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| | Classic Gaming / 16-bit Platform (speed) Comparison | | Author | Message | | | November 29, 2002 - 12:19:23am |
| I thought about posting this in the actualy "Platform Comparison" forum, but that seems to be a more up-to-the-minute sort of place, and I guess it's better off here.
Anyway, coming from the 16-bit era, we heard a lot of marketing stuff that some people took as gospel and its still being bantered about today. Now, silly points such as "blast processing" are no nothing more than a good joke, but a few have still stuck around; and I'm hoping some old 16-bit programming aficiondos will relate thier wisdom.
Let me say, first off, the Neo-Geo is NOT a 24-bit machine. People are still saying this even today! If it's a 24-bit machine, so is the Genesis (same 68k + z80 setup); and using the same "logic", add a CD-ROM unit and it becomes 40-bit!
The main reason for this thread is I've ran across many places and people who say that the Genesis' so-called "speed advantage" let it do things the SNES or even the Turbo "couldn't dream of." I think it's about time this debate got laid to rest.
Years ago, Victor Ireland[1] wrote a peice that was posted on Compuserve over 11 years ago which basically stated that the Turbografx, even as an 8-bit machine, was faster than the Genesis' fully 16-bit 68k. Here's an excerpt:
The NEC does not have an 8088 as it's central processor - it has a modified 6502 processor (apple II computers used a plain 6502) running at 7.16MHz. Yes, it is an 8-bit processor, BUT the important term here is MODIFIED. This baby hums as it never did in an Apple. It is customized for a video game environment and is rated at 1.5 MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second), Sega Genesis is only rated at 0.7 MIPS (7.67 Mhz). Yes, Genesis has a 68000 16-bit, but it is only a plain vanilla 68000, not optimized for a video game environment - yes, it can take two byte (16 bit) instructions at a time, but it is only running LESS THAN HALF AS FAST as the TurboGrafx-16, so in the same period of time the TG-16 will move more information than the Genesis. Sega Genesis uses a customized 16-bit video Graphics and Video Display Processor and the NEC uses a custom 16-bit Video processor and color encoder. SEGA's central processor also inserts up to 2 wait states, while the NEC CPU runs at 0 wait states.
Keep in mind the 65816, which the SNES uses, is the 16-bit daughter of the 8-bit 6502.
When I originally read this I thought it was just some advocacy-inspired rabble, but when I asked a few fellows who cut their programming teeth on the 68k and the 6502, they replied "That sounds about right." They basically repeated back to me what that article says, that in an arcade-like gaming environment the 6502 was much better-suited. What about the 65816? Well, I ran across this too:
(Excerpt from Byte Magazine, 1984 Interview with Steve Wozniak)
BYTE: Are you thinking about using the new 65816 processor for anything?
WOZNIAK: We're thinking about it and doing some R&D with it, but I don't know if we'll use it. Anything we do has to be compatible with the Apple II. If we found out that the 65816 wasn't, it would be a serious question. It's too new a part right now.
BYTE: How is its performance compared to the 68000?
WOZNIAK: It should be available soon in an 8-MHz version that will beat the pants off a 68000 in most applications, and in graphics applications it comes pretty close. Some of the Macintosh people might disagree with me, but there are ways around most of the problems they see. An 8-MHz 65816 is about equivalent to a 16-MHz 68000 in speed, and a 16-MHz 68000 doesn't exist.
Yow.
The SNES's 65816 is also a customised variant. It runs at a little less than half the speed of Genesis' 68000 in the MHz department, but if you use Woz's comparison above, it seems that we have two processors of an actual similar speed.
It now makes sense as to why NEC chose to stay with a cheaper 8-bit CPU and why Nintendo didn't worry about matching clock-speeds. The 68k had the power to cream the 6502 family when it came to certain things, but a 16bit-era console environment was not one of them. Sprite collision detection and scrolling, the bread-and-butter of the day, was not automatically just made better because of the existance of a certain type of CPU. This is the best example I can think of: It's kind of like comparing a 400HP Cat diesel to a 160hp 4-banger. Sure, that diesel can handle a heavy load for the long haul, but that 160hp in a sporty 2-seater is alot more fun, and is gonna handle the Coldwater Canyon roadway much better. Of course, raw power is why the 68k was the one that survived and evolved into what it is today - flexibility counts.
Also, don't take this posting the wrong way. It's not a "this machine is better than that machine" type of argument. It can be argued the defining point of the entire 16-bit era was the porting of Street Fighter II, which all three machines handled admirably and on equal ground. The other 16-bitter, the NEO-GEO, is still alive and supported today, just another testament to that particular hardware.
-Ethanno
[1] Victor Ireland went on to find "Working Designs". |
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| | Replies to Ethanno | | Author | Message | | | December 1, 2002 - 9:09:10am CST (edit: 12/1/02 - 9:19am) |
| The arcade machine Cadash had a 16 mhz 68000, this article must have been old even for that time! By the way, I don't know what they did with the Neo-Geo, but it absolutely MURDED all of the other 16 bit machines. The only 16 bit machines that could compare were ARCADE machines.
I think those early 16 bit arcade machines, Neo-Geo included, really got us started down the path of REAL video processors. If you look at the Neo's stats, even its ram, SNES should have beaten it....but it doesn't. Neo still had alot more colors, and it's sprites and scaling capabilities far exceeded snes's.
Just compare Art Of Figthing, it's on Neo, snes, and genesis. The genesis doesn't even try to scale the sprites, the snes does, but it's extremely pixelated and poorely done. (like all scaled snes games save that add-on chip, which doesn't count because that can be done on any console) The Neo on the other hand did an excellent job of scaling by 1992 standards. The characters were far larger and better animated too.
It wasn't just the extra memory the Neo had (100+ megabit carts), it just had more power. 26 megabit League Bowling scaled just as well as 102 megabit Art of Fighting. Oh, I still have all of these machines so I know exactly what I am speaking of. Let's just say Neo was more akin to a Naomi 2, it wasn't more advanced, it just had alot more/larger "chips" doing the job. It was 16 bit, but then again, PSX is 32 bit, same as XBOX. Case closed! |
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