Monday, March 7, 2011

The Sega Naomi 2


The Naomi 2 is Sega's upgrade to the Naomi. The Naomi 2 has four times the amount of main memory and graphics memory that Dreamcast has, and twice that of the Naomi. The Naomi 2 has two PowerVR GPUs running in SLI, while the Naomi has only one PowerVR GPU and the Naomi 2 has two Hitachi SH-4 CPUs while the Naomi only has one CPU.

Some Naomi 2 games could not be ported to the Dreamcast because the games would have a great loss of texture detail. The Naomi 2 is Fully backwards compatible with all Naomi and GD-Rom games.

One game on note was the Virtua Fighter 4 series. IT was not ported to the Dreamcast but was ported to the Playstation 2. The GPU in the Playstation 2 was strong enough to display the game. However due to a lack of memory in the Playstation 2, the texture detail that was used in the arcade version had to be cut down.

If Sega had released the Dreamcast with the hardware that was used in the Naomi 2, the console battle may have turned out different. But that is a debate for another day.

Naomi 2 Specs:

CPU : 2 x Hitachi SH-4 32-bit RISC CPU (200 MHz 360 MIPS / 1.4 GFLOPS)
Graphic Engine : 2 x PowerVR 2 (PVR2DC-CLX2) GPU's - (under the fans)
Geometry Processor : Custom Videologic T+L chip "Elan" (100mhz) - (Under Heatsink)
Sound Engine : ARM7 Yamaha AICA 45 MHZ (with internal 32-bit RISC CPU, 64 channel ADPCM)
Main Memory : 32 MByte 100Mhz SDRAM
Graphic Memory : 32 MByte
Model Data Memory : 32MByte
Sound Memory : 8 MByte
Media : ROM Board / GD-Rom
Simultaneous Number of Colors : Approx. 16,770,000 (24bits)
Polygons : 10 Million polys/sec with 6 light sources
Rendering Speed : 2000 Mpixels/sec

Additional Features : Bump Mapping, Multiple Fog Modes, 8-bit Alpha Blending (256 levels of transparency), Mip Mapping (polygon-texture auto switch), Tri-Linear Filtering, Super Sampling for Full Scene Anti-Aliasing, Environment Mapping, and Specular Effect.

Games

Club Kart
Club Kart : European Session
Club Kart Cycraft
Club Kart Prize
Jet Squadron
King of Route 66
Sega Driving Simulator
Soul Surfer
Virtua Fighter 4 *
Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution *
Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned *
Virtua Striker 3 *
Wild Riders

* Games in my Collection

Friday, March 4, 2011

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