Why wasn't Quake ported to the PlayStation?

[DASI-I]

Oh right! We're supposed to be talking about quake 1 on PS1.

The thing we all need to remember is that each console had it's share of strengths and weaknesses. PS1/Saturn could handle more polygons and higher res textures, but the n64 could produce smoother textures with more colors.
Personally, I prefer detail over smoothness. I only played the Saturn version recently for the fist time, and I must say, it really surprised me, so much better than the n64 version. But the controls were very laggy, so yea, a PS1 port would have been better. it's a real shame that it had not been done. Sure, there would be compromises (especially with it's 2mb limit) but quake 2 on ps1 is proof that it could handle it.

[Avoozl]

I don't think the PSX had higher resolution textures than the N64.

[Platinum Shell]

schwerpunk said:

Indeed it did:


COLOURSSSS

I really hope there's a palette for this on the web. Saturated > Gloomy 90% in my case. Not necessarily bright, just saturated.

Side question: What happened to "stop quoting images"?

[Urban Space Cowboy]

Platinum Shell said:

I really hope there's a palette for this on the web. Saturated > Gloomy 90% in my case. Not necessarily bright, just saturated.

Side question: What happened to "stop quoting images"?

It doesn't show up immediately. You'd think by now the admins here would've figured out how to filter out quoted images properly instead of with this silly "dumbass" replacement, wouldn't you?

Anyway, this talk inspired me to polish off a palette hack I've had lying around for about a month. Check it out: Doom IN GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR

[DASI-I]

Avoozl said:

I don't think the PSX had higher resolution textures than the N64.

Yes, It did.

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/8784/2v4s.jpg

Mind you, the PlayStation isn't a whole lot better. But forced texture filtering burdened the N64 and caused alot of lag. So polygon and texture detail was sacrificed a bit to make up for this. also, (Quoting Wikipedia) "One of its technical drawbacks was a limited texture cache, which could only hold textures of small dimensions and reduced color depth, which had to be stretched to cover larger in-game surfaces." And finally the more limited storage capacity. You can blame cartridges for that.

yea I'm using emulators for these screenshots but the n64 version looks a bit better in the emulator than it does in the actual game. I know this because I actually have a copy of the n64 version. PSX version looks the same though.
But, as you can tell by these pictures, the N64 had a larger color palette, so some people still preferred the look of the N64.

I'd bet that quake 1 would look like the PC version (Software mode) on the PlayStation if only an effort was made.

[Maes]

DASI-I said:

I'd bet that quake 1 would look like the PC version (Software mode) on the PlayStation if only an effort was made.

The PSX had the benefit of having a standardized and functional hardware 3D subsystem (whereas PCs would struggle with software rendering and crap S3 cards for a few years to come). But the RAM was really the killer in this case.

[DASI-I]

You never know, it's amazing how far 2mb can go as far as the PS1 is concerned.

[Maes]

For Quake, they'd have to go either with level/detail/texture downsizing, or introduce a multi-load/level segmentation mechanism. Dunno how well that would be received (it did work for Quake 2 though...)

[Jayextee]

As said before, maybe such limitations as Saturn Quake would've been made.

Off the top of my head (it's been a decade and half):

- Sprites as weapon models
- Dynamic lighting did not affect enemy/object models, nor did the lightmapped lighting (they appeared fullbright)
- Untextured water/lava/slime (instead, a kind of pulsing shading effect)
- Certain levels (such as E1M3) saw open areas given extra walls and stuff, to reduce on-screen detail
- Sounds were lower-bitrate and/or clipped to be shorter in length; the Ogre's awakening growl is a painful example of this
- New secret levels may have been a side-effect of this; I couldn't imagine Saturn Quake being able to pull off Ziggurat Vertigo, no matter how 'good' the SlaveDriver engine was
- Jerkier animation. Was Quake's animation keyframe-based? If so, roughly half were cut
- Large status bar gave the impression of a slightly-smaller viewing window

In the end it was still playable, but ran like a low-end Pentium or a slightly pimped-with-RAM 486. And had its own bonuses like coloured dynamic lights.

[Maes]

The Saturn Quake port sounds more like a reimplementation on a different engine, than a port, which in turn means one thing: higher development/adaptation costs. Doom console ports were relatively straightforward, in comparison.

[Da Werecat]

DASI-I said:

the N64 had a larger color palette

And lightmaps, as I can see. Which is funny. I thought it would cost a lot of memory.

[hardcore_gamer]

Maes said:

The Saturn Quake port sounds more like a reimplementation on a different engine, than a port, which in turn means one thing: higher development/adaptation costs. Doom console ports were relatively straightforward, in comparison.

The Saturn port DID use a different engine. It wasn't a port as much as it was a TC of Quake on a different engine. If you look at vidoes on youtube for the Saturn version then you would see that its clearly not the same engine.

[Maes]

That just confirms that you can't just take an engine designed for a minimum of 8 MB of operating RAM, and cram it into 2, without even the benefit of disk swapping (try playing Quake with 4 MB of RAM...not a pretty experience. It "runs", certainly, in the sense that the machine code executes....but you can't call that "playing" ;-)

OTOH you have hardware (PSX, Saturn) which can pull off stuff like Tomb Raider...certainly you can work something out? However even in the 90s, making old-school style conversions of games by entirely rewriting them and resizing the artwork, levels, gameplay etc. was already starting to become uneconomical/too time-consuming with ever-narrowing time-to-market. If a game was particularly "odious" to port, they just passed on it, and that was it.

[Avoozl]

DASI-I said:

Yes, It did.

One game isn't really enough to prove that.

[Maes]

Avoozl said:

One game isn't really enough to prove that.

That's like saying that because only one production car can currently go beyond 430 km/h (and it actually does), that's not really enough to prove that it does. If anything, the technical feasibility of a car travelling at 430 km/h is proven, doesn't matter if it's not an economical or widespread feature.

[Avoozl]

That game might've had lower textures for other reasons, maybe not enough memory, but it was a port after all.

[DASI-I]

Look, I have nothing against the n64. But this isnt new, it's common knowledge among retro gamers. Also, I'm pretty sure the authors of that Wikipedia page weren't thinking of Quake 2 (of all things) when they wrote that article about the texture limitation.
You're right, Ports arent the best examples. So look at other examples:
N64
http://images.wikia.com/zelda/images/1/1c/Gameplay_(Majora's_Mask).png
PSX
http://s.uvlist.net/l/y2007/10/42915.jpg

[NightmareZer0]

My opinion it really needed to be ported to the Playstation. I love how when iD ported games to the Playstation they did some tweaks to the games they released. I love how the Doom games have that different feel to them. I loved what they did with Quake II (Love how they made new levels for it and I think the graphics are a bit different if I remember correctly). Imagine if they did something similar with Quake (Put a new spin on it and released it for the Playstation.) I think it would of ran at least twice as well on the Playstation VS what it did on the N64. It's truly a shame it didn't get ported.

[NightmareZer0]

DASI-I said:

Look, I have nothing against the n64. But this isnt new, it's common knowledge among retro gamers. Also, I'm pretty sure the authors of that Wikipedia page weren't thinking of Quake 2 (of all things) when they wrote that article about the texture limitation.
You're right, Ports arent the best examples. So look at other examples:
N64
http://images.wikia.com/zelda/images/1/1c/Gameplay_(Majora's_Mask).png
PSX
http://s.uvlist.net/l/y2007/10/42915.jpg

I see you...and raise you this:

This being the Second Quake it is more Graphically Advanced than the original I give it that. But in my opinion the Playstation produced a better quality presentation in that video. I think that if Quake had came out on the Playstation it would've been smoother than if it was on the N64. In my opinion Quake II on the N64 is shit compared to the Playstation version. The animations are choppy as fuck on the N64 (even with its Expansion Pak). If they could do a better job with Quake II on the Playstation...They more than likely could have done a better job with the original too.

[Bucket]

It looks like even the weapon overlay is an animated sprite instead of a 3D model in the N64 version.

[Marnetmar]

Ragnor said:

...I smell a new community project, PSX Heretic...

Including more gritty textures and new sounds, I think this could turn out really cool. Of course, the issue here is finding somebody who is willing to do something like that.

[Avoozl]

Who really cares about textures anyway, I prefered the N64 version because it was like an expansion rather than the same old game, also the ambient music was a nice touch too. I would want to have both the PC version with the expansions and the N64 version, I have no need for a partially tweaked double.

[Coraline]

Speaking of Quake 2 on the 64..

:/ Except for using 90% beta assets, amazing it even ran on the system in the first place.

[DASI-I]

Avoozl said:

Who really cares about textures anyway, I prefered the N64 version because it was like an expansion rather than the same old game, also the ambient music was a nice touch too.

Like I said earlier, I actually really like the n64 version of quake 2 (more than the PSX). But we weren't on about which quake is better, we were talking about which console had sharper textures.

[Maes]

That was an era where all attempts at 3D were FORCED and PAINFUL, and even the specialized consoles of the era, always lacked something essential -the PSX and Saturn were clearly underpowered with respect to main memory, others lacked any special 3D hardware etc. and in general the power of even the best 3D chips available was laughable compared to the state-of-the-art used in arcade machines.

This did change dramatically a few years down the road, but in general the mid to late 90s was a pretty ugly transitionl period for gaming-figuratively as well as literally, with ugly low-poly-count graphics, blurry low-res textures or even no texture filtering at all (on PCs), over-reliance on grainy FMV etc. and many, many shovelware games that relied on the novelty of 3D graphics, with very few actually getting the controls and gameplay right.

[DASI-I]

Even as a kid I thought Polygon visuals were uglier than Sprite based graphics. Fighters and platformers looked better even in the 16bit era. Of course, there were some games that can only work in 3D, like racers and Shooters. But other games like Mario Kart 64 and MDK (does anyone remember that game) used a combo of 2D and 3D with great results. I still think Quake 1 should've had high quality 3D models in the form of pre-rendered sprites for enemies and weapons instead of the use of low polygon objects.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Sprites just wouldn't work well in Quake, as others pointed out. Prerendered graphics really only work for static backgrounds or other elements always viewed from a fixed perspective.

The ugliness of early 3D was a necessary transitional step - it drove the technology to do better 3D.

[Da Werecat]

Dragonsbrethren said:

Prerendered graphics really only work for static backgrounds or other elements always viewed from a fixed perspective.

It worked quite well in Doom 64.

But sprites are generally not the best solution for true 3D shooters like Quake.

[Dragonsbrethren]

You can't look up or down in Doom 64, so it works, same as Doom. Sprites already look odd in games like Heretic and Duke3D, so you can just imagine how bad they'd have looked in Quake (actually, you don't have to, just load up a hardware rendered Doom port with full freelook).

[DASI-I]

Heretic and Duke3D looked bad because they were low quality sprites. If you look in Mario Kark 64 the 2D sprites worked quite well because they were very high quality pre-rendered graphics. Although, come to think of it, I just realized why sprites weren't used, It would use too much memory, unless you reduce the amount of frames but then that would result in poor choppy animation.