Re:Sega Saturn Architecture – A practical analysis
by JohnBooty on Wednesday March 27, 2024 @12:12PM
(#39841112)
I dunnnnnnnnno?
The secret to high 3D performance (particularly in those simpler days before advanced shaders and such) wasn't exactly a secret. You needed lots of computing horsepower and lots of memory to draw and texture as many polys as possible.
The arcade hardware was so ridiculous in terms of the number of chips involved, I don't even know how many lessons could be directly carried over. Especially when they didn't design the majority of those chips.
Shrinking that down into a hyper cost optimized consumer device relative to a $15K arcade machine came down to design priorities and engineering chops and Sega just didn't hit the mark.
The secret to high 3D performance (particularly in those simpler days before advanced shaders and such) wasn't exactly a secret. You needed lots of computing horsepower and lots of memory to draw and texture as many polys as possible.
The arcade hardware was so ridiculous in terms of the number of chips involved, I don't even know how many lessons could be directly carried over. Especially when they didn't design the majority of those chips.
Shrinking that down into a hyper cost optimized consumer device relative to a $15K arcade machine came down to design priorities and engineering chops and Sega just didn't hit the mark.