DigitalFoundry has just released a nice video detailing a bit of history concerning PD and PD Zwei. But mainly, discusses the technology involved between the many different versions of Panzer Dragoon. It appears layers of background rendering called VDP1 and VDP2 were used. With VDP1 displaying a highly detailed expanding plane, while all other rendered, graphical, objects were displayed using VDP2 rendering.
It’s very interesting to find out what the differences were between the Saturn, PC, and PlayStation 2 versions, as well as some slight changes that were made to the version of PD we got in Orta. As in certain cases, entire textures were altered!