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| | Classic Gaming / 16-bit Platform (speed) Comparison | | Author | Message | | | Case Closed!
Ah, not so, 1withxbox. The main idea behind my article was that the CPU was not the most defining piece of hardware in the 16-bit era. It was the video processor.
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.
Not really. RAM in itself doesn't have much to do with it either. Take the PC-Engine, it only had 8k of work RAM and it handled Neo-Geo ports exceptionally (the arcade card was only a quick-access holding point, like a cartridge. The 8k was still the workhorse RAM.) When SNK designed the Neo-Geo, price was obviously not an problem when it came to implementing the video hardware. Thats why it could handle the multitude of colours and sprites that even the SNES couldn't. Of course, the Neo was around... what, $600 when introduced? You got the best, but you paid for it.
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.
As far as the scaling effect goes in Art of Fighting, the PC-Engine whips the Neo hands-down. In the Art of Fighting port, the programmers made use of the PC-Engine's crazy little ability to handle any (and I mean ANY) resolution between 256x224 to 356x224. They'd just increment the horizontal resolution when they needed the "scaling" effect. No other 16-bit era machine that I know of can do that. (Of course, this scaling effect wasn't exactly the most useful thing for other games but lucky for NEC it sure fit the bill on Neo fighting game ports.)
The Neo Geo was tough stuff, but it wasn't because there was a 68k manning the helm. In fact, I daresay it was tough stuff IN SPITE of the 68k. More on this in a moment.
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.
The Lynx had hardware scaling too, and it was a 6502 - proving its not at all about bits or megs or whatnot. Asking the video processor to scale a sprite has nothing to do with cartridge size - which brings up an unrelated, but valid point. If you take the same game, and code it for both the 6502 and the 68000, the 68k version will be much bigger and thus need a larger cartridge. This is why many of the games on the Genesis that had a PC-Engine counterpart had a bigger "cart size" spec. Street Fighter II CE, for example.
I think the only reason Sega, SNK and Nintendo had "true" 16-bit CPUs was so they could honestly say they had a true 16-bit system, and the public took this as gospel (of course, SNK went one step further with the whole "24-bit" nonsense). Not only that, the 68k was a well-known processor at the time, so finding people who knew how to write for it wasn't a problem. It also had a stable production history - but those are its only real advantages.
Case in point - the 6809. When the 68k was becoming a standard in the arcade hardware scene, alot of producers such as Konami and Namco discovered the magical little 6809. It was only 8-bit, and many systems ran it at an average of 1.79MHz, and as a CPU it ripped the entire competition to shreds. In fact, a 1.79MHz 6809 was able to out-perform a 20MHz 80286 in every caculation save floating-point (no, I'm not making this up.) The 68k and 65816 couldn't even dream of comparing. Unfortunately, it was a very costly processor and that's what probably kept it from being used in consoles. Pity, that.
Another example: the Supergrafx. This machine is very similar to the SNES in terms of graphical power, the only difference is the SGX only had a palette of 512. It also had the same CPU core as the PC-Engine, which didn't stop it from producing the arcade-perfect port of Ghouls and Ghosts (which was a 68k arcade hardware.) |
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| | Replies to Ethanno | | Author | Message | | | July 31, 2004 - 2:30:07pm CST (edit: 7/31/04 - 2:52pm) |
| the SuperGrafx Ghouls'N Ghosts was not arcade perfect by a long shot. the SuperGrafx version is 8 megabits. the arcade version was at least 16 megabits. Genesis ver is 5 megabits
the graphics on the SuperGrafx ver. are better than the Genesis/MD ver. but not as good as the arcade. the audio of the SuperGrafx ver is worse than the arcade and also worse than the Genesis version.
here is proof that the SuperGrafx ver is not arcade perfect
http://pcenginebible.roarvgm.com/HTML_Games/Ghouls_n_Ghosts.htm
http://pcenginebible.roarvgm.com/Images-Screenshots/COMP-Ghouls_n_Ghosts_01.gif
http://pcenginebible.roarvgm.com/Images-Screenshots/COMP-Ghouls_n_Ghosts_02.gif
SuperGrafx ver is labled PC Engine
more
SuperGrafx Ghouls
http://nfg.2y.net/games/GnG/GnG_SGX.png
Arcade Ghouls
http://nfg.2y.net/games/GnG/GnG_arcade.png
you want to see a truly arcade-exact Ghouls'N Ghosts ? the Sharp X68000 has one. the X68000 was a highend 16-Bit computer/workstation that came out in 1987, around the same time as the PC Engine, and two years before the 1989 release of SuperGrafx.
X68000 Ghouls
http://nfg.2y.net/games/GnG/GnG_x68k.png
http://nfg.2y.net/games/x68k/
SuperGrafx Ghouls
http://www.geocities.com/theghoulrealm/sgrafx1.gif |
| | | September 8, 2004 - 2:15:48pm CST (edit: 9/8/04 - 2:19pm) |
| I don't think that first post is conclusive. While the 65816 can handle more information, if you reduce the amount of information to be processed, the 68000 should be able to do things that the 65816 can't simply because of the faster clock speed. I imagine this is why Sonic had massive slowdown when you'd lose a lot of rings; the Genesis could process the movement of a few sprites super-fast, but not lots of sprites. The SNES, by contrast, seemed to handle lots of sprites at consistent speeds.
By the way, that diesel will handle any mountain roadway better than that 1.4-L I4 (unless this "Coldwater Canyon Roadway" is a flat, twisty road). A 410-hp C-12 (I assume that's the class of engine you were talking about) makes over 1,400 ft-lbs of torque, which is far more important than horsepower for climbing hills and handling rough terrain, which is why military vehicles and earth movers are all diesel-powered. And if we're talking "fun," I'd take a Hummer over a Civic any day...can't climb 45-degree inclines in a Honda. |
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