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[Renekton]

Just a hypothetical question based on the horsepower of the systems. Some retro fans touted the sprite power of the Neo Geo, so I was wondering if this is doable with small downgrades. Some games like MVC were really pushing lots of stuff though.

CP System II Specs
Neo Geo Specs
Example of CPS2 game

 

[chronic_archaic]

I think the biggest problem is memory - the best stuff on the Neo Geo was pulled off due to really great sprite art and handling of assets in general. It's why Metal Slug has a hard time running on PS1 and Saturn - though the Saturn has the RAM cartridge and this helps it a bunch. On the other side, a bunch of CPS2 games were made possible on console due to the Saturn having the additional memory. They're comparable but I'd say CPS2 stuff would need to be redrawn and managed differently for it to work.

 

[entremet]

Don't know what I'm talking about but they did share a similar CPU--the good ole Motorola 68000.

I would think they could run, but perfect ports? I don't know. Remember, Capcom got SFA2 running on the lowly SNES. Yes, it was a terrible port but rather remarkable.

Moreover, the NeoGeo did have Garou and MS3, games that looked and performed better than anything on CPS2, well outside of the Vampire games, which pushed the CPS2 to the max.

 

[Bish]

CPS2 had a processor that was 33% faster than the NeoGeo and pretty much double the RAM.
NeoGeo also had, if memory serves, a 320x244 resolution VS. up to 512x262 for the CPS2, along with 4096 colors from a 16 bits (65536) palette VS. the same 4096 on screen for CPS2 but from a 32 bits palette (16.7M colors).

There was also the 4KB of sprite RAM on the NeoGeo which compared to the 280KB for the CPS2 is so far, far away.
There was mainly clever memory management tricks to allow the NeoGeo to perform, like a direct access tilemap address range on the cartdridge and rendering across multiple scanlines (like Last Resort, which explained the slowdown and occasional bullet flickering)


Sound was widely different so it's hard to compare but I believe NeoGeo had embeded sound on the cartridges for the banks, while CPS2 was an all-around powerhorse DSP.


In short: I believe that there's no way in hell CPS2 games could have "as-is" ran on NeoGeo; it would have to be a port to accomodate the limitations (degraded graphics, sound, level size, sprite size, whatnot...)

 

[Platy]

Some games yeah but later ones like the versus stuff ? Nope

 

[mavericktopgun]

Thanks. Now I want all the CPS1 and 2 games on Switch.

 

[sixteen-bit]

The resolution differences would result in some visually distorted games at the very least

 

[rrs]

CPS2 has more RAM, better sprite hardware, and DMA audio vs an FM/PCM/6 channel PCM omnichip

 

[Platy]

Thanks. Now I want all the CPS1 and 2 games on Switch.

Just now ? I wanted since they announced Virtual Console Arcade on the Wii ...

 

[entremet]

Thinking about it. Amazing how SNK supported the original NeoGeo spec for so long. How long was that?

 

[mavericktopgun]

Just now ? I wanted since they announced Virtual Console Arcade on the Wii ...

I always wanted them. But every time someone mentions it the itch is back again

 

[AmyS]

CPS2: 900 sprites

Neo Geo: 380 sprites

 

[Bish]

Thinking about it. Amazing how SNK supported the original NeoGeo spec for so long. How long was that?

27 years (1990 -> 2007 AFAIK), but hardware lasted only till late 90s (1998 or so)

 

[entremet]

27 years (1990 -> 2007 AFAIK), but hardware lasted only till late 90s (1998 or so)

You mean the home console AES units?

 

[Bish]

You mean the home console AES units?

Tech support for both.
Software support stopped earlier (2005-ish?) and hardware production stopped as I said late 90s. I still got some photocopy of old tech manual from them circa 2006 when my MVS broke down. (from Playmore, obviously)

 

[Dehnus]

Just a hypothetical question based on the horsepower of the systems. Some retro fans touted the sprite power of the Neo Geo, so I was wondering if this is doable with small downgrades. Some games like MVC were really pushing lots of stuff though.

CP System II Specs
Neo Geo Specs
Example of CPS2 game

NOPE! CPS1 maybe, but CPS 2 is a whole different beast.

The Neogeo doesn't have backgrounds, it only uses sprites. So the backgrounds you see are spritestrips. It is why they are so high and not very wide. It also means why some parallax scrolling is harder on the NeoGeo than on other systems. The NeoGeo can have 380 sprites on screen n total. While CPS can have 256 per SCAN LINE and on top of that a background. The NeoGeo "only" 96 Per SCANLINE. IT still can fill up a screen with them mind you, but that alone should give you some idea of the problems you'd have in porting.

(The Neogeo does have a tile layer, but you can't scroll that one .).

CPS 2 had a far larger colour palette then CPS1, plus full 256 level hardware translucency effects. Add to that QSound and the ability to put even more sprites on screen, and the NeoGeo is hopelessly outgunned.

Mind you they did some impressive shit with the NeoGeo, and most of that with clever ram tricks or adding more storage space on the cart.
Then there is sound

 

[Kjell]

I was wondering if this is doable with small downgrades.

Doable .. but difficult

 

[ascii42]

27 years (1990 -> 2007 AFAIK), but hardware lasted only till late 90s (1998 or so)

That's 17 years.

 

[Aaendi]

Huh, every CPS2 game I ever seen uses a 12-bit RGB palette.

 

[eso76]

NOPE! CPS1 maybe, but CPS 2 is a whole different beast.
[...]

That plus higher resolution, cps1,2 and 3 games typically run in 384*257.

But then, cps1 and 2 didn't have the sprites scaling or rotating capabilities neogeo had, so the opposite wouldn't always work either.

 

[Horsemama1956]

Thanks. Now I want all the CPS1 and 2 games on Switch.

Why? You could buy a $20 PSP and play them on that with decent buttons.

 

[Spukc]

If made from the ground up sure !
Look at garou

 

[Futaleufu]

Capcom had to make 3 versions of Vampire Savior (Vampire Savior, Vampire Savior 2 and Vampire Hunter 2) just so every versus match up could be available. Very limited rom size compared to the Neo Geo.

 

[Sapiens]

That plus higher resolution, cps1,2 and 3 games typically run in 384*257.

But then, cps1 and 2 didn't have the sprites scaling or rotating capabilities neogeo had, so the opposite wouldn't always work either.

Neo geo only had sprite shrinking. No zoom, no rotation.

Any way, the fact that the Neo geo was able to stand toe to toe with the cps2 says a lot about the quality of design and engineering that was SNK/ADK.

Truly and David and Goliath situation.