Gamecube: Worst Graphics of the Big Three?
 

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the Gamecube, graphically, is becoming the worst of the big three systems these days. I just picked up NFL2K3 for the GC and found that while it has some nice effects, graphically it is somewhat sloppy and ugly. I know the XBOX has a lot more graphical power, but it seems even that the PS2 these days has better graphics.

Graphics don't mean everything of course (I've been playing a ton of Tecmo Superbowl lately for instance) but I'd be lying if I didn't say I was dissapointed graphically with the GC.

Hopefully when I pick up Mario tomorrow, Nintendo can wow me again like they did with Melee.

I know this debate goes on all the time but I just want to say, Don't blame the hardware, blame the game developers!

I'd rank them:

1. X-box
2. Gamecube
3. PS2

I haven't seen anything on the PS2 that is as good as the best looking GC games, and most ports look better on the GCN than on the PS2, but not as good as the X-box version.

Yeah, I'm thinking the developers spend a majority of the time with the PS2 version, thus hurting the GC and XBOX versions.

I'm almost tempted to buy a PS2 just because of this. The ports to the GC (NBA 2K2, NFL 2K3, NBA Street etc.) have been terrible graphically. From what I've seen of ED and RE, the Gamecube can do MUCH better.

Unfortunately, the PS2 is like a big weight around the necks of both the Gamecube and Xbox when it comes to multi-platform games. Most often, the developers code to the lowest common denominator which in this case, is the PS2. That means that the GC and Xbox ports rarely reach their full potential. If the PS2 didn't have such a huge install base, developers would be more free to make the GC or Xbox the lead platform for development and worry about how to get the game to run on the PS2 at a later date. Until then, you'll have to stick to console exclusives if you want to see what each system is truly capable of.

Is the PS2 like absolutely blowing away Nintendo and Microsoft? Anyone got any recent figures on total consoles sold, as well as each console amount sold like last month? Just curious.

Through May, the NPD worldwide sales numbers were:

30 million PS2s
4.5 million GCs
3.5 millioin X-boxes.

I've seen some more recent numbers, but they weren't totals. I've only seen sales over periods of time. But it was basically more of the same, with the PS2 still outselling both competitors by a large margin. The X-box was gaining some ground on the GC, but not a ton. I believe it had sold 110,000 more in may or june than the GC. Anyway, I'm sure there's more recent number that someone can provide. I don't really keep up on the stuff that much.

Pretty much... Last I heard, the PS2 had sold something like 30 million worldwide. That compares to a little over 4 million for Xbox and Gamecube. Bottom line, nobody is going to catch Sony in the current generation of hardware. I just hope Xbox and Gamecube provide enough competition to force Sony to produce a better product next time.

i'm pretty sure there are about 10 times more ps2's out there than gc and xbox combined

By your reckoning, that would put the PS2 at 80 million units sold. It's doing well, but not that well! :)

As has been posted several times in this very thread Box/Cube are at around 4 mil apiece and the PS2 is around 30.
Deleted. jolt, you should know comments like that only get people pissed off, and don't help. - Static

I noticed the graphic problems on the Gamecube version of NFL 2K3 as well. I think the problem is in the port done by Sega and not a problem with the Cube.

If you look at something like Dave Mirra 2 that had a separate version made for the Cube and Xbox it looks much better than the PS2 version.

The Cube won't look as good as Xbox, but NFL 2K3 should look better than it does.

BTW, the game looks much better with the S-video connection. I noticed a big improvement with NFL 2K3 when I hooked it up in the living room on my big TV.

I thought Eternal Darkness graphics looked as good as Shenmue graphics on the Dreamcast... most of the games on the GCN though will be the Mario platformer type, so good graphics doesn't really matter. I think the GC is about as powerful as the PS2, but it is easier to develop for and games can look better on a GC potentially because of their anti-aliasing features being more accessable to developers. Xbox smears them both of course in that department and developers are just starting to scratch the surface. I think they're all great systems and I'd even put Dreamcast up there as well since it's also just about as powerful as the PS2. Unless MS gets creative on the next generation, the PS3 will destroy it in the power department from what I hear. If Nintendo stays true to form, they'll probably just keep the GC in service up against PS3 and Xbox2.

Xbox has a lot more graphic potential than the GCN. GCN has a lot more graphic potential than the PS2. Keep in mind that developers have had a more time to tweak the PS2 as it's been out longer. By the end of this generation, the lines between the three will be much clearly, as developers push all three consoles to their limit.

No way Gamecube has the worst graphics. The place to look is at exclusives, not at ports.

But by then I will have a PS3 and it wont matter! I wish developers would tap into the consoles' potential now and not later.

:hscratch:

Yeah, so when is this PS3 coming out? ;)

Oh, so I switched from the bigscreen to the smaller 35" or so screen downstairs. And now the game looks MUCH better. Players/replays are crisper, the game seems much prettier. Can someone explain this?

Playing on the big-screen should look better, but on the 35" I'm seeing much better results. Very strange.

The cube definitely does not have the worst graphical ability of the three. Look at games like Rogue Leader and Resident Evil. A PS2 definitely could not do that(though perhaps and XBox could). Those games are amazing to look at.The graphical issues with NFL 2k3 are probably do to it being a shoddy port.

This is the age old arguement again... Dreamcast rivaled PS2 (and dominated PS1 which it was supposed to do during that time).

But it didn't have the market shared and had to fold...

Hello! Dreamcast had internet ability well over a year ago... It's not about the graphics, it's about the market share (too bad Dreamcast didn't catch on, it was a damn_fine console!!)

PS2 could easily handle Resident Evil... It's not all that impressive. Eternal Darkness is graphically on par if not better than RE and the Dreamcast could probably handle it without a problem. The PS2 is plenty powerful - it's just that it has complicated design parameters for developers to take advantage of their hardware. The other systems all have anti-aliasing functions that are easy to program for.

rotflYou have to give ED props over RE for being 16:9 and 480p, but other than that RE wins hands down in categories like character models, polygon count, particle effects, lighting, production design, etc.

Anyone that knows more then a fair share about hardware can tell you that the PS2 is the weakest of the three. There is no need to kid yourself into thinking that the true "potential" is held back by poor hardware design. Sure, it will get better, but by that measure the GC and Xbox can also get better. Eventually the PS2 will be at it's height while the xbox and gc have room to go beyond.

I also thought that RE for GC was not only an "OK" looking game, but it still played like crap. Eternal Darkness was much better in all aspects, but Silent Hill still wins over them all :)

Trigger do you come into every single Gamecube thread just to piss people off? I've been watching your posts for months now, and it seems like you HAVE to say something in every gamecube thread, and i'd say 95% of the time it's something negative that seems to make a lot of people mad.

Do you just enjoy making statements that get people rilled up? Why even post in Gamecube threads when it's clear you don't like the GC at all.

Resident Evil was absolutely beautiful....I would say blame the developers!!! :)

I didn't really have much to say about the GC until my roommate brought one home... Before that, I would just discuss sales data and my opinions on whether or not they should go software only like Sega (except for the GBA which is their bread and butter). I have also expressed from time to time that most of the games on the system don't interest me which I think is perfectly acceptable considering the theads I was doing it in. Mostly though I have been just coming to defense of Xbox because it's the system that gets trashed on here most often. I've never been a big fan of nintendo and I've seen them as the evil corporation since the original NES. That's not where my comments are coming from though. I kinda wanted one and was thinking of getting a platinum one when it came out. My roommate bought one though so I don't have to now.

This is a forum, you know... it's a place for people to express opinions. I'm sorry if my opinions differ from yours. I surely don't say something in EVERY GC thread, but now that there's one in my house and I've had a chance to play with it - I can say that I'm not as impressed as I thought I would be. I'm not trying to piss anyone off, I'm just being honest. I think Resident Evil is really cool, but it's not graphically as impressive as it should've been. Eternal Darkness was graphically on par with RE if not better looking, but that's of course debateable. I thought the character models for RE were rendered more realistically, but ED looks a bit more polished anyway. RE for some reason looks a little grainy like a PS2 port or something.

As for games that exist now - here's how I'd actually rank the systems:

1. Xbox (far and away the best)
2. GC
3. Dreamcast (close to GC)
4. PS2

As for potential, I don't see how anything the GC has to offer is beyond what the PS2 is capable of. I'm sorry if it pisses you off that I have an opinion, I'm really not trying to stir anything up. If you want, you can always ignore me and my posts will disappear. I'm not the one who started this thread. I think you're also ignoring some people who do nothing but go into every xbox thread to trash Microsoft and the xbox. If you like the GC, it shouldn't matter what I say about it anyway. These are all just opinions.

Although I see the porting factor as a valid argument, but it may also be due to the disc size of Gamecube games. With a full size DVD you can fit 4.7 GB of information. Which allows the developers to increase texture size and other things that would make it look better. Since the Gamecube uses about half a DVD size, the developers have to compensate for what they can't fit on the disc. I have the XBOX version of NFL2k3 and it plays great and looks awesome.

How many games actually use the full 4.7gb?

This is what is so frustrating about being a XBOX owner. All that freak'n power and mostly crap games that do not use it. There are bright spots and the new releases look promising, but all and all, nothing has used the potential of the machine yet....

For those who missed it, I did switch TVs and NFL2K3 looks extremely better, right up there with the XBOX version I played. So the TV does matter, even if it is a smaller one.

But I know, overall, the GC has so much more potential.

Opinions are one thing, you often spout lies. For example...

Wha?

Huh?

Number of platformers released since the Gamecube's launch in November 2001: One (and it came out yesterday)

Number of additional platformers scheduled for release this year: One (Wario World...unless somebody can think of some I'm missing).

Nubmer of years that the SNES was kept in service up against the PS1: One

Number of years that the N64 was kept in service up against the PS2: One

Number of years the N64 was kept in service against the Xbox: Less than one week

Amen Trigger

Kellehair....I think it's a little extreme to say he's been "spouting lies".

Why is it okay to bash Microsoft and XBOX, but if anything that can be construed as even slightly negative is said about GC then people freak out?

I gotta agree with this (as a GC owner), if any of the posters here show an inferiority complex its the rabid N fans. I joke about the size of the boxs controllers and the size of the box and it never gets the reaction a lighthearted Cube joke gets.

Honestly, I think the XBox and GC partisans are about equal in terms of complaining about how their favored system is always being dissed. I take that as an indication that we're pretty even handed around here as far as the criticism goes.

Make Love, not war. Really.

I don't spout lies - maybe I'm wrong about a few things, but most of what I say is my opinion. As for the comment about mostly platformers coming out - that's probably just me cuz I consider all those first party games to be platformers - zelda, mario, smash brothers, monkey ball, pikmin - I know that only one of those is a true platformer, but I guess I just see the others that way in terms of graphics. I guess I didn't make my point very well... I was trying to say that graphics don't really matter too much on the GC because most of the games coming out for it are PS2 ports and first party games that have Mario platformer type graphics like zelda and monkey ball where the characters and environments don't have to look realistic, they just look like cartoons. I'm sorry for suggesting that most games for GC are platformer games - that's not really what I meant.

As for that other statement, Nintendo does tend to milk their consoles for as long as they can... NES was up against the Genesis for awhile before the SNES came out. They kept the NES running from 85 on and the SNES didn't arrive until 91 - the Genesis came out in 89. They also came out with the N64 in 96 and kept it going until the end of 01 when the Dreamcast came out in 99. They just have historically been a year or two late responding with competetive hardware. So maybe what I should've said was that they'll just keep the GCN in service for an extra year or two after the Xbox2 and PS3 arrive if they stay true to form. I think you're just nitpicking on my comments cuz you don't like people saying bad things about Nintendo. You'd think I was saying bad things about God or something... sheesh. :)

<small>did you see my reply to your Xbox comment in Thunderball's thread over in Other? It was just for you. :) </small>

Man, I knew this thread would be trouble the second I read the title. :)

It's not the Xbox or GC's fault that most games look underpar.

It definately comes down to the developers looking like asses when thay go the cheap way out and port a game from the PS2. As long as they keep making games for the ps2, the Xbox and GC will keep getting subpar games.

With most of the sites and magazines slamming the quality of the PS2 ports and blaming the developers for there laziness (as they should), we hopefully will see more and more developers dropping the ps2 like a bad habit after Christmas and finally see some good third party games coming to the Xbox and GC. Maybe if this happens it will force Sony to bring out the PS3 early and all games will be onpar.

As long as the ps2 exists we will have to put up with the subpar games for a little longer.

I don't think the Xbox and the GC will die anytime soon since the serious gamers have had a taste of real Blood (Xbox & GC) and won't settle for anymore of Sony's Ketchup.