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[Homewrecker]

None of the games back in the SNES and NES days were 60fps, atleast not in the way we think of it today. All TVs back then were interlaced 60hz, this was effectively the same as 30fps progressive scan like we have now. Except with the crappy effect of having screen tearing and sprite glitches to go along with it.

 

[jett]

I'll double check but I'm pretty sure of it.

It could also be my console or my cables. Does it matter if its a Top loader?

You're simply mistaken.

 

[emag]

I own a kart of SMB3. My footage looks more like the 30 FPS than the 60 FPS.

I'm just surprised things like post-mortems or design docs didn't exist in those times, nor was there any discussions over region locking.

You don't need those when you have access to the system specs. Early consoles automatically output at their native refresh rate (60 Hz). It's only with polygons that differentiating between frame rate and output format has any meaning.

 

[jett]

None of the games back in the SNES and NES days were 60fps, atleast not in the way we think of it today. All TVs back then were interlaced 60hz, this was effectively the same as 30fps progressive scan like we have now. Except with the crappy effect of having screen tearing and sprite glitches to go along with it.

That's not true, low-res, 240p, was progressive, all 60 frames.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-definition_television

Older video game consoles and home computers generated a nonstandard NTSC or PAL signal which sent a single field type which prevented fields from interlacing.[1][2] This is equivalent to 240p and 288p respectively, and was used due to requiring less resources and producing a progressive and stable signal

 

[Peltz]

None intended, but thanks for being pretentious with your assumptions

My point is that every generation seems to think that their's is the special one for whatever the current big topic of discussion is. Pick up a history book and you can see it played out time and time again. To many people it's inconceivable to them that in their youth or in the generation prior to their's that people had discussions on the same topics and same depths as they do today (this is partially the older generations fault for talking about the past as if it's rose colored and that everything was 'simpler' then when it really wasn't).

I love this post.

I, in fact, do see the past with rose-colored glasses, but I see the present generation that way as well. There's always going to be the discussions about people who don't focus on the fun stuff, and many of those discussions are productive and worth having. But that doesn't mean that we should lose sight of how great we have things in the present moment despite all the criticisms.

It's better to start looking at gaming today with rose colored glasses, than to need to wait 10 years before realizing how great we had it in the PS4, XONE, Wii U generation.

 

[Peltz]

I own a kart of SMB3. My footage looks more like the 30 FPS than the 60 FPS.

I'm just surprised things like post-mortems or design docs didn't exist in those times, nor was there any discussions over region locking.

I just played my cart of SMB3 before work this morning. I must humbly point out that you are simply incorrect, good sir.

 

[Homewrecker]

Ok so low res tvs could display 60hz progressive. That's all well and good but the vast majority of TVs that people were using were standard def interlaced 60hz. Which still goes back to my point that none of the games from that era were 60fps, even if they were the TVs couldn't display it.

 

[andymcc]

It's not that funny, at that time only the NES was out. This blew 8bit away.

I'm not criticizing the Genesis, just that SNES games were more prone to game-breaking slowdown in "intense" action games.

 

[conman]

Of course there were. Competing consoles. Arcade vs. console versions. Etc. There just wasn't the internet to act as a giant megaphone.

 

[rakkadakka]

Graphic fidelity much more so than FPS.

But there were much bigger leaps back then compared to now in a post HD world.

 

[arit]

For about a year, the genesis was on top of the world... Then Mortal Kombat 2 came out, and the terrible mk2 port showed that the snes was simply superior; MK2 SNES was the best port of the game excluding pc (that came out a bit later?) until, I KID YOU NOT, MK2 on the ps3s

I'd rank the 32x port higher than the snes one.

 

[DoktorEvil]

You're simply mistaken.

I just played my cart of SMB3 before work this morning. I must humbly point out that you are simply incorrect, good sir.

I haven't plugged my toploader into a TV for some time, so I'll double check after work.

 

[Hasney]

There was in the UK between C64/Spectrum/That one weird kid who had an Amstrad. Not that I ever lost those debates having a C64 *flex*

 

[Nugg]

I wasn't aware of such talks from the 8 bits era, but for me, the console war dfinitely started with the 16 bits machines.

More than graphics, sound was often very different from one version over the other. I remember debates about which version of Mortal Kombat 2 was the better one between the SNES and the Genesis. Censorship (blood and stuff) was also harsher on Nintendo machines for games like MK2.

I also remember the whole NTSC 60Hz vs PAL 50Hz debate. Games where not only smoother but also faster. This made a huge difference in games like Mario Kart or Street Fighter 2. I used to live in the Caribbeans back then, and some kids had stuff imported from Europe (PAL), and others from the US (NTSC). I used to train on my superior faster version, and then when I went to play at my friends house, it was like I was seeing the matrix. Everything was so slow. I used to crush him with my superhuman high speed trained reflexes.

 

[jimmypop]

Blood was spilled on those playgrounds.

I had a Turbo Grafx. I wasn't even allowed into the arena.

 

[Peltz]

Ok so low res tvs could display 60hz progressive. That's all well and good but the vast majority of TVs that people were using were standard def interlaced 60hz. Which still goes back to my point that none of the games from that era were 60fps, even if they were the TVs couldn't display it.

Even standard definition TV's playing over composite where still displaying a 240p image, natively. Trust me, I just learned this myself from the CRT/RGB/Retro Console/Upscaler thread.

And you're wrong about the hertz as well. Only PAL games weren't played at 60hz. In NA and Japan, games ran at 60 fps natively on TVs that also displayed 60fps to the naked eye.

The image on the left is from a composite signal to a standard def television. See the scanlines? That's from the fact that it's a 240p image.

Check out this thread for more info:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=630556

 

[lunarworks]

There simply wasn't as much shared knowledge back then.

Your discussions were limited to the half dozen other kids in your school who cared about video games, what each of you had read in magazines (if they were even available), and rumours picked up from out-of-town relatives.

 

[DrROBschiz]

I think stable framerate ends up being the most important in the end right

Dips in frame rate and slowdown tend to be he most jarring for the majority of players.

The game needs to run and run well and that was probably a clear distinction in that era and remains true today

 

[The Dutch Slayer]

Lol in that time you were glad the game worked and was longer then 1 hour to finish

 

[vg260]

There were comparisons of home games in the 2600, intellivision, Colecovision era, with the best looking arcade ports being the most desirable. So, yes, absolutely, just not specifically frame rates. Technical knowledge of how the games worked was not as well known as mentioned.

 

[funking giblet]

You would buy your C64 game and on the box it might have pictures of the different versions, and you always wanted the one that looked the best. (Amiga usually )

 

[Horseticuffs]

Videogames were riding a wave of creativity, and were a new and exciting artform at that time. People didn't care about the negatives. All attention was commanded by the positives.

Very different situation these days.

I remember people throwing some serious shade over the 2600 version of Pacman.

You would buy your C64 game and on the box it might have pictures of the different versions, and you always wanted the one that looked the best. (Amiga usually )

I recall buying the SSI Gold Box AD&D games back in the day for my Tandy 1000 HX and just fucking hating life for this reason.

 

[BuckRobotron]

There were always graphics debates, better controller debates, etc. One of the main graphics issues back when was how many sprites could exist on a line without flickering. ColecoVision had some especially solid ports of arcade games among the earlier consoles.

As for controllers, it was much more interesting as besides the iconic Atari controller you'd have Bally arcade gun-handle shape controllers, the 5200 analog controller, the ColecoVision disk/numpad, etc.

 

[Krejlooc]

All TVs back then were interlaced 60hz, this was effectively the same as 30fps progressive scan like we have now.

Not quite. 30 fps progressive scan updates at 30 hz. 60 hz interlaced refreshes at 60 hz in dual fields. These games did not use both fields to build a single frame. As in, you wouldn't draw the odd lines of frame 1, then the even lines of frame 1, then the odd lines of frame 2, then the even lines of frame 2, etc. Most calculations were done during every VBlank. So, the way interlaced displays worked is that first they'd draw all the odd fields from frame 1, then all the even fields from fame 2, then all the odd fields from fame 3, then all the even fields from frame 4.

You still got 60 updates in 1 second.

 

[Sothpaw]

War never changes.

 

[Nugg]

Guys, remember PAL and NTSC are interlaced, not progressive, which mean 60Hz actually is 30 frames per second, not 60. Or if you want, 60 half frames per second. 50Hz is 25fps, not 50.

 

[mrklaw]

There wasn't any internet in the Amiga/ST days but there was still plenty of oneupmanship

"We have a 7% faster CPU - look how much smoother FA-18 Interceptor is"

"yeah well we have a blitter, we can do scrolling way better than your crappy machine"

"You don't have MIDI though"

"er, no. So what?"

"um, not sure. Oh and we have Oids"

"you bastards. You win"

 

[ItsTheNew]

Game pro used to bring up differences between two versions of games. For example: Zombies ate my neighbors and SF2 were crappy on the genesis vs the SNES and they brought it up.

 

[w00zey]

I don't remember debate growing up. I just remember discussion. I didn't have any friends with a colecovision that told me the atari was a piece of shit and hope they go out of business.

 

[speedlolita]

Guys, remember PAL and NTSC are interlaced, not progressive, which mean 60Hz actually is 30 frames per second, not 60. Or if you want, 60 half frames per second. 50Hz is 25fps, not 50.

480i is interlaced, 240p is progressive.

Consoles like the Dreamcast and later would use 480i but mostly everything before it would use 240p, which is a progressive image.

This isn't difficult to understand.

 

[Ludist210]

My friends and I considered it cool. It meant there was so much awesome going on that the game couldn't keep up, therefore we were awesome since we were making the action on the screen happen.

Ah, to be a kid again...

 

[MikeBreezy92]

I'd rank the 32x port higher than the snes one.

Same MK2 32X was best port Sans pc.

 

[jett]

480i is interlaced, 240p is progressive.

Consoles like the Dreamcast and later would use 480i but mostly everything before it would use 240p, which is a progressive image.

This isn't difficult to understand.

People read "progressive" and immediately think of those expensive late-90's TVs with progressive output for 640x480. As if it progressive outputs had never existed before.

In all fairness I also didn't know until relatively recently.

 

[Faxanadu]

I remember talking about Mode 7 and sound quality. Colors and the size of games. 5 megs! Stuff like that.

 

[speedlolita]

People read "progressive" and immediately think of those expensive late-90's TVs with progressive output for 640x480. As if it progressive outputs had never existed before.

In all fairness I also didn't know until relatively recently.

Pretty big clue in the names.

240p
480i

I've done too much reading into retro video console output though. In fact, I only own a 240p/480i capable display aside from my PC monitor.

 

[Version 3.0]

It was all sprite flicker, slowdown and colour clash back then. Those were the days.

There ya go. Should've been the first reply.

And no, there weren't online discussions, but the gaming magazines provided enough fodder to spill over into conversations at school and such.

 

[Krejlooc]

Guys, remember PAL and NTSC are interlaced, not progressive, which mean 60Hz actually is 30 frames per second, not 60. Or if you want, 60 half frames per second. 50Hz is 25fps, not 50.

They are 60/50 interlaced frames per second, as in 60/50 unique fields per second. That is not the same as 30/25 progressive frames per second.

 

[Krejlooc]

People read "progressive" and immediately think of those expensive late-90's TVs with progressive output for 640x480. As if it progressive outputs had never existed before.

In all fairness I also didn't know until relatively recently.

To clarify, all old NTSC and PAL CRT TVs, the ones we are talking about, are interlaced. They output an interlaced image, always. This is a physical limitation of the cathodray tube gun, which is not fast enough under the NTSC or PAL standard to draw a full progressive frame.

The internal framebuffer for these consoles might be 240p, the signal being sent along the composite line might be 240p, but the image displayed on the TV is 480i always. You pointed out the scan lines in a picture you posted prior - scanlines are interlacing. The gun is skipping every odd line of resolution still.

 

[Peltz]

To clarify, all old NTSC and PAL CRT TVs, the ones we are talking about, are interlaced. They output an interlaced image, always. This is a physical limitation of the cathodray tube gun, which is not fast enough under the NTSC or PAL standard to draw a full progressive frame.

The internal framebuffer for these consoles might be 240p, the signal being sent along the composite line might be 240p, but the image displayed on the TV is 480i always. You pointed out the scan lines in a picture you posted prior - scanlines are interlacing. The gun is skipping every odd line of resolution still.

Edit: Do Studio RGB monitors use different technology then? Just to be clear, the signal sent along the cable is definitely 240p. Because mine definitely isn't interlacing the image over S-video. I see a distinct difference between 240p and 480i... the latter has the scanlines moving every other frame so that you cannot really see them, the other has them totally static so that every other row of pixels is "missing" consistently in all frames without any alternation between odd and even frames because it's a true progressive signal. You can actually see the difference, in game, in Chrono Cross because the menus are 480i and the gameplay is 240p.

So, I definitely see the difference on my CRT. But again, it's a studio RGB monitor. It's been a long time since I've played on a consumer grade CRT and I don't remember whether it's the same thing, but just lower quality, or, alternatively, interlaced throughout.

(at first you cleared things up, but now I think I've gotten myself even more confused).

 

[Krejlooc]

Ahh, that makes sense! Thanks for clearing that up! Sorry for creating any confusion.

No problem, these old technologies are pretty fascinating to learn about. Just remember that interlaced CRT screens display two different fields in one given "frame".

 

[petran79]

there were certainly regarding computer games.

 

[Krejlooc]

Do Studio RGB monitors use different technology then? Just to be clear, the signal sent along the cable is definitely 240p. Because mine definitely isn't interlacing the image over S-video. I see a distinct difference between 240p and 480i... the latter has the scanlines moving every other frame so that you cannot really see them, the other has them totally static so that every other row of pixels is "missing" consistently in all frames without any alternation between odd and even frames because it's a true progressive signal. You can actually see the difference, in game, in Chrono Cross because the menus are 480i and the gameplay is 240p.

I definitely see the difference on my CRT. But again, it's a studio RGB monitor. It's been a long time since I've played on a consumer grade CRT and I don't remember whether it's the same thing, but just lower quality, or, alternatively, interlaced throughout.

When you send a 240p signal, it gets split up at the monitor so that only one field is displaying. So, say, the odd field is the image being sent, and the even field is blank. When you send a 480i image, you send sequential fields. So the odd fields on the monitor are sent, and then the even fields are sent in the subsequent update. if you were to film this in slow motion, you'd see half the fields in any given frame update after vblank.

 

[DoktorEvil]

there were certainly regarding computer games.

Would games like Utlima, with those huge manuals, get discussed in chatrooms?

 

[OnPoint]

It was all about slowdown issues, especially with shooters like Gradius. Too many items on the screen and the game would come to a crawl. Reviews would be critical of this - I recall the problem being more pronounced in the early SNES days than Atari/NES, but I was in highschool and more critical of my games by then.

Even Zelda has slowdown. I personally always thought it was awesome. Slowdown rarely results in death and can often provide an advantage to the player in some places.

 

[petran79]

Would games like Utlima, with those huge manuals, get discussed in chatrooms?

they were discussed in computer game magazines
also there were the issues of inferior AtariST ports on Amiga.

 

[HTupolev]

Ok so low res tvs could display 60hz progressive. That's all well and good but the vast majority of TVs that people were using were standard def interlaced 60hz. Which still goes back to my point that none of the games from that era were 60fps, even if they were the TVs couldn't display it.

The article isn't talking about low res physical televisions, it's talking about low resolution signals. An SD CRT scans a 240-line field once every 60th of a second. Typically, these fields alternate between even and odd line positions, in the process known as interlacing. But if you mess with the signals so that the TV interprets all fields as odd fields or all fields as even fields, you get a true progressive scan-out (with high line separation due to not filling in the lines for the alternate field, hence the "scan lines" effect).

...Not that 480i60 is at all bad. The time deltas are small enough that for SD content it's often hard to distinguish between interlaced and progressive material*, and it achieves basically the perceptual smoothness and response of progressive 60fps content. Significantly so that I have to wonder if people who say that 60fps SD interlaced content "isn't really 60fps" are familiar with what it looks and feels like.

*As opposed to 30fps content where combing tends to be fairly obvious.

 

[Krejlooc]

These are posts from 1982:

Atari arcade graphics.
nor...@googlegroups.com
4/24/82
Does anyone know whether the graphics used in Atari's "Tempest" and
"Spcace Duel" arcade games are vector graphics?

Re:
unc!bch
4/29/82

TEMPEST is indeed a vector display. During the promotional display while
the machine is idle, there is kind of a multicolor unfolding of the word
TEMPEST which shows a distinct flicker as it hits the refresh rate of the
tube. What is more impressive than the display is the speed of the
display generator which is able to keep up with the various actions of
the "enemy" at prodigious rates...particularly at the higher levels of the
game.

Re:
psuvax!sysred
4/25/82
OK - now we've gotten both sides of the issue. The lines don't
have jagged edges so it must be vector graphics. Yet, on close
(real close!) examination, the display is made of discrete display
elements (each display point looks like a long, thin spot
of one color, with the long axis vertical, all surrounded by a black matrix)
so it must be raster scan. I don't claim to know much about
CRT image generation (esp. color), but I don't understand how a
vector system can be superimposed on a discrete screen. On the other
hand, I don't understand how the angled lines can be made smooth
in a raster scan system (although I recently saw an ad for a color
terminal which mentioned something about smoothing lines in a raster
system). The point is, does anybody REALLY know (I mean, has anybody
peeked inside)? Anybody from Atari reading this?

Additionally, has anyone else seen Zaxxon? This is the first video
game I've seen to make an attempt at 3-D display (displaying all
three simultaneously - I'm ignoring Red Baron). For those of you
who haven't discovered the game, the display is an isomorphic projection
of a "fortress" through which you must fly a plane using horizontal
and vertical control from a joystick (forward speed is fixed).
I give it a high recommendation. Anybody working on a
Unix version (JUST KIDDING!)?

Re:
watarts!eric
4/26/82
All colour crts have `pixels' formed by the mask behind the phosphor screen.
The holes in the mask, either dot or slot shaped, direct the beam from
one of the three electron guns to one of three different coloured phosphor
dots on the screen.
Eric Gisin, U of Waterloo.

Re:
murray@sri-unix
4/28/82
BULLpuckey! It is not true that *all colour (sic) crts have 'pixels'*.
Color \vector/ graphics can be (and are) done bye coating the screen with
three different color phosphors and using beam intensity to 'burrow'
through the unwanted layers to hit the color phosper you want to display.
It is a lot more complicated (in some ways) than color raster graphics.

Also regarding the question of vector or raster graphics on Tempest,
as I mentioned some months ago, I was informed by the people at Atari
who design and test the games that all the games they were working on at
that time ( about a year ago) were VECTOR graphic displays. I have every reason
to believe that they still use them, since they had all the bugs worked out
way back then. I can't imagine why they would change back to lower quality
raster scan displays. Keep in mind that when good looking displays are your
livelihood, the added cost is not a significant factor. Besides, in order to con
vince me that Tempest (or any of the other recent games) use raster graphics,
you will have to shom me the electronics. Have you seen the fireword
ks display when you when? that is impressive, and very convincing.

murray at intelqa

Re:
utah-gr!thomas
5/5/82
1. Evans and Sutherland manufacture the Picture System 2 color display,
which uses a standard color tv display, but which is a vector drawing
device. This is then a 'full range, 3 color' vector display.

2. If a display does not flicker with a low complexity image, but does
flicker with a more comples image, then it is almost certainly a vector
display. The rate of raster refresh does not change with image complexity.

3. Assuming sufficient resolution in the display tube, a vector display will
always look better than a raster display (without anti-aliasing), at least
at current display resolutions. Once we get up to 4k x 4k or so, this may
not be true because the display resolution will exceed that of the eye at
normal viewing distances, but theoretically, lines drawn on a raster display
(again, without anti-aliasing) will always look 'jaggy', as opposed to the
smooth lines obtainable on a vector display. The TEMPEST game which started
this whole discussion has a fairly coarse resolution color tube, the stripes
of color in the trinitron tube make it look like a raster display. This
fooled me at first.

4. A vector display always has an upper limit on the number of vectors it can
display without flicker. A raster display is limited only by the number of
vectors which can be resolved (i.e., you put too many vectors on a raster
display and you just get an indistinguishable blob).

=Spencer (harpo!utah-cs!thomas thomas@utah-20)

Taken from net.games usenet group.

 

[Wenger'sBakedBaguettes]

These are posts from 1982:

That's pretty interesting, thanks!

 

[Bill Rizer]

These are posts from 1982:

Amazing.

 

[nkarafo]

Most of those games ran 60. Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Super Mario Brothers, Pac Man, et all are all 60FPS.

30FPS is a new thing, mostly started when polygons became common.

Τhis.

8-16bit days 60fps was standard. Some games had a few slowdowns here or there but 99% of the time they were smooth. There were some games that weren't 60fps, like Sonic Spinball for instance. I believe the game failed just because of this. It felt jerky and tiresome for the eyes. Jerky, 30fps games stood out like a sore thumb back then.

Its funny how today, console gamers are "fine" with this shitty standard. Maybe they grew up with 8bit home computers where games could be as slow as 5fps or they weren't born during the 8-16bit days.