The Sega Naomi

Sega's 128 bit arcade hardware is called the Naomi. NAOMI stands for (New Arcade Operation Machine Idea) and in Japanese it has the meaning of beauty above all else.

With the Naomi Sega brought alot of advance features into arcades, such as the advancement of the JVS connection interface, Digital Game Networking and the use of GD-Roms. The Naomi has the 2nd largest game libary behind only the Neo Geo MVS.

A common misconception is that a Sega Dreamcast is the same as a Sega Naomi. This is not the case. The Naomi has twice the amount of main memory and graphics memory than the Dreamcast. Also the Naomi has four times the sound memory than that of the Dreamcast, the reason for this is because the Naomi does not spool redbook audio from the GD-ROM drive, everything is loaded into memory.

There are some arcade collectors who will not have anything to do with the Naomi because of two factors: The JVS connection type and Power requirements. Most arcade cabinets were designed for Jamma games, this ment that if those cabinets were to be used to play Naomi games, they would have to use a JVS to Jamma convertor.

Now this is where the Power requirements kick in. Both the Capcom I/O and Sega v 2.0 I/O can power a Naomi and a Naomi cart game. However neither Capcom I/O and Sega v 2.0 I/O can power the GD drive or a Naomi 2 by itself, a additional power supply is needed. The power supply that is needed is not the same one you would find in a computer (however there are ways to make a computer psu work).

Note that the GD Rom drive can be used with either the Naomi or Naomi 2.
(more on the Naomi 2 later)

Here are the specs for the Naomi:

CPU : Hitachi SH-4 32-bit RISC CPU (200 MHz 360 MIPS / 1.4 GFLOPS)
Graphic Engine : PowerVR 2 (PVR2DC)
Sound Engine : ARM7 Yamaha AICA 45 MHZ (with internal 32-bit RISC CPU, 64 channel ADPCM)
Main Ram : 32 megs
Main Memory : 32 MByte
Graphic Memory : 16 MByte
Sound Memory : 8 MByte
Media : ROM Board (maximum size of 172MBytes) / GD-Rom
Simultaneous Number of Colors : Approx. 16,770,000 (24bits)
Polygons : 2.5 Million polys/sec
Rendering Speed : 500 M pixel/sec
Additional Features : Bump Mapping, Fog, Alpha-Bending (transparency), Mip Mapping (polygon-texture auto switch), Tri-Linear Filtering, Anti-Aliasing, Environment Mapping, and Specular Effect.
NAOMI GAME LIST

18 Wheeler
Airline Pilots
Akatsuki Denkou Senki *
Boat Race Ocean Heats
Capcom Vs SNK *
Charge'N'Blast
Cosmic Smash
Crackin' DJ
Crackin' DJ 2
Crazy Taxi
Dead or Alive 2
Dead or Alive 2 Millennium *
Death Crimson OX
Dengen Tenshi Taisen Janshi Shangri-la
Disney Magical Dance
Dynamite Baseball
Dynamite Baseball '99
Dynamite Deka EX
Exzeal
F1 World Grand Prix
F355 Challenge 2 : International Course Edition Twin
F355 Challenge Twin
Fish Live
Formation Battle In May
Giant Gram 2 : All Japan Pro Wrestling In Nippon Budokan
Giant Gram 2000 : All Japan Pro Wrestling 3 Brave Men Of Glory
Giga Wing 2 *
Guilty Gear X *
Gun Beat
Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai 3
Illmatic Envelope
InuNoOsanpo
Jambo! Safari
Mamoru-kun wa Norowarete Shimatta!
Marvel Vs Capcom 2 *
Melty Blood Actress Again
MushiKing : The Battle of the Beetles
MushiKing II
MushiKing III
MushiKing IV
MushiKing V
Oshare Majo Love and Berry / Fashionable Witch Love and Berry
Out Triggers
Pocket Shooting
Project Justice *
Puyo Puyo Da!
Puyo Puyo Fever
Puzzle Kurutto Stone
Quiz Ah Megamisama! / Quiz Ah My Goddess!
Radilgy NOA *
Ring Out 4x4
Samba de Amigo
Samba de Amigo ver.2000
Sega Marine Fishing
Sega Strike Fighter
Sega Tetris
Sky Champ
Slash Out
Star Horse
Star Horse 2001
Star Horse 2002
The House of the Dead 2
The Typing of the Dead
Tokyo Bus Tour
Touch De Uno!
Touch De Uno! 2
Toy Fighter / Waffupu
Virtua NBA
Virtua Striker 2 Ver.2000
Virtua Tennis / Power Smash
Virtua Tennis 2 / Power Smash 2 *
Virtual On Oratorio Tangram M.S.B.S.Ver.5.66
Wave Runner GP
World Series 99 / Super Major League 99
WWF Royal Rumble
Zero Gunner 2
Zombie Revenge *

* Games in my Collection