comparing and contrasting documentation

C O N S O L E W A R S : ‘ 9 0 S E D I T I O N

The big decision in console gaming in the mid 1990s was between the Sega Saturn, the PlayStation, and the Nintendo 64.

TABLE 1. Comparison Chart of Fifth Generation Consoles [1]

Name Sega Saturn PlayStation Nintendo 64

Developer Sega Sony Nintendo

Console

Launch price (USD)

US$399.99 (equivalent to $642 in 2017)

US$299.99 (equivalent to $482 in 2017)[22]

US$199.99 (equivalent to $312 in 2017)

Release date

 JP: November 22, 1994  NA: May 11, 1995  EU: July 8, 1995

 JP: December 3, 1994  NA: September 9, 1995  EU: September 29, 1995  AU: November 15, 1995

 JP: June 23, 1996  NA: September 29, 1996  EU: March 1, 1997  AU: March 1, 1997

Media

 CD-ROM

 Cartridge (limited, Japan only)

CD-ROM

 Cartridge

 Proprietary magnetic disk (via 64DD)

Best- selling game

Virtua Fighter 2, 1.7 million in Japan[26]

Gran Turismo, 10.85 million shipped (as of April 30, 2008)[27][28]

Super Mario 64, 11.62 million (as of May 21, 2003)[29][30]

CPU  2× Hitachi SH-

2 7604 (32-bit RISC) @ 28.63 MHz(56 MI

 LSI LR333x0 (R3000A com patible 32-bit RISC) @

NEC VR4300 (64-bit RISC) @ 93.75 MHz (125 MIPS)[36]

PS[32])

 Hitachi SH-1 (32-bit RISC) @ 20 MHz (12.5 MIPS)[33]

 Motorola 68EC000 (16/32-bit CISC) @ 11.3 MHz[34](1.9775 MIPS[31])

 SCU (32-bit Saturn Control Unit)[35]

33.8688 MHz (30 MIPS)

 System Control Coprocessor (Inside CPU)

GPU

 Sega VDP1 (32-bit Video Display Processor) @ 28.63 MHz (sprites, textures, polygons)[37]

 Sega VDP2 (32-bit Video Display Processor) @ 28.63 MHz (backgrounds, scrolli ng)[38]

 SCU DSP (Inside SCU (32-bit Saturn Control Unit)[35]

 Sony GPU[39]

 Vector math unit (in main CPU) @ 66 MIPS

Reality Co- Processor (64-bit MIPS R4000 based, 128-bit vector register processor) @ 62.5 MHz

Sound chip(s)

 Yamaha YMF292 SCSP[40]

 Yamaha FH1 DSP (Inside Yamaha YMF292 SCSP[40]24-bit, 128- step,[35] 4 parallel ins tructions)

Sony SPU (Sound Processing Unit)

Reality Signal Processor (DSP)

Memory

4.5 MB RAM

 2 MB SDRAM

 1.5 MB VRAM (512 KB sprite/textur e cache, 512 KB frame buffers, 512 KB backgrounds)

 1 MB DRAM (512 K B sound, 512 KB CD-ROM sub- system buffer data cache)

3587 KB RAM

 2 MB DRAM

 1026 KB VRAM (1 MB frame buffer, 2 KB texture cache, 64 bytes FIFO buffer)

 512 KB sound RAM

 1 KB non- associative SRAM data cache

4 MB RDRAM (8 MB with Expansion Pak)

Video

 Resolution: 320×224 to 720×240 (progressive), 320×448 to 720×576 (interlac ed)[45]

 Colors: 172,800 (720×240) on screen, out of 16,777,216 (24-bit) palette

 Polygons: 90,000/sec (textured, lighting, G ouraud shading)[46] to 500,000/sec (flat shading)[47]

 Sprites/textures: 16,384/frame (32 bytes each, 512 KB memory), scaling, rotation, distortion, texture mapping[37]

 Backgrounds: 7[45] (3- 6 tilemap planes, 1- 4 bitmap planes), parallax scrolling, scaling, rotation[38]

 Resolution: 256×224 to 640×240 (progressive), 256×448 to 640×480 (interlaced)

 Colors: 153,600 (640×240) on screen, out of 16,777,216 (24-bit) palette

 Polygons: 90,000/sec (textured, lighting, Gouraud shading)[46] to 360,000/sec[48] (flat shading)

 Sprites/textures: 4,000/frame[49] (bitmap objects[39]), scaling, rotation, texture mapping

 Background: 1 bitmap plane

 Resolution: 320×240 to 720×288 (progressive), 320×480 to 720×576 (interlaced)

 Colors: 207,360 (720×288) on screen, out of 16,777,216 (24-bit) palette

 Polygons: 150,000/sec (textured, lighting, Gouraud shading) to 600,000/sec (flat shading), anti-aliasing, Z- buffering

 Sprites/textures: Scaling, rotation, texture mapping, mipmapping, te xture filtering, bilinear filtering, trilinear filtering[50]

 Background: 1 bitmap plane

Audio

Stereo audio, with:[40]

 32 sound channels on SCSP

 FM synthesis on all 32 SCSP channels

 16-bit PCM audio with 44.1 kHz sampling rate on all 32 SCSP channels

 1 streaming CD-DA channel (16-bit PCM, 44.1 kHz)

Stereo audio, with:

 24 ADPCM channels on SPU

 16-bit audio and 44.1 kHz sampling rate on all 24 ADPCM channels

 1 streaming CD-DA channel (16-bit PCM, 44.1 kHz)

Stereo audio, with:

 Variable number of channels (up to 100 if all system resources are devoted to audio)

 Capable of playing back different types of audio (including PCM, MP3, MIDI and trac ker music)

 16-bit audio and 44.1 kHz sampling rate on all channels

Accessori es (retail)

 Arcade Stick

 Saturn digital gamepad

 PlayStation Multitap (up to 8 players)

 Fishing reel controllers (Bass

 Controller Pak

 Memory Expansion Pak

 Rumble Pak

 3D controller

 Light guns

 Multitap (up to 12 players)

 Keyboard

 Sega NetLink (online mod em and keyboard)

 Mouse

 1.44 MB 3.5" floppy disk drive

 DirectLink (LAN)

 Memory card

 MPEG cards

 RAM expansion cartridges

Landing and Reel Fishing)

 Dual Analog Controller

 DualShock

 GunCon

 Jogcon

 Konami Justifier

 NeGcon

 PocketStation (Japan o nly)

 PlayStation Mouse

 Analog Joystick

 Dance pad

 LCD screen (for PSone systems only)

 Memory card

 Link Cable

 Fishing Reel

 Transfer Pak

 Nintendo 64DD (Japan only)

 Microphone

 TiltPak

Online services

 NetLink 28.8k modem in North America (1996- present)

 SegaNet and 14.4k Modem in Japan (1996-2000)

None

 Unofficial SharkWire Online 14.4k modem in the U.S. (1999-2003)

 Randnet in Japan (for 64DD only) (1999- 2001)

These are all fantastic consoles. You would be happy with any of them.

WORKS CITED

[1] Wikipedia, "Fifth generation of video game consoles," 10 July 2018. [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_of_video_game_consoles#Comparison[21]. [Accessed 1 August 2018].