Games listed and graded by loading times

[SilverJazz]

I need to know the loading times for the capcom fighting games on the saturn. If it is bad then I will stick with MAME. Also, is the loading time on a psx emulator sometimes better than an orginal playstation? Like would it be no wait for a game of mortal kombat trilogy to load compared to a wait for it on the saturn?

 

[ShinJedah]

Many Capcom fighting games support the 4M cart of the saturn.This mean:sNo loading times(yeeeeessss!)Some others don't but i think that the loading times are a bit shorter than the PSX Versions...got me mad when i had SFA2 on PSX.If you lived through the PSX loading monster...you will definitly like the Saturn loading times

 

[Supergrom]

well, i noticed that when i compared Street fighter Zero 3 on saturn and Street fighter Alpha 3 on dreamcast, that the dreamcast version seemed to load just a tiny bit faster. ive heard that both have "no loading time", but unless im just trippin', the saturn version had like a split second longer wait to begin the fight. not sure about psx though, but i bet its longer =)

 

[MasterAkumaMatata]

well, i noticed that when i compared Street fighter Zero 3 on saturn and Street fighter Alpha 3 on dreamcast, that the dreamcast version seemed to load just a tiny bit faster. ive heard that both have "no loading time", but unless im just trippin', the saturn version had like a split second longer wait to begin the fight. not sure about psx though, but i bet its longer =)

The PSX version of SFA3/SFZ3 does not utilize a RAM cart for faster loading while the Saturn version (i.e., SFZ3) requires a 4MB RAM cart to play, therefore the PSX version definitely has a (much) longer loading time.

 

[SegaSaturnDDR]

after you pick characters in the psx game, you're looking at some (pretty nice) artwork on the loading screen for a good 10-15 seconds before things start, whereas the saturn/dc version just shows the VS screen with the characters and starts the fight. also to note is the fact that a lot of the entrance and exit animations are missing, maily ones that require another character to come out, like cody's win pose where he's chased off by Edi. E. ( the big black cop), and most of karin's poses.

 

[MasterAkumaMatata]

after you pick characters in the psx game, you're looking at some (pretty nice) artwork on the loading screen for a good 10-15 seconds before things start, whereas the saturn/dc version just shows the VS screen with the characters and starts the fight. also to note is the fact that a lot of the entrance and exit animations are missing, maily ones that require another character to come out, like cody's win pose where he's chased off by Edi. E. ( the big black cop), and most of karin's poses.

Ahh, so that's where the Illustrations Mode from the PSX version of SFA2 has migrated to,

 

[ShinJedah]

Ahh, so that's where the Illustrations Mode from the PSX version of SFA2 has migrated to

Waaaahhhh!I was so mad at Capcom whe n i was trying to find the illustration mode!

 

[archiver]

I remember disappointed with the (lack of) fluid frame animations in the PSX fighters, I remember it was a big complaint at the time, and mentioned in several fan magazines

IIRC it was because the sprites had to be mapped onto polygons, and some frames had to be dropped to keep the game going at a reasonable speed, or the PSX would choke... I never tried the Saturn versions, though I wouldn't be surprised if they were superior, the Saturn just struck me as a 2D powerhouse... my opinion of course, yours may vary.

In ePSXe, there's a way you can disable accurate CD-ROM timing (if you're running an image from the HD). I think I did it with Pete's CD-R plug-in. It can break compatibility with some titles though.

 

[Raijin Z]

9_9 The only times you'll see animated sprites on zero-thickness arrays is in Parappa games. Maybe a few exceptions, but all of the 2D fighters on PSX were regular 2D games. The animation was choppy because the Playstation didn't have a lot of video ram to play with. Saturn had add-on carts in addition to being geared towards 2D from the start, so it could load more frames into memory than PSX. Ask any Mugen developer about how smooth animation = massive file size.

 

[ExCyber]

IIRC it was because the sprites had to be mapped onto polygons, and some frames had to be dropped to keep the game going at a reasonable speed, or the PSX would choke...

I doubt that's the case, as the PSX GPU has block-copy sprite functions that don't require messing with polygon stuff. It's probably more to do with the fact that PSX doesn't have a whole lot of RAM, and thus there's probably no place to put all those frames. Having to update the backgrounds probably doesn't help either...

 

[Raijin Z]

Survey says........

*BING!*

Number one answer!

 

[ShinJedah]

The only games that had fluid animations where SFZ3 and guilty gear.The other SFA games had reasonable animation work.BUT FORGET THE SNK conversions.

These are not only my words it was in a 2D Special of a magazine that i don't remember right now.

 

[archiver]

I doubt that's the case, as the PSX GPU has block-copy sprite functions that don't require messing with polygon stuff. It's probably more to do with the fact that PSX doesn't have a whole lot of RAM, and thus there's probably no place to put all those frames. Having to update the backgrounds probably doesn't help either...

Here I always thought the PSX had little sprite capabilities I remember reading in a mag about the PSX having to map nearly everything to polys, but I like this explanation better.

Thanks for the correction ExCyber (Raijin Z too!)

 

[ExCyber]

Here I always thought the PSX had little sprite capabilities

Well, "sprite" is kind of a fuzzy term. The PSX doesn't have the traditional model of separate background and sprite rendering, so it ends up being a bit like PC where you have to redraw the BG when you move a sprite, redraw sprites after they collide, etc. (though the GPU makes this much less CPU-intensive than on PC).

Edit: oh yeah... if you actually want to do any neat rotation/scaling/deformation effects with sprites on PSX, you do need to map them to polys. Maybe this is what those developers were doing...

(Edited by ExCyber at 3:44 pm on Mar. 19, 2002)

 

[antime]

Quote: from ExCyber on 6:43 pm on Mar. 19, 2002

oh yeah... if you actually want to do any neat rotation/scaling/deformation effects with sprites on PSX, you do need to map them to polys. Maybe this is what those developers were doing...

IIRC some parts of the background had to be converted to polys, like the wing of the F16 in the hangar level background. Animating that in tiles would have taken too much memory. And anyway, both the Saturn and PSX draw distorted sprites as polygons.