The 3DFX - SEGA "Black Belt" dreamcast thread.

[GigaDrive]

no I did not hear about GigaDrive from SegaBase, I read about it in EGM, VideoGames & Computer Entertainment and other magazines back in 1991-1993, until the preliminary Saturn info was revealed in summer and fall of 1993. usually if something is widely reported (such as the GigaDrive) there has to be some truth to it. SegaBase merely picked up on it. best thing to do if you doubt somethings existance, is try the internet. google the subject and see what the overall concensous is.


Dural was not the Sega-Nvidia project as far as I know. Dural is the Dreamcast. therefore Dural is also the Katana. they are all the same machine. just different code names. like Nintendo's Project Reality / Ultra 64 / Nintendo 64. they're all one and the same.

Dural/Katana (Dreamcast) ran the Scud Race demo.

BlackBelt of course, was Sega's internal competitor to Dural/Katana/Dreamcast.

does anyone recall the Black Belt HeadQuarters from 1997 ? ...it was basicly a BBS that sprung up shortly after the March 13 BlackBelt revelation by Next Generation Online.

the exact URL was: http://www.geocities.com/~bbhq/index.html

I remember having some interesting discussions there on BlackBelt and Dural....

[PrOfUnD Darkness]

Do you know why this demo is tied up to the card? I mean, if the Set2 is a early DC dev kit, why the demo doesn't run on a standart DC like the demos from the others kits??

GigaDrive: You are right, Dural was Dreamcast's first project name, later renamed Katana.

I'll try and put one of my Set2 cards in my PC and see if I can get the Scud Race demo up and running.
If I manage to, I'll post some screenshots and maybe a video on my website...

Jollyroger

[jollyrogerdev]

The Set2 Development kit is a PCI card that contains an early prototype of the NEC/VideoLogic PowerVR2 graphics chip, that had a couple of features still missing compared to the final unit.

The R2 SDK libraries enabled early Dreamcast development by using the PC CPU to execute the applications with only the graphics primitives being actually handled by the prototype PowerVR2.

This is why the demo would not work on, say a Set5.24 Development kit, the binaries were compiled for a x86 processor and the graphics library was essentially a windows driver for the PowerVR card.

Jollyroger

[PrOfUnD Darkness]

That explains all...and it's very cool.

I would love to find one of those...


PD

The Set2 Development kit is a PCI card that contains an early prototype of the NEC/VideoLogic PowerVR2 graphics chip, that had a couple of features still missing compared to the final unit.

The R2 SDK libraries enabled early Dreamcast development by using the PC CPU to execute the applications with only the graphics primitives being actually handled by the prototype PowerVR2.

This is why the demo would not work on, say a Set5.24 Development kit, the binaries were compiled for a x86 processor and the graphics library was essentially a windows driver for the PowerVR card.

Jollyroger

[jollyrogerdev]

I have two Set2 boards, and I don't really want to sell them; some pictures of one of them are in my site:
http://jollyrogerdev.ath.cx

Jollyroger

[Anonymous]

I'm only going to say this, so take it at face value and nothing more.

One of the proto GD-Rs in my collection is an arcade perfect version of Blitz (which was never released in its original form). Midway simply recompiled the arcade code. In its arcade form the game ran on 3Dfx hardware (the Seattle board). The same was also done with Hydrothunder, however that ran on the more powerful Vegas hardware and didn't run quite as well. One might surmise that if source code, written for 3Dfx hardware could be recompiled and run perfectly on the DC that the DC compiler (made by Sega) had some awfully specific knowledge of the 3Dfx inner workings.

Running the disc is actually kind of cool because like I said *all* of the original stuff is there...including the "powered by 3Dfx" ad. Neat to see that running on a DC.

-hl718

[antime]

More likely Midway wrote some compatibility wrappers for Glide.

[Anonymous]

3dfx hardware was great.... not only in performance and stability in its time, the GLIDE library, while a nightmare to end users, was FANTASTIC. By far the most simplistic, yet powerful graphics library I have ever had the priviledge of working with. In many ways, it was similar to OpenGL, but... I dont know how to explain it... just better.

Yes the hardware was great but dont forget the chip that was going to be used was a voodoo 2, yes it was fast yes it could do a lot but it had many failiings just like the Voodo 3.

1:) Voodoo 2 did not support texture compression, where as the Nec PowerVR could compress around 100 meg of textures into its 8meg ram.
2:) 16 bit colour was all it supported in 3D.
3:) Voodoo chipsets were generally more expesnive because of it using more than 1 chip on the card usually 3.
4:) Voodoo 2 lacked many of the features that the powervr 2 had e.g. hardware bump mapping(looks amazing), texture compression.

I think sega were wise to go with the PowerVR2 as it was a much superior chip, even when the voodoo 3 came out 3dfx didnt fix the problems that the voodoo 2 had and thats what helped make them fall.

[ASSEMbler]

Japanese coders already liked the nec setup. Given that most games were coded in Japan, it was a wise decision.

[Anonymous]

Please anyone, show us some Scud-Race demo screens! :smt040

[Guapo79]

That was me :smt040 (above post)

I think threads like this are very interesting, please keep the info coming! :smt023

[jollyrogerdev]

Give me some time and eventually I should be able to post the screenshots.
Consider that the R2 SDK is meants to run on Windows98, my PCs at home are XP and 2000, I will have to work on it for a bit installing everything.

Jollyroger

[Guapo79]

With a reward like that (screens & stuff) take any time you need. I am looking forward to this :smt023

[SuperGrafx]

I'd also like to see some Scud Race screens. Please! ;)

[VitAmen]

hmm...jolly the docs report that on fast host systems (>300 mhz) the scud race demo crashes...if i remember correctly you will need to replace teh latest drivers with the previous ones...

[jollyrogerdev]

don't worry, I have read the R2 docs, I'll manage to run it at some point...

Jollyroger

[Guapo79]

Ok, we'll be eagerly waiting for the screencandy :drinkers:

[Paulo]

Ok, we'll be eagerly waiting for the screencandy :drinkers:

damn yes :smt023

[jollyrogerdev]

The goodies are out there :-) look for the Set2.1 topic...

Jollyroger

[Guapo79]

Tnx for the pics and vids, they are awesome! :smt040

Are there more tech-demo's that can be shown?