Was not expecting to find a Silver Surfer cover in that guy's videos but jesus christ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlv45rq8xPk
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Why did Mega Drive/Genesis games not have special chips in them? Á la Snes
- Thread starter Spunky Monkey
- Start date
Was not expecting to find a Silver Surfer cover in that guy's videos but jesus christ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlv45rq8xPk
Err, maybe I'm just more used to the original, but that sounds definitely worse, especially the intro.
Sapiens
Member
I think it was an oversight on Midway's part. I think they resized the sprites in house and sent those assets out to two different developers. But they didn't take into account that the SNES game would make them look fat and chunkier. Mortal Kombat 2, 3 and Ultimate MK3 had horizontally compressed sprites.
The Earthworm Jim games had this issue too. With Earthworm Jim 1, Shiny used the same resolution sprites for both games, which made the sprites in the SNES port of EWJ1 look fat and chunky. But with EWJ2, they made the sprites in the SNES game slightly compressed horizontally as well just to make them the same aspect as the Genesis sprites.
Yeah, it also uses the highlight and shadow colours as well. It is pretty impressive.
I never would have guessed that Street Racer was on the Genesis back then, maybe it was only released in Europe? Yeah, the SNES game used Mode 7, but this version does use an interesting colour pallete swap routine to create a textured map look. Really neat, actually.
Going back to Toy Story, it had an impressive driving stage like this too..
But this one also seems to use textured mapped polygon graphics to some extent. This stage was never in the SNES game as well.
It looks like Toy Story is using some form of Raycasting for the buildings on the side. No idea how that angular road is happening, but I don't think it is using textured polygons.
The road does have that distinctively angular low-poly look to it visible during curves. I don't think you'd get that effect from using standard raster tricks.
Sapiens
Member
It reminds me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufVi3aL6ol0&t=6m20s
in panorama cotton which I'm 99% sure is a raster effect.
And speaking shadow/highlight use in games like X-Ranza and Toy Story, is that it wasn't a per-pixel effect and its usage was more limited to blockier sections (per tile?)- which is why a lot of devs didn't futz with it too much. End of the day, you're still only highlighting/darkening the MDs rather limited colour pallet.
1. Nostalgia.
2. Emulators improve the sound quality of the snes tremendously.
3. I would love for the Snes to sound smoother in transitions. It seems like it has one attack rate per note played:Blitzkrieg! ^^😈
The Shadow
Member
My body is ready. I definitely prefer accuracy over speed hacks for any emulation. It'll be nice to see a real accurate genny emulator.
What a colossally dumb, dumb, dumb decision. Jesus Carmack....
One of the best examples I can think of is Race Drivin' on both the Genesis and SNES. It's a fully polygonal simulator that had to run via the CPU. It's playable, albeit at a slow framerate on the Genesis, but a slideshow on the SNES.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r20tURR4eMs
60fps? jesus
I really cannot fathom why you would think "emulators" when I say "the original". I really don't.
Weird how that's almost the exact opposite in how the different Test Drive 2 games work on each console, with the MD version being the one in true 3D.
ElectricThunder
Member
There's also still Exodus on the emu front, though progress has been stop and go to say the least. http://www.exodusemulator.com/ Last bit of dev reckoning wrangling was back in...November it looks like on their forum...
Still, between it and byuu's potential reckonings---the more systems duly done up however it shakes out, so much the better.
Still, between it and byuu's potential reckonings---the more systems duly done up however it shakes out, so much the better.
Boo!
The Genesis CPU was much more powerful. Not only was the SNES CPU clocked a lot slower, it also only had a single accumulator (register you could do math with) instead of eight general purpose registers, and it lacked support for 32-bit operations. Oh and often you'd need multiple SNES instructions, like "clc; adc" instead of just "add", or "rol, rol, rol" instead of just "rol 3".
There was the SVP they used in Virtua Racing. But for less intensive 3D, you could do it with just the base CPU. See this tech demo port of Star Fox to the Genesis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuYFmIEtLLk
Also, the SA-1 was never really utilized much on the SNES. Not a single game really showed off the power that chip had.
And even a lot of other special chip SNES games didn't really need it. Street Racer looks just as good as Super Mario Kart on a technical level, only the former doesn't use a coprocessor. I suspect the decision to use coprocessors was often more about stopping copier piracy than being absolutely required.
Yes. It's not very good yet, though.
Thanks, but please don't place too much faith in me on the Genesis front.
I sunk a good decade into SNES research. I still want my other emulator cores to be good, but I have more cores than decades in my life remaining now
Oh man, good to see the man himself drop by! What is your opinion on the Street Fighter ports to both the MD and SNES?Thanks, but please don't place too much faith in me on the Genesis front.
I sunk a good decade into SNES research. I still want my other emulator cores to be good, but I have more cores than decades in my life remaining now
That's the rumor I heard behind the decision to put chips in Mega Man X2 and X3. They don't seem to actually be used for anything rather than a very few wireframe 3D bosses, which feels incredibly wasteful.
Version 3.0
Member
And marketing. Those games with the extra chips got a LOT of talk in the game mags.
Race Drivin': Mega Drive and SNES without help at pushing polygons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r20tURR4eMs
The SNES version is baffling...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r20tURR4eMs
The SNES version is baffling...
This is also crisp and pre-dates your linked tune by over 20 years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TkANl0GELM
Gangster Bastard
Member
Seriously? Those tracks you posted sound electronic. The DKC games had incredibly life-like sound.
PowerThroughLov
Member
SNES started the whole "weakest console always wins" of the next many generations
I guess that was broken this gen though.
As a kid I didn't know any of this stuff. I just loved my SNES.
I guess that was broken this gen though.
As a kid I didn't know any of this stuff. I just loved my SNES.
SNES started the whole "weakest console always wins" of the next many generations
I guess that was broken this gen though.
As a kid I didn't know any of this stuff. I just loved my SNES.
"Best GPU wins / best CPU earns you little" you might have an univrsal truth. Save the PS2.
At least the Game Boy version is quite good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azo_kw1ZfZ4
It's really a pity SA-1 was so underutilized, it could have added so much for SNES games.
As for Street Racer, I believe the programmer once said he didn't use Mode 7 to get such good performance out of it.
MrCunningham
Member
Psygnosis did something simaler in an unreleased Genesis/ Mega Drive game called ResQ, that was planned to be released in 1994:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sXgFmZ-tM0
Playmaster
Banned
Is that 3d buildings on freaking Gameboy?
Edit :OMG Gameboy Wolfensteine 3d!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfMpG3RW_kU
I flipped out for a second until I realized there was a coprocessor in the cart. That's still insane, though.
D.Lo
Member
No. The SNES had an old slow CPU, but almost every other element of it was much more advanced and modern/forward thinking. This can even be seen immediately in the controller, the Mega Drive pad only just got Sega up to NES level. SNES certainly produced much more advanced graphics and sound, and was tailored to the direction games were heading - slower, story stuff like RPGs and colourful platformers, more advanced sprite manipulation, and multimedia elements, instead of brute force 'you have X number of lives' arcade action games like shooters. Mega Drive dominates the SNES at shooters (for clarity: now called 'shoot em ups', but named shooters back then) no question, but it was a dying genre. RPG and non-linear adventures were the growing genres, even platformers started being adventures packed with secrets etc, and the SNES dominated that because it had more colours and more sonic options to create more varied, vivid worlds. You could do great colourful graphics on the Mega Drive of course, but it required more work and you were much more limited by the technology.SNES started the whole "weakest console always wins" of the next many generations
I guess that was broken this gen though.
As a kid I didn't know any of this stuff. I just loved my SNES.
No, Wii easily won last generation. It would have been a complete landslide if it were a normal length generation, Wii was about 50% marketshare after five years when Nintendo ditched it to focus on 3DS and then Wii U.
The actual rule is the least stupid console always wins, or to put it another way, the best positioned console always wins. PS4 is the first 'clear most powerful' winner since the Famicom/NES if only because Microsoft and Nintendo both screwed up really really badly.
Playmaster
Banned
I didn't even know gbc could use chips like this.
Gangster Bastard
Member
But the NES was weaker than the Master System. The graphical difference is quite dramatic.
Sapiens
Member
End of the day, the MD could do things that the SNES couldn't. The SFC could never dream of topping Gunstar (it could do a half way there facsimile) and the MD couldn't touch things like Super Metroid.
D.Lo
Member
Of course, which makes it an interesting generation because of the different capabilities (like Saturn/PS1/N64).
But you can't just outright say the SNES was the 'weakest console', and there is I believe a stronger case for the opposite. SNES had one clear weak point, and was more advanced in almost every other area.
The Master System was not the actual original Famicom competitor, the SG1000 was. Sega had a second go against the Famicom two years later as the Mark III and of course specifically designed it to be better than the Famicom graphically. Even then it's not 'dramatic' and still worse than the Fami in some ways, no tile flipping or expandability through the cart port, and worse sound for example.
Blackpuppy
Member
Boo!
The Genesis CPU was much more powerful. Not only was the SNES CPU clocked a lot slower, it also only had a single accumulator (register you could do math with) instead of eight general purpose registers, and it lacked support for 32-bit operations. Oh and often you'd need multiple SNES instructions, like "clc; adc" instead of just "add", or "rol, rol, rol" instead of just "rol 3".
There was the SVP they used in Virtua Racing. But for less intensive 3D, you could do it with just the base CPU. See this tech demo port of Star Fox to the Genesis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuYFmIEtLLk
Also, the SA-1 was never really utilized much on the SNES. Not a single game really showed off the power that chip had.
And even a lot of other special chip SNES games didn't really need it. Street Racer looks just as good as Super Mario Kart on a technical level, only the former doesn't use a coprocessor. I suspect the decision to use coprocessors was often more about stopping copier piracy than being absolutely required.
Yes. It's not very good yet, though.
Thanks, but please don't place too much faith in me on the Genesis front.
I sunk a good decade into SNES research. I still want my other emulator cores to be good, but I have more cores than decades in my life remaining now
It worked!
Thanks for the insight on the CPUs. Any opinions on the PPUs? Obviously the SNES has more background modes, but I'd read that the Genesis was better at handling sprites. I'm not sure how much that is true.
Other than the CPU, it also had less DMA and VRAM bandwidth along with a lot less flexibility with sprite sizes, which meant you could be using more bandwidth and fillrate for smaller sprites. Probably part of why the genesis could usually throw a lot more sprites around the screen before slowing down.
Version 3.0
Member
Correct. "Weaker" is an oversimplification at best. The SNES was clearly the more advanced of the two, even if it did have its Achilles heel. Hence the thread topic.
And on the "winning" side, it's also not as clear cut as the numbers say, anyway, because of regional differences. Tea might be the most popular drink in the world, but people in countries where coffee is dominant don't know that, or care.
The NES was dominant in Japan and America, but not Europe.
The SNES won worldwide, but the Genesis outsold it for most of the generation in the US. I'm not sure about the final tally in the US, but many years ago, I heard that same "truth" about the weakest system winning, and by that they meant the Genesis, not the SNES.
Even last gen, the Wii was the clear winner overall, but the 360 did eventually outsell it in the US.
Don't forget the output resolution, too. Unless that also fits under the VRAM point you made.
WAR recon zero
Banned
Seriously?
Have you only played American Games or something?
Try some Renovation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQbitmR_YBY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqxUe27KFyk
Or Treasure:
https://youtu.be/KuGNzc56zqo?t=10m45s
Or Konami:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wSrGfmkwO0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s9gFb03suo
Or Technosoft:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkMXOWFgB5M
Or Vic Tokai:
https://youtu.be/uzPOwwNSOQM?t=5m36s
Or Factor 5:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70DLsXjGE4I (All of this music is just freaking Awesome! Chris Huelsbeck as always nailing it
Or just plain SEGA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW0mOqSizYM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHuRXIKn0zw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciZmUZRmEcw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn_onEJ82rk (YES THAT IS SINGING! Considering the memory constraints that isn't half bad
Or just the great homebrew developer songs for Meg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s36tWHZbN5s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebjuiajg6mI (After a while this song get's really good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk1M2MCCCys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SfOJYcChDk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqCqkCtI7uM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAFShX4Pxy0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMZJ6oQayAU (A guy that linked his keyboard and computer to the YM2612
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQCya6yn73o (Same guy
https://youtu.be/OQCya6yn73o?t=5m25s
I can go on forever, not to say that the SNES was bad but only idiots and the uninformed say :"Shut up, Meg!".
Now:
And inform yourself!
My ears bleed
s_mirage
Member
No, at least, probably not. It's the same issue that the Sega CD has: with no direct access to the video output, all graphic data has to be converted into tiles and placed in VRAM. There's only enough bandwidth to the VRAM to manage 15fps on an NTSC system if the entire screen is being redrawn (significantly higher fps is possible on a PAL system). I think Virtua Racing suffered from this problem too. The 32x got around this by having its own video output that it mixed with the output from the main console. I assume that higher framerate would have been possible if only part of the screen was using the extra hardware, and Super Mario Kart was only using half of the screen if memory serves.
Ah, ok. Thank you very much for the answer, I always wondered why Sega never did a "Sonic Kart" or something like this. Something like Sonic Drift, but actually worth playing.
OmegaDL50
Member
How about yes? You can just stream data to the PCM of the Ym2612 too you know, same way tales does it and then some (due to having more bandwidth available and not having to halt the main CPU to do so). It just wasn't worth the cartridge space required. As rom memory was expensive, you might as well use it for other things.
But homebrew has already proven the possibility of it, with little to no impact on the CPU. Mixing however would require CPU time
This is basically what was done for the Neo-Geo.
The Geo had a Zilog 80 as a co-processor for the audio as well as the main CPU, whereas the Zilog 80 for the Genesis was strictly for it's audio and the backwards compatibility via the Power Base Converter for the Master System.
If only the Genesis used the Zilog 80 for co-processing like the Geo used. It would basically be the equivalent of a scaled down mini version of the MVS / AES itself, well with much slower ram of course.
Of course the Geo 68k CPU was clocked nearly two times higher than the one in the Genesis (12Mhz compared to 7.6 Mhz)
One only needs to look at the Neo-Geo as example of what could have been done in smaller scale on the Genesis if devs continued to work on it. I still don't believe the Genesis was truly ever pushed to it's limits to this day.