It isn't down to the API used, it is down to some of the hardware features of the PowerVR not being available on PC Hardware, and because of this, pixel-perfect emulation would have to be done in software, so that all the features of the PowerVR and it's rendering method are taken into account. I am unsure of all the details, but I am aware of the PowerVR using a different "tile-based" approach to 3D rendering, which could be one of these features.
And then one [SSF] unilaterally blew the rest out of the water . . . Do you think Shiva took many cues from development of the others, or does he have some innate understanding of the Saturn that no one else did? :v:
No, I meant compared to the girigiri days. SSF and Yabause both were constantly worked upon for the last few years, and were constantly improved. Even if Yabause isn't exactly playable, it can boot most games and has an awesome debugger, which is something that no other saturn emus have. Tile based deferred rendering is one thing, but iirc it can be simulated. Not correctly enough to make up for all the shadow / z-buffer issues, that cause improper sorting on virtually every single DC emu. I haven't read many DC docs, but I recall something about the PowerVR or the SH4 using higher floating point values or some such shit, which can only be translated with some rounding errors, which cause the improper sorting, for ex. no bullets in Ikaruga level 2. This is what DX11 mode is supposed to fix, with hardware support for order independent transparency (fixes sorting), and higher precision shaders that can deal with the dreamcast floating point numbers (sorting, shadows, z-buffers). I'm saying this half from memory though, and I don't quite remember the exact details, so DO correct me if I'm wrong. So dx11 can fix 99% of the graphical problems, in theory. The remaining issues are due to improper timing on the SH4, cause no one knows how the damn thing should be timed, how fast is cache, DMA, RAM, etc. This causes the tiger statue lockup in RE Codename Veronica or the suicide run in Border Down or whatever that shooter was where, on emulators but not on the real console, the ship run into a bullet in attract mode. Also, no slowdown when you blow up the bosses in Ikaruga, which is inexcusable.
Thanks for the info, I havn't really looked at much Dreamcast documentation myself, and the tile-renderer was the only thing I actually recall. Interesting about DX11 though, I had no idea about the features it added, I should probably read the spec sometime.
