The Genesis has 16Bit emblazoned on the top of console. That could easily be the end of discussion right there, but the Genesis also pwns the PCE with its "High Definition Graphics". Even the PS3 and 360 can't compete with that. All this time I've been deluding myself that PCE games look as good as the Genesis, or the SNES, for that matter. The PCE has an 8Bit CPU and there's nothing left to discuss; it's simple math: 8 < 16. I don't mean to troll on a dedicated NEC forum, but the truth is the truth. It has taken many years of listening repeatedly to what I thought was misinformation to finally come to realize that it was I who was wrong.
*Chuckles then sighs*
Oh that was good, let us all be delusional in that case!
Who counts bits these days anways? By that logic the intellivision would be better than the PCE! [-X tut tut
Shouldn't this be in fighting street? :wink:
OMG YOU'RE RIGHT!
Quote from: guestOMG YOU'RE RIGHT!
He most definitely is right.
Quote from: ceti alphaEven the PS3 and 360 can't compete with that.
No shit, Sherlock... the PS3 and 360
simply don't have enough wires to compete with the full Sega Genesis CD 32X setup.
You're stupid, ceti. The Genesis is clearly a 24 bit machine (16 bit 68000 + 8 bit Z80 = 24 bits of MEGA POWER!), just like the Neo Geo.
Quote from: Tablet on 02/01/2011, 04:15 PMShouldn't this be in fighting street? :wink:
Yeah, probably. I thought about that as soon as I pressed "post". heh
Quote from: guest on 02/01/2011, 05:01 PMYou're stupid, ceti. The Genesis is clearly a 24 bit machine (16 bit 68000 + 8 bit Z80 = 24 bits of MEGA POWER!), just like the Neo Geo.
:lol:
See? I mean the PCE is hopeless against such awesome power.
Quote from: Joe Redifer on 02/01/2011, 04:31 PMQuote from: ceti alphaEven the PS3 and 360 can't compete with that.
No shit, Sherlock... the PS3 and 360 simply don't have enough wires to compete with the full Sega Genesis CD 32X setup.
And you can actually make money by playing the Genesis! Truly amazing.
The Genesis was also the first console to have a CD-Rom unit (http://classicgames.about.com/od/history/tp/History-of-Video-Games-Pt-5.htm)! Amazing!
Quote from: guest on 02/01/2011, 05:36 PMThe Genesis was also the first console to have a CD-Rom unit (http://classicgames.about.com/od/history/tp/History-of-Video-Games-Pt-5.htm)! Amazing!
The Sega-CD with its 40 bits of MEGA POWER! even further outclasses the weakling PCE.
Quote from: guest on 02/01/2011, 05:42 PMQuote from: guest on 02/01/2011, 05:36 PMThe Genesis was also the first console to have a CD-Rom unit (http://classicgames.about.com/od/history/tp/History-of-Video-Games-Pt-5.htm)! Amazing!
The Sega-CD with its 40 bits of MEGA POWER! even further outclasses the weakling PCE.
I've just bookmarked About.com. Seems like a great place for accurate information on teh interwubz.
Damn Ceti, Genesis is in the Bible! :roll:
lol what about Blast Processing!!!
OH MY GOD, YOU'RE RIGHT!
that blast processing just seals the deal, I'm a Genny man now, how can anything else possibly compete with the juggernaut that is the Genesis?
I mean just look at them, the Genesis is bigger!
I'm so convinced now I'm going to delete my website and wipe all my backups and create the Genesis Software Bible (it'll only take six days, on the seventh I will rest).
Even the Klingon Empire knew the power of Genesis:
http://youtu.be/hnt2SAYeH-4
Genesis = 7 letters. PCE = 3 letters.
If you spell out PC-Engine, then you have -4 letters. Genesis wins!
WE ALL WILL DIE!
Quote from: ceti alpha on 02/01/2011, 05:53 PMQuote from: guest on 02/01/2011, 05:42 PMQuote from: guest on 02/01/2011, 05:36 PMThe Genesis was also the first console to have a CD-Rom unit (http://classicgames.about.com/od/history/tp/History-of-Video-Games-Pt-5.htm)! Amazing!
The Sega-CD with its 40 bits of MEGA POWER! even further outclasses the weakling PCE.
I've just bookmarked About.com. Seems like a great place for accurate information on teh interwubz.
We all should write him some kind mails for his great enlightenment! He sure is our new Lord in which we must OBEY!
http://classicgames.about.com/bio/D-S-Cohen-37433.htm
But instead of that, we als could raid down his meagre forum :twisted:
http://forums.about.com/ab-classicgames
This is stupid. Everyone knows the 68000 is a 32-bit* (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68000) CPU.
Any idiot can figure out that the Sega CD is 72-bits. Of course.
OBEY TEH NEW ORDER!
DESTROY ALL DISOBEYER!
IGNORANCE DOES NOT PREVENT PUNISHMENT!
SHOW NO MERCY!
Quote from: guest on 02/01/2011, 05:01 PMYou're stupid, ceti. The Genesis is clearly a 24 bit machine (16 bit 68000 + 8 bit Z80 = 24 bits of MEGA POWER!), just like the Neo Geo.
As does the Neo Geo Pocket, which clearly makes it equally as powerful. The Wonderswan is 32-bit though, which makes as good as a 3DO, and therefore OBVIOUSLY much better than a Neo Geo.
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/01/2011, 07:46 PMWE ALL WILL DIE!
How Zen.
Quote from: ceti alphare: I give up. The Genesis is true 16bit and the PCE is a 16 Bit imposter.
Wow. Glad your happy now.
I'm not really sure what the point of this thread is.
Genesis can be used as a vacuum, kicking ass and cleaning-up the PCE leftovers.
Sega-Tower-of-Power.jpg
Quote from: GobanToba on 02/02/2011, 02:14 AMGenesis can be used as a vacuum, kicking ass and cleaning-up the PCE leftovers.
Sega-Tower-of-Power.jpg
HEAR YE, HEAR YE, BEAR WITNESS TO TEH TOWER OF FAIL.
The Genesis has nothing on the powerful Nintendo Wii (https://youtu.be/x2ODi-gcf-U), which in comparison is 'like' a 345-bit console!! The Turbo/PCE doesn't even compare!! (https://youtu.be/A8upJrsZpuk)
After all, the only console you actually NEED is a
Virtual Boy as it is a 4591-bit console (https://youtu.be/jCMYJpB_o-k)and can play all of those systems!!
see what I did there? that was a lot of whoring of vids.... you're welcome redifer.
Quote from: NecroPhile on 02/01/2011, 05:01 PMYou're stupid, ceti. The Genesis is clearly a 24 bit machine (16 bit 68000 + 8 bit Z80 = 24 bits of MEGA POWER!), just like the Neo Geo.
DONT FORGET THE BLAST PROCESSING.
THAT MAKES IT HAVE LIKE, 502348334 BITS OF SUPREME OVERLORD POWER.
Quote from: guest on 02/02/2011, 01:11 PMQuote from: guest on 02/01/2011, 05:01 PMYou're stupid, ceti. The Genesis is clearly a 24 bit machine (16 bit 68000 + 8 bit Z80 = 24 bits of MEGA POWER!), just like the Neo Geo.
DONT FORGET THE BLAST PROCESSING.
THAT MAKES IT HAVE LIKE, 502348334 BITS OF SUPREME OVERLORD POWER.
I had my Genesis modded with a blast processing switch to turn blast processing on and off. When I turn off blast processing Sonic plays ultra slow like... well like... mario.
Quote from: GobanToba on 02/02/2011, 01:17 PMQuote from: Psycho Arkhan on 02/02/2011, 01:11 PMQuote from: NecroPhile on 02/01/2011, 05:01 PMYou're stupid, ceti. The Genesis is clearly a 24 bit machine (16 bit 68000 + 8 bit Z80 = 24 bits of MEGA POWER!), just like the Neo Geo.
DONT FORGET THE BLAST PROCESSING.
THAT MAKES IT HAVE LIKE, 502348334 BITS OF SUPREME OVERLORD POWER.
I had my Genesis modded with a blast processing switch to turn blast processing on and off. When I turn off blast processing Sonic plays ultra slow like... well like... mario.
My blast processing blasted too hard once and Sonic ran out of the TV and busted thru the wall in my room. My mom was pissed.
Quote from: guest on 02/02/2011, 01:27 PMMy blast processing blasted too hard once and Sonic ran out of the TV and busted thru the wall in my room. My mom was pissed.
HAHHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA :lol: :lol:
Not even chop could repair it, eh?
This topic would be kind of funny if it weren't true.
But the Genesis really does smash the PCE across its mighty knee, so I'm not quite sure what all the joking is about.
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/02/2011, 05:22 PMThis topic would be kind of funny if it weren't true.
But the Genesis really does smash the PCE across its mighty knee, so I'm not quite sure what all the joking is about.
allow me to demonstrate the sheer power of the PCE.
http://youtu.be/95YZs-N5cj8
The games so real, so intense.
I FEEL LIKE IM THERE.
haters-gonna-hate-sonic.webp
Quote from: guest on 02/02/2011, 05:48 PMThe PCE: Games so real, so intense.
Wow, that was almost too intense. It broke my computer just playing that video! The only way that could be more intense is if the screen slowed down and stopped scrolling midway and scrolled back to where it started because the game is too intense to scroll it all the way.
Quote from: Joe Redifer on 02/02/2011, 08:02 PMQuote from: guest on 02/02/2011, 05:48 PMThe PCE: Games so real, so intense.
Wow, that was almost too intense. It broke my computer just playing that video! The only way that could be more intense is if the screen slowed down and stopped scrolling midway and scrolled back to where it started because the game is too intense to scroll it all the way.
Slowed down?
Yeah man I've gotten tickets for doing less than that!
Quote from: Joe Redifer on 02/02/2011, 11:01 PMYeah man I've gotten tickets for doing less than that!
That is because it's teh Denver, home of teh worst drivers in teh world. Teh Denver drivers should get more of teh tickets IMHO.
You're right, Tats!
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/02/2011, 05:22 PMThis topic would be kind of funny if it weren't true.
But the Genesis really does smash the PCE across its mighty knee, so I'm not quite sure what all the joking is about.
Well, you're free to think that, but I would argue that you're kinda overstating the "mightiness" of the Genesis. If it's your favourite console, that's fine, but my point in the original post was to highlight how ridiculous the "bit" comparisons were, bitd. The bit wars were just marketing ploys, which were very effective for Sega....in North America. The PCE's 8bit CPU was just as capable as the Genny's CPU and more capable than the SNES's CPU. Each of the consoles had things they excelled at, but to call the PCE a 16bit imposter is plain ridiculous. The proof is in the games.
The TurboGrafx-16 was a 16-bit imposter. It was advertised as being 16-bit, and it wasn't. They even stuck "16" in the system's name in a blatant effort to trick people. Why is it ridiculous to state the truth?
As far as capabilities, the Genesis was capable of far more than the PCE in every way except onscreen colors. People make fun of "blast processing", but it's a real thing -- it's a marketing term to signify the system's power, a power that the other systems lacked. There's a good reason that the PCE never had Ranger-X. In terms of technology, that cart puts Sapphire to shame.
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/03/2011, 12:58 AMThe TurboGrafx-16 was a 16-bit imposter. It was advertised as being 16-bit, and it wasn't. They even stuck "16" in the system's name in a blatant effort to trick people. Why is it ridiculous to state the truth?
As far as capabilities, the Genesis was capable of far more than the PCE in every way except onscreen colors. People make fun of "blast processing", but it's a real thing --
They're just gonna hate EmeraldRocker, so it's no use arguing. You can show them vids all day long, but with PCEs lack of 16bit CPU and Blast Processing it couldn't accomplish games like this, real 16bit blast power, http://youtu.be/8v887fU0mjQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=142s
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/03/2011, 12:58 AMAs far as capabilities, the Genesis was capable of far more than the PCE in every way except onscreen colors. People make fun of "blast processing", but it's a real thing -- it's a marketing term to signify the system's power, a power that the other systems lacked. There's a good reason that the PCE never had Ranger-X. In terms of technology, that cart puts Sapphire to shame.
You make it seem like the colors were irrelevant. To me they were more important than almost anything, so the Genesis, to this day, just looks like mud to me. We had real mud eons before video games were invented. We don't need to spend $200 on a game machine to simulate mud.
One thing that makes these sorts of stupid arguments pretty much totally irrelevant is that unlike today, where a game system and its tools are so well designed from day one that we see %90 of a machines potential within the first year of its existence, the pre-PS1 era really had a majority of underdeveloped games. Sure the Genesis is *technically* closer to a Neo Geo than it is to a PC Engine (and the SegaCD was a fucking powerhouse, no joke), the *reality* is that you sure as fuck would never know it by looking at the actual games. On the Genesis, for every Earthworm Jim there is a six pack with Home Alone, Death Duel, Time Killers, Beavis and Butthead, and two generic sports titles.
You know that kid who is "smart" but always gets D or worse in class? He says, "I could have gotten an A, if I was trying." Well, its bullshit because if he could have, he would have. His potential may be there, but not actually doing it is, when it all comes down to it, the same as not being able to do it. I know, I was that kid in high school. I was plenty smart enough to get As, but barely even graduated. When I eventually felt like giving a shit I went to college and graduated with a 3.7. Same fucking kid, different day.
If all the 16-bit systems were eventually as well understood and catered to as the Neo Geo was by the end of its life, then we'd know for damn sure who had the best stuff, but the bulk of all games from that period are barely running, let alone system maximizers.
Now that these systems aren't being developed for any longer (no offense, home brew people) all that matters is whats out there to actually play, and what's out there is pretty sad on Genesis because interested and talented developers are just as important as hardware. This is why Nintendo always seems to make games that are more interesting to more people and make more money than most of the rest of the industry combined with hardware that is often times inferior to everyone else's.
If you can't use it, it isn't real.
IMO what make's a console is it games,
16 bit, 8 bit, 7903S bit, 2 zillion colours etc.. all doesn't matter,
what matters is are the games any good? what game developers supported the console?
The Super Famicom had Shigeru Miyamoto, Square Soft, Enix and Natsume.
The Megadrive had Sega arcade conversions, Treasure and Technosoft.
and the PC Engine had Naxat, Taito and of course had Hudson Soft! imo this is what makes it a great console.
To be totally honest of the three I think the Super Famicom is the best,
I truly love the PCE and it is just cooler than the rest, but the selection of SFC games Shigeru Miyamoto had a hand in just lifts it above any other console ever IMO.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 03:30 AMIf you can't use it, it isn't real.
True, pictures or it didn't happen :!:
and lol.. ranger-x? a flickerflacker fest deluxe. the only thing the MD was superiorto the PCE was its hardware parallax scrolling, which could easly allow to scroll a front layer behind a back layer in any desired direction (sonic e.g).
beside of that, anything could be done on the pc with ease as well PLUS better.
I can see the argument with the Genesis winning over the puny TG16 library. But Megadrive versus PCE? NO BREAD MAN NO BREAD!
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/03/2011, 12:58 AMThe TurboGrafx-16 was a 16-bit imposter. It was advertised as being 16-bit, and it wasn't. They even stuck "16" in the system's name in a blatant effort to trick people. Why is it ridiculous to state the truth?
Just like the Genesis claimed to have 16bit graphics, but the graphics processor wasn't a true 16bit chip. If the Genesis graphics were 16bit, wouldn't that make the SNES graphics more like 24bit? None of the three systems were entirely/completely 16bit as far as I know. I don't think the bits of the Genesis graphics processor had anything to do with the colors onscreen or the amount of layers/sprites it could put out. It just happens that people ignorantly care about the processor bits more than any other chip in the system, even though it doesn't have a direct impact on performance that people think it does. And the funny thing for consoles being the cpu has less to do with what you see on screen, than computers or systems - yet people put almost all emphasis on it. It's kind of silly to define a system by its main cpu. The proof the pudding, is in the eating. The TG16 might be the lowest of the three systems are far as technical capabilities, but that doesn't make it any less of the 16bit generation of consoles. The only real difference between the Genesis and TG16, is the second background layer. All other differences are minor in comparison. And where does the SuperGrafx fit in? Technically, it puts the Genesis to shame in almost all areas of video. The Genesis being a 'true' 16bit console because of its cpu and the SGX not, makes the Genesis rather pathetic in that context. Calling the TG16 a 16bit imposter is rather silly.
QuoteAs far as capabilities, the Genesis was capable of far more than the PCE in every way except onscreen colors. People make fun of "blast processing", but it's a real thing -- it's a marketing term to signify the system's power, a power that the other systems lacked. There's a good reason that the PCE never had Ranger-X. In terms of technology, that cart puts Sapphire to shame.
Blast Processing is a marketing term. How can that be a real thing? If you look at the development manuals of the Genesis, I don't think you'll find it anywhere in there. Didn't a few TG16 commercials claim the TG16 had 'turbo power'? Would that mean it's a real thing? Interesting about Ranger-X comment. Genesis fans put a lot of emphasis on animation and the number of moving objects on screen. I think any Genesis fan would think Sapphire is both up to snuff and impressive, even if released on the Genesis. Except for the annoying sound FX, but plenty of Genesis games have crappy SFX too :P. What aspect about Ranger-X do you think puts Sapphire to shame? It's already hard to compare to very different kinds of games, but I'll keep an open mind.
I love how the SNES is supposedly the "most powerful" but it's by far the slowest of the three.
When I think of the PCE, or even the Turbo library, I look at the entire library- (Chip, CD, SCD, and even ACD)
The fact the NEC/Hudson realized the progression and created games and moved onto the stronger technology showed me that they were actually supporting and backing the koolaid they hoped we would drink.
With Sega, they had the MegaDrive/ Genesis which I'll admit can do more things (paralax, more arcadelike sound/ speed) than the Turbob's HuCard/Turbo Chip. Didn't necessarily mean the games were better, but they were capable of more. But they also expected people to buy the Sega CD and the 32X addons, and treated them like red headed bastard children when they didn't sell like hotcakes.
If I look at the entire library of turbob/PCE and compare it to Sega's 16-bit collection, I'd pick Turbob as the overall better in terms of quality, graphics, sound, colours, and gameplay. A clean fucking sweep dawg. It depends on your own personal tastes. If you like 6 colours on the screen moving at the speed of light with 18 kick ass layers spinning out of control rather than 500 colors on the screen with only two layers of scrolling background, then so be it!
but what the hell are we really debating here? The SNES had Mode 7, so Turbob and Sega can both get bent!!
Quote from: HardcoreOtaku on 02/03/2011, 06:36 AMIMO what make's a console is it games,
16 bit, 8 bit, 7903S bit, 2 zillion colours etc.. all doesn't matter,
what matters is are the games any good? what game developers supported the console?
The Super Famicom had Shigeru Miyamoto, Square Soft, Enix and Natsume.
The Megadrive had Sega arcade conversions, Treasure and Technosoft.
and the PC Engine had Naxat, Taito and of course had Hudson Soft! imo this is what makes it a great console.
To be totally honest of the three I think the Super Famicom is the best,
I truly love the PCE and it is just cooler than the rest, but the selection of SFC games Shigeru Miyamoto had a hand in just lifts it above any other console ever IMO.
PCE Had Falcom as well; A beacon of light in a world of bad RPG's.
tS this thread lost teh meaning a weak ago.
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/03/2011, 12:58 AMThe TurboGrafx-16 was a 16-bit imposter. It was advertised as being 16-bit, and it wasn't. They even stuck "16" in the system's name in a blatant effort to trick people. Why is it ridiculous to state the truth?
You make failure look easy. They didn't claim that it had a 16-bit CPU but that it had 16-bit graphics, and the 6260 and 6270 video chips are indeed 16-bit.
Besides, the whole point is that the bit count
does not matter! It's all about the end result and what you see on screen, unless you think it makes sense to compare the Intellivision with the likes of the SNES and Genesis, but that's just silly.
Quote from: blueraven on 02/03/2011, 10:53 AMQuote from: HardcoreOtaku on 02/03/2011, 06:36 AMIMO what make's a console is it games,
16 bit, 8 bit, 7903S bit, 2 zillion colours etc.. all doesn't matter,
what matters is are the games any good? what game developers supported the console?
The Super Famicom had Shigeru Miyamoto, Square Soft, Enix and Natsume.
The Megadrive had Sega arcade conversions, Treasure and Technosoft.
and the PC Engine had Naxat, Taito and of course had Hudson Soft! imo this is what makes it a great console.
To be totally honest of the three I think the Super Famicom is the best,
I truly love the PCE and it is just cooler than the rest, but the selection of SFC games Shigeru Miyamoto had a hand in just lifts it above any other console ever IMO.
PCE Had Falcom as well; A beacon of light in a world of bad RPG's.
not sure, think Falcom's support for the SFC and PCE was about equal. PCE did have Ys 1&2 and with CD audio so it wins in quality.
Not the dumbest review :idea:
http://youtu.be/9_UG7-PfaHo
Quote from: SuperDeadite on 02/03/2011, 09:56 AMI love how the SNES is supposedly the "most powerful" but it's by far the slowest of the three.
Yeah, the CPU clock speed is pathetic, which is (I assume) why the shooter selection is so terrible on SNES, but true transparencies and mode 7 are completely and totally beyond the PCE and MD. Shooters run slow or flicker on the SNES, but Yoshi's Island, at any speed, is just a pipe dream to the other two systems (and the Neo Geo) thanks to the special video hardware, not to mention the audio (think: Earthbound/Bother2). Completely impossible on PCE/MD.
Here is where some deaf blind douche chimes in trying to tell me that flicker/interlace tricks are transparencies and reverb is for gays. Go on, say it. You know you have to.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 12:10 PMQuote from: SuperDeadite on 02/03/2011, 09:56 AMI love how the SNES is supposedly the "most powerful" but it's by far the slowest of the three.
Yeah, the CPU clock speed is pathetic, which is (I assume) why the shooter selection is so terrible on SNES, but true transparencies and mode 7 are completely and totally beyond the PCE and MD. Shooters run slow or flicker on the SNES, but Yoshi's Island, at any speed, is just a pipe dream to the other two systems (and the Neo Geo) thanks to the special video hardware, not to mention the audio (think: Earthbound/Bother2). Completely impossible on PCE/MD.
Here is where some deaf blind douche chimes in trying to tell me that flicker/interlace tricks are transparencies and reverb is for gays. Go on, say it. You know you have to.
Didn't someone (ccovell) show "impossible" transparencies on the PCE..Zelda Link to the Past IIRC?
Yeah, but the SuperFX games aren't powered by the SNES, it's the cart itself that does all the work. The other consoles could have had such upgrades, they just didn't bother, except a few exceptions like Virtua Racing.
http://youtu.be/os0LXFj_nUo
http://youtu.be/r01gcvFRKLc
Mudash vs. Turbobdash!
:)
Really though, what "bit" thing was the thing they used? Some use the graphics chip, others the CPU, others just make shit up. What chip is the determiner?
Cause the C64 for example is an 8bit CPU, but has an uh... I think its 12bit graphics bus. So is it a 12 bit machine swimming in a sea of 8 bit competition? *shrug* Who cares. The games suck! :) Muddy, chunky nonsense with drab colors! :) Woo.
The Genesis has a 16bit CPU that operates at the same speed as the PCE. Give or take some hz that are negligible. 7mhz. That's cool and all. How many bits is the graphics chip.
The HuC6280A is "8bits", thats nice. It has 16 bit features inside since its a coked out 6502 variant, and addresses a 16 bit and a 21 bit bus, and the video chips are 16 bits. What the fuck number are we using here? Most of it is pretty frigging irrelevant since the average player doesn't really know or care what kind of numbers are going on inside the machine.
Long story short, the bit-war comparisons are retarded. Use your frigging eyes. Pick the shinier, funner to play one. More often than not, I will pick a PCE version of a game over a Genesis one.
That doesn't mean I don't like the Genesis. I like them both. Usually it boils down to I prefer the PCE's sound over the Genesis.
The Genesis has way better hardware scrolling, and better processing since its a frigging 68k, but really, the color limitations usually result in ass on screen where there could have been magic. Some companies overcame this shit (Ristar). It also got cursed with FM, which when used wrong (IREM), results in some pretty frigging lame sound. It's great when done right (Microcabin!) but man... if you just wing it, you get scratchy, farty, awfulness.
Anyone else see the whole bit war thing as a total waste of time? I grew up with NES, TG, Genesis and SNES. I Just wanted to play games and didn't care wtf was going on inside the machine, lol.
Couldn't agree more Ark
Quote from: nectarsis on 02/03/2011, 12:20 PMDidn't someone (ccovell) show "impossible" transparencies on the PCE..Zelda Link to the Past IIRC?
Yeah, he posted a Youtube vid. I'm pretty sure it was SGX, and a feature totally unused by any retail game so...its not like you could ever actually experience this capability. I also don't remember how this effect was achieved, via some sort of super duper flicker, or if it really was a true transparency. Its pretty much impossible to tell on Youtube since very few capture devices actually capture flicker properly, but it sure looked good.
He may have given us a ROM, but I'm pretty sure I never tried it out since I'm too stupid to use emulators, SGX compatible ones anyway.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 02:40 PMQuote from: nectarsis on 02/03/2011, 12:20 PMDidn't someone (ccovell) show "impossible" transparencies on the PCE..Zelda Link to the Past IIRC?
Yeah, he posted a Youtube vid. I'm pretty sure it was SGX, and a feature totally unused by any retail game so...its not like you could ever actually experience this capability. I also don't remember how this effect was achieved, via some sort of super duper flicker, or if it really was a true transparency. Its pretty much impossible to tell on Youtube since very few capture devices actually capture flicker properly, but it sure looked good.
He may have given us a ROM, but I'm pretty sure I never tried it out since I'm too stupid to use emulators, SGX compatible ones anyway.
Just because it wasn't in a retail game =/= "but true transparencies and mode 7 are completely and totally beyond the PCE and MD." It obviously COULD be done ( at least SGFX).
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 12:10 PMYoshi's Island, at any speed, is just a pipe dream to the other two systems (and the Neo Geo) thanks to the special video hardware...
Yoshi's Island isn't doable on a 'plain' SNES either; who knows if the SVP (or some such chip in a HuCard) could've provided the same experience, minus the color depth obviously. That's just a poor example though, as the idea holds true for
F-Zero,
Super Mario Kart, etc., although the Sega CD's scaling and rotation capabilities exceed those of the SNES.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 12:10 PM... not to mention the audio (think: Earthbound/Bother2).
Indeed. The SPC700 can produce some amazing tunes, but redbook can be even better and without tons of expensive ram chips.
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/03/2011, 09:50 AMAnd where does the SuperGrafx fit in? Technically, it puts the Genesis to shame in almost all areas of video. The Genesis being a 'true' 16bit console because of its cpu and the SGX not, makes the Genesis rather pathetic in that context. Calling the TG16 a 16bit imposter is rather silly.
That's an excellent point. How can anyone, in all seriousness, call the SGX an 8bit system? And even if you want to label it an 8bit system out of some sort of weird stubbornness, it only makes the Genesis and SNES look ridiculous for being supposedly "twice" the system, yet having games that look relatively the same.
Quote from: NecroPhile on 02/03/2011, 03:11 PMIndeed. The SPC700 can produce some amazing tunes, but redbook can be even better and without tons of expensive ram chips.
What would be funny is to use Genesis hardware to make music, capture as wave, and put on redbook for a PCE cd game.
hmmm....
:)
We can call it "The hardware is sleepy right now and feels like half assing it" mode. All great hardware deserves a nap.
Quote from: nectarsis on 02/03/2011, 03:04 PMJust because it wasn't in a retail game =/= "but true transparencies and mode 7 are completely and totally beyond the PCE and MD." It obviously COULD be done ( at least SGFX).
Mode 7 is so beyond the PCE its not even funny. Transparencies...may be a different story, so let me rephrase this.
"While it might not be totally impossible for the PCE to do real transparencies of some sort, it is totally impossible for anyone to play any retail game that has them on a PCE because none exist."
Again, if its only possible in theory, its as good as impossible.
Quote from: guest on 02/03/2011, 03:11 PMIndeed. The SPC700 can produce some amazing tunes, but redbook can be even better and without tons of expensive ram chips.
Obviously redbook is better in theory, but its really sad how many redbook CD soundtracks are just garbage. Also, redbook isn't dynamic. It can't transition for shit, and in fact halts the entire system when the laser moves on a PCE.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 06:42 PMMode 7 is so beyond the PCE its not even funny. Transparencies...may be a different story, so let me rephrase this.
http://youtu.be/aLwh76WgaJI
Done on a Turbo R R800 processor (7mhz), and the same video chip as the MSX2+.
So...
fuck yeah.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 06:45 PMObviously redbook is better in theory, but its really sad how many redbook CD soundtracks are just garbage. Also, redbook isn't dynamic. It can't transition for shit, and in fact halts the entire system when the laser moves on a PCE.
No it doesn't. When the laser re-seeks an audio track to loop it, does your game freeze? noooo. It doesn't.
If the laser moves it halts the audio... but it doesn't halt the system.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 06:45 PMObviously redbook is better in theory, but its really sad how many redbook CD soundtracks are just garbage.
No less sad is how many chip tunes are utter shit (SNES, Genny, PCE, it doesn't matter). Did you have a point?
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 06:45 PMAlso, redbook isn't dynamic. It can't transition for shit, and in fact halts the entire system when the laser moves on a PCE.
That's akin to arguing that the SNES is superior to the PCE CD games simply because it doesn't have load times,and that's just silly; plus like Ark said, only the music halts. Besides, using redbook and chip tunes together makes for pretty dandy transitions, such as when some RPGs mute the overworld redbook, play nice chippy tunes during battles, then back to the redbook at battle's end.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 06:42 PMMode 7 is so beyond the PCE its not even funny.
Equally funny is how the PCE's CPU is so far beyond the SNES's. Is it just me, or is it pointless to argue that one machine is head and shoulders above the crowd based on a single capability?
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 06:42 PMAgain, if its only possible in theory, its as good as impossible.
Nice, so I'm expecting hoverboards, light sabers and nuclear fusion powered cars just within the next couple of years.
Quote from: guest on 02/03/2011, 07:13 PMEqually funny is how the PCE's CPU is so far beyond the SNES's. Is it just me, or is it pointless to argue that one machine is head and shoulders above the crowd based on a single capability?
What I always think is the most funny part is the fact that the PCE came out more then 3 years eralier than the SFC and even had CD-ROM media 2 years before the SFC was released.
So taking this enermous time gap into considerations, the SFC is more than a wimpy hardware compared.
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/03/2011, 07:35 PMQuote from: guest on 02/03/2011, 07:13 PMEqually funny is how the PCE's CPU is so far beyond the SNES's. Is it just me, or is it pointless to argue that one machine is head and shoulders above the crowd based on a single capability?
What I always think is the most funny part is the fact that the PCE came out more then 3 years eralier than the SFC and even had CD-ROM media 2 years before the SFC was released.
So taking this enermous time gap into considerations, the SFC is more than a wimpy hardware compared.
Quoted for Joe Redifer.
frowsy work blew!! you have forgotten one.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 06:42 PMQuote from: nectarsis on 02/03/2011, 03:04 PMJust because it wasn't in a retail game =/= "but true transparencies and mode 7 are completely and totally beyond the PCE and MD." It obviously COULD be done ( at least SGFX).
Mode 7 is so beyond the PCE its not even funny. Transparencies...may be a different story, so let me rephrase this.
"While it might not be totally impossible for the PCE to do real transparencies of some sort, it is totally impossible for anyone to play any retail game that has them on a PCE because none exist."
Again, if its only possible in theory, its as good as impossible.
So a demo doesn't qualify as real? Only theory?
Genesis can do mode 7. Real scaling/rotation F-Zero style mode 7. It's in the new Piew Solar game. People have talked about how Fonzie, one of the programmers for the game, made a racer demo that used ripped F-Zero maps. The PCE could probably do something similar, if the Genesis can do it. It's not full res on the Genesis, but it's smooth and impressive looking. And it's mode 7.
Wow, this thread blew up. Guess I should post more often!
I would just like to point out that nowhere did I say the number of bits determines which system is better. Ceti Alpha said it was ridiculous to call the TG-16 a 16-bit imposter, I said it's not ridiculous, and then a bunch of people said "it's about the games" which is totally missing the point. Did I ever say it wasn't about the games? All I said was that I thought the TG-16 was deceptively marketed and that the Genesis is more capable (aside from onscreen colors). Necromancer makes a good point, but no one back then based "bits" on the graphic chips, so that subtlety was lost on the 16-bit generation.
Energy sucks.
The c64 could do mode-7 effex (zoom in-and out and rotate a playfield simultaneous). the question is what is mode-7 exactly and how to do it?
you can do almost any visual effex with progamming tricks on any existing platforms. but some platform can output it easily and directly from its hardware and other have do be tricked to do similar things.
therefore the MD has no hardware mode-7 as the SFC has.
PCE has no hardware parallax? yes.
PCE has no parallax? bullshit, it's just more tricky than doing it on the MD, but it is possible.
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/03/2011, 09:50 AMBlast Processing is a marketing term. How can that be a real thing?
"Blast processing" and "our system has the highest clock speed" are synonymous. Back in those days, it was pretty obvious what "blast processing" really meant if you watched the commercials and thought about the SNES' weaknesses.
For the SNES, Nintendo chose to use the actual term Mode 7, but they could have called it "spinzoom tech" and it would still represent a real thing that distinguished their system from others of its day.
EDIT:
QuoteGenesis can do mode 7.
Actually no, it can't. Genesis games can do scaling and rotation, and often did both better than SNES games, but that's different from the Genesis as a system "doing Mode 7".
I think it's about time for teh..
/pcebread.jpg
:P
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/03/2011, 09:23 PM/pcebread.jpg
Quoted for truth :lol: No bread.. nice :D
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/03/2011, 09:00 PMI would just like to point out that nowhere did I say the number of bits determines which system is better. Ceti Alpha said it was ridiculous to call the TG-16 a 16-bit imposter, I said it's not ridiculous, and then a bunch of people said "it's about the games" which is totally missing the point. Did I ever say it wasn't about the games? All I said was that I thought the TG-16 was deceptively marketed and that the Genesis is more capable (aside from onscreen colors). Necromancer makes a good point, but no one back then based "bits" on the graphic chips, so that subtlety was lost on the 16-bit generation.
Energy sucks.
I'm still not sure how the Genesis is more capable.
And just curious, but was the NES, Master System, and the 7800 all regularly referred to as "8bit" systems? I only really remember the whole bit thing becoming an issue with the 16bit consoles.
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/03/2011, 09:12 PMQuote from: TurboXray on 02/03/2011, 09:50 AMBlast Processing is a marketing term. How can that be a real thing?
"Blast processing" and "our system has the highest clock speed" are synonymous. Back in those days, it was pretty obvious what "blast processing" really meant if you watched the commercials and thought about the SNES' weaknesses.
Synonymous, eh? A lot of youths growing up didn't see it that way. Just look over old Sega-16 posts. People (kids back then) thought it was something special inside the Genesis that made it faster and came to the forum asking for answers (because of being told it was just marketing later on). It was easier to make up a term/saying than trying to describe the advantages the Genesis higher clock cpu had and other blah-blah advantages in a commercial. Companies still do similar today. The general public is fairly ignorant of such things and gullible at the same time. Sega's commercial are a perfect case in point. Not matter how you look at it, a marketing term is just what it is. To pretend it's something else is silly. Even on the Sega-16 forums, people kid about that term all the time. No one ever takes that term as serious and 'real'. Or some special feature of the Genesis.
QuoteFor the SNES, Nintendo chose to use the actual term Mode 7, but they could have called it "spinzoom tech" and it would still represent a real thing that distinguished their system from others of its day.
Uhm, the SNES has 8 configurable display modes. Each mode had something special/unique about it. No other console had this kind of setup, thus you didn't see this kind of talk and terms (though home computers did). The modes are 0 to 7. Mode 7 happens to be... mode 7. And it's just simple rotation and scaling. Perspective scaling, as most people think of mode 7, is actually a software thing. The cpu is changing the scaler register on each scanline. The hardware doesn't automatically tilt the BG layer on the X axis.
QuoteEDIT:
QuoteGenesis can do mode 7.
Actually no, it can't. Genesis games can do scaling and rotation, and often did both better than SNES games, but that's different from the Genesis as a system "doing Mode 7".
So it's perfectly OK to use the term Blast Processing in the most serious sense, but completely incorrect to use the term mode 7 to simply describe a common SNES looking 3D perspective playfield? :-s I've played a lot of Genesis games. I can't think of a single old game where you would consider the BG scaling/rotation/perspective correction is done better on the Genesis. Pier Solar is the only game that does it: http://youtu.be/0N6DUOeLhr0#t=43m30s And it's low resolution at that (lower frame rate too, but still impressive).
QuoteSo it's perfectly OK to use the term Blast Processing in the most serious sense, but completely incorrect to use the term mode 7 to simply describe a common SNES looking 3D perspective playfield?
No one uses "blast processing" unless they're referring to the Genesis, so I don't understand your question. Of course it's incorrect to call a non-SNES thing "mode 7".
Quote from: Emerald RockerI would just like to point out that nowhere did I say the number of bits determines which system is better. Ceti Alpha said it was ridiculous to call the TG-16 a 16-bit imposter, I said it's not ridiculous,
Yeah we know. The whole bit-wars tangent just kinda happened on its own due to the bit wars being mentioned at all. :)
Quoteand then a bunch of people said "it's about the games" which is totally missing the point. Did I ever say it wasn't about the games?
its just a new tangent. We've got like 30 tangents in this thread, including one about Joe Redifer. The its about the games point is just another argument showing how stupid the bit comparing is. Games with more bits *cough* atari jaguar *cough cough* weren't always super jawesome.
QuoteAll I said was that I thought the TG-16 was deceptively marketed and that the Genesis is more capable (aside from onscreen colors). Necromancer makes a good point, but no one back then based "bits" on the graphic chips, so that subtlety was lost on the 16-bit generation.
Only ignorant jackasses actually believed any of that number crap marketing people used, I think.
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/03/2011, 09:12 PMActually no, it can't. Genesis games can do scaling and rotation, and often did both better than SNES games, but that's different from the Genesis as a system "doing Mode 7".
Yknow, Mode 7 is just scaling and rotating right? Its just called Mode 7 on the SFC because its the 8th mode the chip does. (7th counting from 0). The math behind it is pretty simple. I think everyone just says "oh it can do mode 7" because if you say "scaling and rotating" some people are like "what?" and then you go "Mario Kart" and they go OH MODE 7?
fact is, mode-7 became a synonym for rotating and scaling sprites and playfileds very smoothly, since that term appeared initialy in the world of SFC hardware specs. there is also nothing wrong with it to actually use it as such a term in general.
but peeps with some brains do refer it more to a hardware ability of a platform than a tricky software solution, which only is a "mode-7" look-a-like.
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/03/2011, 09:12 PMQuote from: TurboXray on 02/03/2011, 09:50 AMBlast Processing is a marketing term. How can that be a real thing?
"Blast processing" and "our system has the highest clock speed" are synonymous. Back in those days, it was pretty obvious what "blast processing" really meant if you watched the commercials and thought about the SNES' weaknesses.
For the SNES, Nintendo chose to use the actual term Mode 7, but they could have called it "spinzoom tech" and it would still represent a real thing that distinguished their system from others of its day.
EDIT:
QuoteGenesis can do mode 7.
Actually no, it can't. Genesis games can do scaling and rotation, and often did both better than SNES games, but that's different from the Genesis as a system "doing Mode 7".
I get the jist of what you are saying, but what is "blast processing" other than a marketing term? You know what I mean? Like, what technically in hardware or specific process would that refer to?
If Nintendo used the term "spinzoom" you could say, well spin zoom is mode7. Mode7 is an actual technical hardware mode where you modify the scaling and positioning of a layer on a scanline-by-scanline basis. (mode7 only works on BGs not on sprites btw)
As far as bits and speed, the Genesis 7MHz 68000 pales in comparison to the PCE 7mhz 65c02. You hear all the time about CPU "pipelining" these days, but that technology has been around forever. The 65c02 is pipelined. Meaning it can do two different but overlapping tasks in one cycle. The 68000, for example, requires four clock periods to read or write data to and from memory, the 65c02 requires only one clock period. A 1MHZ 65c02 has a throughput unmatched by the 68000 until it's clock rate is up to 4MHZ. The true measure of the relative speed of various microprocessors can only be made by comparing how long each takes, in it's own machine code, to complete the same operation.
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/03/2011, 11:34 PMfact is, mode-7 became a synonym for rotating and scaling sprites and playfileds very smoothly
Playfields, yes. Sprites, no. The SNES cannot scale or rotate sprites in the hardware. That's why games that use Mode 7 like F-Zero or Mario Kart have objects that bump forward like an NES game, no scaling, just animated sprites. The funny thing is that even Sonic CD's bonus rounds did this and it had the ability to scale the "sprites". Just look at Batman Returns... it scales and rotates everything. But then again, Japan was not able to do much with the CD hardware because they were n00bs.
I always thought the general ips of the pce are higher than the ips of an MD.
Quote from: Joe Redifer on 02/04/2011, 02:00 AMQuote from: Tatsujin on 02/03/2011, 11:34 PMfact is, mode-7 became a synonym for rotating and scaling sprites and playfileds very smoothly
Playfields, yes. Sprites, no. The SNES cannot scale or rotate sprites in the hardware. That's why games that use Mode 7 like F-Zero or Mario Kart have objects that bump forward like an NES game, no scaling, just animated sprites.
Joe and Goban, you are right. I forgot about that. my bad.
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/04/2011, 02:01 AMI always thought the general ips of the pce are higher than the ips of an MD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_second
They list the 6502 doing 1MIPS @ just 2MHz. The same number of instructions takes the 68000 8MHz.
Again, real world speed comparison comes down to how fast each CPU can complete the same operations. But with number of instructions running at 4X the 68000, the 65c02 is a beast.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 12:10 PMQuote from: SuperDeadite on 02/03/2011, 09:56 AMI love how the SNES is supposedly the "most powerful" but it's by far the slowest of the three.
Yeah, the CPU clock speed is pathetic, which is (I assume) why the shooter selection is so terrible on SNES,
Small selection yes, but what it does have is a small selection of incredibly good shmups, which in my opinion in quality beats the much larger selection of Megadrive shmups.
Axelay
Area 88 (Capcom's finest 2D shmup)
R-Type III: Third Lightning (best R-Type ever, simply amazing)
Super Aleste (brilliant Compile game, much better than the mediocre Musha Aleste)
Macross Scrambled Valkyrie (one of the finest shmups ever, tons of sprites on screen with no slowdown, trounces over the average PCE & Saturn Macross games)
Flying Hero
Sonic Wings
Gokujou Parodius, jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius and Parodius Da
Cotton 100%
Pop 'n Twinbee
You know, this joke-cum-WTF thread has got me thinking about the various trade-offs made by the various console makers of the time. A lot of this is conjecture. I'm not a (good or practicing) programmer, but I do understand programming pretty well. I'm also a hardware junkie. Still, I've made a lot of guesses and assumptions here, and I look forward to being ripped to shreds.
Hudson/NEC based their system on a widespread and effective CPU core design with well-established audio capabilities and a graphics chip designed to push sprites and make pretty colors. It was a much more powerful and effective combination than the hardware used in the NES or Sega Mark III, and yet it was very much a direct evolution of them. The CPU was clocked faster and featured a few extra registers, but it was very similar to the NES in that it used the same 6502 core. The sound capabilities were improved, but again, rather directly evolved from predecessors. The graphics chip displayed many more colors and was more sprite capable, but it was still just sprites and a single background tileset. Though it lacked any accommodations for special effects, each component of the system was significantly more powerful than the individual components of those in systems of the previous generation. Perhaps Hudson's biggest compromise, however, was the dearth of available RAM in the system. RAM was expensive, and thus selecting limited RAM caches for the system was likely a cost decision. It could be argued that the PC Engine was the most basic and simple of the 16-bit generation systems, and it owed its design most closely to that which came immediately before it in the home console and computer space, including the necessity of developers to use optimized code to get good results, especially given the limited program RAM space. Then again, NES developers were used to working with 6502 code and even more limited RAM space, so in a sense, the system was catered to them as a distinct upgrade path. All your pre-existing NES programming skills will transfer, only you have more power, more RAM, more sprites, and more colors! Some early PCE games were clearly the product of developers who saw the PCE as simply a slightly more powerful NES. Good developers learned that the system was quite a bit more powerful, and as a result was more flexible than the NES. This said, the power of the PCE was wholly dependent upon the programmer to tease out, meaning the games library varies widely in quality. It would have been nice to have seem a few extra effects or features added into the hardware mix, but it's hard to complain about a system which is tightly designed and relatively capable. The PCE does what it was designed to do quite well, and only truly suffers in lack of RAM.
Sega seemed to go a different direction. Sega had a lot of arcade experience, and as a result of having a strong library of arcade titles it made sense they'd go more that route. Arcade hardware was often highly customized with varied capabilities. They used a stock CPU that was widespread in arcade boards, the 68k. The CPU isn't necessarily any faster than the one in the PCE as far as raw performance goes, but it's easier to develop for, what with being C friendly, and Sega's own arcade devs were already familiar with it. One can only assume that, even though the 68000 was stock and not a custom chip, that it was still more expensive as it was a more complex design and the core architecture more recent. In PC audio and arcades FM synth was starting to make a splash due to the unique sound, so Sega decided to throw in an FM-capable chipset along with a basic PSG chipset, and even a co-processor to help manage them (which makes one wonder about the troubles the Genesis has playing clear digital sound samples in some circumstances). Sega's arcade bias even showed when designing graphics capabilities. They decided they could get away with fewer colors onscreen (probably to save costs) if they kept the sprite capabilities robust and added hardware for two independent background planes. This did work pretty well, and many Genesis titles look very colorful despite heavy use of dithering and limited color counts. Ultimately programmers were able to more easily produce games that looked, sounded, and as a result behaved differently than on the NES and previous consoles and more like arcade titles as a result of these hardware decisions. There was less need for careful code management and special effects could be substituted for a lack of colors and palette variety. It did mean that some developers were driven to one-up each other via careful coding to produce new special effects, since scrolling and basic sprite effects were relatively easy. Unfortunately, the easy of coding interesting sound and visual effects meant some programming houses were willing to ship shoddy gameplay. Graphically, Genesis games were less varied in quality than PCE games (more games clustered in the middle with fewer spread out at the low end), but in terms of core gameplay there was just as wide a quality spectrum. Sega paired their CPU and other system capabilities fairly effectively. A little greater audio flexibility in regard to digital samples and improved color support are the only gripes to be found.
I'm not sure I completely understand Nintendo's approach to system design when considering the Super Famicom, though I have a few guesses. They took a 16-bit 6502 derived core which had potential (hell, look what the Apple IIGS did with a similar CPU) but then clock-starved it. Rather, they seemed much more interested in graphics and sound capabilities. The sound chip is rather flexible (also has a 6502-based core), allowing for not only very clear digital samples but also some neat DSP effects, like reverb (unfortunately over-used). The graphics chipset has very good color support, strong sprite display capabilities, and background capabilities that vary widely based on the particular mode in which the chipset is driven. They also threw in, again, more special effects. Mode 7 (scaling and rotation) is a combination of effects that can be implemented on a set of background tiles, often artfully used to simulate foreground effects as well. Limited transparency effects can also be applied to background tiles and are often used to great effect in games (but also with weird side-effects, like foreground sprite objects disappearing completely where the transparency effects are taking place). They also packed the system with spacious RAM caches. My best guess here is that they saw what Sega was doing with the specialized hardware on the Genesis and decided that that road had some advantages and tried to one-up them in most regards. But they also likely saw themselves as successors to the Nintendo market and not as much the arcade market, so the graphics capabilities they implemented didn't so closely mimic arcade developments. I think they also weren't seeing much potential in FM synth and opted to focus solely on digital sampling. The SFC has some complicated and sometimes limiting modes of operation, and I don't know if they were the result of attempts to save money in system design or simply unanticipated quirks. Further, the CPU requires rather solid coding skills to get good performance and is not nearly as easy to program for as Sega's CPU choice. In many ways it was even less accommodating than Hudson's choice in the PCE. I can only guess that Nintendo figured with all the flashy effects and clear audio that actual program coding and design would be less important. The end result is a system which, like the Genesis, has a lot of attractive games with various graphical effects and games with clear sound. The easy sound chip resulted in some fantastic sound effects and tunes, but also lead to audio Uncanny Valley problems. PSG and FM sound tend to be very distinct and don't sound much like existing real world instruments, but SFC sampled sound could mimic said instruments closely enough that it was easy to compare to the real thing, and that sometimes led to disappointment, just as computer generated characters that look too much like real people actually create distance and seem creepier and less human than obviously unreal characters. The SFC suffered in some unique ways as a result of its design. It was the home platform for some of the most attractive, best sounding, and overall impressive games of its hardware generation, but it also produced some games which seemed unnecessarily flawed. Many early and middle era games were plagued with exaggerated slowdown as a result of programming code not being up to the same standard set by the easy-to-tap graphics and audio capabilities. This hearkened back to the days of the NES, where intense action scenes were often slowdown plagued, and was a stark contrast to the PCE and Genesis, two consoles which, overall, managed slowdown fairly well. I guess Nintendo wanted to accommodate its loyal NES programmers, but in giving them easy, flexible tools in some areas and not in others it appears that Nintendo confused some of them instead. The SFC is, ultimately, the most paradoxical of the systems, with great video and audio capabilities, lots of RAM space, and a CPU that seems to be poorly paired with the rest of the package. The SFC was a system which rose to the top as a result of the good hardware decisions being enough to simply muscle over the bad. It's like having a quite, smooth-handling car which is better than all the others except that gosh darnit it's really slow to accelerate up to highway speeds. Your music sounds better in this car. The seats are more comfortable. The visibility is better out of the windows. Everything is better until you have to drive up a merge lane that's too short or pass on the left around the camper going 5 mph below the speed limit and the dude tailgating you wants you to get your ass around the camper, NOW! It's a great trip, but you're periodically reminded that bad decisions are keeping this this awesome thing from being perfect.
OK, done. Tired, and done.
The reason behind the SFC CPU is Nintendo originally wanted to make it backward compatible with the Famicom, but they couldn't manage to get the backward compatibility to work in time for the SFC release and it was stuck with a slow CPU.
In fact that's why Nintendo was late to the 16 bit race because the Famicom/NES still pwnd Japan & US and still had the no.1 user base that Nintendo didn't want to let go of.
yeah, that's general knowledge :)
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/04/2011, 04:28 AMyeah, that's general knowledge :)
I forgot to quote :D, my post was a response to:
Quote from: guest on 02/04/2011, 02:40 AMI've made a lot of guesses and assumptions here....
I'm not sure I completely understand Nintendo's approach to system design when considering the Super Famicom
Just to give a few examples of the strength of each system.
SNES and mode 7...when mode 7 is done right, theres a part in batman & robin that involves a blimp and a scaling BG...video below, fast forward to 7 minutes.
http://youtu.be/TNue95e61q8
Lets not forget about snes games with special chips like Star fox.
The same goes for transparencies, check out the laser weapon in super turrican 2.
For the genesis i would out the adventures of batman & robin(another batman game :-k) above ranger x.
The falling platform in stage two and the mad hatter boss fight are awesome. Ill go ahead and mention FMV games like silpheed for the sega cd.
For the pc engine, its all about sprite animation, what do you get when you add up all the frames of animation from Act Raiser 2, Demons Crest, Act Raiser 1 and Castlevania 4, roughly the same amount of frames that are in Rondo...oh, it doesn't stop there, the sprites themselves are larger in rondo.
Rondo top SCIV BOTTOM, the large rock golem is actually a BG tile/mode 7.
(http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screenshots/zw.png)
The effects/special attacks are also larger.
Rondo top Demons crest bottom.
(http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screenshots/sfxy1.png)
I ripped Sapphire, it completely trumps Donkey Kong Country, there are other examples, but ill stop.
The pce has a good combination of speed and color, it handles shooter remarkably well, but is it better than the snes or genesis, even though its my favorite system, i say no, both of those systems have a better rounded library in my opinion...such as platform shooters and side scrolling brawlers.
Quote from: HardcoreOtaku on 02/04/2011, 02:29 AMQuote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 12:10 PMQuote from: SuperDeadite on 02/03/2011, 09:56 AMI love how the SNES is supposedly the "most powerful" but it's by far the slowest of the three.
Yeah, the CPU clock speed is pathetic, which is (I assume) why the shooter selection is so terrible on SNES,
Small selection yes, but what it does have is a small selection of incredibly good shmups, which in my opinion in quality beats the much larger selection of Megadrive shmups.
Axelay
Area 88 (Capcom's finest 2D shmup)
R-Type III: Third Lightning (best R-Type ever, simply amazing)
Super Aleste (brilliant Compile game, much better than the mediocre Musha Aleste)
Macross Scrambled Valkyrie (one of the finest shmups ever, tons of sprites on screen with no slowdown, trounces over the average PCE & Saturn Macross games)
Flying Hero
Sonic Wings
Gokujou Parodius, jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius and Parodius Da
Cotton 100%
Pop 'n Twinbee
Wait people LIKE Cotton 100%? It's a rape of the series in my opinion. AWFUL AWFUL game.
The rest of those are mediocre ports of arcade games, for the most point. Sure it's got
a few ok shooters. But even the MSX1 is a better shooter system then the SNES. The SNES excels at
games with long levels that repeat graphics over and over. It's a wonderful system for people who
enjoy seeing the same 3 sprites on a loop that goes on for 5 minutes.
I have an SFC, it has a few games I like, but the majority of the library are just Famicom games with
annoyingly long levels. Even Super Aleste has those retarded bonus stages, and you have to replay
stage 1 again before the final stage. Pointless filler, ugh.
Quote from: SuperDeadite on 02/04/2011, 08:24 AMQuote from: HardcoreOtaku on 02/04/2011, 02:29 AMQuote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 12:10 PMQuote from: SuperDeadite on 02/03/2011, 09:56 AMI love how the SNES is supposedly the "most powerful" but it's by far the slowest of the three.
Yeah, the CPU clock speed is pathetic, which is (I assume) why the shooter selection is so terrible on SNES,
Small selection yes, but what it does have is a small selection of incredibly good shmups, which in my opinion in quality beats the much larger selection of Megadrive shmups.
Axelay
Area 88 (Capcom's finest 2D shmup)
R-Type III: Third Lightning (best R-Type ever, simply amazing)
Super Aleste (brilliant Compile game, much better than the mediocre Musha Aleste)
Macross Scrambled Valkyrie (one of the finest shmups ever, tons of sprites on screen with no slowdown, trounces over the average PCE & Saturn Macross games)
Flying Hero
Sonic Wings
Gokujou Parodius, jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius and Parodius Da
Cotton 100%
Pop 'n Twinbee
Wait people LIKE Cotton 100%? It's a rape of the series in my opinion. AWFUL AWFUL game.
The rest of those are mediocre ports of arcade games, for the most point. Sure it's got
a few ok shooters. But even the MSX1 is a better shooter system then the SNES. The SNES excels at
games with long levels that repeat graphics over and over. It's a wonderful system for people who
enjoy seeing the same 3 sprites on a loop that goes on for 5 minutes.
I have an SFC, it has a few games I like, but the majority of the library are just Famicom games with
annoyingly long levels. Even Super Aleste has those retarded bonus stages, and you have to replay
stage 1 again before the final stage. Pointless filler, ugh.
smiply put, I disagree with everything you just said.
The comments have no correlation with someone who's actually played amazing games like R-Type III, Macross Scrambled Valkyrie & Axelay
:D
(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/opibucket/Animated/dealio.gif)
:lol:
Quote from: HardcoreOtaku on 02/04/2011, 09:20 AMQuote from: SuperDeadite on 02/04/2011, 08:24 AMQuote from: HardcoreOtaku on 02/04/2011, 02:29 AMQuote from: SignOfZeta on 02/03/2011, 12:10 PMQuote from: SuperDeadite on 02/03/2011, 09:56 AMI love how the SNES is supposedly the "most powerful" but it's by far the slowest of the three.
Yeah, the CPU clock speed is pathetic, which is (I assume) why the shooter selection is so terrible on SNES,
Small selection yes, but what it does have is a small selection of incredibly good shmups, which in my opinion in quality beats the much larger selection of Megadrive shmups.
Axelay
Area 88 (Capcom's finest 2D shmup)
R-Type III: Third Lightning (best R-Type ever, simply amazing)
Super Aleste (brilliant Compile game, much better than the mediocre Musha Aleste)
Macross Scrambled Valkyrie (one of the finest shmups ever, tons of sprites on screen with no slowdown, trounces over the average PCE & Saturn Macross games)
Flying Hero
Sonic Wings
Gokujou Parodius, jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius and Parodius Da
Cotton 100%
Pop 'n Twinbee
Wait people LIKE Cotton 100%? It's a rape of the series in my opinion. AWFUL AWFUL game.
The rest of those are mediocre ports of arcade games, for the most point. Sure it's got
a few ok shooters. But even the MSX1 is a better shooter system then the SNES. The SNES excels at
games with long levels that repeat graphics over and over. It's a wonderful system for people who
enjoy seeing the same 3 sprites on a loop that goes on for 5 minutes.
I have an SFC, it has a few games I like, but the majority of the library are just Famicom games with
annoyingly long levels. Even Super Aleste has those retarded bonus stages, and you have to replay
stage 1 again before the final stage. Pointless filler, ugh.
smiply put, I disagree with everything you just said.
The comments have no correlation with someone who's actually played amazing games like R-Type III, Macross Scrambled Valkyrie & Axelay
:D
I've played every game on that list. Axelay's vertical levels are all the same thing over and over. Sure the horizontal levels were great, but 50% of the game sucks. Why the hell would I play a half-assed port of Parodius when I can play the real arcade game it's based on? The best Macross games are again the arcade games. R-Type III is inferior to all 3 of the arcade games. The first level with all the mode 7 rotation effects is sleep inducing. By the time it ends I simply don't care anymore. When I play shooters I like to actually shoot stuff, not sit around waiting for the silly background to rotate.
The bits thing is always a fun time to debate. :)
SNES = 8/16 bit hybrid CPU, 16 bit graphics hardware (16 bit bus), 8 bits of color output (256 max).
MD = 16 bit CPU, 8 bit graphics hardware (16 bit bus), 5 bits of color output (64 max).
PCE = 8 bit CPU, 16 bit graphics hardware (16 bit bus), >15 bits of color output (481 max).
...who's the 16 bit impostor?
I've thought the SFC is capable of 32768 colors output? so is it all all big LIE?
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/04/2011, 10:47 AMI've thought the sfc is capable of 32768 colors output? so is it all all big LIE?
That's the total number available to pick from, but it can only put 256 on screen at a time.
I've noticed how when Genesis and SNES fanboys compare platforms, they tend to judge everything based around how close anything is to their favorite console, at the exclusion of rival console's strengths. So you'll find blind Genesis fans judging things not by how good or bad they are, but how Genesis-like they are or aren't. Like how a game is pathetically weak if it doesn't move fast enough to make it unplayable. Super SNES nerds though, tend to dismiss outright anything that Nintendo hasn't touched, because by default it can never even come close to comparing. :wink:
The only thing that Genesis and SNES super fans always seem to agree on though, is when the PC Engine is being discussed along with the other two consoles, they instantly dismiss any and all positives/superiorities that the PC Engine has. The craziest part of that, is that it's mainly the actual graphics that these people are saying don't count. You know, the pixel art that makes up the entire image before any gimmicks are tossed around. :P
It's even crazier when people start to point out what only the Genesis or SNES can do and how the PC Engine can't. End of discussion. It's crazy because the same people ignore the fact that the graphics in PC Engine games like Forgotten Worlds are IMPOSSIBLE to achieve on either Genesis or SNES. Period. If we're talking about what CAN'T be done on other consoles, then both the Genesis and SNES can't produce resolutions and onscreen color, or actual graphic quality, as the lowly "8-bit" PC Engine can and has in published games. They'll go on about how a warping pixelated mess or 60fps transparencies can never be matched by similar techniques on other consoles. But when the actual graphics themselves are of a higher and unmatched technical quality... all of a sudden technical feats no longer count.
You know what other hardware lacks true Mode 7 and real transparencies? Neo Geo, CPS1 and CPS2. Can those platforms never compare to the power of the SNES? One thing they all have in common with each other and the PC Engine is that they're capable of higher resolutions plus more onscreen colors and are known for amazing in-game animation. Do the flicker transparencies in CPS2 games really look so bad that those of us who think the games look good are really just "kidding ourselves"? And all the animation found in games for those three platforms, is it really no substitute for warping and pixelated effects? Because the way I see it it's the other way around. Much of the special effects on 16-bit consoles are substitutes for real art and animation. Are Seiken Densetsu 3's Intellivision-quality pixelated O's really more impressive than animated art?
The other ridiculous stereotype that's been floating around since back in the day, is the notion of "real" and "fake" effects. Like how the PC Engine can only do "fake" parallax. I've got some terrible news for Genesis and SNES fanboys, ALL of your favorite console's graphics and scrolling is fake. These systems don't move around layers of graphic art. They cobble together of bunch of little swatches called "tiles" and create the illusion of pieces of art. It's just a simulation. But then, instead of sliding around these layers in real-time with magic invisible computer hands, these sections of tiles instantly teleport to different locations. That's right, the Genesis and SNES use ANIMATION to simulate movement, just like how the PC Engine does. There is no such thing as real-time in game graphics. It's all an animated illusion that tricks human minds with simulated movement.
Not that it matters how the little monkeys work things under the hood, but for the people ridiculing the PC Engine for only having two layers like some 8-bit chump, it actually has 3 layers. There's the tiles, sprites and a solid color layer that is normally invisible. Why does it matter? It is used at times for things like transparency effects. That rolling tunnel in Metamor Jupitor would be impressive enough on its own. But what's all the more impressive is that it actually has shading with a gradient that the graphics are rolling through. I believe that Chris Covell's Axelay SuperGrafx demo also uses that third layer for the transparency at the horizon.
One minor note: Earlier people were talking about the SuperGrafx transparency demo(s) with Zelda graphics. Tomaitheous actually made those demos. He also made a cool transparency demo for PCE that uses Thunder Force IV graphics. It doesn't matter what kind of demos show the potential the PCE has though, there are loads of PCE games with cool translucency, silhouette and misc "transparency" like effects. Many of which are impossible to do with and look better than slapping a SNES transparency layer over something. Also those fugly flicker transpencies allow multiple layers and transparent sprites, something the SNES can't do in "hardware" either.
Anyway, if the actual graphic quality is negligible and a better measure of true "16-bit"ness or Genesis/SNES caliber graphics is scrolling a background layer vertically and horizontally behind the foreground... then I give you "real" 16-bit graphics that has been "deceptively" (LIES! :---)) described as "8-bit" to this day-
http://youtu.be/2SAcX1VCbqQ
damn is the PCE awesome.
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/04/2011, 10:47 AMI've thought the sfc is capable of 32768 colors output? so is it all all big LIE?
Mode-7 is capable of 15 bit color output via add/subtract transparencies but this isn't direct manipulation of pixels so it's difficult to draw a comparison. My figures are based on directly manipulable pixels.
Oh and I got it wrong... it's 61 colors, not 64 colors. So it's not even 5 bits color output. :P
These foolish wars are just that... foolish. And the fanboys come out in droves to defend their chosen consoles. It's all so stupid. Misinformation is always going to be thrown around by those who have their preferences.
Quote from: CrackTiger on 02/04/2011, 10:54 AMThe other ridiculous stereotype that's been floating around since back in the day, is the notion of "real" and "fake" effects. Like how the PC Engine can only do "fake" parallax.
When people dismiss the PCE for not having hardware parallax, I like to ask 'em their opinion of the NeoGeo.
does the neogeo not having hardware parallax scrolling?
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/04/2011, 11:07 AMdoes the neogeo not having hardware parallax scrolling?
It's worse than the PCE, as it doesn't have
any backgound layers - it's all sprites.
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/04/2011, 11:07 AMdoes the neogeo not having hardware parallax scrolling?
The neo geo is all sprites dude, lol.
Everythings sprites flailing around going FUCK YEAH NEOGOGOEOEGOEGOEOEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO *echo*
damn the Neo Geo is sooo damn weak ey. But it is supossed to be the best of all 'em. It's damn 24 bits. 1.5 more than the MD and SFC and damn tripple of the weak PCE. But it fails in displaiyng simple parallax scrollings?
The Neo Geo hardware is probably the best BECAUSE it has no background tiles. A sprite-only system with a 1536 sprite-pixels-per-line limitation means you can have just about as many layers of parallax as you want. So... why don't the Genesis fanboys ever compare their console to the Neo Geo? Oh yeah, that's right... because they would get their asses kicked by a console which is similar in architecture (68k CPU, Z80 coprocessor for sound, same VRAM and sound buffer) but vastly superior (higher speed CPU, 7 ADPCM channels, 16 bit color palette with 12 bits of color output, 384 sprites of sizes up to 512 pixels tall, etc etc etc).
NEWS FLASH! Top scienticians have recently discovered that the PC Engine actually has built-in hardware support for multiple scrolling background layers, transparencies, real-time shaded and textured polygons, real-time morphing of 2D and 3D graphics... all without the aide of enhancements chips or additional hardware! Finally years of technical research has provided an explanation for how all of these things appeared in so many PC Engine games. The PC Engine is now clearly a 32-bit class machine which unquestionably CRUSHES both the Mega Drive and Super Famicom.
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This just in! It was discovered that none of the previously reported hardware supported effects are actually built-in to the PC Engine. PLEASE, lower your appreciation of all PC Engine games immediately!
The 16-bit wars (NEO GEO included) was the greatest time in video game fucking history.
Period
Quote from: JoshTurboTrollX-16 on 02/04/2011, 12:03 PMThe 16-bit wars (NEO GEO included) was the greatest time in video game fucking history.
Period
...and it had the most misinformed fanboys. :lol:
Quote from: Opethian on 02/04/2011, 09:54 AM(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/opibucket/Animated/dealio.gif)
teh funnAY
Quote from: HardcoreOtaku on 02/04/2011, 02:55 AMThe reason behind the SFC CPU is Nintendo originally wanted to make it backward compatible with the Famicom, but they couldn't manage to get the backward compatibility to work in time for the SFC release and it was stuck with a slow CPU.
In fact that's why Nintendo was late to the 16 bit race because the Famicom/NES still pwnd Japan & US and still had the no.1 user base that Nintendo didn't want to let go of.
I've read that in many places, but I'm not sure it's the only reason. The CPU could have been clocked higher and likely still have worked. It's just a matter of having a slower operating mode for compatibility. The CPU itself is fine. It's the clock speed that's problematic. So while backwards compatibility is one claim, the popularity of the NES bought Nintendo extra time to either sort out the backwards compatibility issue or find a way to clock up the CPU a bit. The 16-bit market did not catch Nintendo by surprise. They had time and they had more than enough indications from the market. I'm wondering of the CPU design wasn't robust enough to support higher clock rates or if the yields were low initially or something.
In reading about the Neo Geo I did find it odd that the maximum sprite size was 16 x 512. Or is it 512 x 16? Either way, it explains why the fighting game characters tend to be a bit skinnier (in general) than on other platforms. When you can put out that many sprites at once and lump so many on the same scanline you can do just about whatever you want.
My extended blort there wasn't to demonstrate how hardware features made the SFC and MD better consoles so much as it made it easier for programmers for those consoles to utilize those capabilities. The PCE can do any of that stuff through creative programming, but it takes a little extra performance hit (losing sprites to effects, getting flicker from over-crowded scanlines, and extra program code in limited RAM). You should also not read that as an endorsement of those consoles over the PCE. The PCE is my personal favorite of the three. But from a programming perspective it was more difficult in many ways for programmers to produce some of the effects that the public and press were eating up on other platforms.
CrackTigerQuoteAre Seiken Densetsu 3's Intellivision-quality pixelated O's really more impressive than animated art?
No love for transparent, scaling circles.
QuoteMuch of the special effects on 16-bit consoles are substitutes for real art and animation.
Yeah, it was a way to save memory, but most of that stuff looks putrid, infact, there is only one system(pce) between these three who's effects animation, pixel for pixel are still being used to this day.
Quote from: HardcoreOtakuSmall selection yes, but what it does have is a small selection of incredibly good shmups, which in my opinion in quality beats the much larger selection of Megadrive shmups.
Axelay
Area 88 (Capcom's finest 2D shmup)
R-Type III: Third Lightning (best R-Type ever, simply amazing)
Super Aleste (brilliant Compile game, much better than the mediocre Musha Aleste)
Macross Scrambled Valkyrie (one of the finest shmups ever, tons of sprites on screen with no slowdown, trounces over the average PCE & Saturn Macross games)
Flying Hero
Sonic Wings
Gokujou Parodius, jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius and Parodius Da
Cotton 100%
Pop 'n Twinbee
I'm with you on Macross. Not only does it have a pretty decent amount of shit flying around for a SFC game, it also heavily uses special SFC effects all over the place and doesn't look like crap for doing it. Its really really good. I can't figure out why there aren't more quality shooters like this on SFC. I mean, these guys did it...
Axelay really impressed me at the time, but it hasn't aged very well. Its pretty good, but not great.
Area 88 is...OK.
Everything else is pretty lame though.
I heard that Axelay and Area 88 were the best shooters for the system and that Super Aleste was nothing more than a funny little game not to take seriously because of it's low difficulty. I got them all eventually and the one game of all SNES shooters I actually had fun with - was Super Aleste.
Quote from: HardcoreOtaku on 02/04/2011, 02:29 AMMacross Scrambled Valkyrie (one of the finest shmups ever, tons of sprites on screen with no slowdown, trounces over the average PCE & Saturn Macross games)
I'd hardly call it one of the finest shmups ever. The level design for the most part, is rather plain or repetitive. The first and sixth level stand out as pretty nice, but the rest are mostly only average. It doesn't have tons of sprites on screen, well maybe for a SFC game and certainly nothing to point relative to the PCE's and Genesis' shmups. The last levels do get some more enemy action, but still nothing special. I don't see how someone could think this game trounces the PCE's Macross 2036. PCE one has more interesting levels designs and variety. The bosses are pretty generic in the SFC port, while the PCE port as fantastic looking bosses. Almost all the of the SFC bosses are generic and/or don't fit the theme of Macross. The PCE one is more cinematic too, not just in cinemas - but levels too (like the large ship you're accompanying that crashes/pierces the large enemy fleet ship - in the game level). The music is pretty good on the SFC port, but still can't touch the PCE's sound track. The actual shmup design of the SNES one is pretty thin. The PCE one a better power up system through out the game as well as earned points(money) to buy secondary weapons. Much more choice of weapons to add strategy to the levels. The PCE one is pretty like Area 88 SFC games meets Macross. The PCE one doesn't have the nice transparency effects of level 1 and 6 of the SFC port, but the level graphics are much more interesting or breathtaking overall. The PCE one just has sooo much more going for it than the SFC port. The PCE version easily owns the SFC version. And the PCE on runs on a system card 2.0 too. That's an extra diss to the super fammy port.
QuoteThe Neo Geo hardware is probably the best BECAUSE it has no background tiles. A sprite-only system with a 1536 sprite-pixels-per-line limitation means you can have just about as many layers of parallax as you want. So... why don't the Genesis fanboys ever compare their console to the Neo Geo? Oh yeah, that's right... because they would get their asses kicked by a console which is similar in architecture (68k CPU, Z80 coprocessor for sound, same VRAM and sound buffer) but vastly superior (higher speed CPU, 7 ADPCM channels, 16 bit color palette with 12 bits of color output, 384 sprites of sizes up to 512 pixels tall, etc etc etc).
Someone already tried to do that. I read a thread where someone was comparing Neo Geo to the Genesis. Saying how the Genesis had better parallax hardware and that the Neo Geo couldn't do it. All because they didn't see it on the NG, of the level they saw on the Genesis (Sonic, Ristar). The NG has a scanline interrupt and can change position of any chain of sprites needed for line scrolls or parallax. Though for parallax for games like Ristar, on the NG you wouldn't even need interrupt stuffs. You just build it all out with sprites.
Genesis:
16bit CPU, 16bit data bus. VDP 8bit I/O on cpu side (grouped 8bit ports), and 8bit data bus to vram (vram is two 4bit chips). The VDP also works in 8bit segments internally. As a side effect, certain things screw up when in Genesis 'mode' because it tries to emulate a 16bit I/O port by using a latch or some other type logic (like the increment register, if it's an odd value and you write a WORD to the I/O port - the two bytes of the word end up in two different places). But that makes sense, since the it's BC with SMS and that was an 8bit VDP.
SNES:
16bit CPU, 8bit data bus. It has two sPPU's, cpu read/write port is 8bit (and the DMA on the sPPU pulls data in byte segments on the CPU address bus). The external vram (which is dram and needs refresh cycles), is two 8bit chips. Each sPPU has direct access to each 8bit data bus. They work in conjunction with each other to build the display. For the most part, this is transparent to the programmer because of how they are interleaved and show/treated as a continuous memory range. But mode 7 shows the real layout of this. Pixel data is byte (for 256 color). The tile map data is also byte (instead of word). The pixel data and the map data are interleaved. So you have to take this into account when writing or DMAing to vram. And it's interleaved because the bandwidth to display 256 color byte pixels is very high, so they take advantage of the dual 8bit bus layout. On sPPU reads the 8bit vram chip holding the tilemap, the other sPPU reads the other 8bit chip that holds nothing but the tile data.
PCE:
8bit cpu, 8bit data bus. The VDC is 16bit device through and through. All memory is accessed as WORD addressing (16bit). All reads and writes are 16bit to the I/O. All registers are 16bit. Sprite cells are 16 pixels wide because the VDC's data bus is 16bit. It can't read less than that at a time. The only reason tiles are 8pixels wide instead of 16 pixels wide, is because the second 8bits of the WORD fetch are treated as the second plane of the tile, rather than the continuation of the tile's horizontal pixels.
QuoteNo one uses "blast processing" unless they're referring to the Genesis, so I don't understand your question. Of course it's incorrect to call a non-SNES thing "mode 7".
Yes you do. You're faining innocence and ignorance, but I know you understand the point I was making. Magazines, forums, and people have been using the term mode 7 to describe anything that looks remotely similar, on other systems, for years and year. Even to this day. Everyone here know exactly what is meant of someone uses that term. BP never obtained this kind of word context and association outside of the Genesis. But that doesn't mean one negate the other's usage. But you already know this. I don't think you care to have real discussion, as you are to stir the pot. I've seen your posts before and that all you ever do here. And it was
your post that brought this whole thread off topic. I bet that tickles you pink inside. Are you on the Sega-16 forums? Cause if you are, your attitude/behavior most be completely 180 over there as I don't recall recognizing you over there.
And since people are talking about arcade systems with no background layers, even the original 16bit System16 only had 1 BG layer. And it only uses 3bit pixel tiles or 8 colors (though it has a ton of subpalettes). Sprites uses 14 colors (color #0 was transparent, color #15 was EOL).
QuoteI've thought the sfc is capable of 32768 colors output? so is it all all big LIE?
In normal modes, it's a total of 241 colors. And it has the same restrictions like the Genesis and PCE. 15 color tile/sprite pixels and subpalettes to choice from. Mode 7 has 256 pixel color tiles. They index a 256 color pixel palette. But mode 7 can only show up to 256 unique tiles (like an NES), so it's no good for detailed backgrounds. Mode 6 is Direct color mode. It has direct RRRGGGBB pixel mode for 256 colors per tile. But the tilemap holds some more bits to be added to RGB tile bits. This is the 2048 color mode. 2048 mode is rather limiting and missleading. Effectively, you use the tilemap to set the color temp of the 256 color pixel. If you try to do that for every tile, you'll get hard transitioning. So really, only 256 color mode. On BG grounds can display this much color. No sprites. And it limits the BG to 1 layer when doing this (because the bandwidth is just too great for the sPPU's to do anything else). You can add color math into the mix to get more color, but some of the more advance transparency options are not possible in the higher color modes and you don't have per pixel control.
Bottom line:
PCE kicks ass.
Genesis kicks ass.
SNES can kick ass.
I have played R-Type 3 and I didn't much care for it. I like part 1 MUCH more. Maybe R-Type 3 is one of those games that has to grow on you, but there is certainly nothing exciting to the gameplay that makes me want to continue playing. In other words, it doesn't start off being anything special. And I never was able to grasp why Area 88/UN Squadron was deemed "best shooter ever". The music is absolutely atrocious-sounding. I cannot abide those fake electric guitars. They make my ears bleed. I think this is the game that made me hate the SNES sound chip since it was so early and early impressions are hard to shake.
Bart: Candygram for Mongo! Candygram for Mongo!
Mongo: Me Mongo.
Bart: Sign, please.
[Mongo grabs the paper and makes some rough scratches on it]
Bart: Thank you.
[He gives Mongo the box and walks out of the bar, putting his fingers in his ears]
Mongo: Mongo like candy. Mongo Hate Super Famicom
[he opens the box - BOOM!]
(https://dubsism.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/mongo.gif)
RIP Mongo teh SFC hater
Quote from: OldRover on 02/04/2011, 11:27 AMSo... why don't the Genesis fanboys ever compare their console to the Neo Geo?
Because the NeoGeo was arcade hardware, and no one except the token rich kid (the same kid who bought Fortress Maximus five years earlier) actually owned the damn thing back when it was available at Babbage's.
Everyone knew the NeoGeo was king when it came to capability.
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/04/2011, 04:41 PMYes you do. You're faining innocence and ignorance, but I know you understand the point I was making. Magazines, forums, and people have been using the term mode 7 to describe anything that looks remotely similar, on other systems, for years and year. Even to this day. Everyone here know exactly what is meant of someone uses that term.
That's news to me. I guess I normally hang around people with brains, as Tatsujin put it =D
Errata:Quote from: OldRover on 02/04/2011, 10:30 AMThe bits thing is always a fun time to debate. :)
SNES = 8/16 bit hybrid CPU, 16 bit graphics hardware (16 bit bus), 8 bits of color output (256 max).
MD = 16 bit CPU, 8 bit graphics hardware (16 bit bus), 5 bits of color output (64 max).
PCE = 8 bit CPU, 16 bit graphics hardware (16 bit bus), >15 bits of color output (481 max).
This is not a good way to compare systems, by getting what you think is their "final" colour output, then converting them back into bitplanes. So, I hope you were joking.
As Bonknuts pointed out, the SNES has a 2048-colour tile mode. It's not well-known, but that's not a defense in ignoring it in some "bits" comparison. Not to mention the 8-bit transparency layer (not just 1-colour addition/subtraction but actual transparency) which multiplies colour counts. The Genesis also has a shadow/highlight mode that increases the actual number of colours on-screen with no raster split tricks. So it's not as simple as counting the popular perception of colours and saying it's scientific.
And Bonknuts, if you're going to be comparing CPUs and data buses against each other, then yes the SNES' CPU has a 16-bit CPU & 8-bit data bus, whereas the Genesis' has a
32-bit CPU and 16-bit data bus.
OldRover: the Neo-Geo
does have background tiles: 1 plane of 8x8 BG tiles called a FIX plane. It's used for score displays, panel readouts, etc. Ingame graphics and level backgrounds are all sprites, but it's not correct to say that the NG has
no background display.
Ccovell. I wasn't particularly trying to compare CPU to each system. I was updating Old Rover's list. The bus and 'bits' for the Genesis and SNES video chips were incorrect in his list. But that wasn't to degrade the Genesis and SNES, because even with those statistics, the systems output impressive visual results. And the point being bits doesn't really matter, the end product does.
From a software engineer point of view, the original 68k is 32bit. But from a hardware engineers point of view, it's 16bit (a single 16bit ALU. Not dual or chained or anything like that). It's just a matter of hardware level macro instructions instead of software level macro instructions. If the official and only assembler had 16bit macro instructions for an 8bit CPU, you'd probably see the same argument on the SE side too. The original 68k was also microcoded. Saying the 68k is 32bit is about as misleading as in saying the 65816 is really 8bit. Also taking the software engineer's view that it's 32bit in that context, make it look rather pathetic IMO against other class of 16bit and even 8bit CPUs. I.e. it makes a poor 32bit CPU in comparison to the 6809 and 6502 and related CPUs (and yes, z80 not in that list). A 68020 is a 32bit CPU because it has a 32bit ALU, even though the instructions don't vary much at all (although instruction cycle speed did).
And I believe the term for NG is 'window'. Many arcade systems had a window layer that was non scrollable. And it's almost always fixed to show on top of all the other layers. Hence the name window and not BG layer. The original system16 arcade system had one of these as well, but that doesn't make it a 2 BG layer display.
Sloth: Mama!
Mama Fratelli: Come to mama Slothy, come on hmm?
Sloth: Mama, you've been bad you play PC Engine.
Mama Fratelli: Oh, Slothy. I may have been bad. I may have kept you chained up in that room but it was for your own good.
Sloth: Yeah!
Mama Fratelli: You remember that song I used to sing to you?
Sloth: Yeah!
Mama Fratelli: You were little back then?
[singing]
Mama Fratelli: Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top. When the wind blows the Super Famicom sucks. When the bough breaks the cradle will fall...
Sloth: Break! Fall! R-Type III
Mama Fratelli: No! I only dropped once.
Sloth: Ahh! I hate Super Famicom
Mama Fratelli: Well, maybe twice. No Sloth! Put me down!
(https://web.archive.org/web/20110306223247im_/http://cdn-images.hollywood.com/site/sloth_goonies.jpg)
Quote from: ccovell on 02/04/2011, 05:52 PMThis is not a good way to compare systems, by getting what you think is their "final" colour output, then converting them back into bitplanes. So, I hope you were joking.
Of course I was joking. It made about as much sense as the whole argument over how "powerful" the systems are... people can banter on and on and on and on (and they do) about how X system is so much greater than Y system because Z feature but it really doesn't make a snotbucket worth of difference at the end of the day. I made up some specs and mixed them in with some real ones, just like all the chowderheads do. That's why these lame "debates" are so fun... you get to make shit up as you go along, and some people will actually believe you. :D
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/04/2011, 04:41 PMMagazines, forums, and people have been using the term mode 7 to describe anything that looks remotely similar, on other systems, for years and year. Even to this day.
Case in point: the original author of PAlib (Mollusk) named the rotation/scaling capabilities of the DS "Mode 7" which irritated the hell out of me... to the point where I modified that portion of the lib to remove the misleading reference.
Quote from: OldRover on 02/04/2011, 06:39 PMI made up some specs and mixed them in with some real ones
+10 points
The MSX has this jacked up like 16 jiggabillion color mode. It wins!
SUCK ON THAT, BASTARDS.
Quote from: OldRover on 02/04/2011, 06:39 PMThat's why these lame "debates" are so fun... you get to make shit up as you go along, and some people will actually believe you. :D
Yet people wonder why/complain why there's so much incorrect info/assumptions out there :P :wink: :twisted: :lol:
I didn't think this was supposed to be a serious thread. Do we really care anyway as we all know that the PCE rocks.
Quote from: nectarsis on 02/04/2011, 07:11 PMYet people wonder why/complain why there's so much incorrect info/assumptions out there :P :wink: :twisted: :lol:
The difference is that I did it on purpose and it was *clearly* tongue-in-cheek... others either don't understand specifications or stretch the truth just to defend their zealotry.
FLAMEWAR ready... go!
Quote from: Joe Redifer on 02/04/2011, 05:14 PMBottom line:
PCE kicks ass.
Genesis kicks ass.
SNES can kick ass.
I have played R-Type 3 and I didn't much care for it. I like part 1 MUCH more. Maybe R-Type 3 is one of those games that has to grow on you, but there is certainly nothing exciting to the gameplay that makes me want to continue playing. In other words, it doesn't start off being anything special. And I never was able to grasp why Area 88/UN Squadron was deemed "best shooter ever". The music is absolutely atrocious-sounding. I cannot abide those fake electric guitars. They make my ears bleed. I think this is the game that made me hate the SNES sound chip since it was so early and early impressions are hard to shake.
I bought R-Type III for the GBA, a few years back, and while it looks nice, it really is a sleeper. I've tried to give it a shot and maybe I'll go back to it, but the original hasn't been topped in that series.
The GBA version was reprogrammed & re-drawn from the ground up, as the company that did the port didn't have access to IREM's original source code. It's inferior to the SNES version.... Give that version a chance before you write the game off completely.
Quote from: nat on 02/04/2011, 10:25 PMThe GBA version was reprogrammed & re-drawn from the ground up, as the company that did the port didn't have access to IREM's original source code. It's inferior to the SNES version.... Give that version a chance before you write the game off completely.
Ah! Well nuts. I should really pick up a Super Famicom one of these days. If not just to try R-Type III the way it was supposed to be played. I didn't realize that about the GBA port.
Quote from: The Old Rover on 02/04/2011, 07:49 PMothers either don't understand specifications or stretch the truth just to defend their zealotry.
LOLMML.
If you want to see the weak SFC very well used, play some R² :)
3 out of 4 dentists agree:
(https://junk.tg-16.com/images/Ebert_Siskel_OBEY_white_sgx.jpg)
The heck with this place. I'm going over to www.steamingpileo'sega.gov ..... yes .gov
A machine is only as good as what you personally get out of it.
Quote from: guest on 02/06/2011, 05:59 AMA machine is only as good as what you personally get out of it.
That's sort of my point. So the PCE can do real transparencies...in a tech demo...which isn't actually a game...and only on the SGX...WTF good is that? Sure Yoshi's Island had an onboard coprocessor and the PCE could have done that...but it didn't, so it doesn't do me any fucking good. Its pointless to mention never used potential. Again, I reference the kid with the shitty report card that could have done better "if he tried".
I can't imagine why/how anyone would complain about fake parallax (how can you even tell?) but real transparencies are something special. They really set the mood on games like Super Metroid, Kikikaikai, and many RPGs.
Something I should have said in defense of Megadrive (surprised no one brought it up yet): those scale-happy Galaxy Force II-esque games for Mega CD from Core, whatever they were called, those were pretty impressive and AFAIK way beyond SNES and obviously PCE.
That's not actually what I meant. My point was that you can't judge a console on it's technical aspects because how good a console is is entirely dependant on how much worth and fun it has given to you, and not other people.
To me, the Master System is better than the SNES. I had more games for it, I had more fun with it. So arguing over what one can and can't do seems a little fruitless (and I did my fair share of it in the C64 vs Spectrum wars).
I pick the system that gives me the best tickle in the pants while playing.
That system, is the PC Engine.
There are people that think the Bally Astrocade destroys every console released since, and it's because they can sit and play it for hours on end without getting bored, but then you sit them in front of a 360 and they go "whats all this talking and cutscene crap, im bored. I want to shoot things".
And they go back to the old stuff.
I think it's great that we can all have our opinions and discuss this without angst. People have opinions about which hardware is better, Snes can do this or that and show X number of sprites, PCE has this many colors, or Genesis has blast processing.
Having said that you can't change facts though. And the fact is, PCE engine games are better than Genesis and Snes games.
Phantasy Star 4 crushes anything that came out for PCE. Plus, it would have been impossible to port to the PCE.
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/06/2011, 02:55 PMPhantasy Star 4 crushes anything that came out for PCE.
Maybe to you, but really, this is crazy talk. There are games on the same level as PSIV for PCE.
QuotePlus, it would have been impossible to port to the PCE.
Citation needed!
All three have their strengths and weaknesses, but the SNES is the more balanced console when you get down to it. Its only drawback is its slow CPU but developers found ways to get around that within a year or two of the system being on the market. So for the SNES, that drawback is not as big of a deal once developers got used to it.
Dont believe me ? Look at Super Smash TV for proof. There are tons of enemies in that game and it has zero slowdown. It trounces the Genesis port, which has typical [bad] Genesis sound and muddy washed out colors. The SNES's superior sound chip and color count come into play here and it shows.
Of course that doesnt mean the Genesis and the PCE are bad, they are not. They just lack in more areas than the SNES does and are missing certain features. In the PCE's case one of its drawback is its sound chip...Which is only a step up from what the NES could do. Color wise, it is equal with the SNES, which is a great thing since color is where it was at back then. Transparencies and parallax are also missing, but those can be faked. And overall to me, they are not as important as a colorful image is...So the PCE is really not lacking much compared to the SNES.
Which leads to the Genesis. Bad sound + Low color count really hurts the Genesis. Most Arcade ports are muddy on the Genesis, but colorful on the SNES. The color problem with the Genesis became very apparent to gamers back when those systems were both out and the arcade ports starting to come out...Mortal Kombat 2 especially showed the difference between the SNES and the Genesis. A Muddy looking, grainy and bad sounding port on Genny vs a near perfect port on the SNES. The PCE never recieved a MK2 port but it would have been interesting to see if it did.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/06/2011, 06:31 AMQuote from: guest on 02/06/2011, 05:59 AMA machine is only as good as what you personally get out of it.
That's sort of my point. So the PCE can do real transparencies...in a tech demo...which isn't actually a game...and only on the SGX...WTF good is that?
There
are tech demos that look every bit as good for the
actual PCE, but that's besides the point. So many published PCE games
already have all kinds of worthwhile and impressive transparency and similar effects. It's just that they don't count to
you. Many of these effects look better and are more appropriate/effective than what could be done using the SNES's hardware transparency and many are impossible to pull off using SNES transparency. Because not only is SNES transparency
not the be-all and end-all generation-defining effect, it's actually very limited in what it can be effectively used for.
Same with Mode 7. Both became as much of a stigma for the SNES as killer apps. Most SNES game developments seemed to start with a quota of SNES hardware effects that the game was to be built around. Very few seemed to be designed from the ground up as a proper games, which only used hardware effects when they would compliment what was already going to be there. It wasn't long into the SNES's lifespan that while playing a SNES game, upon reaching the first hardware effect the reaction became,
"Okay, here we go with the obligatory SNES effects" :roll:. This kind of sentiment was even expressed in game mag coverage. The same people who have championed the SNES to this day as the sum of the 16-bit generation and refer to all 2D games ever since as having "SNES graphics".
All that SNES transparency does is tint. But it's used for so many other effects that are much more effectively rendered with "fake" techniques. In reality, when SNES games use hardware transparency to attempt an effect other than tinting, it's the SNES game's effect that is "fake". The only thing "real" about SNES transparency is how much it is SNES transparency. Hardware built-in effects are only a
method, just like when hardware renders an effect
without a dedicated built-in chip.
It's the effect itself in the end that is real.QuoteSure Yoshi's Island had an onboard coprocessor and the PCE could have done that...but it didn't, so it doesn't do me any fucking good. Its pointless to mention never used potential. Again, I reference the kid with the shitty report card that could have done better "if he tried".
I guess then that you view the PC Engine as a 'shitty underachiever' when it comes to graphics? Nobody here is questioning that, what many of us are saying is that the PCE already has so many games that are visually impressive to the rest of us. Equal to or greater than in some aspects and/or overall than the most impressive SNES games. Of course, the Genesis technically crushes both consoles with its 32X games, which
also run off of additional processing hardware. :wink:
QuoteI can't imagine why/how anyone would complain about fake parallax (how can you even tell?) but real transparencies are something special. They really set the mood on games like Super Metroid, Kikikaikai, and many RPGs.
I can't imagine why/how anyone would complain about "fake" transparency effects. Back in the day, my SNES loving friends called this real transpancies and scaling + rotation (mode 7):
http://youtu.be/xsa_hgLC-9Y
Apparently as SNES players, "real" transpancies weren't so much more special than "fake" ones. :wink:
QuoteSomething I should have said in defense of Megadrive (surprised no one brought it up yet): those scale-happy Galaxy Force II-esque games for Mega CD from Core, whatever they were called, those were pretty impressive and AFAIK way beyond SNES and obviously PCE.
There are many more impressive 3D Sega-CD games than just what Core developed. The Sega-CD has games with as nice looking or better 3D graphics than early 32-bit console games-
http://youtu.be/k80dODWdj9I
It doesn't matter whether you know for a fact or can tell if polygons or something specific is being used. All that matters is how it looks in the end and those Sega-CD games look better than many "real" 3D 32X, 3D0, Jaguar, PSX, Saturn, and N64 games. But in the end, how many people like playing these games over more popular genres and think that pixelly 3D games look so much better than visually impressive 2D games?
Quote from: peonpiate on 02/06/2011, 03:19 PMDont believe me ? Look at Super Smash TV for proof. There are tons of enemies in that game and it has zero slowdown. It trounces the Genesis port, since the SNES's superior sound chip and color count come into play also.
Does that mean if the Genesis has two games with less slowdown plus better graphics and sound than SNES versions, that it's proof that the Genesis trounces the SNES? :wink:
QuoteIn the PCE's case its only major drawback is its sound chip...Which is only a step up from what the NES could do. ...Which leads to the Genesis. Bad sound + Low color count really hurts the Geny here.
:lol: :dance: :lol:
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/06/2011, 02:55 PMPhantasy Star 4 crushes anything that came out for PCE. Plus, it would have been impossible to port to the PCE.
PSIV is pretty overrated, as much as I love it. Shining Force, Shining Force II and Shining Force CD however, are equal to or capable of crushing almost all other 16-bit console games. Of course this is because of the actual games themselves, which could easily be replicated with enchancements and compromises on PCE & SNES.
Quote from: peonpiate on 02/06/2011, 03:19 PMIn the PCE's case one of its drawback is its sound chip...Which is only a step up from what the NES could do.
I'm sorry. What?
32 byte waveforms, 5-bit amplitudes, 6 channels with
stereo panning, samples on every channel, and you say its only a step above what the NES can do?
WHAT?
It's on par and even surpasses the Konami SCC due to stereo panning, an extra channel, and sampling capabilities. SCC has 8-bit amplitudes. That's its only better part.
Either way.
WHAT?
http://youtu.be/3kmH0MaI1lw
http://youtu.be/_DJGdUsoEX0
I mean really, the NES can't touch the PC Engine sound wise.
Quote from: SignOfZetaI can't imagine why/how anyone would complain about fake parallax (how can you even tell?)
If the fake parallax isn't done well, parts of it will flicker away when there is too much action on certain parts of the screen.
CrackTiger was saying something kind of similar I think, but I'd like to drive the point home: I am more impressed when a TurboGrafx game does parallax scrolling than I am when a Genesis game does it. Why? Because I know the Turbo only has one background to mess with since it is super crippled/weak/handicapped/mentally incompetent/mentally disturbed/etc. When the Genesis does this effect, I think "OK whatevs" since it does it all the time. But on the Turbo the developer needs to put more effort into it which usually makes the game a bit more special to me. I am impressed by the evil programming trickery done to fool me.
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/06/2011, 02:55 PMPhantasy Star 4 crushes anything that came out for PCE.
I'm actually playing through PSIV right now. I'm having to grind to beat the final boss in that fucking air castle. I like this game a lot, but I like the Final Fantasy games from that period more. Also, several PCE games.
QuotePlus, it would have been impossible to port to the PCE.
I can't see one thing in this game the PCE couldn't do. Enlighten me.
Metamor Jupiter's flight down the spinning barrel of a giant laser cannon is far more impressive than Super Castlevania 4's dumb randomly-spinning corridor. Therefore, the PCE is better than the SNES. Even if Metamor Jupiter's visually simplistic first level boss (all it does is scale and rotate) brought the system down to a crawl.
But Gunstar Heroes on Genesis had the boss "Melon Bread" who could not be replicated on PCE (due to technical limitations) or SNES (due to slow processor speed) so I don't see why people keep trying to compare the systems.
Quote from: guest on 02/06/2011, 03:29 PMQuote from: peonpiate on 02/06/2011, 03:19 PMIn the PCE's case one of its drawback is its sound chip...Which is only a step up from what the NES could do.
I'm sorry. What?
32 byte waveforms, 5-bit amplitudes, 6 channels with stereo panning, samples on every channel, and you say its only a step above what the NES can do?
WHAT?
It's on par and even surpasses the Konami SCC due to stereo panning, an extra channel, and sampling capabilities. SCC has 8-bit amplitudes. That's its only better part.
Either way.
WHAT?
Yeah, can't agree more with that:
Soldier Blade music NES - http://youtu.be/30G__XQkyFI
Soldier Blade music OBEY - http://youtu.be/LlJfnW5Rms8
FC Engine on YouTube (aka Ninja Spirit) has done some awesome NES music from existing PCE/TG games. Very impressive stuff, but you can really tell the difference. But, going with the Soldier Blade theme here's Ninja Spirit's Super Famicom remix of the same music. Sounds great. Not superior to the PCE, but just different:
Soldier Blade music SNES: http://youtu.be/15nTpQMzQt4
The PCE has the best sound chip of any of these systems to me.. Even in the hands of a jackass, the sounds come out ok. The have that warm, smooth lead that sounds great with arcade style games. SNES has sampleitis, like the Amiga, where arcade games just don't sound right. The music isn't smooth and buttery enough. I wish arcade cabinets had a similar chip in them more often than FM chips. It would have ruled!
FM's biggest drawback is man, if you do it wrong, you will make ears bleed. I love FM, but theres a TON of farty stuff out there that shouldn't have left the labs. I'm looking at you, IREM.
I rank it
PCE-->MegaDrive--->SNES for music.
Both FM and PCEPSG are way more than a step above NES. Unless you're taking some giant steps.
Quote from: guestAll that SNES transparency does is tint. But it's used for so many other effects that are much more effectively rendered with "fake" techniques. In reality, when SNES games use hardware transparency to attempt an effect other than tinting, it's the SNES game's effect that is "fake". The only thing "real" about SNES transparency is how much it is SNES transparency. Hardware built-in effects are only a method, just like when hardware renders an effect without a dedicated built-in chip. It's the effect itself in the end that is real.
Nah. "Real" transparencies are seen on the Saturn, the PS, and almost anything newer except for 16-bit arcade hardware. Real transparencies don't flicker. They don't change the rate at which they flicker when the action gets heavy, etc. The Hyper Cocoon in Gate of Thunder. When the music track changes from stage to boss one half of it will become completly opaque, and the other will disappear entirely...fake transparency. Fake transparencies aren't transparent in screen shots (unless they are the OG type taken with a Polaroid and a monitor hood) and they work for shit with almost any digital capture/tansfer device including LCD TVs. A "real" transparency is always see through, no matter what else is going on.
Every transparency on every retail PCE game is fake. They flicker completely opaque objects, usually inconsistently. Its just a fact. Fuck tech demos, they are neat but I can't play them. You not being able to tell the difference between a code based version of this effect and the SNES's hardware accelerate one is either wishful thinking or shitty eyesight.
But hey, all of this is
okay! :) I mean, seriously, calm down. Obviously I love the PCE. I'm here, aren't I? I'm not some slobbering Nintendo fanboy. For the past several years I've played almost nothing but PCE, and lately a lot of Neo and Genesis, none of these systems do what the SNES does with the see-through stuff. I haven't even bothered to replace my SNES collection since my girlfriend dumped me four years ago and took off with it) but I'm not going to...pretend, which is what you are doing.
QuoteQuoteSure Yoshi's Island had an onboard coprocessor and the PCE could have done that...but it didn't, so it doesn't do me any fucking good. Its pointless to mention never used potential. Again, I reference the kid with the shitty report card that could have done better "if he tried".
I guess then that you view the PC Engine as a 'shitty underachiever' when it comes to graphics? Nobody here is questioning that, what many of us are saying is that the PCE already has so many games that are visually impressive to the rest of us. Equal to or greater than in some aspects and/or overall than the most impressive SNES games. Of course, the Genesis technically crushes both consoles with its 32X games, which also run off of additional processing hardware. :wink:
No, I don't think the PCE is shitty. (See above). What I'm saying is that the potential inclusion of a non-existant coprocessor doesn't influence my opinion of the machine (which I love). What matters is actual games that exist here in this dimension. Therefore I'm going to respect the SNES's achievement with Yoshi's Island and not write it off as something the PCE could have done in some fantasy word.
Yoshi's Island could have been done on the Xbox.
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/06/2011, 04:52 PMYoshi's Island could have been done on the Xbox.
It has been done on XBox.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/06/2011, 04:28 PMQuote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/06/2011, 02:55 PMPlus, it would have been impossible to port to the PCE.
I can't see one thing in this game the PCE couldn't do. Enlighten me.
Me neither. The only thing that the PCE would require a little trickery with is the minuscule amount of parallax scrolling in the caves... but even that is easily solved. I've been thinking about doing a PSIV port to the PCE for a few years now and all of these things have already gone through my head many times over. A 4MB bank-switched cartridge could be made with ease, not unlike SFIICE. However, who would want to? The sound wouldn't be quite the same, and if the graphics were converted directly, it wouldn't look up to par with most other RPGs on the PCE... although some color expansion plus massive amounts of retouching would solve that and make it look awesome. It's still fun to think about. PSIV didn't push the MD hardware in any way so there's really nothing to it that couldn't be done on the PCE.
Now... converting it for the SNES? Can't be done. Why not? Resolution. The SNES operates in 256 or 512 horizontal pixels, PSIV uses 320 horizontal pixels. You're not going to be able to faithfully reproduce the resolution of the game, and therefore, the game will take a major hit because of it. Why the SNES is locked in 256/512 is beyond me. I have searched high and low for information that might allow the SNES to go into 320 pixel mode and it just doesn't seem possible.
Quote from: Joe Redifer on 02/06/2011, 04:28 PMQuote from: SignOfZetaI can't imagine why/how anyone would complain about fake parallax (how can you even tell?)
If the fake parallax isn't done well, parts of it will flicker away when there is too much action on certain parts of the screen.
CrackTiger was saying something kind of similar I think, but I'd like to drive the point home: I am more impressed when a TurboGrafx game does parallax scrolling than I am when a Genesis game does it. Why? Because I know the Turbo only has one background to mess with since it is super crippled/weak/handicapped/mentally incompetent/mentally disturbed/etc. When the Genesis does this effect, I think "OK whatevs" since it does it all the time. But on the Turbo the developer needs to put more effort into it which usually makes the game a bit more special to me. I am impressed by the evil programming trickery done to fool me.
The flicker break in a back ground for 'fake' scrolls isn't a deal breaker for me. If anything I rather them try to make the effort than not. I bet even if you didn't know the exact technical reason as to why more complex/parallax scrolling was absent for the majority, it wouldn't change anything. You'd still assume something was more difficult to over come to get to that level of scrolling complexity. And in fact most people don't really understand why or how, but they can still tell you that it's more of an exciting visual accomplishment on the system than it would be on the Genesis or SNES.
I'm both a Genesis fan and a PCE fan. While I don't have a need for an over abundance of complex scrolls to reach some visual gamer climax/orgasm, I do like something other than a flat BG all the time. Complex layering doesn't have to be all the time or everywhere. Use it to transition starting areas into a level, or such. Or just part(s)
in a level, etc. That can go a long way in the over feel of a game. A handful of PCE games do this, but not enough through out the game and/or not games even attempt it. That's rather sad IMO. But I think that reflects back on the systems library as whole, or rather how developers treated it. It's the accumulation of small touches like that, that go a long, long way. And vice versa (stand out when missing). I probably couldn't give a more perfect example than Rondo of Blood. Disregarding all the high level of production values that went into this game, just specifically look at how they sprinkled the game with more complex layered scrolling. They didn't try to add complex layered scrolling in every single part of the game. But they added it in transitional areas and other small areas. If many of the 'flat' PCE games replicated that approach to even just a third of what Rondo does, it wouldn't have this stigmata that it has now IMO. Fun factor is important, but it's not the only important factor in a game. Impressive/great visual and auditory parts of a game, can make a good
fun game into fantastic game. No matter how fun a game is, if those other parts of a game don't meet the bar per se - it just leaves you with an unsatisfying feeling overall. I feel cheated when I play Super Air Zonk. Especially when I clearly see areas that even look like they have been setup for linescroll or dynamic tiles.
QuoteSoldier Blade music NES - http://youtu.be/30G__XQkyFI
That's not a stock NES. That also uses the N106 which is a lot like the PCE's audio chip.
QuoteEvery transparency on every retail PCE game is fake. They flicker completely opaque objects, usually inconsistently. Its just a fact. Fuck tech demos, they are neat but I can't play them. You not being able to tell the difference between a code based version of this effect and the SNES's hardware accelerate one is either wishful thinking or shitty eyesight.
And the transparency effects on the PCE that don't flicker? What's your opinion of those? Just curious.
I think parallax / transparencies aren't really that important, especially if the game using it sucks really bad.
I agree 100% with Zeta. I've said the same thing before. I can't play a tech demo, so I don't really care about things that aren't in a game. Things on a video game machine should be a GAME. We've seen you can do tons of wild stuff on these old consoles.
Like, interlaced images on an Atari2600. Thats nice. I can't play it. I don't want to stare at a low-res picture flickering like Michael J. Fox.
What really makes the PC-Engine stand out is the vibrant color capabilities. Phantasy Star IV could be completely replicated on the PCE with not alot of problem. Depending on your taste, it would look better.
Put it on a CD, rip the audio, and have the exact same tunes even. ;) even if you did PSG versions, the tunes would sound badass. There was that one Phantasy Star demo floating around with chiptunes in it from PSII. They sounded badass.
Similar concept would be to look at Emerald Dragon on PCE, and then on other systems, like MSX2. Much more vibrant!
Ninja Gaiden has some great parallax.
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/06/2011, 05:33 PMQuoteEvery transparency on every retail PCE game is fake. They flicker completely opaque objects, usually inconsistently. Its just a fact. Fuck tech demos, they are neat but I can't play them. You not being able to tell the difference between a code based version of this effect and the SNES's hardware accelerate one is either wishful thinking or shitty eyesight.
And the transparency effects on the PCE that don't flicker? What's your opinion of those? Just curious.
THEY ALL FLICKER. That's how they function. What are you, blind?
Quote from: guest on 02/06/2011, 06:01 PMPut it on a CD, rip the audio, and have the exact same tunes even. ;) even if you did PSG versions, the tunes would sound badass. There was that one Phantasy Star demo floating around with chiptunes in it from PSII. They sounded badass.
That demo might still be on zeograd.com. It wasn't all that impressive but at least it did have music... even if it was based on Trilinear's attempt at a hucard PSG driver.
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/06/2011, 06:01 PMNinja Gaiden has some great parallax.
I like it. Its like the Ys 3 stuff
kinda chunky but still nice.
I was kidding. Ninja Gaiden would be better if they hadn't even tried to add parallax.
I know that, but I like it. The chunkyscroll doesn't bug me. I play alot of MSX games that do that.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/06/2011, 06:07 PMTHEY ALL FLICKER. That's how they function. What are you, blind?
Am I blind??? Are you a prick? Put a leash on the condescending tone for just a sec.
These are the games that come to mind when I think of non flickering transparency.
Lords of Thunder: The water draining part in the water level. The part right where you exit the cave back out into the open/ruins area. Translucent blue water drains because the enemy smashes a hole in the floor.
Sapphire: Forget the level, but there's a light glow around your ship that follows you and lights up the BG underneath.
Rondo: The boss holding his head. He's translucent blue as his transparency fades to solid.
ShapeShifter: In the amazon level, when you fail into the pools of blue water - your character is seen with a translucent blue overlay.
Asuka 120%: when your character is talking to the opponent before the fight. A transparent shadow in the display box over the scrolling background.
I'm sure if you look harder, you'll find some more games that don't use flicker.
Also LCD TVs and digital capture devices don't have shit to do with these old consoles. They were designed for CRTs, SD at that. These old systems display 60fps, it's irrelevant if newer technology can't show these 'FX' correctly. They looked fine on SD sets back in the day. They also recorded fine on my VCR back then too. If you're gonna argue that they are invalid because it's not hardware color math in the video processor, fine. I understand your point of view. And it's a perfectly valid point to have. But don't make up bullshit excuses LCDs and such.
As far this whole demo thing/mentality. Isn't the large part of these kind of technical system vs system arguments, of what the system is capable of? If you're gonna use existing software to give example of the system's capability, then demos are perfectly valid as well as showing this off what is capable as well. If you want to talk about the
limitations of
those FX, than that's perfectly valid. But to discount them completely is just ignorance. If you don't care what the system is
really capable and
only care to play the games, then why are you even participating or arguing in such a discussion?
QuoteI was kidding. Ninja Gaiden would be better if they hadn't even tried to add parallax.
I completely agree. It doesn't even look as good as Ys III (good being relative here).
They could have done a better job. It's the result of trying to move too much data at the wrong time during the retrace. But at least it doesn't look quite as bad as Ys III... there's no saving that one.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/06/2011, 06:07 PMQuote from: TurboXray on 02/06/2011, 05:33 PMQuoteEvery transparency on every retail PCE game is fake. They flicker completely opaque objects, usually inconsistently. Its just a fact. Fuck tech demos, they are neat but I can't play them. You not being able to tell the difference between a code based version of this effect and the SNES's hardware accelerate one is either wishful thinking or shitty eyesight.
And the transparency effects on the PCE that don't flicker? What's your opinion of those? Just curious.
THEY ALL FLICKER. That's how they function. What are you, blind?
I guess you haven't played many PCE games (
or are blind). :wink: Since you haven't picked up on what some of us have been talking about along the way, I'll just go ahead and spell it out for you once again that there are several different types of effects done in different ways in PCE games, that would usually be done with hardware transparency in a SNES game. I won't brand them all "transparency" effects, because as I explained earlier, hardware transparencies are used in SNES games to simulate an effect. The transparency itself isn't, or at least
shouldn't be the effect (
many SNES games use transparencies for no good reason).
A good example of one type of an effect in a PCE game that is usually done with a transparency tint in SNES games is the red lighting in a base after an alarm goes off in Blood Gear. Gamefan criticized Street Fighter Alpha for Saturn because they said that the blue shadows weren't right. They even speculated that the Saturn must lack transparencies and therefore couldn't make "real" blue shadows. But they got it completely backwords. The Saturn's default shadows were blue tinted versions of the player sprites, in other words how they'd look using a simple transparency effect. The arcade shadows were entirely rendered with shades of blue.
On the left is a blue tinted pic, as though a transparencey was used. On the right is a blue scale image, as though the screen was lit with blue light.
(https://web.archive.org/web/20140428160401im_/http://superpcenginegrafx.net/img/bs1a.gif)(https://web.archive.org/web/20140427104307im_/http://superpcenginegrafx.net/img/bs1.gif)
Blood Gear's red light effect makes the regular colored screen transition into shades of red. This alone would be a superior effect for depicting a red lit room than using a SNES transparency. But in the shadowed areas of the normal background, new details are uncovered by the strong red light. The combination of both effects is very powerful, but this type of scene is often depicted in SNES games using a transparency method to just simply tint everything.
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/06/2011, 06:37 PMAlso LCD TVs and digital capture devices don't have shit to do with these old consoles. They were designed for CRTs, SD at that. These old systems display 60fps, it's irrelevant if newer technology can't show these 'FX' correctly. They looked fine on SD sets back in the day. They also recorded fine on my VCR back then too. If you're gonna argue that they are invalid because it's not hardware color math in the video processor, fine. I understand your point of view. And it's a perfectly valid point to have. But don't make up bullshit excuses LCDs and such.
They weren't designed explicitly for CRT displays. Its just, thats what existed. Its "designed for them" by default. The arrival of new TVs shows how flickering effects and such are a bit limited. Hardware transparency trumps flickering crap.
QuoteAs far this whole demo thing/mentality. Isn't the large part of these kind of technical system vs system arguments, of what the system is capable of? If you're gonna use existing software to give example of the system's capability, then demos are perfectly valid as well as showing this off what is capable as well. If you want to talk about the limitations of those FX, than that's perfectly valid. But to discount them completely is just ignorance. If you don't care what the system is really capable and only care to play the games, then why are you even participating or arguing in such a discussion?
There are many parts to this debate. Some of it is comparing the libraries and their use of hardware, hence some people not giving a damn about tech demos released 10+ years after the system died commercially.. or tech demos that are neat, but can't actually function well in a full game. If you want to prove a tech demo is great for a GAME console, put it in a game. If it can do it, but can't do it in a game, it is sort of useless on a game machine. Thats my standpoint. I program the PCE for the sole purpose of making games. If some obnoxious hardware nonsense cant be done in a game, I don't care about it.
and then, some of it is comparing the hardware itself without considering the game library at all.... that line of discussion is where tech demos and balls to the wall nonsense takes place.
everythings valid. Its just a lot of tangents to one main topic: System1 vs. System2
Quote from: guest on 02/06/2011, 04:47 PMI'm looking at you, IREM.
Ever played X-Multiply? :)
I agree that irem had up and downs on their sound works, but they had done also pretty good works here and there. as proven in the game mentioned above.
hmm..wears the saturns trancparency? :-k
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/06/2011, 07:14 PMQuote from: Psycho Arkhan on 02/06/2011, 04:47 PMI'm looking at you, IREM.
Ever played X-Multiply? :)
I agree that irem had up and downs on their sound works, but they had done also pretty good works here and there. as proven in the game mentioned above.
yeah....but why didnt they do that for ALL their games.
They did ok with the PCE chip. Tonma and Vigilante sound nice.
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/06/2011, 07:20 PMhmm..wears the saturns trancparency? :-k
Try Shining Force III if you wanna see real-time "transparent" images of 3D models against other 3D graphics. I know that no other console through the last generation could pull that off and chances are no one has attempted it with the current gen. Every games just uses fugly transparent polygons.
why did so many companies fail to use transparency on the SS? 2D & 3D.
just look at akumajo dracula x - gekka no yasokyoku. it ruined a lot.
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/06/2011, 08:07 PMwhy did so many companies fail to use transparency on the SS? 2D & 3D.
just look at akumajo dracula x - gekka no yasokyoku. it ruined a lot.
There are still so many that did use transparencies. Unfortunately, just like PCE with parallax, the ones that don't stand out more.
In the case of Dracula X, it was a quick port and depending on who you believe, rendered using polygons.
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/06/2011, 06:37 PMQuote from: SignOfZeta on 02/06/2011, 06:07 PMTHEY ALL FLICKER. That's how they function. What are you, blind?
Am I blind??? Are you a prick? Put a leash on the condescending tone for just a sec.
These are the games that come to mind when I think of non flickering transparency.
Everything you listed is a flicker effect because there is no other way to do it on the PCE. The possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.
QuoteAlso LCD TVs and digital capture devices don't have shit to do with these old consoles.
The reason I mentioned LCDs wasn't to say, "these effects suck because they don't work on LCDs". That would be silly. I was merely pointing out that the reason they don't work on such displays is because they are flickering, therefore, if you want to know which transparencies are flicker based, just watch a Youtube video of the game that was grabbed via analog video capture. Fighting games, for example, will usually have one guy with a fully opaque shadow and the other guy with none at all. These effects are also used a lot in SNES games, btw, since the SNES can only use real transparencies in limited situations. Street Fighter has the same flicker shadows on any system from this time.
As for the oft repeated idea that SNES transparencies are somehow a "cheap trick" because they are hardware accelerated...then you must think redbook audio is a pretty cheap trick as well, eh? Not only does it rely on hardware trickery, but it allows the used of straight up recordings of real instruments bypassing the system's soundchip completely. What a lie that is! And they do it
for no good reason!*
Regarding transparencies on the SS. I'm pretty sure they are, like the SNES, limited to BG layers or something like that. They are used well in...Thunderforce V, I think it is, in the BGs. Shining Force III has one town with a giant blue gem or something (it was a long time ago) that is transparent and not made using dithering, that obviously isn't a BG by nature, but it, but maybe its possible to use a matte of sorts aligned with a polygon (not correct terms here, sorry).
* Since some people can't tell, this was sarcasm used to prove a point. At the same time though...its kind of true. Its hard to imagine how a game like...I don't know, Dekoboko Densetsu, would have had any worse music if it had been chip based. Some of that fruity-ass Yamaha/Roland based junk just drives me nuts now. Also, why the hell do you have to have a "reason"? Its a fucking cloud layer, not a spending bill. Shit.
Quote from: guest on 02/06/2011, 08:38 PMQuote from: Tatsujin on 02/06/2011, 08:07 PMwhy did so many companies fail to use transparency on the SS? 2D & 3D.
just look at akumajo dracula x - gekka no yasokyoku. it ruined a lot.
There are still so many that did use transparencies. Unfortunately, just like PCE with parallax, the ones that don't stand out more.
In the case of Dracula X, it was a quick port and depending on who you believe, rendered using polygons.
an other case is radiant silvergun. no trans there, altought it would have looked 200% better if it had :(
it seems that I'm only aware of those titles which didn't use transparency..lol.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/06/2011, 09:11 PMQuote from: TurboXray on 02/06/2011, 06:37 PMQuote from: SignOfZeta on 02/06/2011, 06:07 PMTHEY ALL FLICKER. That's how they function. What are you, blind?
Am I blind??? Are you a prick? Put a leash on the condescending tone for just a sec.
These are the games that come to mind when I think of non flickering transparency.
Everything you listed is a flicker effect because there is no other way to do it on the PCE. The possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.
I believe, some of them are done with tiles (or stuff), which are like a stealth plane over the background which then can be changed in colors to creat kind of the illusion of a transparent transformation. In fact it's only an animation over the actual BG.
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/06/2011, 09:57 PMQuote from: CrackTiger on 02/06/2011, 08:38 PMQuote from: Tatsujin on 02/06/2011, 08:07 PMwhy did so many companies fail to use transparency on the SS? 2D & 3D.
just look at akumajo dracula x - gekka no yasokyoku. it ruined a lot.
There are still so many that did use transparencies. Unfortunately, just like PCE with parallax, the ones that don't stand out more.
In the case of Dracula X, it was a quick port and depending on who you believe, rendered using polygons.
an other case is radiant silvergun. no trans there, altought it would have looked 200% better if it had :(
it seems that I'm only aware of those titles which didn't use transparency..lol.
I believe that Radiant Silvergun has transparency effects on every stage (like every background). I'm guessing that you're looking for games that don't have any instances of transparency substitutes as well.
QuoteEverything you listed is a flicker effect because there is no other way to do it on the PCE.
And you know this because? Everything I listed specifically is
not a flicker based effect. You need to go back check for yourself if you gonna make such declarations. And you even make them admittedly without any knowledge of the system too. :o
QuoteThe possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.
Sapphire is not an exception from that list. It doesn't flicker. I'm not sure how flicker can be more than what it is, more kick-ass or super. You can't just increase the rate of alternating pixels beyond what the display allows, now can you? And as a side note: LCDs still uses flicker. Much higher rate. Plasma uses flicker too. Just much higher than 60hz.
I could explain these effects if you really wanted know, but knowing how they were done doesn't change the original point - that you think 'ALL' transparency on the PCE is flicker based. There's the SGX demos, but that's the SGX so you exclude them. That's valid, since 2 of the three demos required SGX specific hardware to create the effect. And no, they don't use any sort of flicker.
But there's also Jackie Chan. One of those SGX demos uses the same effect of Jackie Chan. And it's also not a flicker effect. Add that to the list of transparency effects on the PCE that's not flicker based and in a game.
QuoteThe reason I mentioned LCDs wasn't to say, "these effects suck because they don't work on LCDs". That would be silly. I was merely pointing out that the reason they don't work on such displays is because they are flickering, therefore, if you want to know which transparencies are flicker based, just watch a Youtube video of the game that was grabbed via analog video capture.
Well, using the LCD and capture type devices as example; they can look even
better than a real/original SD display. Not every LCD simply throws away 1 frame. Many do
frame blending because it treats the frame as a field. It really depends on the hardware. Most of the stuff you see on youtube is emulation screen capture vids. You have to go the extra mile if you wanted to frame blend that sort of footage, since YT doesn't support 60p in all resolutions (supposedly it does for 240p view mode, but not all videos for some reason). Back to point; it's not JUST flicker that doesn't show in the examples you're talking about. Anything that exists in 60fps time zone is lost when dropping a frame. That means a lot of Shmups only show half the bullets for those kind of videos too. And that has nothing to do flicker. Anyway, I'm still not sure what this has to do with flicker base effects. These systems weren't made to be view on display equipment that's going to be dropping/not display half the frames. So they have no relevance as to whether flicker is a valid method or not. Nor does emulation (which often breaks the illusion since it will drop frames from time to time).
QuoteRegarding transparencies on the SS. I'm pretty sure they are, like the SNES, limited to BG layers or something like that. They are used well in...Thunderforce V, I think it is, in the BGs. Shining Force III has one town with a giant blue gem or something (it was a long time ago) that is transparent and not made using dithering, that obviously isn't a BG by nature, but it, but maybe its possible to use a matte of sorts aligned with a polygon (not correct terms here, sorry).
It's not. All warped quads can be rendered in transparency. There's an undesirable effect in the rendering when there's an overlapping bend edge of the same quad that folds back onto itself. The transparency logic isn't correctly applied. If you technically capable of following along, there's an in depth explanation over at spritesmind dev forum (http://gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=473).
QuoteI believe, some of them are done with tiles (or stuff), which are like a stealth plane over the background which then can be changed in colors to creat kind of the illusion of a transparent transformation. In fact it's only an animation over the actual BG.
??? stealth plane over the background O_o :D If you really want to know, I can explain them. Sometimes it's better not to know the magic behind the trick ;) It losses its luster afterwards....
No one mentioned the TFIV transparency demo for PCE? But I guess that doesn't count since we're not counting demos.
QuoteEverything you listed is a flicker effect because there is no other way to do it on the PCE. The possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.
Wow. :P So you know the PCE inside out that well huh? There are several ways the PCE can do those kinds of transparency effects. I actually mentioned one non-flicker method earlier. Programmers have talked about some of these methods as they were achieved in published games in this forum in the past.
It's pretty hypocritical to toss around "Are you blind?" insults when you yourself can't tell the difference been flicker transparencies and other 60fps PCE transparency effects. [-X
Quote from: guest on 02/06/2011, 10:07 PMQuote from: Tatsujin on 02/06/2011, 09:57 PMQuote from: guest on 02/06/2011, 08:38 PMQuote from: Tatsujin on 02/06/2011, 08:07 PMwhy did so many companies fail to use transparency on the SS? 2D & 3D.
just look at akumajo dracula x - gekka no yasokyoku. it ruined a lot.
There are still so many that did use transparencies. Unfortunately, just like PCE with parallax, the ones that don't stand out more.
In the case of Dracula X, it was a quick port and depending on who you believe, rendered using polygons.
an other case is radiant silvergun. no trans there, altought it would have looked 200% better if it had :(
it seems that I'm only aware of those titles which didn't use transparency..lol.
I believe that Radiant Silvergun has transparency effects on every stage (like every background). I'm guessing that you're looking for games that don't have any instances of transparency substitutes as well.
youre right. the clouds und stuff look like nice transparents, but not so those in all direction ray-explosions and uberbeams of all the enemies, nor does your weaponry use the advantage of transparency.
@nutsbonk, yeah sorry am lacking in explaining things sometimes..lol. but as talked about this stuff in an other thread (comparison thread), the trans in drac x (knight boss), was actually done that way by changing tiles over the bg.
@tats: Hey, no worries :D The stealth part made me grin :wink: Hmm.. stealth plane. I might use that term for something ;)
The scrolling background in Asuka 120% is not the background. Those burning fest logos are sprites.
Everything else is a background.
The blue window is a clever color trick you can do with the PCE, I believe.
PS: Hi Tom.
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/06/2011, 10:09 PMI could explain these effects if you really wanted know, but knowing how they were done doesn't change the original point - that you think 'ALL' transparency on the PCE is flicker based. There's the SGX demos, but that's the SGX so you exclude them. That's valid, since 2 of the three demos required SGX specific hardware to create the effect. And no, they don't use any sort of flicker.
I'm actually interested in this... I have always assumed though that it's just a case of prerendered tiles, as with most of the rest of the game. The massive amount of ACD RAM would allow for thousands of prerendered tiles to support this kind of effect.
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/06/2011, 10:09 PMBut there's also Jackie Chan. One of those SGX demos uses the same effect of Jackie Chan. And it's also not a flicker effect. Add that to the list of transparency effects on the PCE that's not flicker based and in a game.
The "Jackie Chan Effect"... heh. People have been pulling this one off for years now. It's most certainly NOT flicker-based... it's exploitation of the hardware's physical limitations. Myself and Charles MacDonald tried to explain it to Gravis but I don't know if he got it or not... actually, I think he did in the end. :D I've yet to actually use the effect in a game because of its limited uses (I'm so not a fan of solid-color backgrounds anyways) but if the need ever arose, it's one of the easiest of all PCE special effects to pull off.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/06/2011, 09:11 PMThe possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.
That effect is real time light sourcing/bump mapping. Genesis and SNES can't touch that.
QuoteI'm actually interested in this... I have always assumed though that it's just a case of prerendered tiles, as with most of the rest of the game. The massive amount of ACD RAM would allow for thousands of prerendered tiles to support this kind of effect.
The effect is clever. But the root of the effect has been used in some PCE games before (shadowing). Why this effect was only used to this level in all of the PCE's life, is beyond me. It's a pretty simple effect; you reserve a chunk of subpalettes (cause the PCE has plenty to spare), then apply the different subpalettes to the tilemap in whatever way you want. In the case of the ship, it's a circle with a few fade off rings. IIRC the game uses six 16color subpalettes for that area. Well, that's how many are reserved for the effect. It might not use all six of them, haven't looked at it in a while. But yeah, simple as that. The effect can be taken to much better high extremes, but no game does. Pitty.
I assume you probably already know how the other FX are done? Rondo is just simple animation. Asuka and Shapeshifter use an hsync interrupt to changes color of an object on that scanline. Asuka's is straight forward (writes all 14 colors during hsync), but the yellow board hides any onscreen graphic glitches - thus the sprites change colors/shades. Either the BG color #0 is changed too, or the tilemap is repositioned - I forget which. Shapeshifter does it in multiple scanlines, in smaller bursts. It looks to see what part of the sprite needs changing first. You already know Jackie Chan's. Others like Star Parodia use dynamic tiles across a tilemap different subpalette (LOT has a small barely unnoticeable part like this in the water stage opening area), same with Psychic Storm. Probably others I can't remember.
QuoteThe "Jackie Chan Effect"... heh. People have been pulling this one off for years now. It's most certainly NOT flicker-based... it's exploitation of the hardware's physical limitations. Myself and Charles MacDonald tried to explain it to Gravis but I don't know if he got it or not... actually, I think he did in the end. :D I've yet to actually use the effect in a game because of its limited uses (I'm so not a fan of solid-color backgrounds anyways) but if the need ever arose, it's one of the easiest of all PCE special effects to pull off.
Yeah it's not an easy effect to visualize how it's done, at first. Jackie Chan uses cylinders, but the SGX demo is doable on the PCE exactly as is (same effect, but looks a little different IMO). SGX just has a built in mode to extend the effect across
both VDCs instead of just limiting it to one VDC. Which is pretty useful (priority propping of BG layers across VDCs).
Quote from: GobanToba on 02/07/2011, 01:35 AMQuote from: SignOfZeta on 02/06/2011, 09:11 PMThe possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.
That effect is real time light sourcing/bump mapping. Genesis and SNES can't touch that.
They could if they were programmed to do it. They are capable of doing it.
Quote from: GobanToba on 02/07/2011, 01:35 AMQuote from: SignOfZeta on 02/06/2011, 09:11 PMThe possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.
That effect is real time light sourcing/bump mapping. Genesis and SNES can't touch that.
It is totally not bumpmapping at all. Bumpmapping would mean that light source reflections would slide all around the contours of objects as the light source moves. Too CPU-intensive.
The scene in Sapphire is just changing the attribute maps of the BG from darker-brighter as the ship moves around, creating illuminated parts of the level. Not even light sourcing; more like spot brightening. For real "light sourcing", check out Ultima III (Exodus) on the NES and various PCs to see rooms ahead of the characters appear or become obscured depending on the line of sight of the characters. Sure, it's only two levels: lightened/black, but it's quite impressive moving about considering the age of the game.
Quote from: ccovell on 02/07/2011, 02:50 AMThe scene in Sapphire is just changing the attribute maps of the BG from darker-brighter as the ship moves around, creating illuminated parts of the level. Not even light sourcing; more like spot brightening. For real "light sourcing", check out Ultima III (Exodus) on the NES and various PCs to see rooms ahead of the characters appear or become obscured depending on the line of sight of the characters. Sure, it's only two levels: lightened/black, but it's quite impressive moving about considering the age of the game.
Realtime lighthouses on ultima 5 = awesome.
this all irrelevant, what really matters is revealed if you take the music from R-TYPE III stage 1, then overlay it backwards with the Streets of Rage 2, stage 3 soundtrack, Yuzo Koshiro has encoded a hidden message:
"The PC Engine and Super Famicom are 4 Bit, that's 2 bits each. I love my 12 inches of black 16 bit plastic, to be this gay takes AGES"
Quote from: HardcoreOtaku on 02/07/2011, 07:10 AMthis all irrelevant, what really matters is revealed if you take the music from R-TYPE III stage 1, then overlay it backwards with the Streets of Rage 2, stage 3 soundtrack, Yuzo Koshiro has encoded a hidden message:
"The PC Engine and Super Famicom are 4 Bit, that's 2 bits each. I love my 12 inches of black 16 bit plastic, to be this gay takes AGES"
What if you play it UPSIDE DOWN!
Quote from: guest on 02/07/2011, 07:26 AMQuote from: HardcoreOtaku on 02/07/2011, 07:10 AMthis all irrelevant, what really matters is revealed if you take the music from R-TYPE III stage 1, then overlay it backwards with the Streets of Rage 2, stage 3 soundtrack, Yuzo Koshiro has encoded a hidden message:
"The PC Engine and Super Famicom are 4 Bit, that's 2 bits each. I love my 12 inches of black 16 bit plastic, to be this gay takes AGES"
What if you play it UPSIDE DOWN!
A tiny robot Yuzo Koshiro jumps out the cartridge slot of the Megadrive/Genesis and sets fire to any other games consoles in the house.
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/07/2011, 02:01 AMThe effect is clever. But the root of the effect has been used in some PCE games before (shadowing). Why this effect was only used to this level in all of the PCE's life, is beyond me. It's a pretty simple effect; you reserve a chunk of subpalettes (cause the PCE has plenty to spare), then apply the different subpalettes to the tilemap in whatever way you want. In the case of the ship, it's a circle with a few fade off rings. IIRC the game uses six 16color subpalettes for that area. Well, that's how many are reserved for the effect. It might not use all six of them, haven't looked at it in a while. But yeah, simple as that. The effect can be taken to much better high extremes, but no game does. Pitty.
Isn't this basically a shaded version of what games do when there is a spotlight in absolute darkness, I'm thinking Ys SMS (and Turbo) and Dragon Warrior, where the tiles surrounding the lit area are just replaced with solid black ones (or really the inverse)?
If that effect was using as many as 6 subpalettes, then it's yet another effect that utilizes the strength of the PCE. Considering that the Genesis only has 4 palettes of color to go round for tiles and the SNES 8. Not that it couldn't be done on either effectively, but perhaps not as perfect in such a detailed game.
Quote from: guest on 02/07/2011, 07:26 AMQuote from: HardcoreOtaku on 02/07/2011, 07:10 AMthis all irrelevant, what really matters is revealed if you take the music from R-TYPE III stage 1, then overlay it backwards with the Streets of Rage 2, stage 3 soundtrack, Yuzo Koshiro has encoded a hidden message:
"The PC Engine and Super Famicom are 4 Bit, that's 2 bits each. I love my 12 inches of black 16 bit plastic, to be this gay takes AGES"
What if you play it UPSIDE DOWN!
You get 69 bit.
Wasn't there some clever spotlight effect in Schbibin Man 3 somewhere?
Also, I would have love to have heard what Yuzo Koshiro would have done with the PC Engine sound chip.
EDIT: Ah yes, here it is.
/cd9d68ae57008.png
I'd be interested to know how this was acheived as the sprite layer looks like this:
/cd9d68ae57009.png
That might have been another priority trick there... would be fun to put together some test code to experiment.
does anyone know why the Japanese Mega Drive had 1 more bit than the US Genesis?
I always found it bizarre that it was a actually a 17 bit machine yet it had 16 bit written on the front.
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/06/2011, 07:20 PMhmm..wears the saturns trancparency? :-k
The Saturn could do hardware transparency, but due to bugs in the implementation, it only seems to work without weird visual artifacts on 2D elements. Most of the rare examples of *true 3D transparency are somewhat trickery-driven (Burning Rangers). The hardware didn't have support for light sources, either, but they could be implemented in software and worked well (Burning Rangers, NiGHTS, Shining Force III).
**correcting myself as I learn more**
Quote from: HardcoreOtaku on 02/07/2011, 12:39 PMdoes anyone know why the Japanese Mega Drive had 1 more bit than the US Genesis?
I always found it bizarre that it was a actually a 17 bit machine yet it had 16 bit written on the front.
<knowsenoughtobedangerousmode>
Well duh, it's because bits are even or odd, and the ROM is arranged into even and odd sides. So, 16 is even, but then there's the odd too! So you have to add 1 more bit to make it odd. It's just that they can't count since the Jaguar's math confused them!
</knowsenoughtobedangerousmode>
Quote from: guest on 02/07/2011, 12:16 PMWasn't there some clever spotlight effect in Schbibin Man 3 somewhere?
Also, I would have love to have heard what Yuzo Koshiro would have done with the PC Engine sound chip.
EDIT: Ah yes, here it is
/cd9d68ae57008.png
I'd be interested to know how this was acheived as the sprite layer looks like this:
/cd9d68ae57009.png
I think that might be using the PCE's single color third layer. I don't fully understand it's implementation, but if it was drawn in that negative pattern and given higher priority than the spotlight sprite, that could be how it's done.
Quote from: guest on 02/07/2011, 03:14 PMQuote from: guest on 02/07/2011, 12:16 PMWasn't there some clever spotlight effect in Schbibin Man 3 somewhere?
Also, I would have love to have heard what Yuzo Koshiro would have done with the PC Engine sound chip.
EDIT: Ah yes, here it is
/cd9d68ae57008.png
I'd be interested to know how this was acheived as the sprite layer looks like this:
/cd9d68ae57009.png
I think that might be using the PCE's single color third layer. I don't fully understand it's implementation, but if it was drawn in that negative pattern and given higher priority than the spotlight sprite, that could be how it's done.
Sprite is set to priority behind the background layer. The parts that show gleaming edged light, are the sprite showing through instead of BG color #0 pixels. Normally you'd think the BG color #0 would be the large flat spots in such tiles, but instead they chose to use the pixel area that would appear to 'gleam' when light hit it. It's not the Jackie Chan effect, but it's clever still. Another game to add to the list of non flickering transparency based/type effects.
So...its a matte, basically?
That looks really cool. Does anyone have a save state for Magic Engine so I can see this with only a lazy man's level of effort? I don't have this game.
QuoteAlso, I would have love to have heard what Yuzo Koshiro would have done with the PC Engine sound chip.
Ehh, maybe. I rather hear what Tim Follin could have done :)
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/07/2011, 06:00 PMQuoteAlso, I would have love to have heard what Yuzo Koshiro would have done with the PC Engine sound chip.
Ehh, maybe. I rather hear what Tim Follin could have done :)
Hopefully something good to make me stop hating him for dicking up Ghouls and Ghosts so bad on the Amiga.
That dude rocked the NES hard
Quote from: guest on 02/07/2011, 12:16 PMAlso, I would have love to have heard what Yuzo Koshiro would have done with the PC Engine sound chip.
Here is something similar to Streets of Rage performed by a real actual PC Engine-
http://www.youtube.com/user/Bonknuts#p/u/21/YCbS25gTIY8
Quote from: guest on 02/01/2011, 05:01 PMYou're stupid, ceti. The Genesis is clearly a 24 bit machine (16 bit 68000 + 8 bit Z80 = 24 bits of MEGA POWER!), just like the Neo Geo.
Whoa man the genesis is clearly a 64 bits 24+ 32 for 32x + 10 for cd - 2 for being sega = 64
Magical Chase is another game with non flickering transparency shadows. Example here: http://youtu.be/bVCfH6Ozemg
BG far layer is dynamic tiles, but the shadowing is tilemap subpalette layering.
Quote from: Lilgrafx on 02/07/2011, 07:03 PMWhoa man the genesis is clearly a 64 bits 24+ 32 for 32x + 10 for cd - 2 for being sega = 64
PCE is infinity bits.
8 for the CPU, and +INFINITY for TURBOB.
anything + infinity is infinity.
PCE = Winner.
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/07/2011, 07:14 PMMagical Chase is another game with non flickering transparency shadows. Example here: http://youtu.be/bVCfH6Ozemg
BG far layer is dynamic tiles, but the shadowing is tilemap subpalette layering.
That's kinda like how Chrono Trigger sprinkles a transparency layer across the screen for all the little shadow bits. Plus it's doing 'technically impossible' layer-over-layer bg scrolling. :wink:
Doesn't Stage 6 of Dracula X do both as well? I'm sure that the alternate Stage 1 pre-boss area does.
Quote from: guest on 02/07/2011, 06:06 PMQuote from: TurboXray on 02/07/2011, 06:00 PMQuoteAlso, I would have love to have heard what Yuzo Koshiro would have done with the PC Engine sound chip.
Ehh, maybe. I rather hear what Tim Follin could have done :)
Hopefully something good to make me stop hating him for dicking up Ghouls and Ghosts so bad on the Amiga.
That dude rocked the NES hard
Don't hate him for one thing he've done you don't like. Love him for thousand things he've done you like :!:
Quote from: TurboXrayMagical Chase is another game with non flickering transparency shadows. Example here: http://youtu.be/bVCfH6Ozemg
BG far layer is dynamic tiles, but the shadowing is tilemap subpalette layering.
That looks like the SHADOW feature built in to the hardware of the Sega Genesis 16-bit videogame system. The shadow should not move with the front layer, though. So it must be a transparent wall, because a real shadow would stay put on the far background. Didn't the graphic designers know how light works?
Its magical shadows.
it can do whatever the hell it wants.
(https://junk.tg-16.com/images/Ebert_Siskel_OBEY_flicker.jpg)
If Blodia is the best thing going on PCE, then it falls behind even the lowly SNES.
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/09/2011, 12:07 AMIf Blodia is the best thing going on PCE, then it falls behind even the lowly SNES.
the SNES blodias huge balls.
OOOOO
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/09/2011, 12:07 AMIf Blodia is the best thing going on PCE, then it falls behind even the lowly SNES.
Mode7 for life!
/bonkn.jpg
Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 02/09/2011, 12:07 AMIf Blodia is the best thing going on PCE, then it falls behind even the lowly SNES.
OBEY BLODIA.
That is all.
Quote from: esteban on 02/08/2011, 10:57 PM(https://junk.tg-16.com/images/Ebert_Siskel_OBEY_flicker.jpg)
Please use another base photo that is equally funny and original :)
Quote from: guest on 02/07/2011, 07:32 PMDoesn't Stage 6 of Dracula X do both as well? I'm sure that the alternate Stage 1 pre-boss area does.
From memory, I believe so.
QuoteThat looks like the SHADOW feature built in to the hardware of the Sega Genesis 16-bit videogame system.
Except it's not limited to just shadowing on the PCE. For instance, you could have
GREEN shadows. Whatdaya think of that? Pretty fancy.
Quote from: guest on 02/06/2011, 03:29 PMQuote from: peonpiate on 02/06/2011, 03:19 PMIn the PCE's case one of its drawback is its sound chip...Which is only a step up from what the NES could do.
I'm sorry. What?
32 byte waveforms, 5-bit amplitudes, 6 channels with stereo panning, samples on every channel, and you say its only a step above what the NES can do?
WHAT?
It's on par and even surpasses the Konami SCC due to stereo panning, an extra channel, and sampling capabilities. SCC has 8-bit amplitudes. That's its only better part.
Either way.
WHAT?
http://youtu.be/3kmH0MaI1lw
http://youtu.be/_DJGdUsoEX0
I mean really, the NES can't touch the PC Engine sound wise.
Dont get me wrong, the PCE can produce decent chip tunes. Its not a god awful system for music and sound as the Genesis is in most cases. But compared to what the SNES could do it does not hold up well. And those examples you linked are exactly what I meant - that music sounds very NES like [to each their own I guess but I had to mute the sound rather fast for those links]. The Snes can produce near CD quality music with its SPC. A better comparison I had in mind was SF2's sound and music vs the Snes version. The sound for the PCE version, which was developed by pros I might add [awesome port] is not up to par with the SNES but it is above the Genesis.
Snes Music-
http://youtu.be/6-uMkAWj28o Chrono Trigger
http://youtu.be/mvMr4eBAOq0 Someones top 10 list [not mine], good selections though
SF2 Music comparison between PCE/SNES/Genny
http://youtu.be/TPStQYIx6S8
The SF2 comparison is debatable I will admit, most prefer how the SNES sounds since it has more "ambience" to it, but the PCE is closer to the Arcade and still sounds nice.
I'll agree that the SNES sound chip is fancier, but you're on your own thinking that Dungeon Explorer sounds like a NES tune and needing to press mute before it makes your ears bleed (or whatever that was supposed to mean).
Your right, the Dungeon explorer music is not bad...The intro music had my ears bleeding though which is why I muted it after 15 sec. #-o
To my ears, SFII on the SNES is the worst of the three. The SNES often sounds like it's trying too hard and ends up coming off like a cheap (muffled) Casio keyboard, which is why I have trouble finding tunes I like for it on my podcast. The Mega Drive sounds closest to the arcade of the three.
Yeah, stage 6 and 1 in dracula x use the shadow effect.
The closest thing to snes transparencies that i have found is from Metemor Jupiter, everything in the pic below animates, the vertical pink bar, the squiggly lines and the squares...unlike magical chase or dracx which just uses darker colors, this actually puts a pink tint over the BG shapes, making it a bit more interesting.
(http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/lpooipok.jpg)
Quote from: TurboXrayQuoteThat looks like the SHADOW feature built in to the hardware of the Sega Genesis 16-bit videogame system.
Except it's not limited to just shadowing on the PCE. For instance, you could have GREEN shadows. Whatdaya think of that? Pretty fancy.
That's pretty damn fancy. That reminds me of a demo I played on my Genesis the other day. It is an unfinished platform game simply titled "MD Project". One of the stages has
RED "transparencies". That's cool and all, but what was even cooler was that there was a pane of "glass" in front of that which used shadow that went on top of it as well. So basically it was three independent layers, two of which had transparency.
Dungeon Explorer has awesome music, but it's so quiet. Even the CD sequel is recorded very low (probably due to the quiet sound effects). Oh well, volume knob UP!
Quote from: peonpiate on 02/09/2011, 04:00 PMThe Snes can produce near CD quality music with its SPC.
The Duo can produce perfect CD quality music. Oh that's right... because it has a CDROM drive. :D
Quote from: peonpiate on 02/09/2011, 04:00 PMDont get me wrong, the PCE can produce decent chip tunes. Its not a god awful system for music and sound as the Genesis is in most cases. But compared to what the SNES could do it does not hold up well. And those examples you linked are exactly what I meant - that music sounds very NES like [to each their own I guess but I had to mute the sound rather fast for those links]. The Snes can produce near CD quality music with its SPC. A better comparison I had in mind was SF2's sound and music vs the Snes version. The sound for the PCE version, which was developed by pros I might add [awesome port] is not up to par with the SNES but it is above the Genesis.
Snes Music-
http://youtu.be/6-uMkAWj28o Chrono Trigger
http://youtu.be/mvMr4eBAOq0 Someones top 10 list [not mine], good selections though
SF2 Music comparison between PCE/SNES/Genny
http://youtu.be/TPStQYIx6S8
The SF2 comparison is debatable I will admit, most prefer how the SNES sounds since it has more "ambience" to it, but the PCE is closer to the Arcade and still sounds nice.
I think I know what you mean by NES-ish. I've seen other people describe the PCE's sound as such too, and even back in the day. Though I think it's more predominant in PCE music that uses simple square type sounds (like DE and others). PCE's chip is capable of a much wider range than NES, by far. One of these days, I need to make a 'what-the-fuck-are-you-smoking-the-pce-doesn't-sound-like-the-nes-video-check-this-shit-out' video. I think what most people hear first, is the lack of extreme timbre bending of typical FM sound. That immediately separates the PCE's sound from FM. The second is it sounds nothing like sample-based synth, like the SNES or MODs. The closest thing people can relate to, is older PSG type sounds of the NES or similar systems. When PCE composers uses weak/thin drumkits and simple square-ish waveforms, I guess it doesn't help the PCE's case any.
PCE's capable of all kinds of sounds, though I admit a lot are metallic or in the mid range. And low octave waveforms tend to sound very similar to each other, and high octave waveforms tend to loose their distinctive-ness from each other in much the same manner. But there are games with synthetic background voices (chorus/bending notes like a human voice - like Devils Crush theme), complex harmonics of FM-ish like bell-ish tones, a range of all kinds of bass (guitar) sounds, and from sharp saw; to simple square; to haunting wobbly sinewaves; to those distinct sounds only on pce (both low and high pitch at the same time - like 1943 Kai). It's also capable of changing the timbre to a wide range on a note by note basis, where the NES can't touch (though sadly almost no PCE game does this). To me, it's pretty distinct from NES sound.
Try some of these:
http://youtu.be/t0LzbWlrWsg <- Listen to the whole thing. It's long, but worth it.
http://youtu.be/U0xdQDFiEnA <- rough of synth trumpet sound for most of the tracks.
http://youtu.be/q-7kPrbpIHk <- this I think embraces that classic PCE sound
http://youtu.be/EG5ZoxSVA9o <- Bonk's Adventure's music has a pretty unique set of trumpet sounds that I've never heard used in any other PCE game.
http://youtu.be/im7qZmxOSUI <- Blazing Lasers. Lots of variety of sounds through out the game's tracks
http://youtu.be/_uGWw0Xs7bY <- more BL
http://youtu.be/MsbeoScpETw <- Rtype. Doesn't sound like NES. Actually sounds better than the arcade FM.
http://youtu.be/AGHkxrIF8Eo <- Love it
http://youtu.be/vXj5h6f_SjA <- a handful of tracks. Love the synthy saw sounds, among some other types of sounds in there. Shit, you don't even need to hear it. Just look at the waveform in the video - NES looks nothing like that.
If you think PCE sounds like the NES (sans some PCE games that probably sound close. There's always shitty technical compositions on every sound hardware), you need more exposure and game time with the PCE system.
QuoteThe Snes can produce near CD quality music with its SPC.
Yeah, not quite. The sample ram is pretty small. Samples are compressed and on top of that have heavy filtering by the DSP. The small amount of sample ram means you have limited range of your sample to pitch output, before it starts having that off putting overstretched fake MOD sound. And to even fit them all in there, you end of using lower relative C-3 note resolution. You could actually replicate the PCE's tracks on the SPC, but they would sound pretty dull/filtered.Ys III on SNES sounds nothing like Ys III on TGCD, and that's not even taking into account filtering. I'm not saying it doesn't have its advantages, but it's not CD quality. It's strong point is the use of a single sample to replicate many channels (complex chords) and realistic sounds too, but they usually limited to trumpet and strings. Guitars and other stuff sound too tacky. Everything else it does, it replicating FM type sounds (sampled into waveforms). The would have been better off with 2xYM2151 and a few ADPCM channels (static playback). Or something along the lines of a real synth (with VCF's and such).
awack: Ohh, what stage is that? I don't remember that one.
Joe: got a link to that demo?
Heres another comparison for you
http://youtu.be/6GD2671fngc SNES complete with Generic Orchestra Hit & Farty Trombone Bass 9000
http://youtu.be/7YV_hPTT8PQ SGFX (same sound chip as PC Engine), complete with smooth leads, a really thunky bass, and better layering.
Sometimes "more realistic" is not always better.
See: Amiga games.
I dunno about you but I can't stand cheesy sampled guitar shit.
http://youtu.be/eXBpMCVicic WHAT IS THAT. STOP IT.
http://youtu.be/-_8xoF58fh8 I HATE THE COMMODORE 64 MOSTLY BUT EVEN THIS IS BETTER THAN SAMPLED.
OBEY CHIPTUNES.
Also you don't even need to go to Aldynes stage 4. Stage 1 is sufficient to realize the PCE pummels the NES.
Epic leads.
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/09/2011, 06:04 PMawack: Ohh, what stage is that? I don't remember that one.
Skip ahead to about three minutes in: http://youtu.be/3axyNnx6AXY
The sound chip thing is tricky. Back in the day Nintendo/Sega/NEC/Hudson didn't design these systems to be "retro" on purpose. They were actually trying to be as ass kickingly high end and realistic as possible. In that scenario, obviously the SNES chip just kicks the other's asses. The PCE/MD can't make anything even approaching "real" music.
Of course, now that all that shit is old the sounds of the PCE/MD are honestly more appealing. They aren't pretending (and failing) to sound like real instruments. They sound how they sound. Its very charming and not at all fake. The SNES just sounds like everything is underwater. I think its unfair to stereotype the system based on music from Lost Vikings or whatever though, its not the SNES fault that the soundtrack for Home Improvement sucked, and you can't fault Nintendo for trying. They were trying to make the best thing they could, which is how advances in technology come about most of the time.
A similar thing happened with synthesizers at the time. In 1987 most musicians wanted the cutting edge gear from Roland and Yamaha that sounded "real", and nobody was interested in those old junkers from ARP, Oberheim, etc. Of course now we love those fully analog instruments for what they are (btw, very $$$ right now) and every time we hear any 80s rock think, "Fucking hell, its that piece of shit Yamaha DX7 again. What the FUCK!?!?"
For an example of unashamedly composed SNES music (ie: can only be done on the SNES, but isn't fake guitar reverb hell):
http://youtu.be/eYgWyWaLf5A
My favorite track in the game is at 6:29.
Quote from: peonpiate on 02/09/2011, 04:00 PMDont get me wrong, the PCE can produce decent chip tunes. Its not a god awful system for music and sound as the Genesis is in most cases. But compared to what the SNES could do it does not hold up well. And those examples you linked are exactly what I meant - that music sounds very NES like [to each their own I guess but I had to mute the sound rather fast for those links]. The Snes can produce near CD quality music with its SPC. A better comparison I had in mind was SF2's sound and music vs the Snes version. The sound for the PCE version, which was developed by pros I might add [awesome port] is not up to par with the SNES but it is above the Genesis.
Snes Music-
http://youtu.be/6-uMkAWj28o Chrono Trigger
http://youtu.be/mvMr4eBAOq0 Someones top 10 list [not mine], good selections though
SF2 Music comparison between PCE/SNES/Genny
http://youtu.be/TPStQYIx6S8
The SF2 comparison is debatable I will admit, most prefer how the SNES sounds since it has more "ambience" to it, but the PCE is closer to the Arcade and still sounds nice.
Depends on what any one person appreciates out of music. Many people don't care about actual composition or how well a 16-bit music track is "performed" and only care about the instruments sounding a particular way. Some SNES and Genesis fans like to think that their system is better at sounding like real instruments or simply just plain better as a type of sound. The PCE port of SFII' may have been developed by people who were paid to do it, but they weren't "pros" in the sense of doing the best job with the actual sounds used. The sounds are very average by PCE standards, but I find the actual composition and performance to be noticeably better than the other home ports and the arcade.
Most people, even SNES fans, would disagree with your opinion that the Genesis sound is god awful. The SNES sucks at producing original non-sample based sound and music, since it's all sample based an that's why it more often features sounds that mimic real life instruments. I personally prefer system generated sound like the Genesis and TG-16, even if they mix in samples. I'm also not crazy about the SNES's overuse of reverb and often muffled sounds. Even if a game is using pretty decent quality samples for all of the channels, the slight distortion from each can add.
If you'd like to hear what the Genesis and PC Engine are capable of with all-sample based music, try listening to these-
http://youtu.be/U5sZQEzfbPA
http://youtu.be/oKsUAywSyEg&feature=fvw
That PCE example was uploaded back when YouTube had more restrictive sound quality limits and there is some buzzing that is result of loading the rom the way I did. The type of anomaly that sometimes happens during sound tests.
Yeah, the stage after the fire level.
The first boss in Metamor Jupiter, actually looks like hardware scalling, it only has 12 frames though.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/09/2011, 06:42 PMThe sound chip thing is tricky. Back in the day Nintendo/Sega/NEC/Hudson didn't design these systems to be "retro" on purpose. They were actually trying to be as ass kickingly high end and realistic as possible. In that scenario, obviously the SNES chip just kicks the other's asses. The PCE/MD can't make anything even approaching "real" music.
Yup. But the funny thing is, the SNES much more often than not - didn't use 'real' instrument samples. Most of the samples are just sampled synths. Even the so called 'realistic' sounds. Genesis has a very distinct sound to it, that was hard for any developer to get away from. A lot of Genesis fans embraced it, but a lot of gamers looked down upon it like they did the NES - for not being able to produce sound out of it's range. PCE falls into this same category.
SNES offered the ability to really widen its range of sounds, although at a cost of frequency detail and some other side effects. Kind of funny that with such a wide range available, a lot of SNES games ended up sounding like they used stock/lib instruments (dev kits stuff). I thought Yuzo's Adventure Island on the SNES was pretty impressive for its time.
And this talk of Genesis sounds... the most incredible thing I've ever heard from the Genesis chip: http://youtu.be/GqyEbu8cmMg . Puts the released SNES game's music to shame. Love the use of pseudo filter control in that song too.
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/09/2011, 07:04 PMYup. But the funny thing is, the SNES much more often than not - didn't use 'real' instrument samples. Most of the samples are just sampled synths. Even the so called 'realistic' sounds. Genesis has a very distinct sound to it, that was hard for any developer to get away from. A lot of Genesis fans embraced it, but a lot of gamers looked down upon it like they did the NES - for not being able to produce sound out of it's range. PCE falls into this same category.
At the time, those synths were all the rage, and often had very plastic sounding samples of real instruments that lacked the acoustic quality they would have if they were real.
So the SNES was playing sampled samples. That's funny.
Quote from: guestThat PCE example was uploaded back when YouTube had more restrictive sound quality limits and there is some buzzing that is result of loading the rom the way I did. The type of anomaly that sometimes happens during sound tests.
Tom and I are working something more impressive. ;)
QuoteJoe: got a link to that demo?
Here is the ROM:
http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/12/22/543510/projmd.zip
Go to the stage called Binary Fury. There are some flicker dither transparencies as well (in addition to the non-flicker non-dither ones). Best seen on real hardware, of course.
Quote from: TurboXraythe most incredible thing I've ever heard from the Genesis chip: http://youtu.be/GqyEbu8cmMg .
I wish I could get a ROM file that just played that tune. I'd love to hear it on real hardware. That video sounds like it was recorded from a Genesis model 2 and many of those were known for having fubar'd sound hardware.
Quote from: awack on 02/09/2011, 04:26 PMYeah, stage 6 and 1 in dracula x use the shadow effect.
The closest thing to snes transparencies that i have found is from Metemor Jupiter, everything in the pic below animates, the vertical pink bar, the squiggly lines and the squares...unlike magical chase or dracx which just uses darker colors, this actually puts a pink tint over the BG shapes, making it a bit more interesting.
(http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/lpooipok.jpg)
Isn't that section 3 independent scrolling layers that all perfectly scroll smoothly, in an only-possible-with-hardware-scrolling way, behind the main layer? So it's 4 overlapping layers of scrolling, with the horizontal red bars both scrolling
and fading in and out. 8) Metamor Jupitor is a pretty crazy tech demo. :P
Quote from: guest on 02/09/2011, 09:30 PMMetamor Jupitor is a pretty crazy tech demo. :P
That is for certain!
This video has that 4 layer parallax with transparency for a bit at the beginning (see the previous part for multi-directional scrolling). But at 4:59 it does full screen Mode 7 mosaic.
http://youtu.be/0ruwNpuFfEU
Pretty good for fake 16-bit. :wink:
That mode 7 mosaic is pretty ho-hum. It almost looks like they accidentally just made it do that.
Its still neat, but eh, not that impressive.
The rest is.
Quote from: guest on 02/09/2011, 11:31 PMThis video has that 4 layer parallax with transparency for a bit at the beginning (see the previous part for multi-directional scrolling). But at 4:59 it does full screen Mode 7 mosaic.
http://youtu.be/0ruwNpuFfEU
Pretty good for fake 16-bit. :wink:
Unfortunately the end result is incredibly un-incredible.
Is Mode 7 required to make the SNES do mosaic? The "mosaic" in Metamor Jupiter (more just just straight blockiness as mosaic actually is a de-resed version of something already existing) looks pretty bad. The real mosaic in New Adventure Island is much better (and a true mosaic), but mosaic still sucks on any system. There is only one effective use for it, and that is when you get shocked Then it looks good and is a well-chosen effect.
Speaking of Mode 7 and how each scanline is just scaled differently than the scanline below it to make it a perspective, why didn't they ever include walls? Granted, this would be tough to do if something were to rotate, but, say, if you were just going forward, couldn't you have a road and a "wall" or building or something at the end of that road which also scaled as you get closer? I never saw a SNES game do that. The "tilt" of Mode 7 must have been part of the devkit software, there is no way it had to be done manually. And I'm sure the software treated it as a tilt as far as the graphic designer was concerned.
IIRC the SFC mode-7 coud do only one playfield at time, walls would then have required more than one playfield.
Quote from: guest on 02/09/2011, 11:31 PMThis video has that 4 layer parallax with transparency for a bit at the beginning (see the previous part for multi-directional scrolling)
Here's a link to some of that http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3axyNnx6AXY#t=200s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3axyNnx6AXY#t=200s)
And here's one of the spinning backround/tunnel parts http://youtu.be/D39mPgUa43g&feature=player_detailpage#t=36s
Oh yeah and supports up to 3 player at once. Any 3 player shmups on the Genesis or SNES?
Quote from: TatsujinIIRC the SFC mode-7 coud do only one playfield at time, walls would then have required more than one playfield.
I doubt it, I think it could be done with a single playfield. Let's say the bottom half of the screen has each scanline scaled at a different percent to give the appearance of a tilted road. Every scanline above the top half of the screen would have the same scaling percentage so it would have the appearance of a non-tilted wall. I don't see why something like that couldn't be done, just as long as it doesn't try to rotate (which it still could, it would just look odd as hell).
Maybe it could be done, but only limited to straight forward move. Seems to get very complicated as soon curves are involved.
Quote from: Joe Redifer on 02/10/2011, 01:46 AMQuote from: TatsujinIIRC the SFC mode-7 coud do only one playfield at time, walls would then have required more than one playfield.
I doubt it, I think it could be done with a single playfield. Let's say the bottom half of the screen has each scanline scaled at a different percent to give the appearance of a tilted road. Every scanline above the top half of the screen would have the same scaling percentage so it would have the appearance of a non-tilted wall. I don't see why something like that couldn't be done, just as long as it doesn't try to rotate (which it still could, it would just look odd as hell).
Yup, you got it exactly. You really need to break in the dev or demo scene. Or least FX design wise. The only down side to mode 7, is that you only have a total of 256 tiles. I believe you can set up mirror flip options (per sub map, not per tile) for the ABCD tilemap layout, so that might help a bit. I've said it before and I'll say it again, SNES really was under vram'd. Not just mode 7, but mode 7 really could have used more vram. PCE and MD has 64k, SGX had 128k. All came out before the SFC. SFC should have had at least 128k of vram.
QuoteThe SNES just sounds like everything is underwater.
That's so true. That's why I hate the SNES sound chip. When I hear explosions in shmups, it sounds like a baby shitting suddenly in his diaper.
Quote from: shubibiman on 02/10/2011, 03:09 AMit sounds like a baby shitting suddenly in his diaper.
But which can be really noisy!
I think the issue with the SNES sound chip is that it's the audio equivalent of the uncanny valley.
http://youtu.be/sxcTW6DlNqA - Super Adventure Island
I don't get the SNES sound chip hate.
Quote from: JoshTurboTrollX-16 on 02/10/2011, 12:23 PMhttp://youtu.be/sxcTW6DlNqA - Super Adventure Island
I don't get the SNES sound chip hate.
That's an example of great use of the SNES sound chip, most games don't sound like that. I don't deny that technically it's the most advanced of the generation, but I'd much rather have heard console sound develop more like the arcade sound chips of the day (Konami, Sega) than where Nintendo took it, which was a bridge between CD and cheap synth for the most part.
I like computery sounding sound. I still love C64 music more than 99% of the orchestral scores in games these days.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 02/10/2011, 12:13 AMUnfortunately the end result is incredibly un-incredible.
Just like the "real" thing! :P
Quote from: JoshTurboTrollX-16 on 02/10/2011, 12:23 PMhttp://youtu.be/sxcTW6DlNqA - Super Adventure Island
I don't get the SNES sound chip hate.
There's a difference between being aware of it's shortcomings & imperfections and/or preferring system generated sound like MD & PCE... and outright hating it. The SNES sound discussion developed from the widely held perception that SNES is absolutely perfect and "CD quality" combined with straight up Genesis and TG-16 sound hate.
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/10/2011, 02:30 AMI've said it before and I'll say it again, SNES really was under vram'd. Not just mode 7, but mode 7 really could have used more vram. PCE and MD has 64k, SGX had 128k. All came out before the SFC. SFC should have had at least 128k of vram.
Definitely. Even the MSX2 had 128k VRAM and it's from 1986.
Why something that came out 4 years later had less VRAM is beyond me.
That mosaic in Metamor Jupiter could be bashed out pretty quickly. It looks like they themselves slapped it out in under an hour, because it looks so craptastic.
Quote from: guest on 02/10/2011, 12:39 PMI like computery sounding sound. I still love C64 music more than 99% of the orchestral scores in games these days.
There's nothing more true than that!
Quote from: Joe Redifer on 02/10/2011, 01:46 AMQuote from: TatsujinIIRC the SFC mode-7 coud do only one playfield at time, walls would then have required more than one playfield.
I doubt it, I think it could be done with a single playfield. Let's say the bottom half of the screen has each scanline scaled at a different percent to give the appearance of a tilted road. Every scanline above the top half of the screen would have the same scaling percentage so it would have the appearance of a non-tilted wall. I don't see why something like that couldn't be done, just as long as it doesn't try to rotate (which it still could, it would just look odd as hell).
Drakkhen does something kind of like that, I think.
I can't remember for sure since I haven't touched Drakkhen in awhile.... but the top half of the screen when you're running around has static mountains and stuff while the earth around you slides around on a tilt so it gives the illusion that you are walking around travelling far distances with epic scenery in the background.
It looked pretty alright from what I remember.
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/10/2011, 12:48 PMQuote from: guest on 02/10/2011, 12:39 PMI like computery sounding sound. I still love C64 music more than 99% of the orchestral scores in games these days.
There's nothing more true than that!
I get that! I guess I just grew to love each of the 16-bitters sounds! All the strengths and weakness' of each.
I wonder what would have happened if the SNES had a FM chip in it instead.
Quote from: JoshTurboTrollX-16 on 02/10/2011, 12:23 PMhttp://youtu.be/sxcTW6DlNqA - Super Adventure Island
I don't get the SNES sound chip hate.
What about sound FX and other games sounds and musics? One exemple out of a 2000 game library doesn't prove much to me. Most of the sounds and musics I heard from SNES games sounded like shit to me. Acyually, like Sunteam Paul, I prefer computary sounding sound. Most of SNES games music sound like cheap Casio synths from the 80's.
Quote from: shubibiman on 02/10/2011, 02:21 PMQuote from: JoshTurboTrollX-16 on 02/10/2011, 12:23 PMhttp://youtu.be/sxcTW6DlNqA - Super Adventure Island
I don't get the SNES sound chip hate.
What about sound FX and other games sounds and musics? One exemple out of a 2000 game library doesn't prove much to me. Most of the sounds and musics I heard from SNES games sounded like shit to me. Acyually, like Sunteam Paul, I prefer computary sounding sound. Most of SNES games music sound like cheap Casio synths from the 80's.
So you really want me to link to hundreds of examples of SNES games I think sound good? The link I posted was more of a "hey, look at what the SNES was capable of" I mean if they 'sound like shit' to you, then it sounds like shit to you. Maybe I like the sound of Cheap casio synth sound from the 80's lol! Check out (King Arthurs World, Lost Vikings, Super Turrican, Axelay, Super Adventure Island, and Actraiser) for a couple examples of SNES games I consider to have very good soundtracks. :)
The SNES APU used badly sounds like cheap MIDI, with less personalty and panache than "lesser" sound chips, but Actraiser is something that couldn't have been done in chiptunes on either the Genesis or PCE, and it's some of the best game music of the entire generation.
For all the SNES music I hate, Actraiser is pure auditory genius.
Quote from: guest on 02/10/2011, 03:34 PMThe SNES APU used badly sounds like cheap MIDI, with less personalty and panache than "lesser" sound chips, but Actraiser is something that couldn't have been done in chiptunes on either the Genesis or PCE, and it's some of the best game music of the entire generation.
For all the SNES music I hate, Actraiser is pure auditory genius.
Hearing Actraiser for the first time was similar to when I first heard Bare Knuckle (Streets of Rage) on the MD. I could barely believe my ears.
Quote from: guest on 02/10/2011, 03:46 AMI think the issue with the SNES sound chip is that it's the audio equivalent of the uncanny valley.
Ohh, that is a great analogy :D I definitely agree.
QuoteThe SNES APU used badly sounds like cheap MIDI, with less personalty and panache than "lesser" sound chips, but Actraiser is something that couldn't have been done in chiptunes on either the Genesis or PCE, and it's some of the best game music of the entire generation.
For all the SNES music I hate, Actraiser is pure auditory genius.
One of my pet peeves (but probably not as big as arkhan pet peeve about it) is the way 'midi' is used to describe a type of sound. You must be referring to the AWE and later PC sound cards that used hardware sample based synth to playback midi (or the cpu soft synth packs for it), if you're referring the SNES.
MIDI itself has no attached sound. But the word for me represents old Adlib and sound blaster-16 (opl3) midi playback. It is the most generic, thin, plastic-y <-> metallic-y instrument sound ever. Back in the 1989-1995, almost all PC games were midi and used generic FM defined instruments. So to me, if I had to attach a particularly type of sound to midi - it would be that. And that sounds nothing like SNES. At least you didn't say NES sounds like midi. I have no idea where people get
that sound relation from.
I haven't played Drakken in a long time, but if I recall the game doesn't use mode 7. The SNES can change any scanline to any of the 8 modes at any time. Mario Kart does this. The top mountains in the distance is mode 0 (for 4 BG layer mode, but also 2bit tile mode so it saves on vram).
HOW CAN MIDI SOUND CHEAP. IT HAS NO SOUND. GAHHHHHHHHHHH I HATE IT.
STOP DOING IT.
MIDI CAN BE USED TO CONTROL LIGHTS AND STUFF. ITS JUST A STREAM OF INFORMATION. NO SOUNDS ARE INVOLVED. GRAHTRJHJF;KLDJGADFG9034T04G09ERI90FDBIDFB9IFBDFBXVV*(#$&#($*#&$(#(*$(*($*(*(@^!@%!@!@
Cheap MIDI really means "The generic as balls General MIDI library often found in cheap keyboards, and built into Windows and other MIDI software as a way to get you started"
Insanity's redbook audio tracks are MIDI data. The bass and lead channel is controlling a C64 ffs. I forget what drum machine I used. I moved on to a Roland DR-220 though.
That's right. The bass and lead for Redbook Insanity music is a COMMODORE 64 SID CHIP.
fuck yeah.
also, I don't attach MIDI to Adlib. I attach "dumbasses who shouldn't have touched FM because it always sounds awful" to Adlib. :)
Gah, so much wasted potential in any game with Adlib support. It ALWAYS sounds retarded. World of Xeen is the only exception I can think of.
and maybe Ultima games, with the music patched in....
Quote from: guest on 02/10/2011, 03:41 PMHearing Actraiser for the first time was similar to when I first heard Bare Knuckle (Streets of Rage) on the MD. I could barely believe my ears.
That is what I thought of Legendary Axe II!! I swear on the Genny or SNES the soundtrack just wouldn't be the same!! Love me the LEII musix!!
Quote from: Psycho Arkhan on 02/10/2011, 04:17 PMThat's right. The bass and lead for Redbook Insanity music is a COMMODORE 64 SID CHIP.
And that is why it is truly AWESOME.
Quote from: shubibiman on 02/10/2011, 02:21 PMMost of SNES games music sound like cheap Casio synths from the 80's.
For better or worse, most of the cheap Casio synths from the 80s couldn't even dream of doing the sounds the SNES makes. Honestly they sound more like Mega Drive since both were (often) PCM in nature. AND I'M NOT CONDEMNING EITHER SO DON'T CLIMB UP MY ASS, please. I'm just saying your reference is off.
I thought of using the Uncanny Valley reference, and I think I did in one of my drafts before finally posting my earlier rambling mess of a thought process, but I'll quote myself here as I pretty much described my Uncanny Valley relationship to the SNES APU.
"PSG and FM sound tend to be very distinct and don't sound much like existing real world instruments, but SFC sampled sound could mimic said instruments closely enough that it was easy to compare to the real thing, and that sometimes led to disappointment, just as computer generated characters that look too much like real people actually create distance and seem creepier and less human than obviously unreal characters."
And yes, when I referred to "cheap MIDI" I was referring to crappy sound banks.
Quote from: guest on 02/10/2011, 12:41 PMQuote from: SignOfZeta on 02/10/2011, 12:13 AMUnfortunately the end result is incredibly un-incredible.
Just like the "real" thing! :P
If this game looks as good as Macross or R-Type 3 on SFC to you then...you and I have a seriously different outlook on things. It looks horrible to me, and this is coming from a guy who actually kind of likes the game. Why would they...do what they did? Its that supposed to look that bad? I don't understand. I guess maybe they were trying to do a thing that looked like a SFC game but ended up with monkeys hitting rocks with sticks. Its crap.
As always some peeps could get out very nice sounds out of the SFC (synth and sample mix).
The speaking is of good old legend Tim Follin:
http://youtu.be/9nA-x0DbSVY
Composition wise, it just sounds so c64ish .
The best music ever can be made with Mario Paint. =D>
Quote from: BlueBMW on 02/11/2011, 11:50 AMThe best music ever can be made with Mario Paint. =D>
SQUIRREL.
I might change that project name to FUCKYEAH. lol
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/11/2011, 07:20 AMAs always some peeps could get out very nice sounds out of the SFC (synth and sample mix).
The speaking is of good old legend Tim Follin:
http://youtu.be/9nA-x0DbSVY
Composition wise, it just sounds so c64ish .
http://youtu.be/_iRfTLw0WQ0
I don't think SNES music was better or worse. At the time is was different than other game music. The first time I played Mario and heard the echo it was awesome. Zelda music I liked, Actraiser I thought was really awesome, but then everything sort of started sounding the same. The keyboard reference is a good one. It just seemed like a lot of the same instruments were always used like on a keyboard, Sound #2 Organ, Sound #17 Orchestra hit, and then the drums always seemed to some demo from a bad keyboard.
It seemed more like it just had like these limited selection of default instruments that all game makers just selected from. So everything just sound the same, but just musically arranged a littler different.
Zelda is a good example. I like the music, but it's a very typical MIDI music like feeling. It's horns and strings, but not real smooth but more stepped/stuttered.
http://youtu.be/kMA8Xu530yA&playnext=1&list=PL667564AC02BE4A86
Quote from: GobanToba on 02/11/2011, 01:17 PMZelda is a good example. I like the music, but it's a very typical MIDI music like feeling. It's horns and strings, but not real smooth but more stepped/stuttered.
I'm pretty sure there was a default set of sounds for the SNES with official devkits and crap to get you started.
Thats a big problem with sampled music. You hear it alot on the Amiga too.. You can hear definite retriggering.
Even when they sample PSG and stuff, it doesn't sound as smooth.
When real humans play acoustic instruments, its simple to blend things and not stutter/jerk around.
I like Mystic Quests tunes on SNES. It was pretty rockin' even if it was corny.
and Secret of Mana
Let's say most of the SFC/SNES musics have aged very badly. They were new and exciting back then, but if you lissen to them now, yo definitely can feel and recognize similarities and repeatings which more leeds to borings than excitement nowadays.
As already said, there are always exceptions from some mor talented musicians teams.
Kinda funny that SID tunes aged fine but SFC didn't and SFC is half as old.
SID = analogue and therefore max. variable.
SPC = mostly given and therefore boring over time.
Quote from: TatsujinThe speaking is of good old legend Tim Follin:
http://youtu.be/9nA-x0DbSVY
Composition wise, it just sounds so c64ish .
That sounded good until the drums started. The sound quality of the drum hit sounds very bad (re: muffled). The rest of the tune has ACTUAL HIGH FREQUENCIES which the SNES is not known to produce very well.
Come on, guys. I love the PC Engine too, but I think some of the fan boy talk is getting out of hand here. You show me a HuCard that sounds as good as Super Adventure Island, Axelay, Donkey Kong Country, or Chronotrigger and I'll eat my hat.
I hate how the SNES sound chip sounds. Period. I'm not saying the PCE's one is better, it's just that I prefer the way it sounds.
This is not being a fanboy, it's just having different tastes.
I personally think the SFC sounds amazing.
Why do people always hate on the echo? It adds a lot to the atmosphere in some games.
Quote from: grahf on 02/12/2011, 08:59 AMI personally think the SFC sounds amazing.
Why do people always hate on the echo? It adds a lot to the atmosphere in some games.
It can sound amazing if it is in the right hands, but unfortunately that wasn't the case for like 94% of all its games.
I regularly listen to video game music (because I'm just that geeky I guess) My ipod is packed with nothing but game tunes... the SFC/SNES games I really like the soundtracks to are the following...
Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2 (some of this music is just excellent IMO)
Megaman X, X2, and X3 (Again some excellent stuff here)
Fzero (luv luv luv)
But then again I also have some NES game soundtracks (mostly the megaman games) and a few Genesis titles (the sonics, outrun 2019) and of course some TG/PCE tracks (Alien/Devils crush, Drac X, Sapphire, LoT, GoT, Splash Lake, Ys 1/2)
Whether SFC/SNES is better or worse, or has aged well or not, I still listen to it for pleasure.
Quote from: grahf on 02/12/2011, 08:59 AMI personally think the SFC sounds amazing.
Why do people always hate on the echo? It adds a lot to the atmosphere in some games.
Used properly, absolutely. There are some games in which the echo/reverb is awesome. But so many games used it just because they could. There were a lot of tunes where the samples and melodies weren't suited at all to the reverb settings chosen. The end result is that a lot of SNES games sound like a "metal waste bin" or "empty tile bathroom" filter was applied to the output.
Quote from: BlueBMW on 02/12/2011, 09:18 AMI regularly listen to video game music (because I'm just that geeky I guess) My ipod is packed with nothing but game tunes... the SFC/SNES games I really like the soundtracks to are the following...
Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2 (some of this music is just excellent IMO)
Megaman X, X2, and X3 (Again some excellent stuff here)
Fzero (luv luv luv)
But then again I also have some NES game soundtracks (mostly the megaman games) and a few Genesis titles (the sonics, outrun 2019) and of course some TG/PCE tracks (Alien/Devils crush, Drac X, Sapphire, LoT, GoT, Splash Lake, Ys 1/2)
Whether SFC/SNES is better or worse, or has aged well or not, I still listen to it for pleasure.
There was a time when I did this, too. From time to time, I still do. The MMX series would never have made my queue, though. The tunes were interesting, but the over-reliance on really crappy electric guitar synths was just painful.
My SFC list would include:
Actraiser
Actraiser 2
Super Castlevania IV
Hyperzone
Joe and Mac
Ys III (yes, I do like the SFC renditions of those tunes)
A couple tunes from Pilotwings (but not most of them)
UN Squadron (for some reason the crappy guitar synths don't bother me as much here, but then, the crappy guitar synth tunes aren't my favorite)
And there are some NES tunes that I definitely love, like almost anything from a Natsume or Sunsoft title.
Quote from: RyuHayabusa on 02/12/2011, 08:36 AMCome on, guys. I love the PC Engine too, but I think some of the fan boy talk is getting out of hand here. You show me a HuCard that sounds as good as Super Adventure Island, Axelay, Donkey Kong Country, or Chronotrigger and I'll eat my hat.
Wouldn't touting personal OPINION that the SNES kills the PCE sound wise be JUST as fanboyish? :wink: :lol: :mrgreen:
Quote from: RyuHayabusa on 02/12/2011, 08:36 AMCome on, guys. I love the PC Engine too, but I think some of the fan boy talk is getting out of hand here. You show me a HuCard that sounds as good as Super Adventure Island, Axelay, Donkey Kong Country, or Chronotrigger and I'll eat my hat.
Pick some SFC/Super Nintendo games that actually have a soundtrack worthy of the humble Dungeon Explorer and we will see. :)
Quote from: nectarsis on 02/12/2011, 01:17 PMQuote from: RyuHayabusa on 02/12/2011, 08:36 AMCome on, guys. I love the PC Engine too, but I think some of the fan boy talk is getting out of hand here. You show me a HuCard that sounds as good as Super Adventure Island, Axelay, Donkey Kong Country, or Chronotrigger and I'll eat my hat.
Wouldn't touting personal OPINION that the SNES kills the PCE sound wise be JUST as fanboyish? :wink: :lol: :mrgreen:
Not only that, but more importantly, are you going to post video of you eating your hat? :P
Chretien Wants Teh Proof (https://youtu.be/EbaxSNh3KB4) http://youtu.be/EbaxSNh3KB4
Quote from: ceti alpha on 02/12/2011, 01:25 PMQuote from: nectarsis on 02/12/2011, 01:17 PMQuote from: RyuHayabusa on 02/12/2011, 08:36 AMCome on, guys. I love the PC Engine too, but I think some of the fan boy talk is getting out of hand here. You show me a HuCard that sounds as good as Super Adventure Island, Axelay, Donkey Kong Country, or Chronotrigger and I'll eat my hat.
Wouldn't touting personal OPINION that the SNES kills the PCE sound wise be JUST as fanboyish? :wink: :lol: :mrgreen:
Not only that, but more importantly, are you going to post video of you eating your hat? :P
Chretien Wants Teh Proof (https://youtu.be/EbaxSNh3KB4)
Ah yes the PWOOF is needed :wink: :lol:
Quote from: nectarsis on 02/12/2011, 01:17 PMWouldn't touting personal OPINION that the SNES kills the PCE sound wise be JUST as fanboyish? :wink: :lol: :mrgreen:
Theres no such thing as PCE Fanboys. Everyone that has blind love for the PCE is just one with mother earth.
Unlike those jackass SNES/MD fanboys!
Quote from: grahf on 02/12/2011, 08:59 AMI personally think the SFC sounds amazing.
Why do people always hate on the echo? It adds a lot to the atmosphere in some games.
The dislike for it, was early on for me. It comes from the fact that they used it EVERY where and when it had no appropriate setting. They used just to use it. It's a bit like tacky mode 7, except it was everywhere in a lot of games. Annoyed the crap out of me. For some sound FX, it just sounds completely wrong - even if the setting was
in a cave. Explosions that had it sounded the worst.
Quote from: nectarsis on 02/12/2011, 01:17 PMQuote from: RyuHayabusa on 02/12/2011, 08:36 AMCome on, guys. I love the PC Engine too, but I think some of the fan boy talk is getting out of hand here. You show me a HuCard that sounds as good as Super Adventure Island, Axelay, Donkey Kong Country, or Chronotrigger and I'll eat my hat.
Wouldn't touting personal OPINION that the SNES kills the PCE sound wise be JUST as fanboyish? :wink: :lol: :mrgreen:
Although, many people have been surprisingly harsh discussing the SNES sound, I don't think that anyone actually said anything as extreme as 'no SNES games sound as good as these PCE games'.
It's all about personal taste. I could list games that sound nicer to me (
for example, Somer Assault sounds perfect for an Adventure Island game), but if someone already has a personal benchmark of specific games worth eating a hat over, I really don't think that anything else will come close for them.
Quote from: esteban on 02/12/2011, 01:23 PMPick some SFC/Super Nintendo games that actually have a soundtrack worthy of the humble Dungeon Explorer and we will see. :)
How about Crystal Beans. :wink:
I have been recording cartridge game music for a loooong time. I have over 10 CDs-worth so far. I always record it from real hardware which means I am not always able to record each game due to a lack of sound tests (oh how I would love a CD that let me play HuCard music from games that don't have sound tests). The only time I ever used emulation in a recording was for about 1.5 seconds in a short Ristar tune to remove where the voice said "c'mon" because it sounded cheesy and the voice samples in that game are horrendous and embarrassing, but the rest of the recorded tune was from real hardware and you can notice my fine mixing of 1.5 seconds of emulation in (mainly because that part is virtually silent other than the crap voice). I wish all games had sound tests. Also, I hate sound tests which make a sound when you press the button to start playing the music (looking at you Wave Race 64).
About SNES reverb: It was used a lot to cover up the poor and mushy sample rate. For example, in Tales of Phantasia there is an opening song which is sung by some bitch. The sound test gives you the option to turn the reverb off and if you do, it turns into complete mushy sludge. The reverb makes it so it at least SEEMS like it has some semblance of high frequencies (treble). But at the same time it sounds like I am listening to the song in a cave. Half of one, six dozen of the other, I guess.
Quote from: Joe Redifer on 02/12/2011, 05:00 PMI have been recording cartridge game music for a loooong time. I have over 10 CDs-worth so far. I always record it from real hardware which means I am not always able to record each game due to a lack of sound tests (oh how I would love a CD that let me play HuCard music from games that don't have sound tests).
There are HES rips of the PSG soundtracks from pretty much every HuCard and CD game that was released. The only exceptions seem to be soundtracks that mixed in ADPCM. There is a utility that will turn any of them into a sound test rom that you can play on real hardware using a flash card.
QuoteWouldn't touting personal OPINION that the SNES kills the PCE sound wise be JUST as fanboyish? :wink: :lol: :mrgreen:
I never said that the SNES kills the PCE soundwise. I am saying that the SNES sound hardware is superior, and in the right hands can do things that the PCE can't come close to. I'm not an SNES fanboy either. I have a Supergrafx in the box, a PCE CDRom2 in the box, Coregrafx in the box, white PCE, 2 Turbografx-16s, the Turbo CD, Arcade Card Pro, and a shit load of games. I love the PCE as much as anyone here, I just couldn't help but notice everybody poo-pooing the SNES not only in this thread but the MD/SFC/PCE comparison thread.
BT - the only problem with that is I don't have a flash card. Lemme borrow yours! But you bring up an interesting question... does any music actually mix the ADPCM into it for instruments? I know Sega CD games do this a lot when there is chip-based music on a CD game. Also, if the interface unit is attached, why couldn't the ADPCM be played anyway?
Quote from: Joe Redifer on 02/12/2011, 06:49 PMBT - the only problem with that is I don't have a flash card. Lemme borrow yours! But you bring up an interesting question... does any music actually mix the ADPCM into it for instruments? I know Sega CD games do this a lot when there is chip-based music on a CD game. Also, if the interface unit is attached, why couldn't the ADPCM be played anyway?
Several games do mix adpcm with psg for music. The easiest example to listen to is Dragon Slayer. Just switch the music to PSG in the menu and towns and battles will be a mix of system generated sound. If you have the import version, play it with the Turbo CD system card and you can probably access them in a sound test.
My flashcard is a pain in the ass because it requires a one of those giant old scanner/printer port cables and I cant get the drivers to work on anything beyond Windows ME (even then it stops working after a while and I have to reinstall Windows). You're welcome to borrow it though. I've been planning on getting a Neo flash card once I have the time to make use of it.
Tom made a few nice adpcm HuCard roms that I tried out on real hardware. HuCard games could've included extra adpcm samples that could be optional or just kick in when the hardware is detected. But they also could've included sound enhancement chips, lots of regular samples or just larger sized games in general... But it wasn't worth the extra production costs versus a cheap to produce CD game that would likely sell better.
Quote from: RyuHayabusa on 02/12/2011, 06:48 PMQuoteWouldn't touting personal OPINION that the SNES kills the PCE sound wise be JUST as fanboyish? :wink: :lol: :mrgreen:
I never said that the SNES kills the PCE soundwise. I am saying that the SNES sound hardware is superior, and in the right hands can do things that the PCE can't come close to. I'm not an SNES fanboy either. I have a Supergrafx in the box, a PCE CDRom2 in the box, Coregrafx in the box, white PCE, 2 Turbografx-16s, the Turbo CD, Arcade Card Pro, and a shit load of games. I love the PCE as much as anyone here, I just couldn't help but notice everybody poo-pooing the SNES not only in this thread but the MD/SFC/PCE comparison thread.
That's exactly what he was implying that you meant. :-P
If Nectarsis' Super Famicom collection is bigger than your PC Engine, does that mean that SFC sound isn't as good? ;-)
I agree that the SFC/SNES can do things with sound that the PCE & MD can't, but it goes both ways. Just like with graphics. Also, every game is different and even NES games can sound better than 16-bit versions (see Ys III).
All the tech in the world doesn't mean anything, the end result is what matters. Would CD games have sounded better if the music skipped eratically and used autotune just like the cutting edge music from decades in the future?
As I said before, I am also surprised just how much some people seem to outright dislike SNES sound in general. But you are once again the one throwing around "doesn't even compare!" type comments.
EXACTLY Tiger...especially when someone says "You show me a HuCard that sounds as good as Super Adventure Island, Axelay, Donkey Kong Country, or Chronotrigger and I'll eat my hat." Yes you ARE saying that no PCE game can hang with the "superior" SNES. Tech is far from what makes a system (or MUCH more importantly the the GAMES) the "best"...as proven repeatedly.
P.S. If you notice there are some games that get praise in the PCE/MD/SNES thread. But by your logic Drac X KILLS it's bastard SFC brother in animation frames (let's loosey call that "tech") it would be "better" on that merit alone ;)
Quote from: guestMy flashcard is a pain in the ass because it requires a one of those giant old scanner/printer port cables and I cant get the drivers to work on anything beyond Windows ME (even then it stops working after a while and I have to reinstall Windows). You're welcome to borrow it though. I've been planning on getting a Neo flash card once I have the time to make use of it.
I believe I do have a PC with those ports, but it is running XP so I am probably out o' luck there. That's why I like the Everdrive for the Genesis since it uses an SD card and doesn't rely on such ancient transfer means. I have't checked out the Neo Flash yet, but I imagine it is probably pretty expensive.
Quote from: Joe Redifer on 02/12/2011, 10:55 PMQuote from: CrackTigerMy flashcard is a pain in the ass because it requires a one of those giant old scanner/printer port cables and I cant get the drivers to work on anything beyond Windows ME (even then it stops working after a while and I have to reinstall Windows). You're welcome to borrow it though. I've been planning on getting a Neo flash card once I have the time to make use of it.
I believe I do have a PC with those ports, but it is running XP so I am probably out o' luck there. That's why I like the Everdrive for the Genesis since it uses an SD card and doesn't rely on such ancient transfer means. I have't checked out the Neo Flash yet, but I imagine it is probably pretty expensive.
I use parallel port to send stuff to a C64 drive. I would hope the PCE flash card that uses it (PCE Pro?) works fine if the C64 one does.
The NeoFlash is like, 149$ for the best one.
The cheapest ones like 60 or 70 maybe
I remember when I built my current computer I had the hardest time finding a motherboard that still sported serial ports and a parallel port. Harder yet was finding one that had a floppy connector inside lol.
http://youtu.be/OH7Z8EcFSxs <- @ 11:30. Transparency non flicker. The sprites on the top transition line flicker (alternate - ala Sonic water levels) - but you can't see it in that video. But everything below the translation line isn't flicker transparency.
Joe: Fiend Hunter used the ADPCM channel in chiptunes: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YZLRDSH6
Also, the Project MD demo is cool. I saw the effect you were talking about. But the game also does the Jackie Chan effect on the light bulbs (when the character walks behind them). It also does 60hz flicker on XOR patterns to increase the master palette. I bet it pretty decent on a real TV (emulators break the effect because they drop frames from time to time). He even uses it on a translucent area. Alternates the see through XOR pattern.
Quote from: guest on 02/12/2011, 02:06 PMQuote from: esteban on 02/12/2011, 01:23 PMPick some SFC/Super Nintendo games that actually have a soundtrack worthy of the humble Dungeon Explorer and we will see. :)
How about Crystal Beans. :wink:
Indeed, I was thinking of Crystal Beans when I made that challenge: the SFC version of the soundtrack is nice, but it simply
can't compare to the warm, smooth original PCE PSG.
OK, clearly, this
is subjective, but the SFC version, for all of its nice flourishes (believe me, I am entirely grateful to have this "alternate" SFC soundtrack), suffers from the "stilted staccato" effect on many instruments/samples. It is a pet peeve of mine and I can't help but wish the sound flowed smoothly:
(A) SFC's electric guitars just annoy me (e.g. "Knowledge Temple"). STOP IT!
vs.
(B) SFC's beautiful rendition of the MAIN THEME (with gorgeous church bells chiming and adding immensely to the overall atmosphere).
I can't fault "Main Theme"--it's divine, as are many other SFC tracks.
Some SFC tracks are "spoiled": SFC's "Floating Tower" has a nice organ solo, but guitars spoil it.
SFC's "Overrun with Darkness" is overrun with a a horrendous, grating, staccato metronome. Then, when the solo kicks in, it is weak and frail compared to the mighty PCE "organ" and synth leads. The PCE tune (sub 7) is brooding, elegant, masterful. All the tracks complement each other and form a harmonious whole--the SFC version sounds muddled, the tracks are at the wrong levels (the mix is off).
BOTTOM LINE:
There are many truly lovely aspects to the SFC soundtrack and I love it, overall. I wish we had more music from Dungeon Explorer on other platforms, because it is a treat to hear different arrangements/variations. Staccato guitar will continue to irk me, but I've learned to look past it. :)
http://youtu.be/K-gZ3DHuvQs
This is pretty good.
Quote from: Psycho Arkhan on 02/13/2011, 05:12 PMhttp://youtu.be/K-gZ3DHuvQs
This is pretty good.
But it sounds like it's being performed by a tiny synth orchestra at the bottom of a deep well, or perhaps from inside a metal dumpster. I think the problem is that some of the samples are actually really good, but some of them are kinda crappy, leaving me feeling like I've listened to something mismatched.
Quote from: guest on 02/13/2011, 05:40 PMQuote from: Psycho Arkhan on 02/13/2011, 05:12 PMhttp://youtu.be/K-gZ3DHuvQs
This is pretty good.
But it sounds like it's being performed by a tiny synth orchestra at the bottom of a deep well, or perhaps from inside a metal dumpster. I think the problem is that some of the samples are actually really good, but some of them are kinda crappy, leaving me feeling like I've listened to something mismatched.
yeah but... the maelstrom is a deep dark echoey dungeon....
Another cool spotlight behind a pattern effect-
(https://www.superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/de1.png)(https://www.superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/de2.png)
(https://www.superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/de3.png)(https://www.superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/de4.png)
Shows up in more than one dungeon.
Interesting. I forget if those spotlight enemies were in the original, as well. :-k
Quote from: ceti alpha on 02/14/2011, 03:07 PMInteresting. I forget if those spotlight enemies were in the original, as well. :-k
If you are talking about the screen shots I just posted, they are from the first Dungeon Explorer game.
Quote from: guest on 02/14/2011, 06:37 PMQuote from: ceti alpha on 02/14/2011, 03:07 PMInteresting. I forget if those spotlight enemies were in the original, as well. :-k
If you are talking about the screen shots I just posted, they are from the first Dungeon Explorer game.
hahaha. Wow. I guess I could have just taken a better look at the screen shots and read the "Dungeon Explorer" text. My bad. heh
I thought those spotlight things looked familiar... #-o
Ceti didn't take his supps today again.
Quote from: Tatsujin on 02/15/2011, 12:18 AMCeti didn't take his supps today again.
:lol:
:|
Don't let this thread die! It's very interesting to read.
OK.
The TurboGrafx-16 singlehandedly beats down all contenders including Genesis, SNES and Neo Geo. Blockbuster hits like Boxyboy and the TV Sports titles are proof.
Boxyboy TROUNCES Last Resort.
I JUST PLAYED SYSTEM CARD 2.0. WOW.
IT IS SUPERIOR TO THE ENTIRE LINE OF SEGA CONSOLES.
Quote from: nat on 02/19/2011, 06:02 PMOK.
The TurboGrafx-16 singlehandedly beats down all contenders including Genesis, SNES and Neo Geo. Blockbuster hits like Boxyboy and the TV Sports titles are proof.
Oh man. I was playing NHL 2010 with some buds on the 360 and then I sneaked my Turbo Duo out and threw on some TV Sports Hockey, and their faces lit up just like the really cool dudes from the old TG commercials. TV Sports Hockey ftw!
Quote from: guestI JUST PLAYED SYSTEM CARD 2.0. WOW.
Effing System Card 2.0 fanboys. :roll: I don't know why you guys continues to praise how great it is when the sequel is far better. It is even built in to some of the later systems because it was so fun. Remember how Alex Kidd was built into the SMS 2? Same thing here.
Only the over-hyped System 3.0 is easily crushed by the superior System 3.01 in full-USA-english, without those ugly "PC Engine" graphics ruining the title screen. Plus it's a full year more advanced. Just as the wimpy 2.0 is outclassed by the 2.01 and 2.10. I mean, the only thing that the 2.0 has going for it over the 1.0 is CD+G support. :roll: Of course, all of these look like garbage when compared to the sexy Games Express cards. :wink:
1.0 = LEGIT!
How can you talk about system cards this way? The Arcade Card is clearly the best because it doesn't have any numbers at all. Just like Windows ME was better than Windows 98 and XP was better than 2000, the Arcade Card is better than any of those numbered cards. There was even an Arcade Card Pro, and as everyone knows, putting the word Pro on the end of something makes it more awesome, just like people with Type R stickers on their cars. Those words change EVERYTHING.
my car would be faster if I painted it RED.
and got vanity plates
Back to reality for a moment, I thought the Genesis was ass when I was younger. I did own one for a short time, but traded it in. I had a 1st gen unit, and the picture was grainy and washed out. The audio was OK, but some of the sports games I played had barely intelligible voice samples that sounded cheap.
It just goes to show what a shitty video encoder can do to a first impression. These days I'm a fan of the Genesis/Megadrive, now that I've seen it on better equipment. The SNES and the TG16 on the other hand had a far superior video encoder, so I thought they looked amazing back then. They were just so much brighter and clearer than the Genesis (not taking the colors into consideration, because I couldn't tell on my TV at the time).
When I was younger (3ish), we got a Sega.
Sonic was immediately cooler than Mario. Even at the gimpy age of 3 I thought mario 1 was "slow and gay". (actual words used). I still will prefer Mario 2 over any other Mario in existence. It's slowish, but its so fun.
I was too young to give a rats ass about graphics/hardware/stuff. I just wanted to see cartoony crap flying around. :)
I thought GnG for NES looked good.
Now, I am like "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH HIM".
I thought this was appropriate.
Welcome back, Sinistron :)
Quote from: Sinistron on 07/23/2009, 02:09 PMIn response to two out of Guyjin's five PCEDAI listed clears being for a system card and a tennokoe card- this is what people are saying!
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a88/greatmasturbator/rolf.jpg)
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a88/greatmasturbator/Why-Laughter-is-Contagious-2-1.jpg)
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a88/greatmasturbator/PeopleLaughing.jpg)
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a88/greatmasturbator/yukyuk.jpg)
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a88/greatmasturbator/laughing_kitten.jpg)
Man, I played the shit outta this game when it came out!! I loved it, and the music in my eyes, was perfect for the game setting. Too bad the pcengine version is only Japanese.. :(.. I would love to be able to play it again on the system.
Quote from: guest on 02/13/2011, 05:12 PMhttp://youtu.be/K-gZ3DHuvQs
This is pretty good.
Quote from: bernielindell on 02/20/2011, 03:21 PMand the music in my eyes, was perfect for the game setting.
Nice, you can hear with your eyes? :)
Quote from: bernielindell on 02/20/2011, 03:21 PMMan, I played the shit outta this game when it came out!! I loved it, and the music in my eyes, was perfect for the game setting. Too bad the pcengine version is only Japanese.. :(.. I would love to be able to play it again on the system.
Quote from: Psycho Arkhan on 02/13/2011, 05:12 PMhttp://youtu.be/K-gZ3DHuvQs
This is pretty good.
You could probably manage to beat Heart of the Maelstrom without being able to read japanese.
Theres alot of english in the game still, and once you know what the Japanese menu stuff says, ... use a guide from SNES one for general-stuff... .you could putz your way thru it!
Quote from: TurboXray on 02/13/2011, 04:29 PMhttp://youtu.be/OH7Z8EcFSxs <- @ 11:30. Transparency non flicker. The sprites on the top transition line flicker (alternate - ala Sonic water levels) - but you can't see it in that video. But everything below the translation line isn't flicker transparency.
What is also cool about that particular scene, is that the "transparency" section also has a wavy "TFIII" effect. Something that wouldn't be possible by simply turning on a SNES transparency layer. If something similar
was done in a SNES game with a transparency, the transparent layer could make use of a wavy effect itself, if it had patterned art to register the effect. But it wouldn't be the same.
Quote from: guest on 02/21/2011, 08:11 PMQuote from: TurboXray on 02/13/2011, 04:29 PMhttp://youtu.be/OH7Z8EcFSxs <- @ 11:30. Transparency non flicker. The sprites on the top transition line flicker (alternate - ala Sonic water levels) - but you can't see it in that video. But everything below the translation line isn't flicker transparency.
What is also cool about that particular scene, is that the "transparency" section also has a wavy "TFIII" effect. Something that wouldn't be possible by simply turning on a SNES transparency layer. If something similar was done in a SNES game with a transparency, the transparent layer could make use of a wavy effect itself, if it had patterned art to register the effect. But it wouldn't be the same.
SNES has three modes of transparency AFAIK; BG layer and color window. The color window is the simplest, but you can change the color math and base color with an HMDA (basically an Hsync interrupt) to make it fade down the screen. You can still do warp or do other effects to the BG underneath it but that would take additional HDMA channels to do that (each channel can write a byte to a PPU register per scanline. There are 8 HDMA channels). The Sprite have some attribute attached to some of the subpalettes to 'pop' a sprite out of the color math window or such areah so it doesn't get the effect. The BG layer mode, which I don't remember much about - is basically a translucent background layer over top the other BG and sprite layer. I don't think it's restricted to the 3 BG layer modes (as in just the 2bit BG layer can be assigned that function), but I'd have to recheck that. I'm also not sure if you can use color window and translucent BG mode at the same time, as I don't remember any games doing that.
PCE can kind of simulate the color window mode of the SNES. Though it's through subpalette and precalculated colors, but the effect is automatic to the screen area. CCovell's Axelay demo changes the BG color #0, but he could have duplicated the original repeating city tiles map over a larger tilemap and used the hsync interrupt to show the map in different color gradient (the all the tiles on that scanline as translucent, not just the BG color #0) going down the screen. On both VDCs too. That would have looked very SNESish.
I remember on the Saturn in games like Shining Wisdom, you could not have a color window on top of a transparency. Open up a window and the transparent layer underneath it disappears.
I just read the Sol Moonarge review at Brothers duomazovs' (https://web.archive.org/web/20160120181314if_/http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/2011/02/sol-moonarge.html) and I was wondering if there was not some transparency here :
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Da9VUBKMGlY/TWOb305GBgI/AAAAAAAAJKc/4P-VqEtQVOc/s1600/solm5.png)
PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion => Topic started by: Ceti Alpha on 02/01/2011, 04:00 PM