PC-FX: Polygon Capable?

[Black Tiger]

They gambled and lost big time.  They must have thought that 3D was nothing more than a gimmick and that gaming would remain 2D.  Definitely not the sharpest knives in the drawer. 

See also: Sega Saturn

The Saturn was capable of rendering cutting edge 3D when it was developed. The PSX just raised the bar at the last minute as a 3D centric console. So Sega thew in a few extra parts and shipped it as-is. Turned out pretty freaking well considering.

[rag-time4]

Off the top of my head:


Der Langrisser FX (sequel to Warsong on the Genesis)


..and the list could go on. These are games in my personal PC-FX collection that aren't of the FMV anime genre. Many of those are real gems, too.  There are many more that I don't own.

My point is that it's not quite fair to write off the PC-FX as a simple FMV anime player.

Warsong is available on PCE CD-ROM as well. I tracked it down immedeately when I found out. I always enjoyed Warsong on the Genesis.

[nat]

The sequel on the PC-FX is just f*cking awesome. I'm not usually a fan of turn-based strategy RPGs but I can't put it down whenever I play it.

As for the original Warsong, how does the PCE version compare to the Genesis version?

[SuperDeadite]

The PC-E version of Langrisser is actually a remake with different (superior) battle maps from the Genesis original.  The PC-E version's maps were used for the Saturn and PS1 ports which came much later.  PC-E also has absolutely stunning Redbook arangements of Noriyuki Iwadare's awesome soundtrack.  The game is very cheap, and the soundtrack is worth the price alone!

Personally I don't like "Warsong" cause the game's localization was terrible.  They totally butchered Satoshi Urushihara's character designs.  Overal though Langrisser Dramatic Edition (Saturn) has the best version of Langrisser and Der Langrisser.  If you get Langrisser Tribute, you get the best versions of all 5 games in one package.      

However, Der Langrisser FX has some interesting oddities that don't appear elsewhere.  For example, characters actually shout the name of spells when they cast them.  Also it has "hard" mode which features a total script rewrite that turns the whole game into a comedy, full of drinking, gambling, and women lusting.     But the Saturn version was the last one made and has the most story paths to play through (2 more then the FX and 1 more then PS1), is in high-resolution, and has redrawn character portraits that don't appear anywhere else.

As a crazy Langrisser fan, I have every version of each game except for the PC versions of Langrisser and Langrisser III (these were Korean releases only).  I've beaten Der Langrisser like 30 times now, but am still having a blast with it!   

[SignOfZeta]

So we all know this pic of SSS3D:

What do you think?


As for me, I want to believe it's real, but the simple fact that FX Fighter had to be FMV makes me skeptical.

Its probably real since if it were faked it would look better. However it was probably a non-playable graphic demo that ran at 4 fps or so, like many 3D trade show demos were at the time.

I'm sure some people, like NEC themselves, and probably Hudson, tried to get some 3D going on the FX, and it just proved to be impractical. The PC-FX just...it just sucks. Even the 2D on the FX is pretty unimpressive, so I can't imagine it was sitting on all this untaped 3D power or whatever.

Shouldn't this just be a factual matter anyway? I mean, don't we know what chips are in the FX, and wouldn't that give us a clue to the 3D power? I mean, Sony worked really hard to get the 3D lead, and Sega...threw a ton of chips in the Saturn, so really we know what they can do, at least on paper.

Wikipedia says, "32-Bit NEC V810 RISC running at 21.5MHz, 15.5MIPS, 5-Way Superscalar". Well, that could surely do Virtua Racing Mega Drive style, or Stunt Race FX...but who wants to play that stuff?

I guess I agree that I'm glad the FX never became a 4th rate showcase for lame 3D, but I'm still disappointed that it also sucked so bad for everything else you can name. The FX is even more of a disappointment to me than that N64 was, and that's saying something. The 64 did manage 3 or 4 good games though, so its light-years beyond the FX.

[GUTS]

The PCFX has some good games, they're just all $100+ other than Boundary Gate (which totally rules).

[nat]

GUTS is right...

I can't agree that the PC-FX "totally sucked." It was a system that took a different approach to the "32-bit era" and it ended up not taking off. There are a few real gems as far as software goes and I have a lot of fun with mine.

Which reminds me, I've had Boundary Gate sitting here for like 8 months and I haven't started it yet.

[Kitsunexus]

I've never played a single PC-FX game, but from what I've read, I love the entire PC-FX library. 

[Keranu]

Its probably real since if it were faked it would look better. However it was probably a non-playable graphic demo that ran at 4 fps or so, like many 3D trade show demos were at the time.

Not necessarily. It could've still been faked to make it look like it was powerful enough just to handle some simple polygons just like Silpheed for Sega CD or Sapphire for PCE.

[nat]

Shouldn't this just be a factual matter anyway? I mean, don't we know what chips are in the FX, and wouldn't that give us a clue to the 3D power? I mean, Sony worked really hard to get the 3D lead, and Sega...threw a ton of chips in the Saturn, so really we know what they can do, at least on paper.

The production PC-FX has no 3D graphics chip. Read: it does not support polygons through hardware. And you're right, this is simply the fact of the matter. This doesn't mean there aren't some games that do pre-rendered stuff like Sapphire, though. Team Innocent has lots of pre-rendered 3D stuff, for example, and it all looks really nice.

The prototype boards included a 3D chip that could do polygons on a lesser scale than the Saturn and Playstation (One). Why they removed it for the production run is anyone's guess. Maybe they figured the polygon support the chip offered was too poor to compete.

What's interesting is that these chips were never removed from the development kits. These kits consist of an ISA board compatible with older DOS/Windows computers that is essentially an exact duplicate of the PC-FX. Except they still include the 3D GPU.

There is another recent thread here where one of our members talks about this ISA card (he apparently has one) and how it works. Apparently there is a PC-FX game out there that actually uses polygons thru the 3D processor. The game is only playable on a computer that has the PC-FXGA card since the actual console lacks the 3D chip.

For anyone that missed the original thread, he was nice enough to make a video of the game for anyone interested:

[ceti alpha]

Hi all! I'm new to these forums, though I've been coming to this site for quite some time now. 

But in regards to the polygon graphics, I've read (I forget exactly where...some Turbo site) that the HuCard game Falcon used, quite minimally mind you, polygon graphics. I actually had that game for the TG 16 back in the day. It wasn't actually that bad of a flight simulator and I remember being quite impressed with the "different" type of graphics for the buildings and whatnot.

Just saw this and wondered if Falcon (never seen Gunboat) could be considered a VERY primitive polygon game.

Peace

[Kitsunexus]

I know Falcon on the PC is really using polygons, but I would imagine that the TG-16 is faking it. I would be VERY SURPRISED if it was using polgyons.

Now the PC-FX with the 3D chip could EASILY do Falcon 1.0...

[nat]

I know Falcon on the PC is really using polygons, but I would imagine that the TG-16 is faking it. I would be VERY SURPRISED if it was using polgyons.

Strap yourself in, then, because the polygons on the TurboGrafx version are quite real.

Any system can do polygons, really, but they eat up all your CPU cycles unless you have a specialized chip handling them.

[Keranu]

Hi all! I'm new to these forums, though I've been coming to this site for quite some time now. 

But in regards to the polygon graphics, I've read (I forget exactly where...some Turbo site) that the HuCard game Falcon used, quite minimally mind you, polygon graphics. I actually had that game for the TG 16 back in the day. It wasn't actually that bad of a flight simulator and I remember being quite impressed with the "different" type of graphics for the buildings and whatnot.

Just saw this and wondered if Falcon (never seen Gunboat) could be considered a VERY primitive polygon game.

Peace

Welcome aboard and that's a nice starting post you got there! I also love your avatar and signature .

Yes Falcon and Gunboat used real polygons (well I assume Gunboat did too) and it's certainly believeable because of how slow those games run. I think the polygons look really cool myself, but never was able to get into those games.

[SignOfZeta]

I know Falcon on the PC is really using polygons, but I would imagine that the TG-16 is faking it. I would be VERY SURPRISED if it was using polgyons.

Now the PC-FX with the 3D chip could EASILY do Falcon 1.0...

I'm not sure why you would say that. Super low frame rate 3D was really common back then, especially on computers, but the TG-16 is just as powerful as the consoles from around that time. Not just DOS, but Amiga stuff like Falcon, Club Drive, Race Drivin', and Mac stuff like that one sub game, or Falcon. I first played Falcon on a Mac SE, and I think it would have run on a Mac Plus, which had a 8mhz chip so...pretty much anything remotely capable could do Falcon.

Even the Master System version of Falcon uses some polygons, and it predates the computer versions by a couple of years.