Sega Saturn Hi-Res mode?

[MrTeressaBond]

Hi, i hope this is the right place to ask this but i was reading around and ive keep hearing about this 'Hi-res mode' that gets mentioned when playing games like Virtua Fighter 2 for example.

Therefore i would like to know what is this Hi-res mode'? How is it activated? does it work only for certain games? If so, does it render or upscale itself at 704x480?

sorry for the noobish question, but i had to ask it :D hope to hear back! :)

[VampDude]

The Sega Saturn is equipped with dual custom VDP chips for graphics processing. The VDP1 chip is primarily responsible for sprite generation. Polygon generation is accomplished through manipulation of the sprite engine. Texture mapping and Gouraud shading is also handled by the VDP1.

The VDP1 renders primitives to two 256 kB frame buffers that can be configured as 512x512x8 or 512x256x16 (Virtua Fighter 2 was the first game to use high resolution, at 60 frame/s on Consoles). Having two frame buffers allows double buffering of the display and provides more time for rendering. The active framebuffer is read out to the display by the VDP2, which can apply data from a coefficient table to modify the scanning process, for effects like rotation, scaling, and general distortion of the entire frame buffer as a single entity.

The SCU (system bus control unit) provides DMA across a dedicated bus commonly labeled as the "B-bus" that the VDP2 and VDP1 are connected to, allowing transfer of data from them to and from main memory. Keep note that transferring data from and to the same bus is prohibited by all 3 SCU DMA levels.


While the Saturn graphics hardware is capable of VGA (progressive/non-interlaced) video, no existing retail software ever used this mode and the system cannot force any such software to run in this mode. Moreover, neither Sega nor third-party manufacturers produced or sold the cables required to support such high-resolution modes on any type of display. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Saturn)

I'm certain that the answer is no for 704x480, but you can force it to any screen size (it would remain 512x256x16).

[Eviltaco64]

You're cheapest method of getting a little more out of the Saturn would be through S-Video.

Other than that, I believe it supports SCART (if you can find a TV that supports it) and you could also get an XRGB-2 to convert it to a higher resolution image.

EDIT: After doing a little bit of research, I found that you can get an RGB/SCART -> Component/HDMI converter. I'm not sure how it would look, to be honest with you. A little more research on the internet could tell you, though. ;)

[MrTeressaBond]

Yes you are right, there is an RGB Scart and is apprantly the best you can get through available consumer cables.

However, like you after doing much research, there has been a few talks about this 'Hi-Vision' cables, does anyone know wha is the purpose of them?

Also, isnt there a way to force or mod/hack the console inorder to use both VDP chips to be configured as 512x512x8?

[VampDude]

Also, isnt there a way to force or mod/hack the console inorder to use both VDP chips to be configured as 512x512x8?

Possibly wires and soldering to the board, though I wouldn't really know? But I would think it would be near enough to the 50/60Hz points of the motherboard.

The largest scale image comes from the VCD card, which could possibly be bypassed to the gameplay?

[MrTeressaBond]

wait a minute, im sure i made a post here, did it get deleted or something? :(

[Eviltaco64]

wait a minute, im sure i made a post here, did it get deleted or something? :(

There doesn't seem to be any deleted posts here. You may have been typing it while the server went down. I know that happens to me a lot.