10/31/2023: Localization News - Dead of the Brain 1!

No, NOT a trick, a Halloween treat! Presenting the Dead of the Brain 1 English patch by David Shadoff for the DEAD last official PC Engine CD game published by NEC before exiting the console biz in 1999! I helped edit/betatest and it's also a game I actually finished in 2023, yaaay! Shubibiman also did a French localization. github.com/dshadoff/DeadoftheBrain
twitter.com/NightWolve/PCENews
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Messages - Artabasdos

#1
Off-Topic / Re: Japs & Fat Gay Niggers
03/31/2017, 09:12 PM
Quote from: elmer on 03/31/2017, 09:10 PMYou could just quit and delete your account instead of acting like a spoiled-child.
Nice one my nerdy homeboy. Deleting now.
#2
Off-Topic / Re: Japs & Fat Gay Niggers
03/31/2017, 09:08 PM
Quote from: Otaking on 03/31/2017, 09:06 PMIMG
IMG
Do I need to spam gay porn and send screenshots to the Whois host to get banned or what?
#3
Off-Topic / Re: Japs & Fat Gay Niggers
03/31/2017, 09:04 PM
Quote from: esteban on 03/31/2017, 08:59 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 08:57 PM
Quote from: ccovell on 03/31/2017, 08:53 PMIs this some kind of performance art?
Silence faggot.
Definitely an Adam Sandler endeavor.
He turned the script down because there's too many Japs.
#4
Off-Topic / Re: Japs & Fat Gay Niggers
03/31/2017, 08:57 PM
Quote from: ccovell on 03/31/2017, 08:53 PMIs this some kind of performance art?
Silence faggot.
#5
Off-Topic / I love the PC Engine...
03/31/2017, 08:38 PM
Yep, I'm a DoxPhile. What about you ?

P. S.

Make DoxPhile Great Again 2017!
#6
Quote from: elmer on 03/31/2017, 08:33 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 07:25 PMAnd yeah, you don't understand my point of the bus. Good luck getting so many bankswitched calls across it using the PCE's MMU.  =D>
I don't understand your point either. What programming limitation are you trying to describe?

The PCE bus does one 8-bit memory access in 140ns ... the SNES does one 8-bit memory access in 280ns (best case) ... the Genesis does one 16-bit memory access in 520ns.

The 68000 CPU is so darned-slow at accessing memory that both the Amiga and ST ran the memory at twice the speed and used the alternate access-slots to display the video without affecting the CPU speed.

The Genesis just wastes that potential-bandwidth ... except for the DMA hardware ... which has its own horrible limitations.

What is this terrible PCE bus-limitation that you're talking about?  :-k
I've already stated it multiple times.

This shit is beyond retarded. Time to get myself banned and outta here.

Cya!
#7
Quote from: cr8zykuban0 on 03/31/2017, 07:53 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 07:51 PM
Quote from: cr8zykuban0 on 03/31/2017, 07:43 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 07:40 PM
Quote from: cr8zykuban0 on 03/31/2017, 07:10 PMYep, mitsuman strikes again! dude i look hella fat in the video! then again i just woke up haha no good! but thanks for the positive feedback dudes,  will definitely do another raffle in the future!
Eh? You look pretty normal to me.
well maybe its from the way i had my face and the fact that i shaved my little beard makes me look fat hahahah
Little beard? Lol.
well not a full thick beard but it was a little beard, kinda regret shaving it. i look funny without some kind of facial hair on my face haha
Jack be nimble,
Jack be quick,
Jack be beating his thimble dick.
#8
Quote from: cr8zykuban0 on 03/31/2017, 07:43 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 07:40 PM
Quote from: cr8zykuban0 on 03/31/2017, 07:10 PMYep, mitsuman strikes again! dude i look hella fat in the video! then again i just woke up haha no good! but thanks for the positive feedback dudes,  will definitely do another raffle in the future!
Eh? You look pretty normal to me.
well maybe its from the way i had my face and the fact that i shaved my little beard makes me look fat hahahah
Little beard? Lol.
#9
Quote from: cr8zykuban0 on 03/31/2017, 07:10 PMYep, mitsuman strikes again! dude i look hella fat in the video! then again i just woke up haha no good! but thanks for the positive feedback dudes,  will definitely do another raffle in the future!
Eh? You look pretty normal to me.
#10
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 07:32 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 07:25 PM
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 07:18 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 06:57 PM@Punch

Oh God lol. Scale. 30MB vs 500MB. An inbuilt MMU would help, but good luck powering fuck knows' how many vintage ROM chips with whatever fragment of 4W the PCE gives the slot. The seek/fetch is still gonna be brutal.
No game uses "500 MB". You don't need to power all ROM chips at once as you will NEVER have access to all of them at once anyway. Anyway see my edit, I'm out of batteries to argue with you, I'll just lol at you trying to pass off as an expert on everything PCE and when the joke gets old I'll add you to a list only Xak/Validus had the honor of joining since I've started using this forum. Yes, I respect you as much as Xak now.
And yeah, you don't understand my point of the bus. Good luck getting so many bankswitched calls across it using the PCE's MMU.  =D>
Thanks, I'll need it someday, as a person who actually can and has produced PC Engine software. God bless you, random Internet late 80's videogame connoisseur.
So you used 80's era ROM chips in excess of say 300MB using the PCE's MMU eh? Don't think so.

 Or, more likely, you used an Everdrive with modern components, and a complex MMU to handle the SD card data.
#11
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 07:28 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 07:20 PM
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 07:18 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 06:57 PM@Punch

Oh God lol. Scale. 30MB vs 500MB. An inbuilt MMU would help, but good luck powering fuck knows' how many vintage ROM chips with whatever fragment of 4W the PCE gives the slot. The seek/fetch is still gonna be brutal.
[/quote

No game uses "500 MB". You don't need to power all ROM chips at once as you will NEVER have access to all of them at once anyway. Anyway see my edit, I'm out of batteries to argue with you, I'll just lol at you trying to pass off as an expert on everything PCE and when the joke gets old I'll add you to a list only Xak/Validus had the honor of joining since I've started using this forum. Yes, I respect you as much as Xak now.
So no PCE CD holds over say 300MB of data, including audio?

Actually it's 2MB. All chips would likely be powered. They are in the SFC and MD.
Of course I'm not counting audio. JB Harold probably has the disc full of ADPCM samples... which you cannot play without CD hardware anyway.
Yes, yes you can. You change it to the container and combined bit output of the first 2 combined PCE channels. It's sampled sound, just like voice samples in any game. The quality probably wouldn't be great though.
#12
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 07:22 PMSapphire's data track is only 118 megabits.

Spriggan is 6 stages at <.05 megabits each and like all stage-based CD games, is loading redundant code and assets each time . Add in a 30KB chiptune soundtrack and superfluous cinematics and it would be a whopping <4 megabit HuCard, just like Musha.

Nevermind what all the people who are intimately familiar with programming the hardware have said over the years about how this stuff actually works. Lets just interperet the specs as though the PCE is the Vita.




Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 07:20 PM
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 07:18 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 06:57 PM@Punch

Oh God lol. Scale. 30MB vs 500MB. An inbuilt MMU would help, but good luck powering fuck knows' how many vintage ROM chips with whatever fragment of 4W the PCE gives the slot. The seek/fetch is still gonna be brutal.
No game uses "500 MB". You don't need to power all ROM chips at once as you will NEVER have access to all of them at once anyway. Anyway see my edit, I'm out of batteries to argue with you, I'll just lol at you trying to pass off as an expert on everything PCE and when the joke gets old I'll add you to a list only Xak/Validus had the honor of joining since I've started using this forum. Yes, I respect you as much as Xak now.
So no PCE CD holds over say 300MB of data, including audio?
Games like digicomics and some RPGs use a lot of space for streaming adpcm dialogue.

Otherwise, PCE CD space is used up no differently than audio CD space. It's 99% redbook.
I think you well know that I'm not comparing it to the Vita outside of how larger Flash can affect seek time.

Like I said above, the poor phrasing by Necromancer gave the wrong impression. A 1:1 data copy of CD to Flash would be fucking slow on a machine of that era, especially with the limited address space and low bus bandwidth.
#13
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 07:18 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 06:57 PM@Punch

Oh God lol. Scale. 30MB vs 500MB. An inbuilt MMU would help, but good luck powering fuck knows' how many vintage ROM chips with whatever fragment of 4W the PCE gives the slot. The seek/fetch is still gonna be brutal.
No game uses "500 MB". You don't need to power all ROM chips at once as you will NEVER have access to all of them at once anyway. Anyway see my edit, I'm out of batteries to argue with you, I'll just lol at you trying to pass off as an expert on everything PCE and when the joke gets old I'll add you to a list only Xak/Validus had the honor of joining since I've started using this forum. Yes, I respect you as much as Xak now.
And yeah, you don't understand my point of the bus. Good luck getting so many bankswitched calls across it using the PCE's MMU.  =D&gt;
#14
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 07:18 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 06:57 PM@Punch

Oh God lol. Scale. 30MB vs 500MB. An inbuilt MMU would help, but good luck powering fuck knows' how many vintage ROM chips with whatever fragment of 4W the PCE gives the slot. The seek/fetch is still gonna be brutal.
No game uses "500 MB". You don't need to power all ROM chips at once as you will NEVER have access to all of them at once anyway. Anyway see my edit, I'm out of batteries to argue with you, I'll just lol at you trying to pass off as an expert on everything PCE and when the joke gets old I'll add you to a list only Xak/Validus had the honor of joining since I've started using this forum. Yes, I respect you as much as Xak now.
So no PCE CD holds over say 300MB of data, including audio?

Actually it's 2MB. All chips would likely be powered. They are in the SFC and MD.
#15
Quote from: guest on 03/30/2017, 05:46 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/30/2017, 05:28 PMOf course it's different. The CD can hold 500MB+ of data, and load it into RAM when required. A HuCard/cart can only hold a few megs in total. IIRC SFII on PCE is 20 megabits, or 2 1/2MB!
The only appreciable difference there is cost.  20 megabits isn't the max allowable rom size; with the right mapper, a huey could be made to hold just as much as any cd game made....
I think the issue here is how you phrased this. If you're chopping the sound data to chiptune then yeah, it's going to work. 8 or 9 MB would still be a pretty fat cart too.

Pier Solar can also use the MegaCD to play the OST in-game. The MDCD's hardware is considerably more powerful than the PCE's in terms of audio.
#16
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 06:48 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 06:01 PM
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 05:48 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 05:43 PMLol, irrelevant. We're talking economy of scale in terms of what is acceptable performance. 2-8MB is nothing compared to CD size.
And as was said before, the game itself is nowhere near the 650MB capacity of a CD.  If a CD game were made as a huey instead, it'd lose the hundreds of megs of redbook and adpcm.  Duh.
Lol, that is still data being stored on ROMs. Not only that, but all sound data is run off the CPU, with no additional sound chip as found in the CD-ROM unit. That is even worse...
There are more chiptunes in CD games than HuCards.

Many HuCard games run multiple samples at once while still running intensive games that would melt the SNES.
What does that have to do with a bottlenecked bus and horrible data overload? :P
#17
@Punch

Oh God lol. Scale. 30MB vs 500MB. An inbuilt MMU would help, but good luck powering fuck knows' how many vintage ROM chips with whatever fragment of 4W the PCE gives the slot. The seek/fetch is still gonna be brutal.
#18
Quote from: EmperorIng on 03/31/2017, 04:55 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 05:27 AM
Quote from: EmperorIng on 03/30/2017, 10:04 PMSo little to talk about with the PC-FX that people have to scare up prophecies of site closure over manual and disc cover scans. Phew.
Fine. What's your favourite PC-FX anime porn game?
Cutey Honey FX, of course! But that's more softcore than anything.
No Dragon Knight?
#19
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 06:37 PM
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 06:24 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 06:30 PM
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 06:24 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 06:20 PMBy the way, do you think that it's possible to do a conversion of a, say, roughly 20 to 30 Megabit arcade game to an 8 bit console that can only have 64 KB of ROM without bankswitching or do you think that it's impossible to do so because of the limitations of bankswitching you're claiming? Just a curiosity.
Depends on the hardware, and if the port has been watered down. Is the data on the cart 20-30 megabits, or cut down?

When you say without bank switching, do you mean the hardware can't do that?
Port is of a game that might theoretically hit 30 MiB of data, original might be double the size of the port. Hardware can only see 64 KB of data without resorting to bankswitching circuitry. Seems to be an interesting proportion, not as huge as a CD to HuCard but still an interesting question. In the data size aspect alone, considering all data might be accessed at any given time, is it possible to have this theoretical port?
Again, it depends on the hardware. 20-30MB shouldn't be too much of a challenge. Does the cart have an MMU?
When you say "only see 64KB", are you referring to the ROM chip sizes in the cart? Or the data in the VRAM? The PCE has 64KB of VRAM. Is that what you mean?
Only see 64KB = the CPU can only address bytes 0 to 65535 on a ROM cart. This has nothing to do with VRAM, and yes presumably it would have a MMU chip.
Well without knowing the exact console you mean, I would imagine yes, that's pretty possible. 30MB is a lot, but broken into 64KB chunks with an MMU it shouldn't be too bad at all. With an inbuilt MMU, the data being fed out is only what is needed, and won't constantly be running calls across the bus to the CPU or system MMU.
#21
Quote from: cr8zykuban0 on 03/31/2017, 06:25 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 06:21 PM
Quote from: cr8zykuban0 on 03/31/2017, 05:31 PM
Quote from: Dicer on 03/31/2017, 05:27 PMThat was a hell of a drawing...Gratzi to the WINRAR
haha thanks man, and thanks for entering!
So who won?
check the video in the first page, the link is under the photo of the 2 games
Oops, missed that.
#22
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 06:24 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 06:20 PMBy the way, do you think that it's possible to do a conversion of a, say, roughly 20 to 30 Megabit arcade game to an 8 bit console that can only have 64 KB of ROM without bankswitching or do you think that it's impossible to do so because of the limitations of bankswitching you're claiming? Just a curiosity.
Depends on the hardware, and if the port has been watered down. Is the data on the cart 20-30 megabits, or cut down?

When you say without bank switching, do you mean the hardware can't do that?
Port is of a game that might theoretically hit 30 MiB of data, original might be double the size of the port. Hardware can only see 64 KB of data without resorting to bankswitching circuitry. Seems to be an interesting proportion, not as huge as a CD to HuCard but still an interesting question. In the data size aspect alone, considering all data might be accessed at any given time, is it possible to have this theoretical port?[/quote]
Again, it depends on the hardware. 20-30MB shouldn't be too much of a challenge. Does the cart have an MMU?
When you say "only see 64KB", are you referring to the ROM chip sizes in the cart? Or the data in the VRAM? The PCE has 64KB of VRAM. Is that what you mean?
#23
Quote from: cr8zykuban0 on 03/31/2017, 05:31 PM
Quote from: Dicer on 03/31/2017, 05:27 PMThat was a hell of a drawing...Gratzi to the WINRAR
haha thanks man, and thanks for entering!
So who won?
#24
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 06:13 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 05:56 PM
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 05:44 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 04:55 PM
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 04:45 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/30/2017, 05:52 PMThat's to say nothing of the reduced performance from the phenomenal amount of bank switching that would be required.
Yes, phenomenal microseconds lost to order an instantaneous bank change as opposed to the seconds long optical + mechanical maneuvers every time you want data outside the tiny window already loaded into the syscard ram. Truly phenomenal :lol:

Your posts make you sound like you're the kind of random Internet expert that says stuff like "the PCE is 8 bit but has two 16 bit video chips" :P
Super Mario Bros. 2 was actually a game called Doki Doki Panic in Japan.
Cartridge mask ROM != Flash DRAM memory. Flash is significantly slower.
I'm not an expert but I'm pretty sure that the HuC6280 doesn't work at all like you probably imagine it to. It doesn't have an internal RAM cache. The CPU fetches data as fast in ROM as in RAM, and only slows down when its doing something weird like running one of its block transfer instructions. This isn't a modern computer, dude.
There's no reading data all over the full physical space with long jumps too because games which rely on bankswitching (like, all hucards ever and 90% of the NES library) usually organize code to require the least amount of "far jumps" possible, and most of the time the most mobile portion of the ROM is DATA which is usually copied elsewhere (VRAM, or just plain RAM sometimes). SFII is the perfect example (top half of rom is FIXED, bottom half of rom is bankswitchable... and most of the extra space is used for bg/sprite data which is uploaded to VRAM when needed).

Comparing a PCE HuCard to SD cards... lmao. Nice job. Btw my point was that no mapper cart could be possibly slower than CDROM -- please show me how a PCE cartridge could be slower than something relying on a 1x mechanical CDROM controller. Or own me by schooling me on the PCE CPU's ROM access speeds or something, with all the pretty bus timing diagrams and shit. Again I'm no expert, but you'll have to be more substantial than that, I'd shut up if it was someone who knows his shit like tomaitheous or elmer, not you though, sorry.
It's still Flash memory. It's only faster because it's one way, unlike SDs etc.

Bank switching is still bank switching. You're suggesting that 500-600MB worth of data being bank switched will have the same seek/fetch time as 2MB or so. That's utter bullshit.

The MMU is going to be bit with so much freaking data it's unreal, and unlike CD-ROM, it has no buffer. I doubt if the slot would even provide sufficient power to so many ROM chips of '91 vintage.

The CD-ROM will have a logic control chip, and buffer.
Your last two paragraphs don't make any sense and no game ever used 1/8 of a disc, let alone 650MB.

By the way, do you think that it's possible to do a conversion of a, say, roughly 20 to 30 Megabit arcade game to an 8 bit console that can only have 64 KB of ROM without bankswitching or do you think that it's impossible to do so because of the limitations of bankswitching you're claiming? Just a curiosity.
Depends on the hardware, and if the port has been watered down. Is the data on the cart 20-30 megabits, or cut down?

When you say without bank switching, do you mean the hardware can't do that?
#25
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 06:08 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 06:01 PMLol, that is still data being stored on ROMs. Not only that, but all sound data is run off the CPU, with no additional sound chip as found in the CD-ROM unit. That is even worse...
Are you a troll or are you really this dense?

The adpcm stuff would be scrapped (it requires cd hardware) and the redbook would be exchanged for exponentially smaller chip tune data.  You trying to argue that a graphically identical game (but with different sounds) would still be hundreds of megabytes on a huey is simply laughable.  You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
The PCE's sound chip can combine channels to play better quality sound. Therefore the redbook could theoretically run to some extent when converted to whatever container.
I'm arguing that your point about a "Huey" of several hundred MBs wouldn't work very well. Even with an onboard MMU. That amount of data would bottleneck.

You also didn't mention about converting the redbook to chiptune. Your argument was purely on MB size.
#26
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 05:48 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 05:43 PMLol, irrelevant. We're talking economy of scale in terms of what is acceptable performance. 2-8MB is nothing compared to CD size.
And as was said before, the game itself is nowhere near the 650MB capacity of a CD.  If a CD game were made as a huey instead, it'd lose the hundreds of megs of redbook and adpcm.  Duh.
Lol, that is still data being stored on ROMs. Not only that, but all sound data is run off the CPU, with no additional sound chip as found in the CD-ROM unit. That is even worse...
#27
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 05:44 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 04:55 PM
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 04:45 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/30/2017, 05:52 PMThat's to say nothing of the reduced performance from the phenomenal amount of bank switching that would be required.
Yes, phenomenal microseconds lost to order an instantaneous bank change as opposed to the seconds long optical + mechanical maneuvers every time you want data outside the tiny window already loaded into the syscard ram. Truly phenomenal :lol:

Your posts make you sound like you're the kind of random Internet expert that says stuff like "the PCE is 8 bit but has two 16 bit video chips" :P
Super Mario Bros. 2 was actually a game called Doki Doki Panic in Japan.
Cartridge mask ROM != Flash DRAM memory. Flash is significantly slower.
I'm not an expert but I'm pretty sure that the HuC6280 doesn't work at all like you probably imagine it to. It doesn't have an internal RAM cache. The CPU fetches data as fast in ROM as in RAM, and only slows down when its doing something weird like running one of its block transfer instructions. This isn't a modern computer, dude.
There's no reading data all over the full physical space with long jumps too because games which rely on bankswitching (like, all hucards ever and 90% of the NES library) usually organize code to require the least amount of "far jumps" possible, and most of the time the most mobile portion of the ROM is DATA which is usually copied elsewhere (VRAM, or just plain RAM sometimes). SFII is the perfect example (top half of rom is FIXED, bottom half of rom is bankswitchable... and most of the extra space is used for bg/sprite data which is uploaded to VRAM when needed).

Comparing a PCE HuCard to SD cards... lmao. Nice job. Btw my point was that no mapper cart could be possibly slower than CDROM -- please show me how a PCE cartridge could be slower than something relying on a 1x mechanical CDROM controller. Or own me by schooling me on the PCE CPU's ROM access speeds or something, with all the pretty bus timing diagrams and shit. Again I'm no expert, but you'll have to be more substantial than that, I'd shut up if it was someone who knows his shit like tomaitheous or elmer, not you though, sorry.
It's still Flash memory. It's only faster because it's one way, unlike SDs etc.

Bank switching is still bank switching. You're suggesting that 500-600MB worth of data being bank switched will have the same seek/fetch time as 2MB or so. That's utter bullshit.

The MMU is going to be bit with so much freaking data it's unreal, and unlike CD-ROM, it has no buffer. I doubt if the slot would even provide sufficient power to so many ROM chips of '91 vintage.

The CD-ROM will have a logic control chip, and buffer.
#28
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 05:40 PMRight, BT.  Also, look at all the NES games that used mappers or the few SNES and Genny games that needed 'em, and try to name one that had "performance issues".  Street Fighter Alpha 2 maybe, but its issues were from running a decompression algorithm and would've been eliminated with a mapper and larger rom.
Lol, irrelevant. We're talking economy of scale in terms of what is acceptable performance. 2-8MB is nothing compared to CD size.
#29
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 05:29 PMI guess that Paprium is going to crawl along, since it's 2.5 times as big as the hardware can accept without bank switching and larger than many/most PCE CD games.

Of course SFII' PCE is also 2.5 times the hardware's max rom size and we saw how crippled that game was.
That's 2.5MB, not 500+. That's 200x or more data it has to sift through, pull back to the bus, check the MMU values, dump into the appropriate RAM pool, and repeat. This of course is not accounting for sound data also doing the same, except it has to hit the CPU too, as the PCE has no dedicated sound CPU.

Not only that, but can you imagine the freaking size of such a HuCard? Especially with '91 technology. I mean Christ, the NEOGEO carts of the period where like what, 20-50MB? Yet they're bigger than the PCE itself.
#30
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 04:45 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/30/2017, 05:52 PMThat's to say nothing of the reduced performance from the phenomenal amount of bank switching that would be required.
Yes, phenomenal microseconds lost to order an instantaneous bank change as opposed to the seconds long optical + mechanical maneuvers every time you want data outside the tiny window already loaded into the syscard ram. Truly phenomenal :lol:

Your posts make you sound like you're the kind of random Internet expert that says stuff like "the PCE is 8 bit but has two 16 bit video chips" :P
I suggest you look up how bus bandwidth affects data transfer, especially when it's constantly jumping back and forth between the CPU, memory mapper, RAM, and game data. The same kind of thing happens on modern handhelds using the largest supported flash memory. The 64GB Vita memory card is considerably slower than the 32GB and lower. Same for the 3DS & DS. Game carts of 512MB on the DS were noticeably slower. Same for SD cards or any kind of Flash data.

So kindly take your sarcasm and stuff it where the sun doesn't shine.
#31
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 04:27 PMCool! There is no way in hell I could fit into it, but if you throw some used undies into the mix I'll gladly sign up!
Run fatty, run.
#32
Quote from: esteban on 03/31/2017, 04:13 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 10:47 AMI would of thought the general purpose amount of the PCE CD would have a competitive amount!
That's actually a good question: both PCE Super CD and Mega Drive CD were released in December of 1991...

...technical specs had been released to the public, I am assuming, but at what point were NEC and Sega aware of *exactly* what the other company was doing?

Had the technical specs been nailed down by the engineers long before knowledge of competitor's hardware?
Hard to say without some pretty hardcore research most likely. One thing to mention that the cost of RAM in the 100s of KB amount was pretty low by 1991. Also, they are only selling the HuCard with RAM built-in, unlike the MegaCD, which had a whole ton of crap. I'd of thought 512KB would have been the best idea.
#33
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 01:57 PMCommercial non-homebrew releases spanned 12 years.

Translucent overlays are not the same as legit shading/color/detail and S&H has limited use, but many games still did something with it.

The Genesis/Mega Drive had enough color flexibilty for most types of games, even though most devs were bad at making good use of it. Palette hacks are transforming exiating games. Unfortunately, it was the same generation that street fighting games took off, which are the hardest kind of game to do within the Genesis' color restrictions, particularly ports.
The MD's S&H differs from most by being a built-in feature, not pseudo hack. It's not HAM.

You're right. Some devs chose very, very poor colour choices for certain MD games. Those hacks look so much better it's ridiculous. There are even copies of SFII CE being sold that have had the sound and colour fixes applied, and it's so much better. Hell, even Final Fight CD got a colour hack. That's the only burnt game I own.
#34
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 01:05 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 12:23 PM
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 11:42 AM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 11:10 AMHelped with it's technical edge against its competition. I doubt it would have cost that much more tbh.
A technical superiority is meaningless if developers ignored it, and additional cost is a serious concern when the system is already considered expensive.  Also, had it been included and widely supported, they would've pissed off everyone with a briefcase.

They didn't include it because they didn't think they needed it to compete on a technical level.  They were right.
To a degree I guess. The MegaDrive & SNES still outlived it in the mainstream.
It's all relative. The PC Engine was catering to a different market, since Nintendo had a stranglehold on the mass  market that was independent of software or hardware. Yet it went strong for 8 years and amassed a library similar in size to the Sega Genesis.

The Super Famicom/SNES arrived midway through the generation and only went s long as it did because of Nintendo's refusal to remain current hardware-wise and the combo of questionable business practices and japanese publisher "honor" and install base loyalty. Yet its last game was released during its 8th year.

While the PC Engine still saw releases in its 9th and 10th years, even one in its 12th and the first in a steady stream of physically published hombrew releases only a few years after that. And that's with the PC-FX targeting the same publishers and consumers.
No disrespect to homebrew releases, but I'm only including officially licensed software. By that logic the Genesis and SNES are still alive, as they get homebrew-esque stuff too.

I'm also not attacking the PCE or its achievements in anyway. It's an amazing little machine with some impressive punch. The fact it could output 482 onscreen colours at the same time when mainstream PC videocards of the time could only do 256, and cost a small fortune is pretty mind blowing.
I'm a HUGE Megadrive fan, but have to admit the graphics are sometimes lacking in terms of colour. Then again, not many devs took advantage of the MD's built-in 192 colour shadow & highlight feature. The highest recorded amount of colours of any game or beta from back in the day that I know of is 114, on a Sonic 2 beta. But yeah, I'm just rambling now.
#35
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 11:42 AM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 11:10 AMHelped with it's technical edge against its competition. I doubt it would have cost that much more tbh.
A technical superiority is meaningless if developers ignored it, and additional cost is a serious concern when the system is already considered expensive.  Also, had it been included and widely supported, they would've pissed off everyone with a briefcase.

They didn't include it because they didn't think they needed it to compete on a technical level.  They were right.
To a degree I guess. The MegaDrive & SNES still outlived it in the mainstream.
#36
Quote from: elmer on 03/31/2017, 11:00 AM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 10:27 AMKinda weird considering the launch of the matching SuperCD2 unit.
You mean the SuperCD2 unit that launched 2 years after the SuperGrafx (which was already judged a failure), and which color-matched the CoreGrafx II, and was a cost-cutting replacement for the whole briefcase setup?

That SuperCD2?

The SuperGrafx could already run CD games soon after its launch with the release of the RAU-30 adapter for the briefcase.

<edit>

Beaten-to-the-post by Necromancer!  :wink:
Yes and no. I had a T shaped CD setup in my head. I was thinking of the TurboGrafx & TurboCD though without realising it. I confused the 2 as the SGX is effectively the head or a capital T. But yeah, mistaken identity!
#37
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 11:04 AM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 10:57 AMAh, ok. Was the SuperCD designed to match the CoreGrafx II colour-wise then?
Yes.  They share a color scheme and were released just a few months apart.

Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 10:57 AMAlso, why didn't they put the SGX hardware into the Duos? Sure rly that would have helped?
Helped with it's technical edge against its competition. I doubt it would have cost that much more tbh.


Helped what?  The format was already dead, so it would've made the Duos even more expensive for something that neither consumers or developers were particularly interested.
#38
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 10:51 AM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 10:27 AMKinda weird considering the launch of the matching SuperCD2 unit.
The SuperGrafx came out two years before the Super CD add-on, and they do not match each other.  The RAU-30 adapter (for connecting a SGX to an IFU) came out a few months after the SGX, and I guess it more or less matches; the half that plugs in to the SGX is the same color plastic anyway.

In any case, the SGX is a backwards compatible system.  Adding CD support was just important for non-SGX games, though I'm sure they would've made SGX CD games eventually had the system not been DOA.
Ah, ok. Was the SuperCD designed to match the CoreGrafx II colour-wise then?

Also, why didn't they put the SGX hardware into the Duos? Sure rly that would have helped?
#39
Quote from: soop on 03/31/2017, 10:47 AMEh, at least we had stuff like Cannon Fodder and Lemmings.  The Amiga was at its best when it did its own thing!
Yeah. Apart from the limited amount of sound channels it is a pretty powerful system. I'd love to see how the Amiga 500 could pull off SFII if handled by Capcom, not US gold.

Oh, and preferably with the 2 button joysticks. That always hurt the Amiga.
#40
Quote from: soop on 03/31/2017, 10:45 AMI have loads knocking around for projects and stuff, but I have a lot of other hardware anyway, so I generally just use a Core Grafx/Supergrafx.

Also, an extra volt is well above tolerance for the PCE (it actually gets converted down to 5v internally, and the part that converts is rated to like 20v).  I mean get an extra one anyway, but even if you tested the output, it probably wouldn't be exactly 9v.  Just to set your mind at ease :)  PC Engines are tough little things!
Lol, ok. I only have one of each console except in a few cases. For example I have 2 MegaDrives. One modded MD I that is hooked up to my MegaCD, and outputs 60Hz PAL, and a modded MD II, that outputs 60Hz NTSC and has the cart a lot widened for JP MD games.

Also, I personally would never buy a SuperGrafx. As cool as it is, it' s worthless to me as I only buy systems whose library I have an interest in.
#41
Quote from: esteban on 03/30/2017, 08:17 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/30/2017, 05:52 PM
Quote from: guest on 03/30/2017, 05:46 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/30/2017, 05:28 PMOf course it's different. The CD can hold 500MB+ of data, and load it into RAM when required. A HuCard/cart can only hold a few megs in total. IIRC SFII on PCE is 20 megabits, or 2 1/2MB!
The only appreciable difference there is cost.  20 megabits isn't the max allowable rom size; with the right mapper, a huey could be made to hold just as much as any cd game made, none of which are even close to 500 megabytes in game size (most disc space is filled with adpcm samples and redbook).
Are you sure about that?

Even if that is true, the price of such a HuCard would be brutal. Approaching higher end AES cart prices back in the day. That's to say nothing of the reduced performance from the phenomenal amount of bank switching that would be required. CDs were far cheaper and more simple to deal with.
Comrade, I know what you are thinking... I, too, was confused about the "bottleneck" that is created for CD-ROM games based on the fact that only ____________ of data (depends on the system card) can be loaded and therefore available at any given moment.

If you want LOTS OF ANIMATION in large sprites... you can quickly run out of room.

Therefore, once it was evident that the install base of CD-ROM hardware was healthy,  developers/publishers *still* had a decision to make: did the technical requirements/challenges of the game lend itself to HuCARD or CD-ROM.

CD-ROM was not automatically the best fit for every project.

:)
I can understand that. I thought the system 3.0 card had 512KB of RAM, not 192KB. Given the fact that its main rival the MegaCD had 768KB of RAM (outside of sound), I would of thought the general purpose amount of the PCE CD would have a competitive amount!
#42
Quote from: soop on 03/31/2017, 10:37 AM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/30/2017, 10:45 AM....what's it like to play Street Fighter II on PCE with a 2 button controller? I remember playing it at a friend's house on an Amiga 500, and that only used 1 button! Was a complete nightmare, and it looked like ass too compared to the MD/SNES. Is the PCE version any better made for non-6 button pads?
Hah, it's not quite as bad as that - the Amiga conversion was complete trash, but apparantly they didn't have access to any source code when they made it - all they had was a coin-op and they had to make do.

IIRC, you use select to swap between punches and kicks, and then Run I and II are the actual attack buttons.  It's playable, but it's not exactly great.  I recommend the Fighting Commander by Hori, it's actually probably my fave pad.
God yes! SFII on Amiga 500 was crap. My friend had it on there, and you had to swap discs like every friggin minute. The controls were a nightmare, and it was phenomenally ugly. The Amiga can put 64 colours onscreen apparently with an "EHB" mode. Yet I doubt it had above about 30. The Megadrive version utterly destroyed it, even using the 3 button pads!
#43
Quote from: soop on 03/31/2017, 10:33 AMOh nice - I might see if my PCEs work, I've actually never even tried!
Lol. Why have them then?
I also only tried the MD PSU for around 2 minutes whilst I tuned the TV. It's 10V, which is 1V above what it should be. Therefore I'm getting a 9V cable just to play it safe.
#44
Quote from: soop on 03/31/2017, 10:32 AMYeah, I was totally an Amiga owner.  I started with an Acorn Electron, went to Spectrum, and then briefly owned a C64 alongside it (which apart from Wonderboy I didn't really rate as much).  Then I sold both with all my games (a fair few) for £180, and my parents chipped in to get me an Amiga 500.  I was a lucky kid.

I only really got into consoles when they started to get stupid cheap.  Actually I had a Megadrive around the time the Playstation came out, and some games were still pretty pricey, but I used to travel all over the place via bus, and call all manner of stores trying to find cheap games.  Oh, and Trade-It, which was basically Craigslist in print format.

I got tonnes of NES games for around a quid BitD, and one memorable day, picked up 20 loose Megadrive games for £40 at which point they kindly chucked in Secret of Mana and Megaman X for the SNES I didn't yet own.  Still have them all, aside from a lot of the NES games and three NESs, but I've just been on a bit of a bender rebuilding my collection, and I'm actually pretty happy.  It was always one of my regrets that I lost those NES games.
NES was before my time. Megadrive & Sonic was the popular thing around here along with SFII & Mortal Kombat. The Amiga version of SFII sucked hard.
#45
Quote from: cr8zykuban0 on 03/30/2017, 06:20 PM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/30/2017, 12:36 PM
Quote from: cr8zykuban0 on 03/21/2017, 11:51 PMSUP BRUHS!!! ITS RAFFLE TIME!!

IMG

Haven't done a raffle in quite some time but i figured why not this time around since I recently got these 2 games in english now big thanks to the man, sarumaru! Here are the rules!

*minimal post count 200 unless someone can vouch for you.
*must live in the u.s.
*please dont sell.....please.... :(

AlSO! LET ME KNOW HOW I SHOULD DECIDE THE WINNER!!!!
A. Should i make a video showing the winner
B. Just take a picture from the randomizer website

Please answer a or b if you want to take part in the raffle. Raffle will end Friday, March 31st.

Best of luck to all!!!

The bruhs entering
Mitsuman. A
Kingdrool ?
Esadajr. A
Dicer.A
Desh. ?
Ah crap. Would love to enter, but only a 100 odd posts. Also not American. You racist... :P
just for the simple fact that you have terry bogard as your display pic, i'll throw you in the raffle, youre not too far off from 200. I say us only since shipping priority in the us is pretty cheap for the most part. If you win and shipping isnt too much, then ill go ahead and happily do so!
Lol, cheers. I promise I won't sell them if I win! :P
#46
Quote from: guest on 03/31/2017, 10:26 AM
Quote from: Artabasdos on 03/31/2017, 10:22 AMWere there ever any SuperGrafx CD games?
No.
Kinda weird considering the launch of the matching SuperCD2 unit.
#47
Quote from: soop on 03/31/2017, 10:22 AMYeah, I'm fairly sure a MD PSU will work.  Also, you won't hurt it by sticking the wrong polatiry in.  I have a loose connector with my multi adaptor and I get it wrong sometimes. 

However, you won't be able to use RF on a UK TV unless it takes an NTSC input, which most of them probably don't
I already used an MD I (or MegaCD I PSU. Both are the same) PSU and MD I RF cable to tune my HDTV to the PCE's channel. My TV was untuned as I only use it for PS4 and streaming media. However, the auto-tuner still found the PCE's RF output fine.

Anyway, I intend to get either an IFU unit or RGB mod at some point. Until then RF will do.
#48
Were there ever any SuperGrafx CD games?
#50
Quote from: soop on 03/31/2017, 10:10 AMWow, memories.  Well I'm in the UK, and the first I really heard of the PC Engine was the GT.  One of the popular gaming magazines over here, C+VG, used to have a pull-out supplement covering portables, and the GT was clearly streets ahead of anything else, including the previously well hyped Lynx.  I remember seeing a review of Air Zonk and being blown away.

For me, the PC Engine was pretty much in the realm of things like the Super Famicom (until it was released over here) and the Neo Geo.  As an aside, I remember when Street Fighter II was released, and import companies were advertising import copies for... over £100 I'm pretty sure.

So all of these consoles, until the eventual (and overwhelmingly well recieved) launch of the Super Nintendo.  I don't remember the gap, but I want to say it was a year if not longer.

Then one day, I was with my dad, browsing the second hand type stores, when I saw, in a glass display case, a boxed PC Engine GT and 7 games for £70.  My jaw literally hit the floor, and I managed to persuade him to buy it for me as an early birthday gift.  I still think it's the best present I ever got.  I'm hazy on the date, but it would have been the 90's after the Megadrive had been going for a while.

My first bundle of games was:

PC Genjin 2
Sonson II
Shinobi
AfterBurner
Cyber Core
Altered Beast
And Bari Bari Densetsu.  Someone clearly knew what they were doing, these are fantastic games.  I later managed to pick up Hani on the Road, Street Fighter II, and The Kung Fu, for I think about £10 each from an import company.  At the time, I had no access to reviews, so I was literally judging by the cover at first.  Then when I got a job, Internet access and an ebay account, I got a few more, Puzznic, shubibin man 2 and Super Star Soldier, along with a Boxed Core Grafx.  After that I could read reviews and download ROMs, so I was in a better position to choose what games I wanted to get, and I really ramped up my collection in the late 2000's .

It's almost a shame now the mystery is gone a little, but back then, any snippet of PC Engine information I could get, I'd happily buy an entire magazine for.  Even one review.  I still have all my old magazines, in varying conditions, and I'm fairly certain I can identify what PC Engine is in each of them just from the cover.  I think I probably still have the old photocopy of the advert I purchased my first games from somewhere, with various games circled.
I've only known one person who owned a SNES as a kid in the UK. Almost everyone had a Megadrive or Amiga 500.