Thanks to everyone that watched and liked this video! It means that we can keep doing these retro videos! Hopefully we can push the numbers even higher in the future. Some of the games I have lined up in the future include... Quake II PSX, Symphony of the Night PSX vs Saturn (on real hardware, of course), Unreal Tournament PS2 vs DC, Shenmue II, and many many more.
I would love to see a DF Retro episode comparing Sonic Adventure to the DX port on Gamecube, and I can't wait for a PC Time Capsule video showcasing the Xbox version of Doom 3!
From my chat with PlayStation Duke coder : What my team and I did with Duke Nukem 3D on the PlayStation wasto convert the PC’s Build engine to use the PlayStation’s texture rendering hardware, i.e. to draw vertical strips using the 3d renderer. This meant that we were able to exactly replicate the unusual perspective and game mechanics used on the PC. Convertors on other game platforms (e.g. the Saturn) adapted the game to their own game engines, giving slightly better performance at the risk of losing a lot of the fun and detail of the game. As an example, Sony’s testers found a level design bug in the first level of the game which a million-plus PC players had never noticed (a section of one wall was slightly too thin, so players were able to ‘force’ their way through it).
i remember the ps1 version being slated by almost all the gaming mags - its actually really good and even has 6 exclusive levels influenced by other famous ps1 franchises. i honestly love it
There were lots of misinformed facts in this video. 1)Build doesn't use raycasting. 2)N64 version still used an extensively modified version of Build, meaning the maps were still sorta cross compatible. Saturn was the only one with a different engine entirely. 3)Performance on the PS1 version can be addressed by disabling a couple settings (video settings in a console game are cool).
He totally should correct his mistakes with a comment, the first one is very important, because raycasting is a different technique and would never come to same result as build engine did. Same works for Doom's engine.
yep build does not use any ray tracing but n64 version never used any "build modified engine version the developer Eurocom use their proprietary engine which is Eurocom Game Engine duhhhh!!!!!!
@@robertt9342 Build is a 3D engine that uses a set of tricks to run at a reasonable speed on the hardware of the time, just like Doom, and even modern games. There's always shortcuts and tricks.
@@Ehal256 Excuse me what the fuck. It's a 2.5d game with 2d level design (a major difference between 2.5 and 3d is the ability to have multiple floors on top of each other which are not present in a 2.5 engine. The 2D level data was interpreted to fake 3D whilst remaining smooth at the time. To clarify, the Build Engine is NOT 3D. It's 2.5D _displaying_ like it's 3d.
elcinemanum13 What you are talking about Rayman 2 is the most popular Rayman game there is, that is a good idea also, and there are so many ports of the game
Them same hands talking about the unrealised port of Quake to PS1. "The most striking thing about the PSX port was how much faster the graphics hardware was than the Saturn. The initial scene after you just start the game is pretty complex. I think it ran 20 fps on the Saturn version. On the PSX it ran 30"
Alan MacLeod that doesn't change the fact that saturn could do so much more. Similar to ps3. It took developers years to produce games on par with 360, despite ps3 being much more powerful. Unfortunately saturn didn't get this time.
That's true unfortunately. Saturn did have Croc which was an impressive 3D game at the time, and Croc 2 was in the works. Who knows what might have been achieved later into the 90s had Sega left it on the market, but it just wasn't intended for games like this. Sega envisioned Saturn as a beefed up Genesis and not so much a 3D game machine. Just wasn't worth the struggle to most when so few people even owned one, but it's cool to look at what could have been.
@drunkensailor112 Shenmue on Saturn is nothing more than a scripted pre-rendered video using game assets (it even shows video compression artifacts common to VHS tapes of the time) It also has extremely low polygon counts and no lightsourcing whatsoever. Even at that stage it didn't run too well, adding AI, collision detection and game logic would have made it unplayable. The reality is that the most impressive games on the Saturn like Burning rangers were a nightmare to program and are full of graphical bugs, don't run too well and just look like mid gen PS1 games. I love the Saturn's library and own one since 97, but it definitely wasn't a powerful machine.
Played all three of these games back in the day and I found the best, most polished to be the Saturn version. It also has the greatest OST by far, I still use it to play XBLA Duke 3D,nothing else will do! The Death Tank Zwei bonus for having a save file of Quake and Exhumed (or alternatively destroy all toilets in teh game to unlock) was a nice touch. Saturn 3D control pad support was cool too. Sega Saturn - simply one of the best consoles of all time. =D
Used to play 7-player Death Tank Zwei on the Saturn all the time back in the day. My friends would stop the 4-player GoldenEye match on N64 and everyone would jump in the game, that's how addicting it is.
I remember being so confused when I was younger. I was familiar first with the PC shareware version of the game. Later, at my cousin's house, they had an N64 with that version of the game. I didn't understand the concept of altering a game between platforms at the time (I was like 7), and some years later, when I finally played the full version, I was perplexed to find the final boss (and it's respective arena) looked completely different to what I remembered from the N64.
This was, like, your best video ever. This was genuinely an awesome video proving to be full of some surprising information. Love the fact the time was taken to measure the frame timings(Something totally understated in gaming in general).
I wish there was a version for the Dreamcast. Always 30fps, using the Build engine, perhaps with 3D explosions. It would be even better with multiplayer (up to 4 players) and remixed music
Great video - would've been cool to see some of the things that were changed in each port side-by-side (like some of the level simplifications or lighting additions on the Saturn), and maybe a quick look at modern PC ports using the high-res texture and 3d model packs, but I'm just nit-picking :)
I grew up playing the PS1 versions of a lot of the games you have done port comparison videos. This was the first of the games my parents got me. I never could beat Duke Nukem Total Meltdown on PS1. It's rough to play, but it was fun back in the day.
Loving these retro tech analysis videos, had no idea the Saturn version was so competent! Hope you cover Command & Conquer at somepoint, the console versions were wonderfully weird.
Worked at GT as a game tester at this time, worked on the N64 version, but spent more time working with Nick Pelling's PS1 port. Bit of a nightmare port by all accounts but saw it go from unplayable to decent over time. Pretty much a one man port I believe.
Nitpick: the Build engine doesn't use raycasting, it uses vertical trapezoid rasterization (basically it renders 4 vertex polygons -quads- where the left and right side are always vertically aligned to the screen) for the walls and perspective correct texturing on the vertical axis for the floor and ceiling. It uses the connections between sectors as portals and renders each sector recursively while clipping the view per-column as it follows the portals.
Fun Fact 1: Tec Toy is a Brazilian toy making company that had a contract with Sega to manufacture their consoles for sale in Brazil. They probably made that version of DN to help with console sales. They actually still make consoles with the name master sistem, the latest one is called evolution. It's the fourth version, and comes with 132 games installed in its memory. Fun Fact 2: Duke Nukem was banned in brazil after a guy shot down a cinema full of people with an automatic weapon and the media found out he played this game.
Really enjoy these DF Retros! Very interesting to see you tackle multiple ports and how much they change between each. Hope to see you tackle more port roundups like this, maybe something like RE2 which came to PS1, PC, N64, Dreamcast and Gamecube? Or a Tony Hawk game like Pro Skater 3? :D
You should have mentioned how the Saturn version also uses a remixed soundtrack and is generally considered to be the best version of many of the games musics.
I would love to see a second part of this episode, I'm coming from the wiki of the game and apparently there's a lot more versions of the game.... Xbox 360 on 2008 iPhone/iPod Touch on 2009 Nokia N900 2009 Playstation 3 and PS Vita 2015 Playstation 4 and Xbox One 2016 I would love to see how the game stack up today... and how the actual gen consoles can handle the game and maybe there's improvements over the old pc version.
This was back in the days when hardware platforms differed in more ways than resolution and frame rate. I think it's useful to look back now and then to realize how trivial the fanboy war really is, especially nowadays
I still remember the commercial for the gamecom vaguely where the guy hollers "CAN YOUR GAME BOY DO THIS!?" Well, sir, it looks like your gamecom can't do "THIS" either, lol!
Duke Nukem on the Saturn was the best, far better texturing.But the Saturn back in the day was a very powerful console which really never got pushed to the max, just like the Sega Dreamcast!. It was a real shame Sega went to pieces after the Megadrive!. The Dreamcast and the Sega Saturn were so good, but Sega did not support it, and preferred from what I heard advertising there stuff rather than using the money in development!🤔
I love both platforms, but they are pretty different. The DC was designed to be very easy to work with and, although maybe not pushed to its limits, I think we saw more games really take advantage of its hardware during its short life than Saturn. Saturn was just so complex due to the multi-CPU design and lack of tools. It seems like it was a nightmare to design for and only the most dedicated and talented teams could bend it to their will. Lobotomy was definitely one of those companies capable of making the Saturn sing! Man, I miss Sega consoles. :(
Not my Compaq Presario in 1997 lol I had no choice but either gaming on N64 or PlayStation. I still remember running Need for Speed 3 at 20 fps on an ATI Rage Pro and a pentium at 330mhz with 64mb of ram.
Jerry4050 oh, to be honest i'm not familiar with the performance of any ATI card before the radeon 7500 (their first "VPU"), which was released about the same time as the geforce 2 GTS. although i think my friend had one of those and he tried running quake 2 on it. it would run pretty badly but still an improvement over software mode.
I originally asked for Duke Nukem 64 so thank you so much for making this!!! I actually liked that Duke Nukem 64 lacked the music. Between the inclusion of the sky and being able to really hear the ambient sound work, it made the environment feel so organic/alive compared to other versions.
Good friend of mine and fellow Duke fanatic actually owned the Playstation version which had a episode completely to it own, with levels not found in any other port. Frame rate was so bad in the Playstation version that on one specific level in the special episode the game dropped down to something like 2 frames per second! You actually had to avoid that area as much as possible as it was completely unplayable. Also, Hail to the King baby!
Great video. One of the few 3 way competitions the Saturn had the best version of a game. You forgot to mention the Netlink support! I remember playing all 3 versions back in the day. The SEGA Saturn one was awesome. Lobotomy Software were programming geniuses. They made the miracle Quake port that was perfectly playable as well as Powerslave one of the most underrated console FPS of that era. I remember playing the PS1 version months after the SAturn version and being so angry. It ran like absolute garbage. I was so excited to play the extra episode but the frame rate ruined that experience. The Sega Saturn port had so many cool extras. Death Tank alone was a great multiplayer game. Played it with friends for hours. The dynamic lighting was such a cool touch. Made the game extra fun to look at compared to the other two. Soundtrack was spot on. Even used to use the CD in the CD player :) I think you forgot to talk about one of the best extra features of the Saturn version. Online netlink support. On my channel I did a video of me playing a guy 8 or so years ago. The service still works (since its peer to peer). What an amazing experience. Truely the first online FPS experience you could have a console. No lag either despite using dial up. All that combined made the Saturn version the best console port of that generation.
I love, love, love these. I would really have liked to see the most recent ports to PS3/Vita compared as well, specifically comparing the input latency. I'd be very interested to see a Mega-Man comparison between NES, PS1, PS1 emulated on Vita, and the Mega-Man Collection on 3DS and PS4.
man... how many times i have to say this to people... wolfstein and rott used raycasting, doom and duke did not raycasting is a technique where a way is cast at 90 degree from each pixel column. each ray is cast at increasing angle as they move away from the center, center rays are cast at 0 angle, border ones at +-FOV/2 the ray propagate away from the camera till they hit a wall. then the length of the ray tells how far away that wall is. that mean the only geometry that have to be draw on screen are the ones who will actually appear. however casting rays is a computationally expensive process which are only possible in this case because of the grid nature of the maps that allow the rays to use Bresenham's line algorithm it is essentialy a way to avoid drawing things that are not seen on the screen. doom and duke however did not use raycasting, they use something called Binary space partitioning , which is a way to split the map in small chunks that can be quickly checked if they are gonna appear on screen or not, the maps of both are flat 2d world to simplify that process, a few years latter quake would use the same technique in a full 3d world again, it is just a way to avoid drawing things that are not on screen. the reason why all those games are visually similar is because they use the same trick for drawing walls, which is draw a vertical line from the center of the screen that stretches andr down depending on the distance of the wall in that point, small lines for far away walls and big lines for close ones. do that horizontally thru the whole screen and you can draw walls very fast. however you can only draw walls at 90 degree angles from the floor with that trick, and don't even think about looking up or down. computers had to do it like that since PC had no graphics hardware at the time. doing the graphics was where most of the processing power went. unlike consoles which did had hardware for such things *duke3d can draw slopes, but not only is limited to slopes in certain directions and certain inclinations but also the code for that is regarded to be a nightmare by the author itself
There was also a port for the Game Boy Advance and for the N•Gage, and ports for Mac, Linux and even AmigaOS. There was also a cancelled port for the Dreamcast. There were also many source ports released for modern operating systems, EDuke32 perhaps being the best of the bunch.
The Duke Nukem 3D Version for Sega Genesis reminds me of Wii ports that were completely different versions for X360 / PS3 because of the glaring hardware difference In the 90's many Brazilians were not able to buy a Sega Saturn, PS1 or Nintendo 64 but many still had a Sega Genesis (and Master System) in their homes, it was a great TecToy move to have put this game on Sega Genesis because it was thanks to this that many here had their first contact with the game, it was very common to see a Mega Drive in the house of a Brazilian even in 2005 I am very happy that TecToy continues to re-launch the Mega Drive (and even some cartridges) even today.
I feel it's worth pointing out that the Saturn version strips out a lot of functionality and its levels to achieve that performance. Pretty much anything that requires horizontally moving sectors or floors moving into slopes seems to be removed completely. To the point that the subway trains in Darkside are replaced with the teleporters. The Ps1 and N64 versions retain far more of The build engine's features.
I like these old school DF vids ! I think a step even further in the time warp should be taken - have a look at the 8 million ports of Street Fighter 2 to see one and for all which one had the least amount of compromise.
The PS1 port was the first Duke Nukem game I ever played, I enjoyed it at the time, and still remember the exclusive PlayStation levels as being very fun.
Duke Nukem Advance for the GBA was and is also amazing technological marvel of it's time. It wasn't really a Duke 3D port, but still I think that should've deserved a mention here.
Guys this is AWESOME; specially the Dreamcast/PS2 comparisons. Also on target I would love: Shadowman PS1-N64-DC Armorines N64-PS1 Mortal KOmbat Deadly Alliance Xbox-PS2-GC (awesome platform parity) Headhunter Dreamcast-PS2 (and 1 and 2 for PS2-Xbox) 4x4 EVO PS2-DC Sonic Adventure titles etc etc Also a DF vs StarFox Adventures on GC and then running through Wii and Wii using NINTENDONT interpreter
You forgot to mention that the PSX version had an extra episode Plug 'N' Pray which can be found as a mod (which can be found on moddb) . I like the remixed music in the PSX version a lot, this is the work of Mark 'TDK' Knight (who also did the music on Dark Omen).
genesis duke nuken "3d" was also sold here in Canada at some point as that's how I found out about it:P(forgot the store's flyer; I want to say around the time of nomad)
I may be stating the obvious, but it must be said: Jump up BEHIND the wooden crate to avoid taking damage from the Pig Cop's explosion! Why does no one know this? xD
Playing Total Meltdown on the original Playstation right now. It's pretty cool that it had PC settings like Filtering and screen tearing. They of course have a trade off in performance on the PSX's 33.3mhz processor.
Nice! for the next Retro episode I think you should take on Riddick, this game was very impressive when it came out, hell, still have awesome lighting.
The Saturn version was brilliant. (It hasn't reached the part of the video talking about the Saturn yet, but I'm pretty confident he's going to say that)
I really like this DF retro series, I think it will be much better if it has side by side comparison. Anyway, please do Rayman 2 or Pac-man World 3! It was ported on many consoles including Nintendo DS. It will be interesting to see how each version stacks up.
Don't forget Duke Nukem Advance on the GBA! It was not a port of the original PC game, but it was an entirely new game based on the same style as the original.
Definitely looking forward to more videos on "retro" games, and comparing performance. One suggestion, Knights of the Old Republic. I loved KotOR on Xbox, but that game had some serious performance issues. I remember sometimes seeing single digit framerates in certain areas. I think it got away with it as the combat was basically turn based. Performance certainly didn't put me off though, probably one of my most replayed games ever. Certainly in the "flawed gem" category.
I had Duke on Saturn first and while I appreciated the techincal achievement, I actually didn't really like the game. Wasn't until years later on PC I started to appreciate what great level design in an FPS actually means. Had the N64 version at some point too. I remember quite enjoying the changes they made to the game. Removing the 'adult' (juvenile) content didn't harm it, and they did much more than just censor it, they added whole new sections and routes through the stages. It's fun to go through if you know the base game well. I presume the levels have been ported to PC, as Doom 64 was, but perhaps not.
Thanks to everyone that watched and liked this video! It means that we can keep doing these retro videos! Hopefully we can push the numbers even higher in the future. Some of the games I have lined up in the future include... Quake II PSX, Symphony of the Night PSX vs Saturn (on real hardware, of course), Unreal Tournament PS2 vs DC, Shenmue II, and many many more.
Love ya John!
I would love to see a DF Retro episode comparing Sonic Adventure to the DX port on Gamecube, and I can't wait for a PC Time Capsule video showcasing the Xbox version of Doom 3!
From my chat with PlayStation Duke coder :
What my team and I did with Duke Nukem 3D on the PlayStation wasto convert the PC’s Build engine to use the PlayStation’s texture rendering hardware, i.e. to draw vertical strips using the 3d renderer. This meant that we were able to exactly replicate the unusual perspective and game mechanics used on the PC.
Convertors on other game platforms (e.g. the Saturn) adapted the game to their own game engines, giving slightly better performance at the risk of losing a lot of the fun and detail of the game. As an example, Sony’s testers found a level design bug in the first level of the game which a million-plus PC players had never noticed (a section of one wall was slightly too thin, so players were able to ‘force’ their way through it).
I absolutely love DF Retro. The analysis of old ports/games on ancient hardware is super interesting and insightful. Fantastic stuff!
Wow! I had no idea this came out on the genesis!
Me neither!
Brazil baby
Its a very interesting story and even Sega was impressed with the port and send a letter congratulating de developer.
That said, it didn't age well
i remember the ps1 version being slated by almost all the gaming mags - its actually really good and even has 6 exclusive levels influenced by other famous ps1 franchises. i honestly love it
Looks like the PS1 version's framerate is doing the wave.
Woo! Mexican wave!
There were lots of misinformed facts in this video.
1)Build doesn't use raycasting.
2)N64 version still used an extensively modified version of Build, meaning the maps were still sorta cross compatible. Saturn was the only one with a different engine entirely.
3)Performance on the PS1 version can be addressed by disabling a couple settings (video settings in a console game are cool).
He totally should correct his mistakes with a comment, the first one is very important, because raycasting is a different technique and would never come to same result as build engine did. Same works for Doom's engine.
Well he is incorrect, It is still not a real/full 3D engine and works in a different but similar manner.
yep build does not use any ray tracing
but n64 version never used any "build modified engine version the developer Eurocom use their proprietary engine which is Eurocom Game Engine duhhhh!!!!!!
@@robertt9342 Build is a 3D engine that uses a set of tricks to run at a reasonable speed on the hardware of the time, just like Doom, and even modern games. There's always shortcuts and tricks.
@@Ehal256 Excuse me what the fuck. It's a 2.5d game with 2d level design (a major difference between 2.5 and 3d is the ability to have multiple floors on top of each other which are not present in a 2.5 engine. The 2D level data was interpreted to fake 3D whilst remaining smooth at the time. To clarify, the Build Engine is NOT 3D. It's 2.5D _displaying_ like it's 3d.
I like the gritty, dark look of the Sega Saturn port
N64 is my favourite version because of the splitscreens. I had so much fun with my friends.
we need more of these
I agree, i would love them to do rayman 2
+elcinemanum13 That's a very good suggestion!
Residen Evil 2 ports maybe?
+CodeNameZ it's possible, because re2 is a very popular game, unlike rayman 2
elcinemanum13 What you are talking about Rayman 2 is the most popular Rayman game there is, that is a good idea also, and there are so many ports of the game
this video proves again that in the right hands the sega saturn was really powerful, also in 3d.
Them same hands talking about the unrealised port of Quake to PS1.
"The most striking thing about the PSX port was how much faster the graphics hardware was than the Saturn. The initial scene after you just start the game is pretty complex. I think it ran 20 fps on the Saturn version. On the PSX it ran 30"
Alan MacLeod that doesn't change the fact that saturn could do so much more. Similar to ps3. It took developers years to produce games on par with 360, despite ps3 being much more powerful. Unfortunately saturn didn't get this time.
mjskillz23 there is no playstation game that looked better than shenmue. And that was done in early 98 before mgs.
That's true unfortunately. Saturn did have Croc which was an impressive 3D game at the time, and Croc 2 was in the works. Who knows what might have been achieved later into the 90s had Sega left it on the market, but it just wasn't intended for games like this. Sega envisioned Saturn as a beefed up Genesis and not so much a 3D game machine. Just wasn't worth the struggle to most when so few people even owned one, but it's cool to look at what could have been.
@drunkensailor112 Shenmue on Saturn is nothing more than a scripted pre-rendered video using game assets (it even shows video compression artifacts common to VHS tapes of the time) It also has extremely low polygon counts and no lightsourcing whatsoever.
Even at that stage it didn't run too well, adding AI, collision detection and game logic would have made it unplayable.
The reality is that the most impressive games on the Saturn like Burning rangers were a nightmare to program and are full of graphical bugs, don't run too well and just look like mid gen PS1 games.
I love the Saturn's library and own one since 97, but it definitely wasn't a powerful machine.
I remember playing the PS1 version of DN3d on my PS2. I was impressed by how much the graphics improved with the PS2’s anti-aliasing function.
Played all three of these games back in the day and I found the best, most polished to be the Saturn version. It also has the greatest OST by far, I still use it to play XBLA Duke 3D,nothing else will do!
The Death Tank Zwei bonus for having a save file of Quake and Exhumed (or alternatively destroy all toilets in teh game to unlock) was a nice touch. Saturn 3D control pad support was cool too.
Sega Saturn - simply one of the best consoles of all time. =D
Used to play 7-player Death Tank Zwei on the Saturn all the time back in the day. My friends would stop the 4-player GoldenEye match on N64 and everyone would jump in the game, that's how addicting it is.
I own all three systems and Duke versions, and I agree.
Good stuff! Thanks for doing more of these
I remember being so confused when I was younger. I was familiar first with the PC shareware version of the game. Later, at my cousin's house, they had an N64 with that version of the game. I didn't understand the concept of altering a game between platforms at the time (I was like 7), and some years later, when I finally played the full version, I was perplexed to find the final boss (and it's respective arena) looked completely different to what I remembered from the N64.
04:37 - Red Light District - Duke Nukem 3D
If anyone wants to know what the song name is.
Thanks so much, I was really desperate to find this track - for some reason it's not part of any Saturn soundtrack I could find.
THANKS
DJ Charizard tysm
the ps1 version have a new campaing !! The port features new music, new enemies, and an exclusive fourth episode: Plug 'N' Pray.
best gaming channel on youtube atm
and most cancerous community on youtube.
***** fuck off
Tiny Rick so you guys really want to disagree with me about this? i think even DigitalFoundry themselves see their community as complete retards.
+MrDerOutsider The only people who will disagree are the cancer itself. Don't waste your time.
Tiny Rick no i dont fucking know thats why i wrote "i think"
This was, like, your best video ever. This was genuinely an awesome video proving to be full of some surprising information. Love the fact the time was taken to measure the frame timings(Something totally understated in gaming in general).
Love Duke 3D. Favourite FPS of all time and I still play it to this day.
Wow! How the hell did they make it run on the Mega Drive!? Even if it’s unfaithful and plays like Wolfenstein 3D, it’s still an incredible feat.
God damn that pistol felt good on Duke.
When you're caught in a reload by an alien, snap the magazine in and unload on them.
Great fun
I wish there was a version for the Dreamcast. Always 30fps, using the Build engine, perhaps with 3D explosions. It would be even better with multiplayer (up to 4 players) and remixed music
Using the build engine on DC would be so dumb when the DC has enough power for a full 3D port running perhaps at 60fps......what a dumb comment
I’m really enjoying the retro series, thank you.
I’m excited to watch everyone in order now. The half life 1 and 2 retro videos got me hooked
Great video - would've been cool to see some of the things that were changed in each port side-by-side (like some of the level simplifications or lighting additions on the Saturn), and maybe a quick look at modern PC ports using the high-res texture and 3d model packs, but I'm just nit-picking :)
I love the videos on retro ports and games!! Keep it up! After the last one I bought and enjoyed quake on Saturn, you convinced me I need duke next!
I grew up playing the PS1 versions of a lot of the games you have done port comparison videos. This was the first of the games my parents got me. I never could beat Duke Nukem Total Meltdown on PS1. It's rough to play, but it was fun back in the day.
great video. I love your comparison videos because you go so much in depth between versions.
Loving these retro tech analysis videos, had no idea the Saturn version was so competent!
Hope you cover Command & Conquer at somepoint, the console versions were wonderfully weird.
This has quickly become my favorite show on TH-cam and got me back into retro gaming.
Worked at GT as a game tester at this time, worked on the N64 version, but spent more time working with Nick Pelling's PS1 port. Bit of a nightmare port by all accounts but saw it go from unplayable to decent over time. Pretty much a one man port I believe.
Nitpick: the Build engine doesn't use raycasting, it uses vertical trapezoid rasterization (basically it renders 4 vertex polygons -quads- where the left and right side are always vertically aligned to the screen) for the walls and perspective correct texturing on the vertical axis for the floor and ceiling. It uses the connections between sectors as portals and renders each sector recursively while clipping the view per-column as it follows the portals.
Yeah, you're totally right. I completely misspoke on that.
Fun Fact 1: Tec Toy is a Brazilian toy making company that had a contract with Sega to manufacture their consoles for sale in Brazil. They probably made that version of DN to help with console sales. They actually still make consoles with the name master sistem, the latest one is called evolution. It's the fourth version, and comes with 132 games installed in its memory.
Fun Fact 2: Duke Nukem was banned in brazil after a guy shot down a cinema full of people with an automatic weapon and the media found out he played this game.
i love this channel so much man
Really enjoy these DF Retros! Very interesting to see you tackle multiple ports and how much they change between each. Hope to see you tackle more port roundups like this, maybe something like RE2 which came to PS1, PC, N64, Dreamcast and Gamecube? Or a Tony Hawk game like Pro Skater 3? :D
You should have mentioned how the Saturn version also uses a remixed soundtrack and is generally considered to be the best version of many of the games musics.
Guys, do a survey on what would be the next game to analyze.
We want more of these for sure!
Awesome video.
I would love to see a second part of this episode, I'm coming from the wiki of the game and apparently there's a lot more versions of the game....
Xbox 360 on 2008
iPhone/iPod Touch on 2009
Nokia N900 2009
Playstation 3 and PS Vita 2015
Playstation 4 and Xbox One 2016
I would love to see how the game stack up today... and how the actual gen consoles can handle the game and maybe there's improvements over the old pc version.
I love you guys for these retro videos seriously I love finding out what frame rate older games ran at. it's fascinating
Great video! Keep on doing retro videos; I love them :)
I'd be curious to see a video on all the different versions of the original Road Rash.
This was back in the days when hardware platforms differed in more ways than resolution and frame rate. I think it's useful to look back now and then to realize how trivial the fanboy war really is, especially nowadays
I still remember the commercial for the gamecom vaguely where the guy hollers "CAN YOUR GAME BOY DO THIS!?"
Well, sir, it looks like your gamecom can't do "THIS" either, lol!
I haven't commented on this video yet? Well, I'm in Duke 3D kicker and it was a blast to watch this awesome video again!
Duke Nukem on the Saturn was the best, far better texturing.But the Saturn back in the day was a very powerful console which really never got pushed to the max, just like the Sega Dreamcast!. It was a real shame Sega went to pieces after the Megadrive!.
The Dreamcast and the Sega Saturn were so good, but Sega did not support it, and preferred from what I heard advertising there stuff rather than using the money in development!🤔
I love both platforms, but they are pretty different. The DC was designed to be very easy to work with and, although maybe not pushed to its limits, I think we saw more games really take advantage of its hardware during its short life than Saturn. Saturn was just so complex due to the multi-CPU design and lack of tools. It seems like it was a nightmare to design for and only the most dedicated and talented teams could bend it to their will. Lobotomy was definitely one of those companies capable of making the Saturn sing! Man, I miss Sega consoles. :(
+John Linneman
Yes both of Sega's last console's were great, and many say the Dreamcast was as good as the PlayStation 1 !😊🤔
Duke Nukem on pc was and always will be superior to the consoles.
The saturn was basically the ps3 of that generation. The difference being however Sega didn't get their act together and just moved onto the next gen
Yes Sega were not very good at business sense!😞
Even in the 90's the PC version was the best.
Not for all games
Not my Compaq Presario in 1997 lol I had no choice but either gaming on N64 or PlayStation. I still remember running Need for Speed 3 at 20 fps on an ATI Rage Pro and a pentium at 330mhz with 64mb of ram.
weird. that game ran flawlessly at 60fps on my pentium 233mmx and a voodoo2 8mb
***** that's the thing you had a voodoo 2 while mines is intergrated graphics from ATI which only had 2mb of vram
Jerry4050
oh, to be honest i'm not familiar with the performance of any ATI card before the radeon 7500 (their first "VPU"), which was released about the same time as the geforce 2 GTS.
although i think my friend had one of those and he tried running quake 2 on it. it would run pretty badly but still an improvement over software mode.
I originally asked for Duke Nukem 64 so thank you so much for making this!!!
I actually liked that Duke Nukem 64 lacked the music. Between the inclusion of the sky and being able to really hear the ambient sound work, it made the environment feel so organic/alive compared to other versions.
I'd rather have a lee jackson and bobby prince soundtrack any damn day of the week thank you.
Good friend of mine and fellow Duke fanatic actually owned the Playstation version which had a episode completely to it own, with levels not found in any other port. Frame rate was so bad in the Playstation version that on one specific level in the special episode the game dropped down to something like 2 frames per second! You actually had to avoid that area as much as possible as it was completely unplayable. Also, Hail to the King baby!
Great video. One of the few 3 way competitions the Saturn had the best version of a game. You forgot to mention the Netlink support! I remember playing all 3 versions back in the day. The SEGA Saturn one was awesome. Lobotomy Software were programming geniuses. They made the miracle Quake port that was perfectly playable as well as Powerslave one of the most underrated console FPS of that era.
I remember playing the PS1 version months after the SAturn version and being so angry. It ran like absolute garbage. I was so excited to play the extra episode but the frame rate ruined that experience.
The Sega Saturn port had so many cool extras. Death Tank alone was a great multiplayer game. Played it with friends for hours. The dynamic lighting was such a cool touch. Made the game extra fun to look at compared to the other two. Soundtrack was spot on. Even used to use the CD in the CD player :)
I think you forgot to talk about one of the best extra features of the Saturn version. Online netlink support. On my channel I did a video of me playing a guy 8 or so years ago. The service still works (since its peer to peer). What an amazing experience. Truely the first online FPS experience you could have a console. No lag either despite using dial up.
All that combined made the Saturn version the best console port of that generation.
Doom on the SNES had modem multiplayer before.
@@todesziege Source? I'm pretty sure the SNES didn't even have a modem, unless you count XBand, which, if i recall, didn't support doom.
@@ninjacat230 The XBand, yes, it supported Doom, which was its only multiplayer mode. Googling "doom xband" should give you plenty of info.
@@todesziege Was it good?
@@TS-yz3ud For its time, I guess.
I'm never played most of these old games, but these analysis seem way more interesting than modern game's for some reason
Easy to answer. Hardware at time was totally different. Now all are PC-Like stuff
I love, love, love these. I would really have liked to see the most recent ports to PS3/Vita compared as well, specifically comparing the input latency.
I'd be very interested to see a Mega-Man comparison between NES, PS1, PS1 emulated on Vita, and the Mega-Man Collection on 3DS and PS4.
man... how many times i have to say this to people... wolfstein and rott used raycasting, doom and duke did not
raycasting is a technique where a way is cast at 90 degree from each pixel column. each ray is cast at increasing angle as they move away from the center, center rays are cast at 0 angle, border ones at +-FOV/2
the ray propagate away from the camera till they hit a wall. then the length of the ray tells how far away that wall is. that mean the only geometry that have to be draw on screen are the ones who will actually appear. however casting rays is a computationally expensive process which are only possible in this case because of the grid nature of the maps that allow the rays to use
Bresenham's line algorithm it is essentialy a way to avoid drawing things that are not seen on the screen.
doom and duke however did not use raycasting, they use something called Binary space partitioning , which is a way to split the map in small chunks that can be quickly checked if they are gonna appear on screen or not, the maps of both are flat 2d world to simplify that process, a few years latter quake would use the same technique in a full 3d world
again, it is just a way to avoid drawing things that are not on screen.
the reason why all those games are visually similar is because they use the same trick for drawing walls, which is draw a vertical line from the center of the screen that stretches andr down depending on the distance of the wall in that point, small lines for far away walls and big lines for close ones. do that horizontally thru the whole screen and you can draw walls very fast. however you can only draw walls at 90 degree angles from the floor with that trick, and don't even think about looking up or down.
computers had to do it like that since PC had no graphics hardware at the time. doing the graphics was where most of the processing power went. unlike consoles which did had hardware for such things
*duke3d can draw slopes, but not only is limited to slopes in certain directions and certain inclinations but also the code for that is regarded to be a nightmare by the author itself
There was also a port for the Game Boy Advance and for the N•Gage, and ports for Mac, Linux and even AmigaOS. There was also a cancelled port for the Dreamcast.
There were also many source ports released for modern operating systems, EDuke32 perhaps being the best of the bunch.
I love seeing classics analyzed. There's some interesting tricks done when the hardware was so limited.
The Duke Nukem 3D Version for Sega Genesis reminds me of Wii ports that were completely different versions for X360 / PS3 because of the glaring hardware difference
In the 90's many Brazilians were not able to buy a Sega Saturn, PS1 or Nintendo 64 but many still had a Sega Genesis (and Master System) in their homes, it was a great TecToy move to have put this game on Sega Genesis because it was thanks to this that many here had their first contact with the game, it was very common to see a Mega Drive in the house of a Brazilian even in 2005
I am very happy that TecToy continues to re-launch the Mega Drive (and even some cartridges) even today.
I didn't even know Duke Nuke came out on the Mega Drive!!! Great series, this takes me back. I had the Saturn version, fantastic lighting.
Project Scorpio will have stable 30 FPS
With uncopressed high quality pixels
Real 4K or upscaled 4K?
Again?
Unfotunatly upscaled it's very demanding
with svga resolution. wow
This guy is the best part of Digital Foundry.
God, I freaking love these DF retro ! Keep going! You're the best !
I feel it's worth pointing out that the Saturn version strips out a lot of functionality and its levels to achieve that performance. Pretty much anything that requires horizontally moving sectors or floors moving into slopes seems to be removed completely. To the point that the subway trains in Darkside are replaced with the teleporters. The Ps1 and N64 versions retain far more of The build engine's features.
There was a port on the gameboy advance.
Update: Duke Nukem Advance was a completely different game with its own storyline.
I like these old school DF vids ! I think a step even further in the time warp should be taken - have a look at the 8 million ports of Street Fighter 2 to see one and for all which one had the least amount of compromise.
The PS1 port was the first Duke Nukem game I ever played, I enjoyed it at the time, and still remember the exclusive PlayStation levels as being very fun.
oh man, I want a Mortal Kombat comparison series for 16 bit consoles. I love this DFR!
Duke Nukem Advance for the GBA was and is also amazing technological marvel of it's time. It wasn't really a Duke 3D port, but still I think that should've deserved a mention here.
Guys this is AWESOME; specially the Dreamcast/PS2 comparisons. Also on target I would love:
Shadowman PS1-N64-DC
Armorines N64-PS1
Mortal KOmbat Deadly Alliance Xbox-PS2-GC (awesome platform parity)
Headhunter Dreamcast-PS2 (and 1 and 2 for PS2-Xbox)
4x4 EVO PS2-DC
Sonic Adventure titles etc etc
Also a DF vs StarFox Adventures on GC and then running through Wii and Wii using NINTENDONT interpreter
You forgot to mention that the PSX version had an extra episode Plug 'N' Pray which can be found as a mod (which can be found on moddb) . I like the remixed music in the PSX version a lot, this is the work of Mark 'TDK' Knight (who also did the music on Dark Omen).
Love "Stalker" playing in the background \m/
i love these DF retro vids. so interesting and well researched. best video series on youtube.
Saturn respect is always appreciated.
it's amazing how much praise I see the Megadrive version get
I remember really liking the explosions on the N64.
genesis duke nuken "3d" was also sold here in Canada at some point as that's how I found out about it:P(forgot the store's flyer; I want to say around the time of nomad)
I may be stating the obvious, but it must be said:
Jump up BEHIND the wooden crate to avoid taking damage from the Pig Cop's explosion! Why does no one know this? xD
Playing Total Meltdown on the original Playstation right now. It's pretty cool that it had PC settings like Filtering and screen tearing. They of course have a trade off in performance on the PSX's 33.3mhz processor.
Cover more gen 6 (DC/PS2/GC/XB1) games please. So many games from that era targeted 60 fps, and I want to see how well they held it!
Nice! for the next Retro episode I think you should take on Riddick, this game was very impressive when it came out, hell, still have awesome lighting.
These are some of the best videos on the channel
DukeNukem needs the DooM2016 treatment
Thank you John
I really love those days
Give us more
These are so much better than the modern vids, keep these coming...
Love these retro features, keep doing this up!
The Saturn version was brilliant. (It hasn't reached the part of the video talking about the Saturn yet, but I'm pretty confident he's going to say that)
Excellent video and a great series, look forward to the next instalment.
I miss this game. I need to find it and play it.
I just remember being so happy I could play the game outside of the internet cafe at the time. The playstation version was very welcomed lol
Great video!! I would like to see a follow up with more versions
Duke on saturn is amazing
It's so cheap to buy just £15
One of the best games
I really like this DF retro series, I think it will be much better if it has side by side comparison. Anyway, please do Rayman 2 or Pac-man World 3! It was ported on many consoles including Nintendo DS. It will be interesting to see how each version stacks up.
I'd love to see Panzer Dragoon up next. The Saturn was really quite capable in the right hands.
I have soft spot for Duke on the N64, the vibe it had was spot on and the experience was extremely unique for the system.
Really love this series of videos, please make more !
Don't forget Duke Nukem Advance on the GBA! It was not a port of the original PC game, but it was an entirely new game based on the same style as the original.
Very interesting! I'd love to see more videos of this sort :)
I LOVE the Total Meltdown soundtrack. It was done by Mark Knight (aka TDK or madfiddler).
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 is on a TON of platforms.
PC, PS1, DC, GBA/GBC, N64, Xbox (actually the best looking version, used different assets), iOS
Definitely looking forward to more videos on "retro" games, and comparing performance.
One suggestion, Knights of the Old Republic. I loved KotOR on Xbox, but that game had some serious performance issues. I remember sometimes seeing single digit framerates in certain areas. I think it got away with it as the combat was basically turn based. Performance certainly didn't put me off though, probably one of my most replayed games ever. Certainly in the "flawed gem" category.
I remember this on the PS1... It had no problems...
Back when you could actually tell the difference on each platform.
Love this retro corner... how about a tear down of 8 bit and 16 bit pixel art? That would be a cool vid
I had Duke on Saturn first and while I appreciated the techincal achievement, I actually didn't really like the game. Wasn't until years later on PC I started to appreciate what great level design in an FPS actually means.
Had the N64 version at some point too. I remember quite enjoying the changes they made to the game. Removing the 'adult' (juvenile) content didn't harm it, and they did much more than just censor it, they added whole new sections and routes through the stages. It's fun to go through if you know the base game well. I presume the levels have been ported to PC, as Doom 64 was, but perhaps not.