[bonzobanana]

I've always found the 3DO to be a a bit of a curiousity in the console world. Some of its games are quite impressive more so than later PSX and Saturn games other games are weak to say the least. It seems to have about the same memory as psx/saturn thereabouts, similar speed cdrom drive but its main cpu is only a 12.5mhz arm chip compared to a 33mhz mips chip in psx and 2x25mhz hitachi risc chips in saturn. Some psx games especially those that really try to push the system are very low resolution something like 256x244 where as all 3DO games are 640x480 but its an interpolated resolution I believe like the N64 but unlike the N64 it wasn't limited by cartridge sizes so could feature more textures.

I'm just curious as to what the 3DO had for a gpu as some of its games like starfighter are vastly superior to the psx and saturn versions with better lighting, graphics effects, frame rates etc. Look here at starfighter on saturn (psx version is no better as I have that) and then the 3DO version. I can't seem to be find the information on line and just wondered if anyone had come across any interesting info.

saturn

3do

psx warhawk

You can see the saturn has all sorts of clipping and fogging effects in action to keep the frame rate up and the lighting is pretty weak. The game is transformed on 3DO and looks and plays fantastically. I realise the saturn has fairly weak 3D hardware but the psx version is just the same.

I've used Warhawk to demonstrate a similar game on psx. Its not as open and you can see its running at the minimum psx resolution. You can't deform the landscape like starfighter so its 3D engine is a lot more simplistic.



A similar story can be seen for Need for Speed. Doom on the 3DO is pretty hopeless though. I just wonder how powerful the 3DO gpu is and who designed it?

This is all the information I can find;

Display
*Truecolor 640x480 pixel resolution (approximately 16.7 million colors)
*Two accelerated video co-processors capable of producing 9-16 million pixels per second (36-64 megapix/s interpolated), distorted, scaled, rotated and texture mapped
System board
*Super-fast bus speed (50 megabytes per second)
*36 separate DMA channels for processing data quickly
*2 megabytes of RAM
*1 megabyte of VRAM
*2 expansion ports

[Haggler]

Specs:
32-bit 12.5Mhz RISC CPU (ARM60) made by Advanced RISC Machines (Roughly equivalent to a 25Mhz 68030)
640x480 pixel resolution at 16.7 million colors
Two Accelerated Video Co-Processors with the following features:
25Mhz clock rate.
Capable of producing 9-16 million REAL pixels per second (36-64 Mpix/sec interpolated), distorted, scaled, rotated and texture mapped.
Able to map a rectangular bitmap onto any arbitrary 4-point polygon.
Texturemap source bitmaps can be 1,2,4,6,8, or 16 bits per pixel and are RLE compressed for a maximum combination of both high resolution and small storage space.
Supports transparency, translucency, and color-shading effects.
Custom 16-bit Digital Signal Processor (DSP) with the following features:
Specifically designed for mixing, manipulating, and synthesizing CD quality sound.
25Mhz clock rate.
Pipelined CISC architecture.
16-bit register size.
17 separate 16-bit DMA channels to and from system memory.
On chip instruction SRAM and register memory.
20-bit internal processing.
Special filtering capable of creating effects such as 3D sound.
Separate BUS for video refresh updates (VRAM is dual ported)
Super Fast BUS Speed (50 Megabytes per second)
Math Co-Processor custom designed by NTG for accelerating fixed-point matrix operations. (Note: This is *not* the ARM FPA)
CD-ROM Drive with the following features:
320ms access time
Doublespeed 300kbps Data Transfer
32kbyte ram buffer
2 megabytes of DRAM
1 megabyte of VRAM (also capable of holding/executing code and data)
1 megabyte of ROM
36 Separate DMA Channels for fast data processing and efficient bus usage
2 expansion ports:
1 High-speed 68 pin x 1 AV I/O port (for FMV cartridge)
1 High-speed 30 pin x 1 I/O expansion port
1 Control port, capable of daisy chaining together up to 8 peripherals
Multitasking 32-bit Operating System
16-bit Stereo Sound
44.1KHz Sound Sampling Rate
Fully Supports Dolby(tm) Surround Sound
32kb battery backed up SRAM
Upgradable

Source Click me!

[bonzobanana]

An interesting read on that forum but still not much information about the heritage of the gpu and who actually designed it and did they go on to design any later gpus. The fact the 3do had two 25mhz gpus is quite impressive although thats dependent on how powerful each one is. Makes me wonder if some games are running on just one gpu and it takes more work to get both up and running successfully. A bit like the dual risc processors in the saturn where only one was used a lot of the time or minimally used at least due to the complexity of getting both working in parallel.

I noticed this text on the forum.

The resolution displayed on screen is 640x480. However, the 3DO has an internal resolution of 320x240 or 320x480, with each pixel being either 24-bits or 16-bits. The 16-bit mode is almost always used for animations, while the 24-bit mode is used mostly for still pictures. There are no other resolutions available. The internal resolution is interpolated into an anti-aliased 640x480 pixel display. The interpolation can be turned on and off via software

The 3DO can do 16 bit graphics with CLUTs(Color Look Up Tables) drawn from 24 bits, or it can do true 24 bit graphics.

The system is capable of animating up to 64 million 16-bit on-screen pixels per second. This is really 16 million internal 16-bit pixels that are then interpolated as they are displayed on the screen to 640 by 480 pixel resolution, quadrupling the number of pixels displayed on screen.

So 640x480 antil-aliased graphics when n64 and psx games were around 256x244 most of the time apart from rare psx high res games and N64 games utilising the 4MB extra video memory cartridge. I seem to remember the saturn did some high res sprite based games mainly shooters. I realise its only interpolated on the 3do but it still looked really nice compared to the blocky graphics of psx.

A lot of people on that forum seem to be rather insulting to the 3do but real world tests show it to be quite impressive.

need for speed

[bonzobanana]

Have managed to find a bit more info to quench my curiousity.

Dave Needle and RJ Mical are named as co-inventors of the Machine. Needle
and Mical previously worked on the the design team of the original Amiga
computer, and on the design of the Atari Lynx handheld gaming system. The NTG
(New Technologies Group) company designed most of the 3DO technology/hardware.

The 3do does upto 64 million textured pixels a second (interpolated) which going by the dreamcast (7 million textured polygons equals 200 million textured pixels) is equivilant to about 2 million texture polygons per second. However I think I read that the 3do output is more like 36 million realistically. So thats just over 1 million textured polygons. This compares to 180,000 textured polygons on ps1 I think. Of course the real 3do output is a quarter of that to be 250,000 but its still very respectable and would explain why the 3do can outperform the psx and saturn on occasion when pushed.

Its all starting to make sense now.

[y2richie]

I am not up on the technical aspects but I have to say I was a fan of the 3DO when it came out and bought it straight away (hugely expensive - my credit card took a lot of damage). I'm pretty sure it was way more expensive than my PS3.

The lads from work came round my flat and were wow'd by Need For Speed and all wanted to borrow the console. Return Fire (2 player) against my brother was just the right type of game for a sibling rivalry.

I regretted selling it when I moved to the PS1. I had waited a while for the PS1 to gain some momentum first. But always regretted losing my 3DO. I was so happy to buy one again with my favourite games a few years ago.

I've seen some 3DO bashing and never understood it. I was always really into the games I bought especially Star Control 2. I got seriously addicted to that game. What a classic.

[the boots man]

i love the 3do to bits! my parents couldn't affors to buy me one when they first came out but i recently bought one off an avforums member i can still remember the first time i see road rash on the 3do, me and my friends were amazed by the graphics as we were used to playing road rash on the sega megadrive!

[Jacksonjnr]

Great console and I still play on it every now & then. A few top quality games and heaps of dross but the good ones are still good to play

[Amph]

This thread takes me back. Never owned one but there was one set up in our local Curry's and I really wanted one. But even I couldn't bring myself to ask parents for this as the price was madness!

This thread made me venture onto ebay, but at the moment, I'm holding back.

[CAS FAN]

My local games shop had one of these on display as well and I seem to remember them being around £600-£700 .

They did look good and there's no doubt that they were technically superior to the competition at the time. The price was just too much though.

[bryceco]

Wow, 3D0 memories. I feel like a kid again - what an awesome find.

Now to dust off those old Neo-Geo Roms too...

[Docta teef]

The machine was great its just that much of the software was pants. Anyone played Virtuoso?

[Boomy]

I have three different ones in the loft!

Superb machine for the time.I was raised on games from the early 70's, so when I saw just one clip of Need For Speed, I drove up to London and parted with £600 for a second hand USA unit!

I only ever really played NFS, Ali boxing, Road Rash and Space Hulk on it in the end, but it was quite some time before anything else impressed me as much.Much like the first PSX I grabbed, it left several PC owning friends jaws on the floor back then.

[oldman100]

I think I paid £399.00 at launch.

Return Fire was a classic for me and my mates, I loved the way the classical music ramped up as the game reached a climax.

Ali Boxing was the precursor to the Fight Night series and for it's time was superb, also I think the 3DO version of FIFA Soccer was the another first in terms of the first true 3D stadia environment for the series.

I even recall going to an early 3DO M2 pre-view night at a local Game store.

Superb times.