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Tomb Raider demo on the Sega 32x
- Thread starter mansoor1980
- Start date
MrTroubleMaker
Member
neat
Pegasus Actual
Member
Releasing the 32x and the Saturn at pretty much the same time was some of the stupidest shit in gaming history.
nkarafo
Member
48ΜΒ? I don't think there's any official 32X game larger than 4MB.
Otherwise 48MB is plenty of space for most games back then. See how something like Ocarina of Time on the N64 is only 32MB. Most of the data in CD games at the time was uncompressed/redbook audio and FMVs. 32X version would also have lower-res textures so more space would be saved from that as well. Add modern compression and optimization techniques that didn't exist in 1996 and you are set.
Having said that, i don't think the game would be able to fit on an actual 32X cart, which would probably have to be much less than 48MB.
cireza
Member
There are already mappers that can support up to 64 MB on MegaDrive. I need to check the spec of the Sega mapper used in SSFII but I am quite sure it could handle at least 8 banks, and maybe even 16.
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deriks
4-Time GIF/Meme God
If you put the 32X and the Sega CD, it's pretty much a downgrade Saturn, so yeah, there's a lot of potential for this... But too much workaround, bad place to launch, and expensive as fuck made this a dumb move on Sega. They should not launched those and launched just the Saturn, but with their games, then we probably still have Sega with the big boys today
If you put the 4 byte map adress, can get 128mb. It's simple math, but not sure if can work on this game. Still, there's a lot of compressions and changes that could make work. Resident Evil 2 on N64 and MDK on the Wii are examples of those changes to save space
cireza
Member
Well of course, the more bytes you can use to select the bank, the higher you can go. It is only up to the capability of someone to create such a mapper.
There were a few CD 32X games so it was possible. The only issue was the install base, how many people had both a 32X and a Mega-CD?
ManaByte
Member
More than you think. The Sega CD came out before the 32X so people already had it. I had both.
There were only 40 32X games produced total, and 6 of those were CD games. They were all re-releases of previous Sega CD FMV games.
cireza
Member
I doubt it. As a CD game it means that you are losing instant data streaming from the cartridge. So you have to deal with the available RAM in the various systems : MD, MCD and 32X. But all of this combined is not a lot, not even talking about having to juggle between memory locations. The MCD had quite a bit of RAM considering the usage that was planned for it (768 KB), but this is certainly not enough to hold entire 3D environments as seen in Tomb Raider (Saturn has 2 MB of RAM + 1.5 MB of VRAM). Any game using the MCD has to deal with this constraint. So levels would have to be split with loading screens, which doesn't work well with how open they are in Tomb Raider.
It could work better with an additional RAM cart plugged in the 32X slot though. Ha ha ^^
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Werewolf Jones
Gold Member
So all of Tomb Raider fits on a GBA cart now? Yeah... I'm buying that.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Mgr: “hello and welcome on your first day at SEGA. Here you will find the snacks and on the other side the porting instructions for Tomb Raider on the 32X: it only requires you to juggle the twin SH-2s we do not have proper tools for yet, no Matrix math DSP, several co-processors, 5+ RAM pools as well as a RAM cart and a CD you will need to stream from and to at any one time (decompressing data as you juggle it through), and a quite new demanding 3D game engine”.
Employee:
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ManaByte
Member
Mgr: “hello, welcome on your first day at SEGA, here you will find the snacks and on the other side the porting instructions for Tomb Raider on the 32X: it only requires you to juggle the twin SH-2s we do not have proper tools for yet, no Matrix math DSP, several co-processors, 5+ RAM pools as well as a RAM cart and a CD you will need to stream from and to at any one time (decompressing data as you juggle it through), and a quite new demanding 3D game engine”.
Employee:
Core could pull it off.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
I am sure someone could, just that it is the kind of work that will make you grow grey hairs and addicted to caffeine and death metal
. Not for the faint of heart.
Red Crayon Aristocrat
Member
The lines were blurrier on generations back then and I think Sega was thinking just because the Genesis was old didn't mean it had to be abandoned entirely and could still be a viable platform as a sort of "tiered" system like what Microsoft is doing with the Series S and Series X.
I assume the 32X was cheaper than a Saturn? So for people that wanted an upgrade but didn't want to shell out for a full priced all new console and do away with the old one they already had.
It wasn't THAT crazy, I myself was still gaming on a genesis as a kid in 1996 and 1997, it didn't pan out but I can see why they'd be reluctance at first to treat a console as totally disposable after a point like later became the norm.
Pegasus Actual
Member
Disagreed. The Genesis was especially long in the tooth. And Sega CD didn't exactly take the world by storm. And to make it worse you'd have games that required both Sega CD and 32x? *barf*. I remember it being a pretty clear picture at the time painted by the EGMs and GamePros of the world. At least for my age group of like 13-14 as the next gen hype was brewing.
SNES was better than Genesis. Genesis was for some reason better for sports games and had some cool stuff too. But it was no SNES. SMS was completely forgotten by that point. If you played games on NES you'd probably get bullied for being poor.
32x release followed by a Pearl Harbor style release of Saturn completely outside of the holiday season was insanity. And some of the stuff on 32x was like wtf. After Burner and Space Harrier? Nowadays I can appreciate those ports... but back then none of us were remotely excited for ancient arcade ports that were already on Genesis and Master System.
Plus how you gonna convince your parents to buy a new Sega Saturn a few months after getting you a Sega 32x for Christmas (if you were so unfortunate)?
I guess with stuff coming out a year earlier in Japan by the time stuff showed up in the US you kinda already knew which was the wind was blowing. Which is a little strange since it seemed like Saturn did pretty okay in Japan.
I was a bit of a contrarian and tried to fight the console war on their behalf in the school lunchroom but... alas I felt well... this level of despair:
Okay, sorry for the derail. The tech demo itself is pretty cool.
cireza
Member
SMS was awesome and supported in Europe for a very long time. No wonder both MegaDrive and SMS outsold SNES and NES respectively here... Probably something you are not even aware of.
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NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
I mean, it probably had something to do with people being poorer at the time, the US dollar being at its strongest, and Sega's consoles and carts being significantly cheaper than Nintendo's. Also Nintendo's distribution deals in Europe were a mess. Italy got the SNES at least a full year later than the rest of the continent, maybe more (late 1992). Not to shit on Sega, but they landed first and cost less for people who were interested in consoles. The rest were still enjoying their Amigas.
cireza
Member
The main reason was that they took Europe seriously. They published and even translated a lot of fantastic games here. A ton of SMS games were made specifically for Europe.
They cared, it is as simple as that. Meanwhile Nintendo didn't give a fuck. Barely any JRPG were released in Europe, and even in the US it was still a very limited selection. SEGA were actually releasing most of them, they were even behind a ton of them anyway (as publisher/developer).
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Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Unfortunately those were imaginary users and it was not developers supported who had to chose whether to focus on the up coming Saturn or 32X or SNES and Genesis and maybe had to chose only two of the above.
Unfortunately, as much as “infinite options, an option for every segment we can think of” sounds intriguing it does not quite work unless you can make it really cheap and easy to implement, support, and adopt (having to involve third party devs to make a special new version of a game and not being a humongous company stretched SEGA’s resources thin).
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Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Italy was screwed royally by their resellers, really price gouged…
DaGwaphics
Member
10fps, that's silent film level cinematic right there.
Team Andromeda
Member
Its looks and runs like crap. The 32X was such a waste of time and effort. The Saturn version is miles better and that was rushed out and made with none of the modern tech knowledge base or tool set.
I bet you still get Tom Kalinske nut jobs, saying the 32X was amazing if only SEGA Japan didn't kill it. Even if SEGA Japan were the company that actually showed off what the 32X could do and made it worth owing for a day.
I bet you still get Tom Kalinske nut jobs, saying the 32X was amazing if only SEGA Japan didn't kill it. Even if SEGA Japan were the company that actually showed off what the 32X could do and made it worth owing for a day.
DaGwaphics
Member
The idea behind the 32x wasn't bad, I just think they went too far with it. The idea of moving the enhancement chips from the cartridges to a middleman cartridge seems reasonable enough. If it had been a $50 or $60 addon that contained the SVP people might have picked it up and you might have seen more devs take a crack at making games using the SVP. They could have even launched it bundled with the first game for not much more than what Virtua Racer cost anyway.
Nintendo had quite a few games that used the enhanced chips, it's surprising that they never launched a reusable cartridge. But, I guess there was a lot of different variations on those.
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Pegasus Actual
Member
That's great and all but it was a small market which is why I'm not on an Amiga laptop right now talking about Sega Uranus 3 and poor Sonic the Hedgehog has been relegated to some weird fetish for furries.
That's a little beside the point, I think Genesis outsold SNES in the US as well. Heck, I had a Power Converter, and I had a good time with some Master System games that way. But aside from painting Nintendo as being for little kids, and stuff like buying Mortal Kombat on Genesis so you'd get red blood and gore, everybody knew SNES was better (more colors, mode 7 effects, music). 32x felt like a scam and poor Saturn was pushed out to die. I mean I really don't think they did themselves any favors with the video game press unable to hype up the launch.
Blood Borne
Member
It gets even more stupid that they were actually thinking of releasing a standalone console called Sega Neptune (Genesis + 32X)
That's was one of the big problems with the 32x wasn't it? It cost to much. I mean I think it was $170 at release and the games were $70 so that meant if you owned a Genesis to play your first 32X game was $240. On the other hand you could always sell your Genesis and your games. You'd probably get at least $100 for them if you had 10 games. (Which you were probably sick of.) If you then thought the PSX would be $300 and a game $50 (not certain in late 94 but not unreasonable.) you'd realize you basically could have a PSX and one game for just $10 more than the 32X with 1 game and a bunch of Genesis games. For most in that situation the PSX ended up being a better deal.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Based strictly on visuals (not missing sound or terrible frame rate), it looks pretty good. I dont think it looks much different than the 32-bit versions(?).
winjer
Gold Member
Probably the biggest reason was that when the 32X was released in North America, the Saturn was being released in Japan.
So people knew it was only a matter of waiting a bit, to get the full next generation.
DaGwaphics
Member
I'd say it was. It was quite expensive for something that didn't really get the full developer support. And it was still way under powered in comparison to the tech that was on the horizon.
The SVP (and Nintendo enhancement chips) was even weaker, but that was more of an enhancement to the existing system. Customers wouldn't have felt like they were buying a new console with that, but just an accessory. The pressure to provide software wouldn't have been as strong. If you bought that bundled with Virtua Racer and nothing more ever came of it, the customers wouldn't have felt burned. They just bought an expensive game, which wasn't that uncommon at the time. If developers picked it up and more games became available that used the cartridge that would have been a bonus (and a huge hit game could even bundle the adapter down the road if need be).
cireza
Member
Except that it wasn't. Both had strengths and weaknesses. It is not that one-way result you would like us to believe, and honestly, I thought that 30 years later, people would be a little bit more informed and stop throwing around these ridiculous statements as if they were some kind of absolute, factual truth. You don't have to convince anyone anymore.
Pegasus Actual
Member
Bro if I wanted fence-sitting word-salad I'd ask ChatGPT. Like c'mon now, kids who had both knew. It was the SNES. Newer, better graphics, more colors, better music, better controller, and for the most part better games.
I'm sorry Nintendo neglected your market or whatever and you were still playing 8-bit Sega in 1997.
Guys, the Transformers aren't better than fucking GoBots. The GoBots achieved great market share in Yugoslavia at the time and had quality craftsmanship. You can't just say one is better!
tkscz
Member
Oh ho ho ho... look into Sega's history and it becomes very clear very quickly why they dropped out of the console race. They had very good games, but very bad business sense.
Kind of missing the point here aren't we? Of course it doesn't run the best, especially since it hasn't been optimized for the system yet with an entire CPU going unused by the code. The point was to show that things like this were possible with the hardware provided. It's still honestly impressive for what it is.
cireza
Member
With the exception of the more colors part, everything that you have listed is either partially wrong or subject to personal opinion. You don't know shit about the MegaDrive, do you ? Stop embarrassing yourself like this.
Imagine playing Power Strike II on Master System in 1993. My god the horror.
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RoboFu
One of the green rats
You do know there are 32x cd games right?
Futaleufu
Member
You do know that the Sega CD has less than 1 MB of RAM?
The Pleasure
Member
Genesis was over 7 mhz and the snes was like 2.86 mhz. Snes knew rpgs didn't need speed so they focused on color palate and sound chip.
Togh
Member
Actually it had to do with better marketing: https://www.timeextension.com/features/how-pirate-television-helped-sega-beat-nintendo-in-the-uk
Nobody out crazies sega, they had more going on than just that
So in 94 to 96 sega was supporting the genesis, gamegear, sega cd, 32x, saturn Pico, arcades, and making weird hardware like pocket pcs, 32x dirived art machines,
Pouring money into services like the sega channel and research high end arcade hardware
Togh
Member
Knowing your type I'm probably wasting my time by trying to schooling you but hopefully other people seeking actual knowledge about this subject will read this post in the future:
SNES had more colors but that was it. Some will say to this day that SNES could use 256 simultaneous colors but in reality barely any game used more than 90~100 colors at the same time. Other uncultured fanboys will claim that SNES games could run at 512x448 resolution but in reality that resolution was used only on some "press start" screens, some menus and only ONE shitty game that actually used it in game (RPM Racing) but at the cost of sacrificing the number of simultaneous colors and having almost nothing on screen besides the background and the cars.
Meanwhile, Mega Drive could actually run games at a higher resolution than the SNES (320x240 vs SNES' 256x240). Some games like Sonic 2 could even run at 320x480. It also had a more powerful processor that could display more sprites on screen, the games had less slowdown (some SNES games even had Loading like Mikey Mania) and the background could work with more parallax effects. You can compare the numbers here: https://segaretro.org/Sega_Mega_Drive/Hardware_comparison
But don't take my opinion as the absolute truth, let's hear the actual professionals, shall we?
An interview with Masato Maegawa, Japanese programmer, video game developer, and founder of Treasure:
About SNES having better music, well, of course in the end of the day it all depend on personal tastes but again, let's hear the opinion of someone who actually worked with it. In this podcast, between 37:11 ~ 38:45 and 40:28 ~ 42:00 you can hear Matt Furniss, a video game musician explaining why the YM2612 (the Mega Drive sound chip) was better than the SNES.
I think Goati (a cool guy who stream a lot of retro games) made a good, comprehensive comparison between SNES and Mega Drive sound chips that you can watch on these 5 short clips from his stream:
And finally, about the sales number. As you can see here the SNES only outsold the Mega Drive after 1995, when the 16 bit era already ended and SEGA was focusing on the 32 bit era. Granted, The SNES did came two years after the Mega Drive but it also lasted longer.