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[nkarafo]

That is where the Pippin could have been useful if Apple had a game plan and a good marketing strategy, or Bandai, but neither did.

I think the best suited console for all these 2D games at the time was the N64. Now bare with me here, i'm not talking about the early 8MB era, these carts were too small to fit something like the 20+ MB Metal Slug 1. But in 1998, 32MB carts became possible and pretty much the norm for big, AAA titles.

Think about it. 32MB of rapid speed ROM storage that can pull all these animation frames instantly. That would easily handle Metal Slug 1 and 2/X and any 30+MB or lower Neo-Geo/CPS 1-2 port with no cuts.

Later on, even bigger carts were available. Ogre Battle and Paper Mario use 40MB carts. Conker and RE2 use 64MB carts. That would fit even later Neo-Geo releases. And i'm talking about uncompressed data here. But the N64 could have compressed data in the carts, many games used compression like that, that's why you had a few games with loading times even on that console. And loading in RAM wouldn't be a problem either since the N64 had plenty of RAM, 8MB with the expansion pack (which was pretty much a given in N64's later years). Though, 2D assets don't compress as well, you can still compress something like Metal Slug from 22 MB down to 17 using good old zip.

Now i know, the N64 was not a popular console for 2D games but that's not because it wasn't capable, it was mostly because in those days very few devs would risk an expensive ROM release for a 2D game, when most people wanted 3D games at the time.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Super scaler stuff gets even more impressive over time in my eyes.
Outrun and Space Harrier will simply never get old.
Night Striker, Power Drift, AB Cop. All legends.

Sega should release a super scaler collection - but they wont

The worst thing is that early units came bundled with a games CD that had two of arcade games (Golden Axe and Monaco GP) that could have benefited from a new port that would have benefited from the enhanced capabilities (storage, scaling, etc.)

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I think the best suited console for all these 2D games at the time was the N64. Now bare with me here, i'm not talking about the early 8MB era, these carts were too small to fit something like the 20+ MB Metal Slug 1. But in 1998, 32MB carts became possible and pretty much the norm for big, AAA titles.

Think about it. 32MB of rapid speed ROM storage that can pull all these animation frames instantly. That would easily handle Metal Slug 1 and 2/X and any 30+MB or lower Neo-Geo/CPS 1-2 port with no cuts.

Later on, even bigger carts were available. Ogre Battle and Paper Mario use 40MB carts. Conker and RE2 use 64MB carts. That would fit even later Neo-Geo releases. And i'm talking about uncompressed data here. But the N64 could have compressed data in the carts, many games used compression like that, that's why you had a few games with loading times even on that console. And loading in RAM wouldn't be a problem either since the N64 had plenty of RAM, 8MB with the expansion pack (which was pretty much a given in N64's later years). Though, 2D assets don't compress as well, you can still compress something like Metal Slug from 22 MB down to 17 using good old zip.

Now i know, the N64 was not a popular console for 2D games but that's not because it wasn't capable, it was mostly because in those days very few devs would risk an expensive ROM release for a 2D game, when most people wanted 3D games at the time.

There's two problems with the N64, the first is that for faster Neogeo games with multiple sized sprites, especially larger ones with detail, the N64 has a limitation preventing it from drawing those as fast with how it displays sprites so while the games would still be near identical some games may be a bit slower as a result.

The second issues is the games that the Neogeo uses numerous tricks or additional hardware in its cartridges combined with how fast the system deals with memory for some later ambitious titles, The N64 would have to imitate some of those effects, by making treating some sprites as textures, which the N64 also has a limitation on, so for some of the more ambitious Neogeo games the lack of CD and texture limitation may be a liability.

Other than that yes, I can see the N64 with more RAM being able to do many Neogeo games easily even with all the stored sprites used for the animation, although some of those sprites might not be as clean. But some of that is a side effect of not having dedicated sprite hardware and poor 2D libraries.

But stuff like Metal Slug, some KOF games, and Pulsar should be more than possible.

Though I think if Apple and Bandai were more prepared, the Pippin could have been been a better consoles for that stuff with it's 4X disc drive and 6-8MB of RAM depending on the model (without expansion pack), but like the N64, the potential did not come to fruition.

Low RAM with 3D polygons and texturing was the main focus in the industry at the time, what could you do.

 

[Ozzie666]

I think the best suited console for all these 2D games at the time was the N64. Now bare with me here, i'm not talking about the early 8MB era, these carts were too small to fit something like the 20+ MB Metal Slug 1. But in 1998, 32MB carts became possible and pretty much the norm for big, AAA titles.

Think about it. 32MB of rapid speed ROM storage that can pull all these animation frames instantly. That would easily handle Metal Slug 1 and 2/X and any 30+MB or lower Neo-Geo/CPS 1-2 port with no cuts.

Later on, even bigger carts were available. Ogre Battle and Paper Mario use 40MB carts. Conker and RE2 use 64MB carts. That would fit even later Neo-Geo releases. And i'm talking about uncompressed data here. But the N64 could have compressed data in the carts, many games used compression like that, that's why you had a few games with loading times even on that console. And loading in RAM wouldn't be a problem either since the N64 had plenty of RAM, 8MB with the expansion pack (which was pretty much a given in N64's later years). Though, 2D assets don't compress as well, you can still compress something like Metal Slug from 22 MB down to 17 using good old zip.

Now i know, the N64 was not a popular console for 2D games but that's not because it wasn't capable, it was mostly because in those days very few devs would risk an expensive ROM release for a 2D game, when most people wanted 3D games at the time.

MK Trilogy was a very early piece of work and wasn't bad. I have no doubts the N64 would have been a very capable 2D machine if developers decided to go that path. 32mb and 64mb carts would have made a lot possible. Mischief Makers and a few Japanese only games later in the N64 life cycle, showed great 2D potential. Streaming directly from cartridge would have over-come seen in CD based machines. If I recall the PS1 didn't use the normal method for drawing sprites either, it used single sided polygons (hope I used that right). Wish more developers would have pushed some 2D projects, but most the good ones avoided the platform (Capcom and SNK for example)

 

[Pimpbaa]

Neo-Geo CD had a 1X drive however, which made it incredibly hard to read the sprite animations that were there. If the PSX had 7MB of ram MS1 would have likely not been a problem since it's pretty straight forward. For something like Metal Slug 3 or some other games with close to as impressive animations and effects at double MS3's frame rate, you would likely need a 4X drive.

That is where the Pippin could have been useful if Apple had a game plan and a good marketing strategy, or Bandai, but neither did.

How much RAM you got dictates how good your animations are, not drive speed. Drive speed only affects load times, streaming sprites from CD while the game is playing probably wouldn’t have worked.

 

[Team Andromeda]

I seem to have forgotten the part in that movie where Stallone was using a snowboard.

Never seen that before, I played this on Genesis.

I thought the part where Ripley had guns in Alien 3 but I think it made for a better game LOL. Jokes aside though the extra 3D sections really made Cliffhanger worth buying back in the day. They played and looked incredible and was just like having a SEGA coin-up in your home at the time. Its just a shame there was only 2 sections and they were too hard.

The game did also have a awesome Time Trail mode too

Was there actually any really good examples of Sega Japan using scaling on the Sega CD? I thought I watched a video recently, where they mentioned a distinct lack of using the ASIC chip, with Core Design being the most frequent and best user of scaling.

Outrun and Power drift would have been nice additions, best ports at the time.

Switch made awesome use of the Mega CD from the ASIC chip to the sound chip and the CD storage and is a totally brilliant game
F1 BTL also really pushed the ASIC chip (maybe too hard) and the game was a real incredibly deep F1 sim for the time

Superscalers didn't only scale sprites, but also displayed thousands on screen, which I don't believe Sega CD could do.

Nither could the Mega Drive or Master System, but SEGA looked to bring its Superscaler coin up's to those systems

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

How much RAM you got dictates how good your animations are, not drive speed. Drive speed only affects load times, streaming sprites from CD while the game is playing probably wouldn’t have worked.

What you literally descripted is why you need a faster drive because a faster drive allowed you to stream sprites faster. This is why PC games which tried to acle sprites scaled faster on faster CD drives, in some cases a certain speed was a requirement. The same goes for any effect like say FMV objects or backgrounds/walls.

The PSX had a RAM and drive speed issue. This is proven with the bit of 2D we got with the Pippin where there was nothing like it on the PS1 because the Pippin had 6-8MB of RAM model dependent with a 4X drive.

We see this with sprite games that were simple without much complexity having problems hitting 60fps often running at 30fps, despite having an otherwise powerful processor that should be able to handle it, because the drive is too slow.

 

[nkarafo]

We see this with sprite games that were simple without much complexity having problems hitting 60fps often running at 30fps, despite having an otherwise powerful processor that should be able to handle it, because the drive is too slow.

Are you suggesting there are games that stream animation frames from the CD in real time? I don't think that's how it works.

The CD speed has to do with how fast it loads it's files into RAM. If the RAM is big enough, there should be enough room to fit enough sprites and animations before it needs to load again, like after the end of a level or the next fight.

If the RAM is too small, you are either going to get less animation frames/worse sprites or more loading times in between, for instance there could be a loading screen mid-level. But with fighting games you can only load after the fight ends.

Basically, it's all about the RAM. If you have a CD, RAM does all the work. The speed of the drive only has to do with how long you are going to wait for the RAM to be filled. Otherwise, there shouldn't be any difference in performance or graphics in-game.

ROMs work differently though, because they can transfer data in and out of RAM so fast, the RAM doesn't need to be that big. Factor 5 devs even said in one interview, they were using the ROM almost as RAM, streaming data in real time from the N64 cart, for assets that are used immediately on screen. That's how fast ROMs are. They were faster than HDDs and even modern SSDs.

Streaming directly from the CD doesn't work that way. You can only stream assets that are going to be used later (like loading the next rooms in Metroid Prime while you play) or stuff like FMV that are pre-rendered and other pre-calculated stuff. But if you stream any random assets that you need immediately, you are going to have a bad time. Like how Mortal Kombat on Mega CD freezes the whole game for a while, every time Shang Tsung makes a transformation (no space in RAM for all the characters so they get streamed directly from the slow ass CD). Btw, it's not just the spinning speed that makes the optical discs slow, it's also the seeking time (the slow moving laser mechanism) and the fact that the laser can only be in one place at a time.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Final Fight was much bigger than Street of Rage, that's an example of fans making a game seem more successful than it was. Final Fight 1 and 2 sold over 1 million copies on the SNES, the first more so. Street of Rage while for many people the better game didn't have that kind of popularity in terms of copies sold.

But that was an issue with most of Sega's first party output. They needed to push Street of Rage harder in coverage and marketing but they seemed to rotate their resources based on the title, a very strange strategy.

Anyway, with such high sales Final Fight CD made sense. Final Fight 2 came out the same year after the best-selling Final Fight 1 and was already off to a great start, and Sega got an enhanced version of the first game with features missing form the SNES ported included with CD audio and other welcome changes. Sega probably published it (they didn't make the port) because they though it could bring sales to the Sega CD which a Street of Rage likely would not have.

Of course that didn't work anyway but when you think about it from Sega's perspective it makes sense.

I know I am coming back with more "Whys" but why not push Capcom to bring a CD port of Streetfighter 2 instead of consigning it to the cartridge which was an inferior port to the SNES on a presentation level...? If Midway could bring Mortal Kombat 1 to the Sega CD which was a closer representation of the arcade version....why not Capcom?

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Are you suggesting there are games that stream animation frames from the CD in real time? I don't think that's how it works.

Games stream sprites form the disc in real time. Animation compromises of multiple sprites if you're streaming them slowly the animation as a result will be come choppy or will impact the frame rate because you aren't streaming in the sprites for the animation fast enough, it's not about frames per se.

If you look at a Sprite sheet online of KOF 97 for example on the Neo Geo you can view all the sprites that are used for several moves characters can use. In order to have those sprites come together to visually look fast you have to load all those sprites quickly. If you load them slowly than you end up with slower movements, choppy animation, and/or a lower frame rate because the disc drive isn't able to loads the sprites fast enough to give you 60fps animations or movements.

This is why some older CD consoles have 2D games that are 30fps instead of the usual standard of 60fps especially for more complex 2D games which were expected of the time. We are talking about games that aren't being flashy that shouldn't be a problem to run at 60fps but still run at 30fps and DON'T require a lot of ram and have processors much more powerful than 16-bit game consoles. That deficit is entirely to blame on the disc drive speed, and RAM wouldn't have anything to do with it in the cases of these titles specifically.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I know I am coming back with more "Whys" but why not push Capcom to bring a CD port of Streetfighter 2 instead of consigning it to the cartridge which was an inferior port to the SNES on a presentation level...? If Midway could bring Mortal Kombat 1 to the Sega CD which was a closer representation of the arcade version....why not Capcom?

Mortal Kombat on the Sega CD has it's own issues.

But why? Sega simply wasn't the favorite of Capcom at the time, NEC couldn't really get their attention much at all, and Nintendo had them as one of their 3 biggest third party partners other than Enix and Square.

The fact Sega got any Capcom games at all is already a miracle. Sega was also throwing money at a bunch of companies so probably couldn't incentivize more releases by Capcom and for all we know, Sega probably though they didn't need them given they were dominating the biggest gaming market at the time.

Capcom was only associated with 12 games on the Genesis and CD, and I say associated because Capcom wasn't even involved with all of them, despite popular belief very few "Capcom" releases on Sega hardware at the time were actually developed or even published by Capcom.

Ghouls and Ghosts was a port on the Genesis of Ghosts and Goblins but it was licensed by Capcom and made by Sega, not Capcom.

Sega also made the Forgotten worlds port, The Strider port, Mercs, Chicki Chicki Boys, and even Final Fight CD wasn't made in-house and made by A-Wave iirc.

The only Capcom games on the Genesis or CD made by Capcom were Street Fighter Championship edition, Super Street Fighter 2, and Slam Masters fromw hat I am aware of.

Meanwhile Capcom developed a large number of their SNES releases.

Just how it was.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Games stream sprites form the disc in real time. Animation compromises of multiple sprites if you're streaming them slowly the animation as a result will be come choppy or will impact the frame rate because you aren't streaming in the sprites for the animation fast enough, it's not about frames per se.

If you look at a Sprite sheet online of KOF 97 for example on the Neo Geo you can view all the sprites that are used for several moves characters can use. In order to have those sprites come together to visually look fast you have to load all those sprites quickly. If you load them slowly than you end up with slower movements, choppy animation, and/or a lower frame rate because the disc drive isn't able to loads the sprites fast enough to give you 60fps animations or movements.

This is why some older CD consoles have 2D games that are 30fps instead of the usual standard of 60fps especially for more complex 2D games which were expected of the time. We are talking about games that aren't being flashy that shouldn't be a problem to run at 60fps but still run at 30fps and DON'T require a lot of ram and have processors much more powerful than 16-bit game consoles. That deficit is entirely to blame on the disc drive speed, and RAM wouldn't have anything to do with it in the cases of these titles specifically.

Games did not stream sprites in real time on any old CD system period. Stream audio or pre rendered video sure, not sprites. Even the fastest CD drives would have been too slow.

 

[AngelMuffin]

Ah yes, the Sega CD. Wish I could say I had fond memories of it outside of Lunar. The beginning of the end for Sega.

 

[DaGwaphics]

I thought the part where Ripley had guns in Alien 3 but I think it made for a better game LOL. Jokes aside though the extra 3D sections really made Cliffhanger worth buying back in the day. They played and looked incredible and was just like having a SEGA coin-up in your home at the time. Its just a shame there was only 2 sections and they were too hard.

The game did also have a awesome Time Trail mode too

No doubt. I'm sure I would have been blown away by it at that point. The 3D graphics on PS1 were such a game changer at launch.

I still find it funny that they did the snowboard thing vs. just having him running from an avalanche which the game leaned heavily on anyway and the movie did feature. Maybe they couldn't do any animations on it that looked like running.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Games did not stream sprites in real time on any old CD system period.

You seem to be forgetting that systems that don't have sprite hardware are not actually using "sprites" the same as the Neogeo for ecampe, but polygons which do have an impact when streamed from a slow drive. The PS1 being an example of a system that makes it's "sprites" using flat polygons. Because of this method of making sprites, a fast game with animations will require the CD drive to be fast enough for it to be seamless as slow access will have negative impact on said game.

Otherwise you end up with choppy animation, needing to removes frames, and/or lowfps. The PS1 did 60fps for some of the same games of slower consoles because it had in some cases double the speed or a better quality drive. Otherwise there's no other differences between the versions of the games. We are talking about games that aren't being flashy and non-complex.

For PS1 if you want fast complex games with all the flash and animations, more ram would help but it would only solve part of the problem. PS1 can do good 2D for the time as we know, but if you wanted to do something more ambitious, you were going to need at least a 4X drive with how it "created" sprites. if you wanted things to move, swap, and generate fast enough while retaining fluidity and smoothness. you need faster access.

 

[nkarafo]

Games stream sprites form the disc in real time. Animation compromises of multiple sprites if you're streaming them slowly the animation as a result will be come choppy or will impact the frame rate because you aren't streaming in the sprites for the animation fast enough, it's not about frames per se.

If you look at a Sprite sheet online of KOF 97 for example on the Neo Geo you can view all the sprites that are used for several moves characters can use. In order to have those sprites come together to visually look fast you have to load all those sprites quickly. If you load them slowly than you end up with slower movements, choppy animation, and/or a lower frame rate because the disc drive isn't able to loads the sprites fast enough to give you 60fps animations or movements.

This is why some older CD consoles have 2D games that are 30fps instead of the usual standard of 60fps especially for more complex 2D games which were expected of the time. We are talking about games that aren't being flashy that shouldn't be a problem to run at 60fps but still run at 30fps and DON'T require a lot of ram and have processors much more powerful than 16-bit game consoles. That deficit is entirely to blame on the disc drive speed, and RAM wouldn't have anything to do with it in the cases of these titles specifically.

That's not how it works.

Can i ask though, where do you get this information from? I'd like to know so i can see for myself.

For PS1 if you want fast complex games with all the flash and animations, more ram would help but it would only solve part of the problem. PS1 can do good 2D for the time as we know, but if you wanted to do something more ambitious, you were going to need at least a 4X drive with how it "created" sprites. if you wanted things to move, swap, and generate fast enough while retaining fluidity and smoothness. you need faster access.

No, with a CD based console you would only need more RAM. Like how the Saturn had the RAM expansions. Which is why it had the best 2D ports from CPS2 games, with no cuts in animation, despite having the same CD drive speeds as the Playstation (which had a ton of cut frames in the same ports). Like how the Neo-Geo CD did much better than the PS1 with AES/MVS ports, despite having a slower CD drive. You had long ass loading times, but enough RAM to store all sprites in most games, with a few exceptions.

It's just the RAM. The CD is too slow, even the faster CD drives, for anything other than redbook audio and pre-calculated and FMV stuff. And installing.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

That's not how it works.

Can i ask though, where do you get this information from? I'd like to know so i can see for myself.

The PS1 can stream polygons from disc right? I don't get how you're getting hung up here, PS1 creates sprites from polygons because it doesn't have hardware to create real sprites.

The more sprites you use the more polygons the PS1 is generating.

Playstation-to-Saturn Porting

The Playstation (henceforth PSX) cannot do 2D. "But," you say, "I've played 2D games on the Playstation. Of course it can do 2D. I've even seen specifications for the 2D capabilities of the Playstation in FAQs and other sources." This is misleading. The games you have played appear to be 2D because they are flat, not because they are 2D. While the Saturn has distinct hardware for displaying and processing 2D sprites and other 2D elements, the Playstation does not. In order to represent a 2D game, the PSX must have a 3D engine that creates a polygon, textures one side of it, and then keeps that side facing the same direction and manipulates that polygon as if it was a sprite. This means that doing 2D on the PSX is really just doing flat 3D. The specs you've seen in FAQs and on the net, then, are an estimation of the ability of the PSX to pretend to be doing 2D. This is unlike the Saturn, which has separate 2D and 3D capabilities that can be mixed when needed or utilized separately. In order to create Dracula X on the Playstation, the incredible 2D-looking game that it is, the programmers had to create a custom 3D engine. The theory, then, is that the Saturn Dracula X is a port of the PSX's 3D engine with modifications rather than a game reprogrammed to properly utilize the Saturn's 2D and 3D capabilities. While the Saturn version of the game has extra content and some reprogrammed or changed special effects, the engine itself was a direct port and the graphics were not effectively modified or touched up as a result.

Therefore, any effects or other flashy stuff that happens in 2D games on PS1, or other consoles that don't have sprite hardware, all are done ovetop, or coded with polygons (and textures) therefor to have FAST and flashy sprite games with a lot of sprite-based effects on screen on a consoles that doesn't really have 'sprites" you end up doing more work than a sprite based machine and because these are all polygons and textures linked to polygons you need a fast drive to keep up fluidity.

The lack of this is why some versions of games may not look at smooth, be choppy, or run at 30fps despite being "2D", although the issue is really about being able to stream textures and polygon calculations fast enough to give the illusion of high fidelity 2D. This requires quick and fast data access tot he disc if there isn't a need for more ram. If there isn't and you still are getting choppy or low frame rates or other issues on one consoles, but not the other than the only difference is data access speed tot he disc.

 

[nkarafo]

The PS1 can stream polygons from disc right? I don't get how you're getting hung up here, PS1 creates sprites from polygons because it doesn't have hardware to create real sprites.

The more sprites you use the more polygons the PS1 is generating.

Playstation-to-Saturn Porting

No, there is no streaming of anything from the CD when it comes to random real time assets. And even if it could stream polygons as fast from the CD it's because polygons themselves don't take as much space as sprites or textures. But the 2D polygons for those 2D games still need to have textures to pose as sprites. And these textures take just as much space and animation frames as regular sprites. There's not much of a difference really. Just like sprites, textures need to be loaded in RAM first. This is for all games, not just 2D. 3D games also need to load to RAM.

Nowhere in the text you quoted or the page you posted says anything about real time streaming 2D assets from the CD.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

No, there is no streaming of anything from the CD when it comes to random real time assets. And even if it could stream polygons as fast from the CD it's because polygons themselves don't take as much space as sprites or textures. The 2D polygons for those 2D games still need to have textures to pose as sprites. And these textures take just as much space and animation frames as regular sprites. There's not much of a difference really. Just like sprites, textures need to be loaded in RAM first. This is for all games, not just 2D. 3D games also need to load to RAM.

Nowhere in the text you quoted or the page you posted says anything about real time streaming 2D assets from the CD.

You keep calling it 2D assets, this is where you keep getting hung up, there are no 2D assets, they are 3D assets posing as 2D assets.

Even with what you said you still have to access data on the disc FIRST, unless you think the data just shows up out of nowhere in the consoles memory,

It's a simple path, Read>send>render. This happens in seconds in fast games where things change on screen quickly. If the disc drive is slow you aren't going to be able to pull the data fast enough to render as fast and fluid. The sprites don't load in from thin air.

 

[nkarafo]

You keep calling it 2D assets, this is where you keep getting hung up, there are no 2D assets, they are 3D assets posing as 2D assets.

Even with what you said you still have to access data on the disc FIRST, unless you think the data just shows up out of nowhere in the consoles memory,

It's a simple path, Read>send>render. This happens in seconds in fast games where things change on screen quickly. If the disc drive is slow you aren't going to be able to pull the data fast enough to render as fast and fluid. The sprites don't load in from thin air.

Textures are literally 2D assets. It's the definition of a 2D asset. They are two dimensional pictures.

Here's how it works: The assets are stored in the disc. But because the disc is too slow, it has to load those assets in RAM first. That's why you get LOADING screens. Once that's done, EVERYTHING you see on screen is the stuff stored in RAM. Not "thin air", RAM. So, the bigger the RAM, the more assets you can see while you are playing in real time, before the game needs to load new stuff, like a new level or new fighters. Which is when you get another loading screen, and so on. That's why consoles with more RAM had better/more sprites and animations. It's because they can fit more sprites/textures/animations/whatever at any given time.

The ONLY thing CD speed does is load stuff faster in RAM. Shorter loading times. And in the early 90's you needed faster CDs for better looking FMV games such as the 7th guest, which needed at least a 2x speed CD Rom for the better quality videos.

I mean, all this is basic knowledge that exists for decades. I don't know where you get your information from.

Therefore, any effects or other flashy stuff that happens in 2D games on PS1, or other consoles that don't have sprite hardware, all are done ovetop, or coded with polygons (and textures) therefor to have FAST and flashy sprite games with a lot of sprite-based effects on screen on a consoles that doesn't really have 'sprites" you end up doing more work than a sprite based machine and because these are all polygons and textures linked to polygons you need a fast drive to keep up fluidity.

The lack of this is why some versions of games may not look at smooth, be choppy, or run at 30fps despite being "2D", although the issue is really about being able to stream textures and polygon calculations fast enough to give the illusion of high fidelity 2D. This requires quick and fast data access tot he disc if there isn't a need for more ram. If there isn't and you still are getting choppy or low frame rates or other issues on one consoles, but not the other than the only difference is data access speed tot he disc.

I just say this edit...

It's clear to me that you post things as you understand them, in your own mind. Meaning you post your own assumptions.

Are you really interested about this hobby? You really wanna know this stuff? I can see you are passionate about this so i suggest looking up on topic stuff and read things people with more knowledge than you post.

The information is all out there. Here's an easy start by googling "How the Playstation works". It's a good start:

How PlayStation Works

The PlayStation is one of the most popular video game systems of all time. Learn how PlayStation started and what's inside this video game console.

electronics.howstuffworks.com

As each specific part of the game is requested, the application code and hardware-render geometry are loaded into RAM, while the video and audio portions are usually streamed directly from the CD.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Textures are literally 2D assets. It's the definition of a 2D asset. They are two dimensional pictures.

Here's how it works: The assets are stored in the disc. But because the disc is too slow, it has to load those assets in RAM first. That's why you get LOADING screens. Once that's done, EVERYTHING you see on screen is the stuff stored in RAM. Not "thin air", RAM. So, the bigger the RAM, the more assets you can see while you are playing in real time, before the game needs to load new stuff, like a new level or new fighters. Which is when you get another loading screen, and so on. That's why consoles with more RAM had better/more sprites and animations. It's because they can fit more sprites/textures/animations/whatever at any given time.

The ONLY thing CD speed does is load stuff faster in RAM. Shorter loading times. And in the early 90's you needed faster CDs for better looking FMV games such as the 7th guest, which needed at least a 2x speed CD Rom for the better quality videos.

I mean, all this is basic knowledge that exists for decades. I don't know where you get your information from.




I just say this edit...

It's clear to me that you post things as you understand them, in your own mind. Meaning you post your own assumptions.

I think you should post on a homebrew board and maybe you'll learn something about how this works, because it's clear to me after this long conversation you haven't even attempt to look up anything, and you keep sipping a lot and then claiming i said something different than what I actually did.

It's clear you seem to not know much about how this works at all. What's more is you keep mentioning processes that prove my point and you seem to not realize that's the case. You seem to think assets load in out of thin air, and keep pushing that narrative when you respond back. Fast access to data is self-explanatory, you need data access to get what you need to put on the screen. I can't makes this any simpler but you keep skipping over that part.

You keep saying "IN RAM" and you keep skipping the process of getting things in "RAM" to the "SCREEN each time. You keep skipping steps in the process so, maybe one of those guys on a tech can give you a demo or something that will convince you better than I have because I feel like you're not even reading my posts.

When we have games with the same ram as the PS1, or not needing more ram than what they have over the PS1, and they run choppy or/and at a low frame rate the ONLY difference is the disc drive, not the ram. I've already said this, and you have skipped over this as well since there's no counter to that fact, so what can I do. I tried.

 

[Ozzie666]

Textures are literally 2D assets. It's the definition of a 2D asset. They are two dimensional pictures.

Here's how it works: The assets are stored in the disc. But because the disc is too slow, it has to load those assets in RAM first. That's why you get LOADING screens. Once that's done, EVERYTHING you see on screen is the stuff stored in RAM. Not "thin air", RAM. So, the bigger the RAM, the more assets you can see while you are playing in real time, before the game needs to load new stuff, like a new level or new fighters. Which is when you get another loading screen, and so on. That's why consoles with more RAM had better/more sprites and animations. It's because they can fit more sprites/textures/animations/whatever at any given time.

The ONLY thing CD speed does is load stuff faster in RAM. Shorter loading times. And in the early 90's you needed faster CDs for better looking FMV games such as the 7th guest, which needed at least a 2x speed CD Rom for the better quality videos.

I mean, all this is basic knowledge that exists for decades. I don't know where you get your information from.




I just say this edit...

It's clear to me that you post things as you understand them, in your own mind. Meaning you post your own assumptions.

Are you really interested about this hobby? You really wanna know this stuff? I can see you are passionate about this so i suggest looking up on topic stuff and read things people with more knowledge than you post.

The information is all out there. Here's an easy start by googling "How the Playstation works". It's a good start:

http://[URL]https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/playstation.htm

[/URL]

I think the only thing Eddie is right about is a massive pool available ram, that could be used after a big loading period. The Saturn 4MB ram cartridge for example makes a big difference. I would argue that attempting to stream from CD for 2D or flat surface polygons would not work for animation purposes, in 2d games pretty much what you are saying. Mortal Kombat transformations for the final boss, they had a special option available to pre-load several characters. Capcom games struggled with this; no decent CD rom would have changed that at least in the 90's, not even sure about now.

Textures once loaded are less resource intensive than 2D animation, traditional or not. Once again, I agree with what you are saying. Spooling for Crash Bandicoot from CD is entirely different then trying to spool for a high intense 2D sprite game with countless frames of animation.

This reminds of another Eddie thread from not long ago. It's really all about fast access ram. Not even the fabled pippin could manage it compared to true ram or a cartridge system.

You get it, you understand it. It's clearly obvious.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

It's really all about fast access ram.

Amazing how everyone keeps skipping a step here, guess everythings already there in ram right from thin air.

Eh, pointless going in circles, minds won't be changed anyway.

 

[nkarafo]

Where did you get that "thin air" argument from again? I said the data goes from the slow medium (CD) to the fast medium (RAM) via the process of LOADING and then to your screen.

Where's the thin air" Where's the gap you see that others don't?

I explained the process in such detail, it's amazing to me you still don't get it.

But it's you. I know you, i shouldn't allow you to drag me into your rabbit hole again....

 

[Ozzie666]

Amazing how everyone keeps skipping a step here, guess everythings already there in ram right from thin air.

Eh, pointless going in circles, minds won't be changed anyway.

I didn't skip a step. I mentioned a big load into ram. Even on Saturn with the 4MB cart, thing's didn't stream. They were chunk loaded from CD then used from the fast ram cart and Saturn's ram. I'm not sure what exactly you are trying to say. Happy to hear it.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Where did you get that "thin air" argument from again? I said the data goes from the slow medium (CD) to the fast medium (RAM) and then to your screen.

Where's the thin air" Where's the gap you see that others don't?

I explained the process in such detail, it's amazing to me you still don't get it.

But it's you. I know you, i shouldn't allow you to drag me into your rabbit hole again....

You have all three parts listed but you still don't understand where the speed comes in, opr fast calls to load in more assets in faster more animated games.

If you can't figure this out than there's nothing to continue. If there's' a fast complex bullet hell with ships and rotation and animations all over the screen that changes on the fly how do you think using those three things the process works to change them on the fly in real time?

Speed of the drive directly impacts the tree to get the changes on the screen on the fly, while still keeping everything else running smoothly without choppiness or lowering the frame rate. It shouldn't be this hard to get. You keep skipping steps each time, that's the part that keeps baffling me. You keep oversimplfying the process so you forget something each time. That's why this keeps going in circles, at this point it should be obvious. If not well, what can I do if you keep omitting the same steps again and again.

 

[nkarafo]

When we have games with the same ram as the PS1, or not needing more ram than what they have over the PS1, and they run choppy or/and at a low frame rate the ONLY difference is the disc drive, not the ram. I've already said this, and you have skipped over this as well since there's no counter to that fact, so what can I do. I tried.

No, it's not the CD speed at fault here. There's also the CPU speed, the hardware architecture, the GPU, etc. Different consoles require different programming and optimizations. Sometimes ports are bad. And the CD speed has nothing to do with this 99,9% of the time.

Does that answer this specific question? Have i left anything unanswered?

If there's' a fast complex bullet hell with ships and rotation and animations all over the screen that changes on the fly how do you think using those three things the process works to change them on the fly in real time?

All the assets are stored to RAM for that game to function. And when data from the disk is needed it will either load it in the background before it's needed or there will be a loading screen. Things like rotation is the hardware taking assets stored in RAM (sprites or textures) and rotates them.

The CD rom plays no part in what happens in real time. In many games you can even completely REMOVE the CD while you play and nothing will happen until the next loading screen...

 

[PhaseJump]

 

[Futaleufu]

Games do stream sprites from CD, the easiest example is Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat games.

If you want an example of how ill suited were the 32 bit machines to run ports of complex Neo Geo games try Samurai Shodown 3 on both PS1 and Saturn.

 

[nkarafo]

Games do stream sprites from CD, the easiest example is Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat games.

But that's an exception that i already mentioned as an example. And the game literally freezes for sseconds, it's not just regular frame drops like Eddie suggests. The CD is too slow for randomly accessing graphics you might need at the exact moment.




Sure the CD can stream stuff while you play in the background but these are stuff you are going to need later, not immediately. That's how Metroid Prime worked. But again, that's just loading in the background for rooms that are next to the one you are in. Devs found other ways to mask loading times from the CD/DVD like those long corridors, the slow walk segments or doors that take a while to open. That's how streaming from a CD/DVD looks.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Literally the only 2D games I’ve seen that streamed anything were games that used pre-rendered backgrounds like Silpheed on the Sega CD. Well that and game music. On the PS1 you could pop open the lid while a fighter was running and the only thing that would stop would be the music (well, until the match ended and the game tried to load something else).

edit: forgot about that port of MK, but a good example of why the fuck it’s not a good idea.

 

[Ozzie666]

Literally the only 2D games I’ve seen that streamed anything were games that used pre-rendered backgrounds like Silpheed on the Sega CD. Well that and game music. On the PS1 you could pop open the lid while a fighter was running and the only thing that would stop would be the music (well, until the match ended and the game tried to load something else).

edit: forgot about that port of MK, but a good example of why the fuck it’s not a good idea.

MK is the main example that comes to mind, just because it can be done, doesn't mean it should be or it actually works well.

 

[SF Kosmo]

File this down as another of the many "WTF, Sega?" weird decisions in their history.

Instead, they made a ton of super scaler games for the 32X. Which didn't even utilize the scaling chip in the Sega CD.

Do any Sega historians/gurus know the reasoning behind this? Was it some technical limitation of the chip that made it bad for porting over games like Space Harrier, Outrun etc?

I guess there was one arcade scaling game ported over but not by Sega (Night Striker), and it was pixelly mess.

I think the simple answer is that it wasn't designed to do that and couldn't. I think the the chip was much more similar to the scaling abilities of the SNES that could scale a sprite or a background layer, not something like X Board that could toss around dozens of scaled sprites.

 

[theclaw135]

File this down as another of the many "WTF, Sega?" weird decisions in their history.

Instead, they made a ton of super scaler games for the 32X. Which didn't even utilize the scaling chip in the Sega CD.

Do any Sega historians/gurus know the reasoning behind this? Was it some technical limitation of the chip that made it bad for porting over games like Space Harrier, Outrun etc?

I guess there was one arcade scaling game ported over but not by Sega (Night Striker), and it was pixelly mess.

32X was (poorly) a sibling of the Saturn hardware, rather than Sega CD.

 

[Futaleufu]

I think the simple answer is that it wasn't designed to do that and couldn't. I think the the chip was much more similar to the scaling abilities of the SNES that could scale a sprite or a background layer, not something like X Board that could toss around dozens of scaled sprites.

The SNES can't scale sprites, only one BG layer.

 

[Team Andromeda]

No doubt. I'm sure I would have been blown away by it at that point. The 3D graphics on PS1 were such a game changer at launch.

I still find it funny that they did the snowboard thing vs. just having him running from an avalanche which the game leaned heavily on anyway and the movie did feature. Maybe they couldn't do any animations on it that looked like running.

I think it was more to with Snowboarding was getting very cool at that time and I guess the team thought it would be a fun cool extra.
When this game was made no other home console had the hardware to handle the graphics via hardware (with simultaneous multiple spite scaling and roataion) and its just a shame SEGA never made more use of the ASIC chip.

That's what I wanted and expected from the Mega CD was Mode 7 killing effects and SEGA scaler Arcade ports.

 

[cireza]

Are you suggesting there are games that stream animation frames from the CD in real time? I don't think that's how it works.

You definitely don't stream frames of animation 60 times per second from a CD, but you know who you are dealing with, right ?

If it was possible to stream this fast, it would be pointless to put so much RAM in CD consoles. Strangely, they all had huge amount of RAM, how strange... Why the jump from 64K on MegaDrive to 768K on Mega-CD if this is useless ? Makes no sense. A faster disc drive doesn't fix the problem : it is good enough to make loading times shorter, but still way too slow for streaming animations real time.

Mortal Kombat games all have loading times for Shang Tsung morphs. That's because it is not possible to stream fast enough from the CD, obviously.

 

[Stefan.North]

Nither could the Mega Drive or Master System, but SEGA looked to bring its Superscaler coin up's to those systems

That has more to do with the fact that those systems sold 35 and 15 milion so those ports made more sense (regardless of the downgrade) than using resources on porting games (that were already on a lot of systems) to an add-on with 2 milion install base.

 

[Team Andromeda]

That has more to do with the fact that those systems sold 35 and 15 milion so those ports made more sense (regardless of the downgrade) than using resources on porting games (that were already on a lot of systems) to an add-on with 2 milion install base.

So nothing at all to do with the number of sprites. And I made the point in the earlier in this tread, that given SEGA Japan had already ported the likes of Outrun to both the MS and MD they didn't think it would be worth their while porting them to the Mega CD. A big mistake by SEGA Japan IMO

 

[Stefan.North]

So nothing at all to do with the number of sprites.

Reasoning doesn't have to have only one factor. If it was an easy port (like SNK could do from MVS to AES) they would port over at least Space Harrier, Outrun and Afterburner, regardless of potential sales. Since it required working around sprite number and color limitations, ports weren't economically viable anymore.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

No, it's not the CD speed at fault here.

Dodging again, explain the choppiness and lower frame rates for the same games on other consoles that have the same RAM as the PS1? You haven't answered that yet because you have no answer, as the only differentiator is the CD-Drive.

You definitely don't stream frames of animation 60 times per second from a CD, but you know who you are dealing with, right ?

We are dealing with misinformation man Cireza who is in the middle of misquoting what was said.

I didn't skip a step. I mentioned a big load into ram. Even on Saturn with the 4MB cart, thing's didn't stream.

Still skipping a step.

This really isn't hard guys, here's a post about Doom:

When analyzing the PS1 port compared to the Jag, the PS1 CD ROM drive faces a significant disadvantage being only 2x, which is much to slow for dynamically swapping out assets. This is an obstacle all CD-based consoles had at the time including the JAG CD, and that's not including seek times just to start reading the data. The PS1 does have 2 MB of RAM which is shared with the Jag, however the major advantage to its favor is the PSX doesn't have ROM storage. ROM access-times were leaps and bounds faster than what any CD-based console was capable of for the time.

As a result, you can easily dynamically allocate textures or swap them out quickly from ROM when no longer needed. On the PS1, this process is much slower due to it's low CD transfer speed. As a result, the port rarely swaps out assets as each time it attempts to do so grinds the game to a halt or substantially slows it down in order to slowly read and transfer the data.

Instead, the programmers opted to put more focus on the PS1's VRAM instead of working with the slow transfer speeds from CD, but as a consequence there are less enemies in the PS1 port compared to the Jag. The Jags faster transfer rate helps make this seamless, and requires less overall RAM on the Jag in execution. John Carmack back in 1994 was reportedly not a fan of CD as a medium for gaming then, thinking that all it added was bloat companies felt obligated to fill up with video and audio, instead of offering any real benefit to game design.

Of course, you aren't streaming everything from the CD by itself, but it's major support for some of the more complex or ambitious 2D games. It takes the work load off the rest of the hardware. How else do you get missing elements in a game that other ports have, or have choppier or lower frame rate ports of the same game as a weaker system with Less or the SAME amount of RAM? Only one explanation.

if you disagree with homebrewers or people who took deep dives in the tech than we'll just have to agree to disagree, even though this is clear cut

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

So nothing at all to do with the number of sprites. And I made the point in the earlier in this tread, that given SEGA Japan had already ported the likes of Outrun to both the MS and MD they didn't think it would be worth their while porting them to the Mega CD. A big mistake by SEGA Japan IMO

Was it? Would a CD Outrun or Space Harrier do anything for the Sega CD which had slow burn sales?

Most people would have likely brought the ports on the MD anyway even if it was on the CD, seems like a waste of resources to me. I think they needed to port some slightly younger arcade games to really get more people to care about the Sega CD long-term. They weren't lighting the charts on fire on the MD anyway after all so there's really no advantage of porting those over to the CD.

They needed younger arcade ports or better original titles you couldn't get on the MD to sell Mega CDs. Keep in mind the 32X was selling much faster than the Sega CD from launch before Sega blocked it's momentum themselves.

 

[diffusionx]

Yea, I mean nowadays we look back on SegaCD and be like man, too bad Sega didnt port Outrun but it isnt like Outrun was some major franchise in 1992. It was yesterday’s news. We already got ports, old ports, they were hit-and-miss for sure, but our notion of “good port” was TOTALLY different to how it is today. A slightly better Outrun wasn’t going to sell systems. Those Saturn superscalar games are awesome but they were budget releases in Japan only. People didn’t really care about this stuff.

As stupid and silly as it seems today, Sega leawning hard on FMV was probably the right approach to sell SegaCD, it was novel, it looked great in ads, it was a major differentiator from carts. A year later Myst came out out on PC and was like, the biggest PC game of all time because of all the multimedia stuff. People really did care about that stuff and it stood out In a way that slightly better scaling wouldn’t.

 

[nkarafo]

Dodging again, explain the choppiness and lower frame rates for the same games on other consoles that have the same RAM as the PS1? You haven't answered that yet because you have no answer, as the only differentiator is the CD-Drive.

I did answer that, not my fault if you don't read my posts.

Also lol @ "the only differentiator is the CD-Drive" ...Because as we all know, every console shares the same architecture, the same CPU, the same GPU, the same quirks and bottlenecks... Right guys?

Still skipping a step.

This has been explained to you several times but...

Of course, you aren't streaming everything from the CD by itself, but it's major support for some of the more complex or ambitious 2D games.

Your very own quote implies CDs weren't a "major support" but a major bottleneck instead. ROMs and fast, solid state storage is the major support here since you can swap data fast and in some cases even skip the RAM itself (according to Factor-5 quotes about Star Wars on N64). CDs were nothing but a cheap medium publishers pushed to lower their risks. Other than huge space, everything else was a bottleneck, low speed transfers, massive seeking times and lag, mechanical parts prone to fail, more noise, scratched discs, etc. There's nothing here that suggests "major support" other than the extra bloat Carmack talked about. Especially early on when consoles were so weak and devs didn't know how to actually make use of all that space. Hence all the FMV garbage and cart sized games with redbook audio.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Was it? Would a CD Outrun or Space Harrier do anything for the Sega CD which had slow burn sales?

Most people would have likely brought the ports on the MD anyway even if it was on the CD, seems like a waste of resources to me. I think they needed to port some slightly younger arcade games to really get more people to care about the Sega CD long-term. They weren't lighting the charts on fire on the MD anyway after all so there's really no advantage of porting those over to the CD.

They needed younger arcade ports or better original titles you couldn't get on the MD to sell Mega CDs. Keep in mind the 32X was selling much faster than the Sega CD from launch before Sega blocked it's momentum themselves.

It would me. SEGA were the Arcades and I always bought their systems 1st and foremost to play SEGA Arcade games in the home.
To have SEGA Arcade ports using the ASIC chip would have be a massive deal and then add in having Arcade perfect sound effects and music would have been almost game changing in the 1992/3.

In 1991 when the Mega CD came out SEGA's Sprite scaler coin up's were state of the art and having Super Hang On, Outrun and AB II on the Mega CD with full use of the ASIC chip would have been massive for a lot of SEGA fans IMO. It would have showed off the system far better than FMV IMO.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Your very own quote implies CDs weren't a "major support" but a major bottleneck instead.

Completely ignores the mention of the slowness of the CD drive and it being 2x, to pretend quote wasn't directly pointing out the 2x drive speed itself was too slow to even do an adequate job, and a faster drive would have done a better job.

When analyzing the PS1 port compared to the Jag, the PS1 CD ROM drive faces a significant disadvantage being only 2x, which is much to slow for dynamically swapping out assets. This is an obstacle all CD-based consoles had at the time including the JAG CD

Now that's it's clear you're arguing in bad faith and not being entirely honest, as well as continuing to skip words in my previous posts, no further need to continue. Still removing context from quotes, I keep forgetting you do this each time need to remember this in the future to avoid this again.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Reasoning doesn't have to have only one factor. If it was an easy port (like SNK could do from MVS to AES) they would port over at least Space Harrier, Outrun and Afterburner, regardless of potential sales. Since it required working around sprite number and color limitations, ports weren't economically viable anymore.

You were the one who brought up the number of sprites. I simply pointed out to you the Mega Drive and Master System didn't push a lot of sprites either.

I put to you that in a tiny little UK studio could push the Mega CD and fully use the Mega CD ASIC chip, like CORE Desgin did
Then SEGA Japan should have been able to make far better use of the system.

Really which looks better and more impressive to you ?

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Yea, I mean nowadays we look back on SegaCD and be like man, too bad Sega didnt port Outrun but it isnt like Outrun was some major franchise in 1992. It was yesterday’s news. We already got ports, old ports, they were hit-and-miss for sure, but our notion of “good port” was TOTALLY different to how it is today. A slightly better Outrun wasn’t going to sell systems. Those Saturn superscalar games are awesome but they were budget releases in Japan only. People didn’t really care about this stuff.

As stupid and silly as it seems today, Sega leawning hard on FMV was probably the right approach to sell SegaCD, it was novel, it looked great in ads, it was a major differentiator from carts. A year later Myst came out out on PC and was like, the biggest PC game of all time because of all the multimedia stuff. People really did care about that stuff and it stood out In a way that slightly better scaling wouldn’t.

FMV was a good thing to use, the problem was the SEGA CD was bad at it, and many players first experienced FMV gaming on it which had added to it's already mixed reputation today. PC in the early 90's was going in a different direction with FMV than the Sega CD was.

It would me. SEGA were the Arcades and I always bought their systems 1st and foremost to play SEGA Arcade games in the home.
To have SEGA Arcade ports using the ASIC chip would have be a massive deal and then add in having Arcade perfect sound effects and music would have been almost game changing in the 1992/3.

In 1991 when the Mega CD came out SEGA's Sprite scaler coin up's were state of the art and having Super Hang On, Outrun and AB II on the Mega CD with full use of the ASIC chip would have been massive for a lot of SEGA fans IMO. It would have showed off the system far better than FMV IMO.

Yeah, but we are talking about games from 85-86, when Sega had more recent scaling games to port over that would have been a better incentive to buy. Outrun on the MD was a decent port for what it was and it wasn't really getting MD's off the shelf.

I mean even the PC Engine, Hucard even, got a port of Power Drift, neither the MD or the Mega CD got a port and that probably would have gotten more attention than Outrun and Space Harrier.

 

[diffusionx]

FMV was a good thing to use, the problem was the SEGA CD was bad at it, and many players first experienced FMV gaming on it which had added to it's already mixed reputation today. PC in the early 90's was going in a different direction with FMV than the Sega CD was.

Well, first of all, FMV vidya is fundamentally flawed. The reputation was always going to be mixed. That said, I played SegaCD back when it was out, and maybe it was technically bad at FMV, maybe I was just a dumb kid, but it was still REALLY impressive. It just was lol. Obviously it wore out its welcome super fast, and Digital Pictures put out tons of horrid shit, but I can’t say Sega made the wrong decision in focusing on it considering where the market was. I mentioned Myst just to say that the market back in 1991-1994 wasn’t what people think of it today. As stupid as it seems, FMV was a much bigger selling point than scaling sprites, it just was. And it wasn’t just Sega, it was the entire market.

To that end, SegaCD didnt just get FMV, it got lots of PC-style adventure games, like Willy Beamish, Rise of the Dragon, Monkey Island, Snatcher, etc. It probably should have gotten more of those.

 

[nkarafo]

Completely ignores the mention of the slowness of the CD drive and it being 2x, to pretend quote wasn't directly pointing out the 2x drive speed itself was too slow to even do an adequate job, and a faster drive would have done a better job.

What you don't understand is that it doesn't matter how fast the read/write speed of a CD is. Doesn't matter if it's 2x or 4x or 24x. It's still too slow compared to Roms or HDDs and there's still the issue of seeking times and latency.

You might get away with streaming some assets from the CD in RAM for LATER use but forget about streaming random animation frames in real time when they are IMMEDIATELY needed because of the latency and seeking times, you are going to end up with the same freezing situation as MK on Mega CD, not just normal frame rate drops and slowdowns, those have to do with differences in hardware and the porting quality.

Me and some other poster already mentioned how a lot of games don't even need the CD in the tray after it loaded it's contents in RAM. You can literally remove the CD and continue play, until the next loading session is needed. Of course, you completely ignored this even though you complain that i ignore stuff you post. "Rules for thee, not for me", eh?

The rule is simple: Anything that the CPU/GPU needs to have fast access to is stored in RAM. Streaming from the CD is not optimal but if it's needed it's used for assets that are not immediately needed, it's used for data that's going to be used later, like the graphics/sounds of the next room.