SEGA Lindbergh Arcade Board Naked - GPU Shown to be 2004-era GeForce 6 series

[suburbanguy]

http://www.gamiko.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3412

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~swells/Arcade/DSC00742_resize.JPG


Sega's Lindbergh Arcade Board is shown, taken apart. Now we know it
can be concidered a low to mid-range PC (maybe not even midrange!),
with a single GeForce 6 series (6600 or 6800) GPU, circa 2004.

but this is not really a surprise--It has been known since the middle of last year
that Lindbergh used an Nvidia shader 3.0 capable GPU.

The question was, did Lindbergh use the then-new NV47 / G70 / GeForce 7800,
or the older NV40 / GeForce 6800. Well, now we know it's an older GPU from 2004.

Along with a standard Pentium 4 CPU, this makes Lindbergh weaker than
many of todays midrange PCs, and far weaker than highend PCs.

Is Sega ever going to get serious about technology again with their arcade games?

back in the mid-to-late 1990s, Sega's Martin Marietta powered MODEL-2
and Lockheed Martin powered MODEL-3 arcade boards kicked the ever
living $h|t out of the most powerful PCs including those equiped with
3Dfx Voodoo Cards in 1996-1998.

now we have $1000 PCs and a $300-$400 console
(with another $400-500 console on the way)
that beats the most powerful Sega arcade hardware.

sad!

edit: even sadder, it's only a GT!

SEGA, where is the highend NAOMI 3 or MODEL-4 ?

they should AT LEAST be using Quad SLI 7900s now.....

oh Sega, how you have fallen :(

[K-1]

what games are running on the Lindbergh board? man, back in the day Model 2 and Model 3 were so insanely amazing, hell, even Model 1 was pretty badass. I remember the first time I saw Virtua Fighter 3 in the arcades, so incredible.

[suburbanguy]

Lindbergh arcade games (http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=731) include:

The House Of The Dead 4
Virtua Fighter 5
After Burner Climax
Power Smash 3 aka Virtua Tennis 3

those are the ones of any significance anyway. I am SO looking forward to After Burner Climax.

now that I know what GPU Lindbergh is using, I don't have to worry that the new After Burner
and VF5 might get downgraded when they're ported to PS3 and-or Xbox 360.

PCs and consoles of the mid-to-late 90s just could NOT handle 100% exact ports of Sega arcade games, or even close translations. even the Dreamcast failed to reproduce MODEL-3 games without downgrades here and there. VF3 on DC was like 85% of the arcade. decent, but not acceptable for a console that was supposedly more powerful than MODEL-3.

[AthlonXP1800]

I am surprised to see Geforce cards in Lindbergh system, I think games made in 2005 used Geforce 6 and 2006 games use Geforce 7 series. OMG I loved Afterburner Climax, here the game trailer (http://media.cheats.ign.com/media/769/769194/vids_1.html), it looked absolutely stunned.

I cant wait to get either ported to PS3 or Windows Vista with DirectX 10. :D

I noticed that Sega never disclosed what OS are running on Lindbergh system, I wonder what OS they used?

I will love to see Sega make... Golden Axe Climax, Space Harrier Climax and Super Hang On Climax. :drooling:

[suburbanguy]

I'm not surprised to see a GeForce card in Lindbergh. ok maybe the card itself yea a little, but not the actual GPU. it was announced roughly a year ago that Lindbergh would have a shader model 3.0 Nvidia GPU. but I am surprised at how low-end it is.

[AthlonXP1800]

I'm not surprised to see a GeForce card in Lindbergh. ok maybe the card itself yea a little, but not the actual GPU. it was announced roughly a year ago that Lindbergh would have a shader model 3.0 Nvidia GPU. but I am surprised at how low-end it is.

I think you should be surprised how low end it is because high end cards on the PC with DirectX 9 couldnt matched it in terms of graphics and speed. You have to wait until Vista come out with DirectX 10 that will match the Lindbergh system.

[jAkUp]

haha thats hilarious

[Darkfalz]

1. Sega know how to make games.

2. Look at the incredible games Sega made on an SH4 and PVR2 chipset (ie. DC and Naomi).

3. You can truly optimise and make a gun run awesome if you are only designing for one specific platform and architecture, rather than a plethora of combinations.

[suburbanguy]

I think you should be surprised how low end it is because high end cards on the PC with DirectX 9 couldnt matched it in terms of graphics and speed. You have to wait until Vista come out with DirectX 10 that will match the Lindbergh system.


sorry, that just makes no sense whatsoever.

Lindbergh is a lowend or at best, midrange PC. it's not, as far as anyone knows, custom or extra powerful in any way. Lindbergh has a stock 3.0 GHz Pentium4, nothing special. it's got 1 GB of fairly SLOW DDR memory, which is below par. it's got a GeForce 6800GT, nothing special, and getting old now. and for the GPU it's got 256 MB of GDDR3, again nothing special.

A highend (or even good midrange) PC of today with a GB of DDR2 system memory, a single GeForce 7800 GTX (G70) or 7900 series (G71) or Radeon 1800 (R520) series or 1900 (R580) series with 512 MB GDDR3 would signifcantly outperform Lindbergh's rather outdated GPU.

nevermind an Nvidia SLI or ATI CrossFire PC rig, and further, nevermind Quad SLI, let alone upcoming dual-core CPU PCs with Windows Vista / DirectX10 / Shader 4.0 with the upcoming Nvidia NV50/G80 or ATI R600 GPUs which would completely blow Lindbergh out of the water being a whole entire GPU generation ahead.

now that is purely hardware.

of course, Sega, an outstanding developer, could make better games on Lindbergh which uses 2003-2004 technology, than most western PC developers using 2005 technology. but thats more to do with software optimizations on a fixed platform and with programming by a top notch developer.

take the same developer, Sega, on newer PC hardware, and they would blow away their own efforts on the weaker Lindbergh.

Sega's arcade system lineup currently is:

Aurora - very lowend board - slightly more powerful than Dreamcast/NAOMI, but weaker than NAOMI 2 which was shown in 2000.

Lindbergh - midrange board (although currently Sega's most powerful board - and hopefully something in the pipeline that's really highend) which uses STANDARD PC technology from 2004.

even an Xbox 360-based or Playstation3-based arcade hardware (which would be concidered only mid-range hardware from the way arcade hardware used to be done) beat Lindbergh significantly.

the bottem line is, Sega isn't shooting for even high-end off-the-shelf hardware let alone truly cutting-edge, custom, proprietary military/workstation grade hardware as they did in the 1990s. Sega has taken not one, but two significant steps down in arcade technology, with Lindbergh as their current flagship.


sorry for the little rant :/

[sznupi]

But you're missing the point...even though, hardware-wise, it's made of PC parts, it's NOT a PC, so don't compare them directly. BTW, many of you said than in days of Naomi things were different...well, not really. Naomi hardware was exotic, but not that powerfull - Kyro/Kyro2 cards used in PC (of the same heritage as Dreamcast/Naomi) were faster than its GFX part.

The thing is...arcades/consoles can:
1) Have overall hardware design/architecture geared towards processing games (obviously not the case here, but when one looks at PS2...)
2) Run o lightweight operating system
3) Have games optimised the **** outta them - you must develop only for ONE, SPECIFIC hardware type - you don't have to care about how the games scales, so you might do things that, yeah, are possible on comparable PC, but nobody does them because the game won't run acceptably on slower machines. Oh, and you can play with hardware a bit more directly when you're sure what it is...

Just look at PS2. Its hardware specs aren't very impressive...but it beats the hell out of one of my PCs which is theoretically around two times faster.


And one important point - it's safer for them to go with hardware that is for sometime on the market...reliable and so on. Might be important, especially given very "unfriendly" enviroment in which many of the arcades must work :p And, more seriously - no surprises. Going with cutting edge stuff migh be one of the things that caused for Sega finacial troubles.

[snowmanwithahat]

you guys amaze me, some of you don't consider it to even be a mid-range system? i know it's not the fastest, but it's by no means slow, it can play every game other than CoD2 at 1440x900 for me with atleast 2xAA flawlessly, i'm not surprised that it uses it really

[$n][pErMan]

the 6800GT is hardly a slouch. Oooo .. so you dont get 95 FPS running the highest settings .. big deal... anything over 60FPS most people cant even notice anyway. Although with a P4 that weakens it a bit :p

[snowmanwithahat]

[pErMan']the 6800GT is hardly a slouch. Oooo .. so you dont get 95 FPS running the highest settings .. big deal... anything over 60FPS most people cant even notice anyway. Although with a P4 that weakens it a bit :p

:D yeh, but p4's still hold up great comapred to an Athlon XP, gotta remember, before the A64's were released, the pentium 4's dominated the market as the fastest cpu

[$n][pErMan]

:D yeh, but p4's still hold up great comapred to an Athlon XP, gotta remember, before the A64's were released, the pentium 4's dominated the market as the fastest cpu
Fastest for Ghz maybe ... but AMD's old XP line is by far a better core. Runs at a Ghz less and does the same damn thing. A good OC on an AMD will smoke most P4's out. Intel really dropped the ball with the P4's. To be honest... im still surprised my XP OC'ed is still kickin ass in every game I play. Its why I am still delaying going 64bit ATM. (why spend money on new stuff when you can still play the games you like on full settings w/o a hitch?) ;)

[Q]

Really, it all boils down to it being a static hardware configuration. Compare any gaming PC with a console and by specs alone the PC should be able to outlast the console for nearly a decade. Just imagine the sorts of games we could play if we had a way to cut out all of the overhead running a game, then have it optimized for our individual systems?

Oblivion would run like butta at 150fps with better graphics on a sytem like mine. So its easy to see how sega can push a system with a card like that.

[snowmanwithahat]

[pErMan']Fastest for Ghz maybe ... but AMD's old XP line is by far a better core. Runs at a Ghz less and does the same damn thing. A good OC on an AMD will smoke most P4's out. Intel really dropped the ball with the P4's. To be honest... im still surprised my XP OC'ed is still kickin ass in every game I play. Its why I am still delaying going 64bit ATM. (why spend money on new stuff when you can still play the games you like on full settings w/o a hitch?) ;)

yeh same here, mine playis things fine, which is funny we both said each other's sucks because of what we've seen, whatever, saying anymore would take this thread way off topic, if you want to prove it though, post some benchmarks, i'd like to see what it can do because lookin at your sig, we have extremely similar setups...

[$n][pErMan]

yeh same here, mine playis things fine, which is funny we both said each other's sucks because of what we've seen, whatever, saying anymore would take this thread way off topic, if you want to prove it though, post some benchmarks, i'd like to see what it can do because lookin at your sig, we have extremely similar setups...
Ya.. even down to the CPU fan type .. lol. Got any games in particular you want to run tests in? Although to be consistant we should probably use the same driver set as well. (Im currently on 82.12 as its stable with good IQ). Id also go so far as to say that neither of ours really "sucks". Perhaps by todays standards they are out dated and old tech.... but they still more than pull thier weight in any game currently out. Unless its a game running at like the highest resolution possible on a computer :p Haha.. this will be wierd tho running these tests... its like a small battle for a war fought long ago ;)

[ynnek]

Whats the market trend like in the coinop arcade machines now? Are sales of these units still going up from years previous? Are there still "lots" of new games and systems being released? Or is the whole coin-op arcade segement dying a slow death? Anybody know?

[|MaguS|]

Arcades are still going very strong in japan, in america though there are barely any around. We rarely get any of the new arcade games.

As for the new arcade board, its powerful because unlike a PC its specialized for a single application. You all compare bare numbers but never the software behind it. There are many games on consoles that look just as good as a PC game thanks to being specialized hardware. I mean look at MGS3, it looks DAM good for a game running on a 300mhz CPU with a 4MB GPU. Don't judge a game platform on numbers....

BTW Most games released on this system will probably be ported over to the PS3 due to the nature of the systems being very similar.

[Edge]

I thought it was pretty interested that the system used such an "outdated" piece of hardware considering arcade boards usually use some of the most advanced technology availible at the time. I wonder what resolution arcade games typically run at? Maybe the games don't run at a high enough resolution to actually stress the GPU much, and if that's the case, why put in a $500 graphics card when a $200 will do?

BTW Most games released on this system will probably be ported over to the PS3 due to the nature of the systems being very similar.
How so? Aside from the GPU, the two systems bare almost nothing in common. Not to mention they rarely port games based on what hardware is most similar, just look at VF4 on the PS2.

[|MaguS|]

How so? Aside from the GPU, the two systems bare almost nothing in common. Not to mention they rarely port games based on what hardware is most similar, just look at VF4 on the PS2.

True about VF but look at almost all of Namco's arcade games. All the ones that have been ported to the playstation consoles were ran on arcade systems that were based of the playstation hardware.

The main reason porting would be easier would be the GPU, much doesn't need to be changed. As for the CPU, they can either just use it as a single CPU and ignore the SPE's or customize it to take full advantage of the CELL CPU. The GPU though is always the biggest obstical, look at MS's trouble with porting Xbox games to the Xbox360. It's not the CPU but rather the difference in GPU architecture.

[suburbanguy]

But you're missing the point...even though, hardware-wise, it's made of PC parts, it's NOT a PC, so don't compare them directly.


I disagree. Lindbergh IS basicly a PC, even if the Windows OS is gone. Lindbergh is more of a PC than even the Xbox-based Chihiro arcade board that runs OutRun2.



BTW, many of you said than in days of Naomi things were different...well, not really. Naomi hardware was exotic, but not that powerfull - Kyro/Kyro2 cards used in PC (of the same heritage as Dreamcast/Naomi) were faster than its GFX part.

I was not talking about the NAOMI days of the late 1990s and early 2000s, I was talking about the early to mid 1990s when Sega's General Electric powered MODEL-1, Martin Marietta powered MODEL-2 and Lockheed Martin Real3D powered MODEL-3 absolutely destroyed the highest-end, most expensive consumer PC technology around.



The thing is...arcades/consoles can:
1) Have overall hardware design/architecture geared towards processing games (obviously not the case here, but when one looks at PS2...)
2) Run o lightweight operating system
3) Have games optimised the **** outta them - you must develop only for ONE, SPECIFIC hardware type - you don't have to care about how the games scales, so you might do things that, yeah, are possible on comparable PC, but nobody does them because the game won't run acceptably on slower machines. Oh, and you can play with hardware a bit more directly when you're sure what it is...

while it IS true that Lindbergh arcade games will outperform PC games that run on a PC with the same/similar specs, that does not make Lindbergh special.

[saberz]

The thing is, SEGA is not in a position to spend massive amounts of money on R&D like they did back in the 90's.

In the 90's SEGA was a dominate force, consoles rarely were able to match their Arcade counterparts, and SEGA also had a Tri-Region arcade industry to help cover the costs of the hardware.

Flash to the late 90's and early 2000's and its a different picture. Their financial loss in the console market and the decline of arcade revenue due to more sophisticated home consoles that are able to for the most part match arcades in terms of eye candy. I believe it was 2 years ago that SEGA was finally able to turn around and pull a full profit instead of losing money, and as such they are focusing on what they do best, and thats software.

Believe me, I love SEGA, console and arcade fanboy for life, but as you saw in those screenshots of VF5 and After Burner their eye candy is hardly anything to scoff at. Sure its not cutting edge, but when you have a company like SEGA creating software for any type of hardware, your bound to have something special. Those graphics would not, repeat NOT be possible on the PC since there are countless configurations to account for. Thats the similiarity that the current Lindbergh boards have with the old Naomi/Model1,2,3 boards. Consistancy, same hardware much like a console means you can squeeze a huge amount of performance from a machine.


IMO Its not lowend, its not high-end, its incredible software development that makes the hardware, and they aren't spending millions upon millions of dollars on it, they save money on the hardware and rake in the money from people paying to play their amazing software. :)

[The Bigman]

Is this thing a game console or part of a arcade console? i would like one to test and **** with.

[sytaylor]

I love SEGA, they make me feel warm.