Daytona Hi-Res for Saturn ever??

[saturnworship]

Don't know if sometime mr.Anthaemia talked in this or other forum about an existing preliminar version of daytona usa with hi-res graphics but due to the rush release of saturn it was abandoned and we saw the release we saw...


Personally i think it's hard to believe, because at that time Sega didn't have the libraries to push enough saturn of for a daytona with hi-res.

i'm right?

[Anthaemia.]

In the months prior to its release, AM2 did indeed have Daytona USA running in high resolution mode on the Saturn, and this was long before SGL OS 2.0 was created! I'm not sure of the exact details, but there are certain people who regularly show up online with screenshots and video footage. However, because of Sega's decision to bring forward the launch of its new console, the final Saturn version of Daytona had to suffer major compromises in the graphical department or face serious delays. Who'd rather have waited and not had to put up with a VF-style remix later on down the line? Personally, I would have been happy with Daytona as we got it, perhaps with just a split-screen mode thrown in for good measure!

[saturnworship]

screenshots?

are you maybe refering to those screens??



i think they are from a proto of it...but is the one you are refering??

looking back now, i think the first daytona on the PAL version is total crap, too slow...etcetc..

but on the other hand, the NTSC version is kick ass...good in speed therms!

[rossi46]

That kind of thing used to really bug me, back in the day. Developers would give magazines hi-rez pics of the up coming titles to show off their wares, but when the game came out, it had invariably been 'optimised', that is, changed to lo-rez and had detail and colour reduced to maintain the frame rate promised when the game was announced.

[Anthaemia.]

Just compare the pre-release screens and footage of Clockwork Knight (running off the same Silicon Graphics chipset that powered the original US-designed Saturn prototype and later the N64, to be precise!) with its final version for the ultimate example of this...

[chizzles]

I hate to necro-bump, but I just had a discussion with someone who told me the Hi-Res Daytona footage was a mock-up and that the Saturn game never ran in Hi-Res itself.

Thoughts?

[elend]

I doubt that as well. Even if they ran out of time, they could have implemented it in the CCE Version of Daytona. Yet they didn't. I don't doubt it would have been possible, though.

And the things many people saw, was probably a target rendering like it's very common nowadays. "Our game is not finished yet, but we have this great pre-rendered trailer, what the game will look like".

[marx]

Sept 10, 2008 12:58:13 GMT elend said:

I doubt that as well. Even if they ran out of time, they could have implemented it in the CCE Version of Daytona. Yet they didn't. I don't doubt it would have been possible, though.

That's my thought, if they could do it they had plenty of time to fix it in the CE or CCE editions.

[elend]

Maybe that rumour came up, because Namco achieved something similiar with the Ridge Racer High-Res Demo on the Playstation.

[RallyDon82]

i remember that magazine preview at the time thinking it looked amazing and upon witnessing the finished version i had wondered what happened, though daytona still remains one of the best saturn games despite its graphical shortcomings, hi res mode on saturn for the time was quite amazing VF2 looked like heaven but why was the hi res mode not used more often, and specifically why was it only fighters that used the hi res mode and not racers? And if daytona was intended to be in hi res then whay wasnt sega rally and CCE in hi res? or were they and we just didnt notice? so many questions so little answers.

*Also on a side note does the NTSC versions display full screen?? because even at 60hz there is still an ugly border at the bottom of the screen on the PAL version.

[elend]

Well I guess that's because fighters have a much smaller polycount. The fighter models may look really detailed, but the games often have 2D backgrounds only and a floor which is often just a texture and nothing else. So high-res can be achieved quite easily, I assume.

I remember playing Magic Carpet, though, which ran in high-res as well.

[chizzles]

The Ntsc version has small borders, however borders themselves aren't what's bad about some PAL games having "borders", it's the fact the image is squashed vertically that is irritating.

Although the Ntsc version has borders, the image you're seeing is in the correct aspect ratio.

[Anthaemia.]

Yakumo over at Segagaga Domain used to have footage of the high resolution Daytona USA prototype, though sadly the videotape has long since been misplaced along with other treats (such as the Panzer Dragoon tech demo, an early version of Gran Chaser and clips from the unreleased CyberSled port by Namco, to give just a few examples). I've said this before, but AM2's real genius was programmer Keiji Okayasu, who pulled off some incredible feats with the Saturn way before the console had even rushed to retail. Not content with getting the first course of Daytona up and running in 480p at 60fps - read THAT and weep, PlayStation fanboys! - he also put together a fantastic version of Virtua Fighter that looked much closer to the Model 1 source. Of course, in both cases tight production deadlines meant a lot of compromises were necessary and ultimately neither looked too great in comparison with their arcade originals. As with so many instances in Sega's history, things could have been so very different had those involved used a little patience and waited to make better products instead of chasing a quick profit...

[chizzles]

It is very convenient to say that XYZ item existed but has been "misplaced" and provide no sources or links, and even having a video of "footage" does not mean that the footage itself is not a target render.

But the very notion that the Saturn could handle Daytona in high resolution at all is questionable if not totally ridiculous, as the floor is not flat you can't even use VDP tricks to draw the floor in 2D - unless they totally abolished the undulating road.

Proof or it never happened.

[Anthaemia.]

I'd normally be inclined to agree with you, but the problem is that clips from this now-lost videotape have been made available through Yakumo's site before. I should know because I've seen much of the material on that misplaced tape, which he says disappeared in transit during a move from the UK to Japan. From conversations, magazine scans and the limted footage out there, we concluded that AM2 was indeed capable of reproducing Daytona on the Saturn with a similar level of graphical quality later achieved for Virtua Fighter 2. However, this was still very early days in the game's development and the lack of polygonal detail on the course probably meant some compromises would have been necessary if the whole package was to look as good as the car alone did. Sega Saturn Magazine printed a screenshot of the Daytona prototype as part of their Championship Circuit Edition coverage, and the pictures from that magazine scan uploaded earlier were definitely from the same build. Impressive, but was this realistic of the final product? Probably not, though was the final version of VF2 faithful to the preliminary character movement demonstrations featured at the Tokyo Toy Show? To quote a perfect phrase in this instance, both were close but no cigar...

For those interested, Yakumo was also known to possess a VHS recording of the Saturn VF3 research test in which the Aoi's character model was demonstrated. This came from a show broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK at some wierd hour of the night, and considering the time frame I doubt we'll ever find another copy of this - even the PR department at Sega deny its existence today, for a measure of its rarity! There was also an extended take on the SGI tech demo resulting in Clockwork Knight, though I believe a similar cut appeared as a bonus in the Japanese edition of CK2 anyway, so this one's not really "lost" anymore. Apart from the other games I mentioned in my earlier post, Yakumo has shared various other clips through his site, including such cancelled titles as Millennium Fire. Based on the sheer size of his collection, is it any surprise a few things get misplaced over time? I can understand why you'd choose to be a little weary, but Yakumo's efforts make him the real deal as far as Sega enthusiasts go. His work putting together the often-Sega-biased Retocore video magazine, Segagaga Domain and many online contributions are testament to his dedication. Heck, he even put up a huge amount of Shenmue beta footage and clips from the cancelled Geist Force, but I don't want to come across as too much of a fan (for fear of being accused of stalking, I say in a joking manner)!