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Strictly from a technological perspective, could Street Fighter III have been ported to the Sega Saturn?

AragornsTaxPlan

AragornsTaxPlan

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Mar 25, 2019
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Being a Saturn/2D Fighter fanboy, I've always wondered about this...

I realize that by the time SFIII finally launched, the Saturn was dying a slow death in the US, so it made sense for Capcom to hold off porting this game until the Dreamcast, but I've got to think that, with the 4MB expansion cart was on the table, a Saturn port would have been no problem to make.

I mean, the Saturn ran the CPS-2 Marvel/SF games flawlessly. SFIII, of course ran on CPS-3 and the characters had significantly more sprites each, however, the Saturn was able to hold 4 CPS-2 characters'' sprites in memory with no problem, so it stands to reason that the sprite set for SFIII characters wouldn't have been a major challenge.

Does anyone know of any big technical advances of CPS-3 over CPS-2 (besides video memory) that would have needed a Saturn port to make major contingencies to get it running?
 
Mr. Pointy

Mr. Pointy

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Oct 28, 2017
5,141
Krejlooc might know better than me, but I think the CPS-3 uses a similar twin SH-2 CPU setup like the Saturn but it has different graphics chips and waaaaaaay more RAM.

If the Saturn version had a 16MB RAM cart, maybe. Dreamcast ran SF3 and that had 24MB RAM total.
 
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Syril

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,895
They got JoJo's Bizarre Adventure working on the PS1 so I'm sure they could have made SF3 work somehow.
 
fiendcode

fiendcode

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Oct 26, 2017
24,925
Yes, at least with the 4MB cart.

Crawfish even said they could've ported 3rd Strike to GBA.
 
DrFunk

DrFunk

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Oct 25, 2017
11,884
Definitely. Just load each specific character with the 4mb cart.

On topic, did you know that the of SFIII needed 64mb of RAM and took an hour to load from the CD?
 
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AragornsTaxPlan

AragornsTaxPlan

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Mar 25, 2019
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Mr. Pointy said:
Krejlooc might know better than me, but I think the CPS-3 uses a similar twin SH-2 CPU setup like the Saturn but it has different graphics chips and waaaaaaay more RAM.

If the Saturn version had a 16MB RAM cart, maybe. Dreamcast ran SF3 and that had 24MB RAM total.
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I'd be willing to bet SFIII didn't even scratch the surface of what CPS-3 was capable of in terms of RAM utilization
 
Video Games Are Dumb

Video Games Are Dumb

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Oct 25, 2017
6,033
Milwaukee, WI
Capcom was adamant that Street Fighter 3 just wouldn't work on consoles of the era, which is why they waited nearly 4 years to bring it to the Dreamcast.

I suppose the real question is, if that's not true the why didn't the port it to more consoles. Hell, it's not on the PS2.
 
Zolbrod

Zolbrod

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Oct 27, 2017
3,075
Osaka, Japan
Video Games Are Dumb said:
Hell, it's not on the PS2.
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It was, but it was only released in Japan for some reason.

s-l300.jpg
 
godofcookery

godofcookery

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Oct 25, 2017
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The Saturn had problems running both X-Men vs Streetfighter and Marvel Super Heroes, particularly with the added animations from the 4MEG cart. Assuming they were they best implementation at the time, I guess it could do it, but at the very least you'd have to deal with a ton of dropped frames, and some slowdown given the other ports.
 
DrFunk

DrFunk

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Oct 25, 2017
11,884
godofcookery said:
The Saturn had problems running both X-Men vs Streetfighter and Marvel Super Heroes, particularly with the added animations from the 4MEG cart. Assuming they were they best implementation at the time, I guess it could do it, but at the very least you'd have to deal with a ton of dropped frames, and some slowdown given the other ports.
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The sound quality would take a hit - I remember XvSF and MSH not sounding as great as the arcade versions..but I think the Saturn could hack it
 
Saikyo

Saikyo

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Oct 25, 2017
2,339
Yes it could but it was going to be an murder scene of frames and maybe color depth...like what happened with jojo on ps1.
 
Freedom = $1.05

Freedom = $1.05

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Oct 25, 2017
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Given that jojo's bizarre adventure, another cps3 game, was competently ported to the PSX then it shouldn't have been too hard to get sf3 on the Saturn. Probably some frames lost along the way but competent.
 
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AragornsTaxPlan

AragornsTaxPlan

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Mar 25, 2019
227
godofcookery said:
The Saturn had problems running both X-Men vs Streetfighter and Marvel Super Heroes, particularly with the added animations from the 4MEG cart. Assuming they were they best implementation at the time, I guess it could do it, but at the very least you'd have to deal with a ton of dropped frames, and some slowdown given the other ports.
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Both of those ports were arcade-perfect, though?
 
godofcookery

godofcookery

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AragornsTaxPlan said:
Both of those ports were arcade-perfect, though?
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They weren't. Here is a nice comparison video that shows MSH Arcade vs Saturn. (And ps1 too!) Animations definitely had frames missing, even with the expansion pack. Which also added slowdown when used.


It was a good port though overall I thought. Worth playing, maybe with more time it could have worked.
 
Jegriva

Jegriva

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Sep 23, 2019
5,519
Maybe with the 4MB RAM cart and cutting animations here and there, sure.

Capcom vs SNK was ported to the PS1, and it wasn't half bad.


AragornsTaxPlan said:
The US market wasn't exactly embracing 2D fighting games with open arms back in the late 90s/early aughties.
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In the west it came out on Xbox with online play.

It was just Sony who didn't like 2d games.
 

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godofcookery said:
They weren't. Here is a nice comparison video that shows MSH Arcade vs Saturn. (And ps1 too!) Animations definitely had frames missing, even with the expansion pack. Which also added slowdown when used.


It was a good port though overall I thought. Worth playing, maybe with more time it could have worked.
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Yeah, Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes aren't arcade perfect on Saturn. The latter in particular has a hidden 1MB mode that improves the animation but at the expense of overall game performance.

X-Men Vs. Street Fighter and Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter on the other hand are close to arcade perfect. Only things holding it back are the (admittedly brief) load times and the resolution necessitating the repositioning of character portraits in the in-game UI. The animations still aren't 1:1 with the Arcade version either, as characters like Storm and Juggernaut in XvSF still have cut animations in the Saturn port.
 
Zombegoast

Zombegoast

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Oct 30, 2017
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Sort of? The Ps1 had Jojo's Bizarre Adventure which used CPS-3. The problem will be Elena's sprite animation
 
SecretCharacter

SecretCharacter

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Oct 27, 2017
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On 3S for Saturn: the CPS3 version of Third Strike required 16MB of RAM. This held sprite data and a lot of sound. From what I remember, the Q-Sound was also heavily implemented so sound quality would take a major hit on the Saturn. It might be possible if sound took a major hit, sprites were lowered in resolution and color, and some animations removed.

For Jojo on PSX: If you've played the actual CPS3 version, you'd know that the PSX version of JJBA is missing a lot of animation and the sprites are lacking in significant detail. In addition, the audio is horrible and the load times can get pretty bad. It's sort of a miracle we got the port at all, to be honest. The OVA was still really hot at the time of development and there were some big fans in the US (like me) who knew the game existed.

On Alpha 2 on SNES: what..? Have you played it? It's awful.
 

Syril

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Oct 26, 2017
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SecretCharacter said:
For Jojo on PSX: If you've played the actual CPS3 version, you'd know that the PSX version of JJBA is missing a lot of animation and the sprites are lacking in significant detail. In addition, the audio is horrible and the load times can get pretty bad. It's sort of a miracle we got the port at all, to be honest. The OVA was still really hot at the time of development and there were some big fans in the US (like me) who knew the game existed.
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They made the stands work by rendering them in two colors and half resolution. It's still impressive they were able to do four characters on screen at once though, especially since the MvC ports didn't even have their gameplay intact. The story mode they added was really cool also, and for years it was the closest thing to a complete telling of any part of JoJo released in English.
 
lazygecko

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Oct 25, 2017
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I mean, it could be ported to pretty much any system. It's just a question of how much fidelity you want to sacrifice. They didn't seem to have any qualms about porting Capcom Vs SNK Pro to PS1 in 2002.
 
godofcookery

godofcookery

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Seven Force said:
Yeah, Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes aren't arcade perfect on Saturn. The latter in particular has a hidden 1MB mode that improves the animation but at the expense of overall game performance.

X-Men Vs. Street Fighter and Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter on the other hand are close to arcade perfect. Only things holding it back are the (admittedly brief) load times and the resolution necessitating the repositioning of character portraits in the in-game UI. The animations still aren't 1:1 with the Arcade version either, as characters like Storm and Juggernaut in XvSF still have cut animations in the Saturn port.
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I remember being so disappointed with Juggernaut because his animations made him feel powerful and the missing frames hurt that quite a bit.

The video reveals that 1MB mode had more slowdown with third party or the 4MB ram expansion packs vs using the official 1MB version.
 
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AragornsTaxPlan

AragornsTaxPlan

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Mar 25, 2019
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b00_thegh0st said:
Zero 2 on super famicom isn't something I'd call functional.
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It's fascinating that it works as well as it does, though, isn't it? I mean, when the SFC first launched, they couldn't even do a faithful port of the original Final Fight, which ran on CPS-1! By the end of the console's life cycle (with the help of the SA-1 chip) they were able to do a very playable port an early CPS-2 game.

Now, why you would bother porting SFZ2 to the SFC that late into next gen, that is a completely different question! :D
 
lazygecko

lazygecko

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Oct 25, 2017
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AragornsTaxPlan said:
It's fascinating that it works as well as it does, though, isn't it? I mean, when the SFC first launched, they couldn't even do a faithful port of the original Final Fight, which ran on CPS-1!

Now, why you would bother porting SFZ2 to the SFC that late into next gen, that is a completely different question! :D
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I think they could, but 8mbit ROMs was what they had to work with at the time, and I think there was also pressure to showcase the graphical capabilities of a new system, so they kept the art assets fairly big in size at the expense of a lot of cut content. Had the art been closer in size to Streets of Rage 1 (also a 8mbit game) they could've easily ported it with all of the content intact.

Super Famicom remained a pretty high seller in Japan for several years after its heyday, so it made sense for Capcom to keep supporting it with games. They also made Rockman & Forte even later in 1998. New SFC units were in production in Japan all the way up to 2000.
 
ryan13ts

ryan13ts

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Oct 28, 2017
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Might have need extra RAM carts to function smoothly, but I think it would have been possible.
 
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AragornsTaxPlan

AragornsTaxPlan

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godofcookery said:
They weren't. Here is a nice comparison video that shows MSH Arcade vs Saturn. (And ps1 too!) Animations definitely had frames missing, even with the expansion pack. Which also added slowdown when used.


It was a good port though overall I thought. Worth playing, maybe with more time it could have worked.
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Wow... I feel like I just found out Santa Claus isn't real. LOL! I imported both of those games & played the shit out of them. I never had any arcades nearby, though, to be able to pick out the finer differences.

I'm not too surprised about the resolution difference. At least the sprites didn't need to be compressed like they did for the SFII ports on MD and SFC. That was a HUGE resolution drop, though (like 1-to-4).

I had no idea that there were dropped animation frames, though. I always thought the 4MB expansion pack left room to spare! Shows what I knew! :)
 
Futaleufu

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AragornsTaxPlan said:
I'd be willing to bet SFIII didn't even scratch the surface of what CPS-3 was capable of in terms of RAM utilization
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I may be wrong in this but Capcom was terrible at futureproofing both CPS2 and CPS3. They released the CPS2 on 1993 (SSF2) and by 1994 they already reached the maximum rom size with X-Men Children of the Atom. The CPS3 in theory could hold 128 MB but the biggest game is Third Strike at just 84 MB. For comparison KOF 2003 is 93 MB, in an arcade HW released in 1990.

Freedom = $1.05 said:
Given that jojo's bizarre adventure, another cps3 game, was competently ported to the PSX then it shouldn't have been too hard to get sf3 on the Saturn. Probably some frames lost along the way but competent.
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That port was "adequate". Several cuts in animation, muffled sound effects, some stands are rendered in 1 color and some characters are missing attacks.
 

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AragornsTaxPlan said:
I doubt it. CPS-3 supports 32,768 colors while Dreamcast supports 16.7 million
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do not read tech specs like this, they are inaccurate. the dreamcast can technically output 24bit color but its monsterously slow. the default and preferred dreamcast pixel format is 16 bit color at 565 bitdepth. not to mention that these color modes are non indexed, direct color. When using palettes the dream cast uses either 8bpp or 4bpp modes at 1024 dictionary entries (four 256 color palettes, or sixty-four 16 color palettes).
 
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