. To bad 2D sprite work was fading when this released. We never got to see the Saturn pushed to its limits. Thanks for the video man👍

[@ZygalStudios]

@@BubblegumCrash332 anytime! Appreciate you always watching! :) stay tuned for more

[@mutalix]

Love your channel! Its one of the few that go indepth over these exotic architectures. I apologize beforehand if your already have a video over this, but I'd love to know more about 3DO's system, I had the console as a kid, and was enthralled by it, expensive as it was I loved the fmv games, road rash, 1st need for speed and many others. It was the PlayStation 1 that took me over my venerable FZ-10 3DO.

[@ZygalStudios]

Thank you!! The 3DO is on the list! :)

[@amberdean1263]

Phenomenal videos! Saturn is my favorite console of all time, and I've been trying to figure out how to get into homebrew development for it.

[@ZygalStudios]

Thank you! My best advice is to read the technical documents and try to understand what you need to learn or prepare to do for it! And join a community for it! They will help.

[@sega-re-trop-vieux]

The Saturn is a beast and has so many great games ( more than 1100 games, the biggest library for a Sega console)

[@Cypher321]

@@ZygalStudios Any discords or other sources for communities you'd suggest? Like Amber, I love the sega saturn (was my last console before I went full PC) and would love to try my hand at homebrewing.

[@submissivepeanutbutter4030]

I've been waiting for this since the ps3 video. it was worth the wait

[@ZygalStudios]

Thank you!! :) any more suggestions for videos?

[@submissivepeanutbutter4030]

@@ZygalStudios Sega cd?

[@ZygalStudios]

@@submissivepeanutbutter4030 on it!

[@charlesjmouse]

Madness! Some day I'd love to see a definitive video on the design and decision making process that allowed this crazy mess out of Sega's door.

[@NawiTheCore]

I'm pretty sure they were designing the Saturn for 2D graphics and they were caught off guard when the PS1 came out and 3D graphics became what was expected.

[@MaxAbramson3]

The Sato interview is out, but not too detailed.

[@Michael.Hunt.14-52]

Great video. Very technical and in depth

[@digitalizeddeath]

Dude I absolutely love your voice bro I could listen to you talk for hours Great video too Awesome content I’m subbed for sure

[@hellbent650]

I want him to narrate my day Morgan Freeman style.

[@ScrapKing73]

You're not wrong to identify the Macintosh as a system that famously (in its early days at least) used a 68000 processor. But I think the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive probably used it more famously than your second example (the Atari Jaguar). Or maybe that's just my bias as an old guy who is a fan of tech and lived all this stuff as it came out (I'm in my late-40s). :) Don't get me wrong, I owned an Atari Jaguar, and I still buy games for it (my most recent purchase was the recent Jag release of Defender of the Crown), so no shade at you name-dropping the Jaguar. I just think the Genesis is the second, and the Amiga the third, most popular systems that used a 68000, is all.

[@PyromancerRift]

Well, they pushed for parallelisation. 10 years later, sony did the same mistake. What hardware manufacturers had to do is to create an easy language to program on the machine and let the machine do the parallelisation for them.

[@RogeriusRex]

I really want to see what FPGA devs can do with the Saturn when adding power to it. Like how duckstation can overclock or use up to 8 megs of RAM like the PS1 dev system.

[@davidwenzel717]

Looking back it does feel like the Saturn was the biggest missed opportunity. I can tell you as a kid at that time I was soured on Sega because of the 32x not anything the Saturn did.

[@robertfoxworthy5503]

I loved the 32x the Saturn should of supported the games.

[@handsomemike1742]

Nice vid, I learnt a lot. Could you do the 32x next ? Keep up the good work !

[@ZygalStudios]

Thank you! And yes, it's on the list! :)

[@wishusknight3009]

The 32x was not nearly the bear to program as the saturn was. It was an odd system for sure, but not particularly obscure or difficult. It was just very limited.

[@MaxAbramson3]

​@@wishusknight300932X CD? The $199 Neptune CD would've been a lot to juggle, too. Just not the blackjack dealer memory moves of the Saturn and PS2.

[@wishusknight3009]

@@MaxAbramson3 That is certainly a new can of worms. My view as of late has been that the 32x should have never existed.

[@MaxAbramson3]

@@wishusknight3009 Having a combined Sega 32X CD for Christmas of 1994 everywhere for just $249, or $199 by the following Spring, already sporting close to 1,000 Genesis and Sega CD games? Would that have been as commercially successful as the $400 Saturn with almost no games in 1995? In North and South America and Europe, it would've sold more than the 3-4 million that the Saturn fared. And frankly, most Saturn games would've played just fine on the 32X CD.

[@mxggo9046]

So, recently read that prgrmmng for Strn is like having 5 pple ovr for dinner but only hving enough food for 3. Can anyone explng whthr or not using both the cd and the cartridge port in tandem will allow you to mke games that make full use of all of Strn's sub-systems? In other words, can the Saturn use both the cartridge slot and the cd simultaneously, in order to utilize all of its processors? Anyone?

[@nicholasthetaylor]

Even though I am a novice Saturn developer, I can answer this question, You can add additional ram into the cartridge slot which can be used to store additional animation frames, graphics or music for immediate use in your game. The additional RAM does not enable any additional utilisations of the sub-systems since they are already as enabled as they can possibly be. The extra RAM can however grant the sub-systems extra breathing room e.g. if you have a program rendering graphics as fast as it can until it runs out of RAM then more can be rendered ahead of time which could reduce CPU downtime. If you think of a CD as a warehouse of items and RAM as space on your desk, it makes sense to store things you will only need a handful of times a year in the warehouse because it takes ages to retrieve those items, and to store things on your desk that you use frequently during the day because they are available to hand. Having more RAM means that you can fetch more data (graphics and sound) from the slow CDROM and then your program has those graphics and sound available at a moment's notice to copy to the screen or play through the speakers when it needs them. In short, additional RAM provides more storage space for immediately accessible game assets. I hope this answers your question

[@mxggo9046]

@@nicholasthetaylor thank you! very interesting explanation... I just wonder why Sega did not allow for all of the chips to be used at once...I mean, wouldn't that have been much better? Make Saturn way more powerful?

[@nicholasthetaylor]

@@mxggo9046 It isn't so much that anybody at Sega disallowed the chips to be used. The Saturn was originally designed with a single 28mhz SH-2 CPU for the Saturn, however to help the Saturn compete with the Playstation, Hitachi the designers of the SH-2 chips rushed out a way of having two SH-2 CPUs work together as if they are a single CPU. It's a bit like a master having a young apprentice shadowing them to complete other tasks while the master takes care of the main work, but at the end of the day it is delivered out the same door. It isn't quite as good as having one CPU running at 56Mhz or a dual CPU system where each CPU has their own data bus, but it's definitely better than just one SH-2 on its own.

[@mxggo9046]

@@nicholasthetaylor Finally he sees the light!! What I mean is....I did not realize...or acknowledge that both cpus were running simultaneously. Makes sense. I call Saturn the frankenstein console. Due to all the different parts obviously.. My main wish is rhat sega broight some Genesia titla to the Saturn. Especially Sonic.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

You should look into the DS, if you have not already. Among the unique quirks... 2048 polygons, full stop. You can add more, but they will not display. You can swap between quads and triangles at will. Cel-Shading is a hardware feature.

[@StormsparkPegasus]

The Saturn was designed like an arcade machine. Where the games are made by the same team that made the hardware. No thought was given to third parties devloping games. The BIG BIG BIG weakeness the Saturn had was inability to do transparencies except under very specific circumstances.

[@avalond1193]

I would love see what modern developers can do with the sega saturn today if they really got into it to create a game

[@CloveCoast]

were both Hitachi’s basically acting like two separate cores, except on separate physical chips?

[@Sinn0100]

I have a question...how does the Saturn's raw power stack up to an N64? I believe with everything firing on all cylinders the Saturn just might be stronger. So wait a minute...the Saturn had an SH1 on board as well?! So that's 3 32-bit processors? Am I seeing this correctly?

[@Sinn0100]

@oxygen stealer You know what...I didn't even think about that. I remember know, it wasn't just that it was hard to get the lm both synchronized but because of their shared bus there wasn't really much more they could do potentially.

[@Sinn0100]

@oxygen stealer Well here's the thing...we learned long ago a super fast processor is no match for a multi-core or multiprocessor setup. You can do one thing really fast but as far as efficiency the multiprocessor is the way to go. Now, that's not too say the Saturn was efficient because it was absolutely not. As a matter of fact it was an asymmetrically nightmare with RAM strung across the furthest reaches of the machine. Now, I believe the Saturn could take the N64 if it had two 32-bit busses and its RAM placed in a somewhat less insane manner. This of course means it would theoretically be able to run all of its processors (not just the SH2s) on anything it needed. Which was what Sega actually intended but given how rare a multiprocessor setup was in 1994/1995 they simply didn't have the knowledge to get it done right. I do believe the Saturn technically had 3 32-bit processors in board. Two SH2 Hitachi 32-bit processors and one SH1 Hitachi 32-bit processor. The SH1 was not utilized in the same way as the SH2s just like the Motorola 68K 16-bit processor it had as well. Sega absolutely lost their damn minds when they built that beautiful albatross.

[@Sinn0100]

@oxygen stealer No worries man and yes, they were both equally awful as far as design. ;)

[@ninjacat230]

wait, why does the diagram have genesis controllers

[@rafaelgadret]

Awesome video! Thank you!

[@KiloGraham]

I alway got a weird vibe from nes vs gameboy hardware. The nes was a custom m6502 and the gameboy a custom z80. I could not tell you which was better. Id hazard the z80 was but im not sure. The snes and gameboy advance have a similar comparison

[@MaxAbramson3]

Z80 was only slightly faster.

[@JohnCrawford1979]

I wouldn't say the architecture has gotten simpler, as the X-Box has an 8 core CPU with custom AMD Zen 2 architecture. The biggest advantage today is that there are all sorts of dev. kits. Part of the drawback, though, is this often means, outside of attempt at troubleshooting, it's possible to make a game with minimal understanding of 'bare metal' or machine core coding. Most modern OSes have pretty much hidden most in hopes the average user won't fool around inside and accidentally mess things up.

[@-GameHacKeR-]

very good video, nicely done :)

[@DehnusNorder]

It isn't the amount of games, it was SEGA of America . They didn't wish to import and translate the Japanese games and actively discouraged RPG games. By then SOA also controlled the marketing in Europe more or less, which was another nail in the coffin. Heck they were the brilliant idiots behind the marketing of the Dreamcast, only being marketed in 4 countries :( .Almost nobody in Europe knew the Dreamcast, outside of the usual gaming crowd, until the Xbox released which they then thought was the "Next SEGA console". SEGA of America kept pointing at SEGA of Japan for the problems but it really was THEIR fault, not the latter. It wasn't the hardware, it was the management! BUt then SEGA always were more than one company. Always was a weird entity, with Bally owning it for a while and then some other structures.... it is a interesting historical video in itself to go into that :P.

[@MaxAbramson3]

Okawa hired Stolar who wouldn't bring over JRPGs.

[@EEEZYWEEEZY]

Great video!

[@jeanlundi2141]

I was in computer engineering and I'm struggling getting anything from the video. Only when you mentioned Z-buffer onwards did it make some sense. Left-brain dominant people need to take a chill pill.

[@steffennilsen2132]

The architecture sure looks complicated, but I have to scratch my head over why they had 1mb of sdram and 1mb of dram?

[@germainlechapelain3254]

Ordering table/painters & Z-buffers serves a different purpose than BSP and occlusion-culling. Beside, the PS1 doesn't have a Z-Buffer either. It's not what responsible for polygon tearing (I noticed in your other video as well when talking about quads. At least I think it is yours. 😅

[@Andorianin]

Вполне обычный дизайн. Каждая подсистема имеет свой контроллер/процессор. Сейчас это стандартный подход, посмотрите например на PSVita. Проблема в программировании была в SDK. Если разработчикам не дали хорошего SDK это не значит что система была «сложная». Это значит что SDK был кривой.

[@samholland209]

The main reason the Sega Saturn failed was because it was rushed to market to try and get a head start on the PS1.

[@eprubio]

That was one of several factors. Others include the bitter rivalry between the American and Japanese branches and how they sabotaged each other; for example, Sega of America releasing the 32X in the US almost at the same time Sega of Japan released the Saturn in Japan, which left studios wondering where to put their efforts, as well as consumers wondering what system to buy; and the Japanese branch sabotaging the development of Sonic X-treme, among others. There was also the alleged "No RPG's for the Saturn" rule from Bernie Stolar, then CEO of Sega of America.

[@pocketstationman6364]

Sega should have accepted SGI's help. XD Also it'd be cool if you made a video about the PocketStation. :)

[@ZygalStudios]

Hmm, a case of not invented here, or serious hardware flaws? 🤔 Maybe at the time it was the right decision to turn them away! And by the time they got to Nintendo it became more attractive. But who knows lol. Sega did make some butt-kicking arcade hardware so they had the engineering prowess.

[@ZygalStudios]

Noted on the pocketStation! :)

[@pocketstationman6364]

@@ZygalStudios Awesome ! cheers.

[@maroon9273]

@@ZygalStudios like the model 2 and 3 graphics chip were great.

[@maroon9273]

They were better options sega could have used like nvidia (nv2 saturn project with sega), s3, ati, even the model 2 or model 3 real3d from Lockheed martin that could done well or even better than what sgi can offer.

[@capchareal]

Wow so every console that isnt popular in America is considered a flop?

[@vipset87]

damn you're smart. you're goin places in life

[@MeduzaTeam2009]

VDP2 VRAM size is 8 Mbit. Not 512 KB.

[@ZygalStudios]

Ah, so there is a bit of math to be thought of here. 512 kiloBytes is equal to ~4 Megabits. VDP2 had 1024 kB, which is ~8 Mbit. Thanks for the catch! Although, to be fair, one configuration of this allowed for VDP2 to be capped at 512 kB and stuck there, or you could go all the way to 1024 kB. It can only be set through a register initialization, so by default on power on, it operates at 512 kB. The VRAM size register configures this to work as such, 0 is 512kB, 1 is 1024 kB in bit 15. The LSBs 0-3 also had revision numbers in them I am assuming maybe for future use if different revisions changed VRAM sizes. I should have showed the second configuration too, I appreciate you pointing this out!

[@smokeydops]

Excuse me? No, VDP2 has four RAM banks, each 128KB. The reference you see in the manual for an 8Mbit memory configuration was for arcade systems, and even then I don't think it was used.

[@MeduzaTeam2009]

@@smokeydops What other arcade systems? There was only one arcade system with hardware like the Sega Saturn and that was Sega Titan Video. The document "SEGA SATURN TECHNICAL BULLETIN (1-41)" always references to "VDP2 User's Manual (ST-58-R2-060194) ", so this manual is fully consistent with the Sega Saturn system. As for the amount of VDP2 memory, the data in the first block with the address space (05E00000-05E7FFFF) is completely duplicated in the second block (05E80000-05EFFFFF) due to the double buffer.

[@segaunited3855]

Incorrect.

[@segaunited3855]

@@smokeydops CORRECT. Saturn's VDP1 and VDP2 uses Max 512KBs Chache RAM.

[@almighty1984]

Great video, only wish it didn't have music

[@mrtwinky2007]

youtube removed my like on the video so i've readded it

[@eliasnicolasmiranda4940]

Sega Saturn and Atari Jaguar both examples of how not to make a console

[@JaimeValladares00]

That applies to only the Jaguar. The Saturn gives developers more options than any other console within that generation, the main problem was the lack of software libraries which wouldn’t have been a problem had Sony never bothered or if the Saturn became successful

[@joseluki]

The video is interesting, but the background music way too loud and distracting.

[@goranjosic]

If Saturn was more powerful than PS1, why has no one ever shown that raw power? I haven't seen even a demo which is especially interesting and better looking then something on ps1, not to mention the games. :/

[@kathleendelcourt8136]

The thing is, even if the Saturn may had more raw power it lacked a few eye candy features the PS1 had, like better transparencies, lighting effects, hardware video decoding etc. So even with less complex scenes PS1 games could still manage to catch the eye in a more favorable way. But if you're looking for a Saturn game that isn't possible on a PS1 (by the game's devs own admission), Radiant Silvergun is one to check out.

[@goranjosic]

@@kathleendelcourt8136 Lighting effects, transparency, hardware video decoder, are not eye candy features - these are the BASIC things needed for one 3D console! You have to calculate all this on Saturn separately, using valuable CPU time. Even today, so many years later, we have only one game that might not be possible on ps1 - and it's a game that isn't fully 3D and uses a lot of 2D sprites. Saturn is a total failure for 3D games, games look awful, even by the standards of the time - it's a console made to handle 2D graphics (sprites) not 3D!

[@kathleendelcourt8136]

@@goranjosic You asked about raw power I answered with that in mind, not which had the most advanced functions. As for all 3D games looking ugly or sub-standard, that is not true: Sonir-R, Panzer Dragoon Zwei, Virtua Fighter 2, Last Bronx, Decathelete, Nights into Dreams, Exhumed/Powerslave, Duke Nukem 3D (yeah, it's 'fake' 3D)... And since you mentioned Z-Buffer, texture distortions and vertex instability is much less severe on Saturn than it is on PS1.

[@costumeninja1914]

@UCRbSUgRfEYt8K0mlImzIjXA You’re full of shit. Bernie Rangers, Panzer dragons way, saga, Virtua fighter two, and many other 3-D games wipe the floor against the PlayStation. Compare Dead or Alive against the PlayStation version. The Saturn version is way better. Shamu, could not have been done on the PlayStation. Sega rally looks better than any racing game they came out that year and after on the PlayStation.

[@eliasnicolasmiranda4940]

@@goranjosic there's only 1 Saturn game that i did found graphically superior to the PS1 and it's Virtua Fighter 2 the fact that it runs 480p 60fps by the time was marvelous

[@kusumayogi7956]

Sega Saturn is master Race

[@Cade_Squirrel]

Another victim of daring to innovate

[@BobbyHo2022]

3 years is a failure when Sony's playstations keep relevancy for 10 years each time.

[@JaimeValladares00]

Full of shovelware & lackluster titles

[@codmott286]

It is a myth that the saturn was in any way more powerful than the PS1. The PS1's games didnt look better just because it was easier to program for, pound for pound the best coded engine on the saturn could never match the performance of the best coded engine on the ps1. The most sophisticated game for the saturn ever was the Quake1 port, but look at PS1, it got a Quake2 port! And it runs great! You could never get quake2 to run on the saturn without MAJOR concessions.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Hammerhead did wonders with PlayStation Quake 2. Lobotomy's unreleased port of Quake on PlayStation had better performance than the Saturn version. The talk of Saturn being more powerful comes from people like Core Design's boss, Jeremy Heath-Smith, who claimed it had more raw processing power.

[@JaimeValladares00]

It could’ve very well run Quake 2, the problem lies with no developer wanting to due to low sales. Look up Hellslave by XL2, that showcases the best of the Saturn

[@JaimeValladares00]

@@thefurthestmanfromhome1148 The founder of Traveler’s Tales preferred the Saturn over the PlayStation as well

[@DukeDudeston]

Saturn was a flop? Oh ok....

[@MaxAbramson3]

Yeah, only one million in North America versus 22 million Genesis.

[@A31Chris]

I heard a rumour that near the end R&D was getting performance out of the Saturn that exceeded the PlayStation by a lot. But it reached the end of it's life cycle and they never did anything with it. That's a rumor. I don't know if it is true.

[@ZygalStudios]

It's certainly plausible, but the company who developed it could claim anything. So I'd be suspect unless a studio was able to do the same.

[@A31Chris]

@@ZygalStudios I cannot find where I read it but I believe it was up there in the DC levels of performance. Or something in that area. Don't quote me. It's been a long time.

[@gametourny4ever627]

Just looking at the 2D Fighting Arcade games on the System and Panzer Dragoon Saga. This thing had beast potential when properly untilized. Loved this video. I believe I left this comment on another video but I would love to see a Video on the 32X and developing for that with still having the Bottleneck of relying on the Genesis but also the possibilities that we couild have seen if someone could have made true games using the 32X and Sega Cd for true CD32 X games and how all these systems worked together. That would be pretty awesome.

[@ThomasCaiJinzhan]

if that leaked footage of the saturn version of shenmue is of any indication, then maybe AM2's the only dev capable of doing it. Bummer it's never released.

[@A31Chris]

Could you include a link to said leaked footage?