Favorite 16-bit Generation Console?
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As I've been getting at, it all depends on which number you want to use. Historically the number used was the data bus width (which is the measure by which the 68000 is 16-bit, the 8088 and 65816 are 8-bit, etc.) - in this regard the Pentium III and its relatives are 64-bit processors. Recently, due in part to more complex memory architectures including caches etc., it has become more common to use the width of general-purpose registers and the ALU. By this measure the P3 is 32-bit (and the 65816 and 8088 are 16-bit and the 68000 is 32-bit). However it also has MMX and SSE, which make things much more complicated. It's worth noting that most programs, including games, rarely have to deal with integer quantities larger than 32 bits. Generally 64-bit arithmetic is the domain of high-end physical simulation, database, and statistics work, and I would be shocked if PS2 games made regular use of 128-bit integer math (especially since the vector units are really doing the heavy lifting and there's not really much standard HLL support for 128-bit math).
Don't you Mac users have web browsers too? The GB/GBC have more in common on that front with a Game Gear or a Master System.Originally posted by RolfWrenWalsh@Mon, 2004-11-01 @ 05:44 PM
Wait...
I thought the SFC CPU was just a 16-bit version of the GameBoy CPU...
:huhÂ
Des: That was my point. You were listing only its strengths, someone else needed to point out how it gets mauled on the CPU front even by older hardware. To me that is like making fun of a car for it's comparatively low horsepower while ignoring the fact that your own car seriously lacks low end torque.
Edit: Man I'm tired. I should attempt to get in a 2 hour nap before class.
Yes, I prefer Contra for Genesis too. The others were programmed by Sega not Capcom. Those companies produce games for Genesis a bit late, Namco was the only big Japanese company with enough balls to program games for Genesis at the begining.
If you exclude titles with extra chips I do not see a lot of difference. SNES games tend to be slow, with simple AI etc. But I think it is easier to do a good game for SNES than for Genesis. It is easier to do a good song if you can sample the instrument while it is very difficult if you have to "make" the instrument with FM sounds. If you transfer a pc image to Genesis without retouching the colours, the image will be darker (and it will look worse). If you do the same for SNES it will look more or less as the original image.
.SkankinMonkey
Established Member
All of the systems out there have good games for them or they simply would not be around, that's the bottom line.
Most of the chips were only indirectly related to graphics, effectively making up for the CPU not being very good at number-crunching, for things like transformation in Mode 7 (Pilotwings, Super Mario Kart, et. al.) or decompressing graphics to make the cart cheaper (SFZ2 and Star Ocean). In terms of raw sprite/background capability SNES is pretty strong; I don't think any convincing case could be made for a clear advantage to Genesis on that front. But I can tell you that you're not going to see something like Red Zone on SNES without adding a pretty substantial coprocessor; the 65xx family has its advantages, but brute math is not one of them.
Pfft, that depends which Sega person you're talking to. I think the extent of my own "bashing" the EE was limited to stating that it essentially wasn't a singing, dancing, miracle of silicon. So as always, I would agree that SNES is more powerful overall, just as you would surely agree that the PS2 is an inferior performer (as a whole) when compared to Xbox and Gamecube. Though in both the case of the Genesis (because of its sound and video hardware) and the PS2 (because of its underlying design) require more talent to develop titles that stand out.
Now get back in the kitchen and make me a sammich, woman.
No, I'm saying that games like Pilotwings and Super Mario cart couldn't do a Mode 7 scaling/rotating playfield and the game logic/physics they needed without an add-on chip. the Super Star Wars games don't use an add-on chip, but they probably didn't need it because of simpler game logic.
Hahaha (summary of all previous in one)
4 backgrounds, and how you reload them while scrolling?
15bit palette, and how you reload them to make cool fade-in/fade-out?
128 sprites, and how you refresh they position at each frame?
64*64 sprite size, and were do you store the gfx in VRAM?
512*448 max res and was never used cause of tv incompatiblilty
Yes, guy, how do you do?
With a gorky 8bit technology CPU @ 4 mhz and with a 8bit databus (even the z80 is not so crap compared to this technology)?
Certainely not.
Genesis has a 68k and 68k is 32bit internal, 68k has a full 16bit bus, 68k is 68k, 68k is 8mhz....
Ok genny has only lower vdp but i preffer superfast 64color gfx than a crap static/Slowrefresh 256 color screen, sorry
Because snes can't calculate itself the VDP parameters to make the distortion in real time.
Some programmers were god and made that without FX but only a few games.
Btw; I'm pretty sure its possible to make a mod7 style game on genny using Yeti3D + a few texturized polygons... Id somebody interested.
Genny forever :lol: :lol:
Concerning the capability of the SNES to produce 4 separate parallax backgrounds: Can anyone tell me a game that actually does this, and without a co-processor? I have played dozens of SNES games, but I don't think I've ever seen 4 truly separate backgrounds scrolling simultaneously at different rates, both horizontally and vertically. 95% of the time, it's only 2 planes and sprites, just like the genesis. It would seem that this particular capability isn't really practical to implement in SNES games.
