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NEC PC-Engine/SuperGrafx => PC Engine/SuperGrafx Discussion => Topic started by: lukester on March 06, 2012, 01:36:25 PM
Title: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: lukester on March 06, 2012, 01:36:25 PM
I was wondering, evryone seems to diss the PCE port of Street Fighter 2 as "good for the system, but not as good as the SNES". Why do people like the SNES version more? The PC Engine version has really vibrant colors, fantastic voices, awesome chip music, two unique control methods, great presentation, and a sound test. The SNES one has washed out graphics and extremely strange remixed tunes. Actually, the PC Engine version is one of my favorite games of all time :D, and it's really the only version of Street Fighter 2 I need. There are too many updates and ports. =;
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: roflmao on March 06, 2012, 01:55:57 PM
My gut reaction is that the SNES came with a 6 button controller where the PC Engine (initially) did not. I always found the SNES controller awkward to use for SF2, though. When I had an Ave Pad 6 (and later, the Hori Stick for the PCE) I also preferred the PCE version to the SNES version. But now that I only have 2 button controllers, I can see the SNES version having the edge. But newer systems now have better ports that and I have joysticks for them, so it's a moot point. Still, if I have a craving for 8/16 bit SF2, I am more likely to play the PCE version with a 2 button controller (or on the Express) than I am to play the SNES version. OBEY!
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: nat on March 06, 2012, 02:13:40 PM
I prefer the Duo version to the SNES version, personally. The 6 button controller really does it for me.
Anyone trying to say the SNES version has better graphics, etc, is just blowing smoke. Each version has something the other doesn't visually, in the end it's all a wash, really.
I can see a case being made regarding the audio between the two, but it's all in the eye (or ear) of the beholder, and I personally prefer the trademark Duo chiptunes over the staccato SNES audio.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: vestcoat on March 06, 2012, 02:44:15 PM
I like them equally. The whole debate has never made any sense to me and I don't understand where all of the strong feelings come from.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: MotherGunner on March 06, 2012, 02:51:18 PM
I like them both equally.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Bonknuts on March 06, 2012, 03:37:03 PM
I liked both the SNES and the PCE one. I didn't have the PCE version back in the day, so that's probably why I still have some sort of fondness for the snes one. But nowadays, I play the PCE one every time and never mess with the SNES ones. The PCE version just has a charm to it with the vibrant colors and great (IMO) PCE version of the arcade sound track. I actually prefer the PCE sound track to the Genesis, SNES, and arcade versions. And I'm normally not that biased towards PCE chiptunes.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Joe Redifer on March 06, 2012, 04:06:00 PM
Here's how I rate 'em:
Graphics: Tie - Genesis, Turbo, SNES - Each has good and bad points, no version has enough of an edge in a certain area to win entirely over the other versions.
Music: Genesis wins. It sounds awesome (as long as we're talking pre-Super SF2). I think I prefer the Turbo music over the SNES version.
Voice: Tough one. Genesis loses, for sure. The SNES has the cleanest voices and the Turbo the clearest. By "clean" I mean without garbled digital artifacts. And by "clear" I mean the quality, without being too muffled. The SNES doesn't have any static or scratchiness in the voices where the Turbo absolutely does. But the SNES sounds like it's being played back with a pillow over the speaker. The Genesis version sounds awful. Just listen to the elephants. That sound should not even be in the game.
Gameplay/Control: Genesis wins for sure with the 6-button controller. The standard Sega 6-button controller (not the Majesco one) is light years better than the Avenue 6 or any other 6-button controller I've seen for the Turbo. The SNES loses this battle for sure since two of the buttons are on top of the controller.
Overall: Genesis--Turbo--------SNES.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: soop on March 06, 2012, 08:58:25 PM
Well, for me it's almost the other way around. Streetfighter when it came out on the SNES was supposed to be "arcade perfect" according to some magazines, but when I played it (at a friend's house) it seemed kind of wooly. The sprites weren't right, they were kind of stretched etc.
Now, if I'd seen it in context of other SNES games rather than the Arcade version, I might have thought different, but I can't help seeing SNES SFII as a watered down kid's version.
But the PCE version, I really like. Probably because it was one of the few games I had for my GT back in the day, and even with 2 buttons, it beats the stuffing out of most portable games at the time, and has infinite replay value. Nowadays I'd use my 6-button Nomad for portable SFII, but I still like the PCE version a lot more than the SNES. More blood too.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Starfighter on March 06, 2012, 09:52:25 PM
I got Street Fighter II for the PC Engine just a few days ago so I'm not able to really say anything yet. The awkward (better word than unique I would say) controls are messing my gameplay up but over all it seems pretty bad ass! I love the sound.
Super Street Fighter II for the SNES is my choice when it comes to Street Fighter. Or was it Street Fighter Turbo? Uuh... Something.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: esteban on March 06, 2012, 11:47:14 PM
I have an equal disinterest in all Street Fighter II ports. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy reading about how the different versions stack up against each other, though. Quite the opposite: it is the only thing I enjoy about Street Fighter.
(http://junk.tg-16.com/images/cooks_transb.gif) Cook apologizes for his apathy.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: RegalSin on March 06, 2012, 11:56:17 PM
Street Fighter on the PCE is a perfect conversion of the Chaimpionship edition.
Street Fighter on the SNES is only better because of the TURBO edition which original was a fan hack, known as Rainbow ( which has variants ). Yes for one time in videogame history a hack actually affected how an entire series of games should be.
Street FIghter PCE was portable, and has sound comparible to the Arcade on one card. The SNES while being faster at the time was never meant to be portable. I find it amazing to see the game run on the PCE in comparison to the SNES.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Arkhan on March 07, 2012, 12:38:05 AM
I like the SF2 on PCE, but when I was younger, picked the SNES over the Genesis one since I didn't have the luxury of the PCE one.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Tatsujin on March 07, 2012, 12:53:33 AM
PCE SFII' is great. everybody with a just some lil bit brain knows!!
I still like SFII Turbo on SFC lil bit better. it was my most played version (beside the arcade).
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: termis on March 07, 2012, 12:58:24 AM
Of the "16-bit" era SF2 ports, I'll say the PCE is my favorite. SNES version is good, but I prefer the PCE tunes over the typical SNES reverb tunes (at least in this instance). And Genesis laryngitis voice samples alone really kills that version for me.
And though the Turbo version is nice for other ports, CE ended up being my favorite version of all the SF2 incarnations, so that one's not really an issue for me.
PCE version no doubt pushed the limits of the PCE (actually can't believe how good this game looks on an "8-bit" machine), but I say it's far from being a perfect conversion - when booting up say, the Saturn version and PCE version back-to-back, the differences are quite noticeable -- i.e. much smaller sprite size, missing set of elephants in Dhalsim stage, no parallex, missing backgrounds like the moon in Ryu stage, etc. etc.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: majors on March 07, 2012, 01:36:52 AM
Street Fighter on the PCE is a perfect conversion of the Chaimpionship edition.
PCE had Championship Edition (aka Dash) where Genny and SNES had World Warrior and Hyper variants. To the casual gamer, it does not matter what arcade port it was, as long as it has "Rye-You". I remember it being the sole release of CE for a while, so it was kinda special. At the end of the day, Super Turbo is the only SFII that matters.
Street Fighter on the SNES is only better because of the TURBO edition which original was a fan hack, known as Rainbow ( which has variants ). Yes for one time in videogame history a hack actually affected how an entire series of games should be.
Are you saying the hack/boot/fun-as-hell versions pushed Capcom to make Turbo and Hyper? I never really though about it that way, just assumed if folks in HK where gonna bootleg SF, they just got creative (or lazy code) and it took off. Guess that's why they went CPS2 after that release and introduced the world to suicide batteries with Super.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Samurai Ghost on March 07, 2012, 01:46:31 AM
I think the PCE version is cool, have a soft spot for the Genesis version as that's what I grew up playing, and like the looks of the SNES version but hate the controller. But for me the whole argument is moot when I can just slap in arcade-perfect ports of any classic SF game on the Saturn and play them with the awesome Japanese Virtual Sticks which are pretty much exactly what they have at any arcade around here.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: nodtveidt on March 07, 2012, 01:47:13 AM
I remember hearing about how the SNES port was "arcade perfect" (got all 10s in EGM)... so I was like "ok let's test this". Bullshit it is. There's too much horizontal sprawl to be "arcade perfect"... and it becomes completely obvious on Vega's (Balrog's) stage. I do like the PCE conversion and it's one of the only hucards I currently own. When my Duo feels like playing hucards properly, it's the most fun hucard to run. :)
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: spenoza on March 07, 2012, 04:40:29 AM
The PCE version is my personal fave, but I can't play it right now because I don't have a 6-button pad. I dislike the 2-button pad scheme.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Necromancer on March 07, 2012, 05:01:12 AM
I was wondering, evryone seems to diss the PCE port of Street Fighter 2 as "good for the system, but not as good as the SNES". Why do people like the SNES version more?
Sounds like you're hanging around too many SNERDs; like nat said, the three versions aren't really all that different and each brings something to the table.
For those that haven't seen it before, check out Black Tiger's in depth comparison (http://www.superpcenginegrafx.net/sfiice_comparison_main.html). 8)
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: RegalSin on March 07, 2012, 05:15:05 AM
It is just the TURBO, that is it. Once you have TURBO speed, everything else looks like a joke. Like in real life, a faster fighter is great, but a more beefer fighter can be better. Variables like that. Think about back then when people saw fighters that took up the entire screen. At first they look tuff but once you realize you can plow threw them. Then comes the quick fighters as well. TURBO just brought that speed to a popular game, while it had speed just brought it up to date.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: fragmare on March 07, 2012, 05:19:00 AM
Yea, Black Tiger pretty much covered it all in this comparison (linked to above). I will defer to that comparison. I will say, however, that there are a few stages in the PCE version that kind of bug me. I never liked the way the Ryu stage looked on the PCE. It seems like some detail was lost in the floor and the sky. The Guile, Blanka, and M.Bison/Vega stages could also have been better. Adding the hyper fighting mode to the PCE version would also have been nice, since the the only thing required for it would be some extra code to speed up the fighting (the Chun Li fireball could just have used the Dhalsim fireball and been recolored blue, which is essentially what it is anyway). That being said, I do love the PCE SF2'CE just as much as CE on any other console. More in some ways, not as much in others.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Joe Redifer on March 07, 2012, 06:31:51 AM
When I hear "arcade perfect" I expect arcade perfect. Now I never played SF2 in the arcade, I only watched others play it as I wasn't a big fighting game fan at the time. But no 16-bit home version is even in the same league as "arcade perfect". The graphics were all pretty much redesigned for the SNES version, mainly to fit inside the lower resolution. And then they used those redesigns in every subsequent versions, Genesis, PCE, etc. So thanks to the SNES, I think the Genesis and PCE versions are worse than they could have been. The SNES lowered the bar.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Arkhan on March 07, 2012, 06:34:34 AM
It is just the TURBO, that is it. Once you have TURBO speed, everything else looks like a joke. Like in real life, a faster fighter is great, but a more beefer fighter can be better. Variables like that. Think about back then when people saw fighters that took up the entire screen. At first they look tuff but once you realize you can plow threw them. Then comes the quick fighters as well. TURBO just brought that speed to a popular game, while it had speed just brought it up to date.
It wasn't released for the Turbo!
BWhahahahahha.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: vestcoat on March 07, 2012, 08:49:21 AM
When I hear "arcade perfect" I expect arcade perfect. Now I never played SF2 in the arcade, I only watched others play it as I wasn't a big fighting game fan at the time. But no 16-bit home version is even in the same league as "arcade perfect". The graphics were all pretty much redesigned for the SNES version, mainly to fit inside the lower resolution. And then they used those redesigns in every subsequent versions, Genesis, PCE, etc. So thanks to the SNES, I think the Genesis and PCE versions are worse than they could have been. The SNES lowered the bar.
Reviewers threw "arcade perfect!" around a lot back then because it was the first time home consoles were even getting in the ballpark. The pants-shitting excitement and subsequent jaw-dropping disappointment of putting TMNT "The Arcade Game" in my NES a couple years earlier was still fresh in my mind when I braced myself for SFII on the SNES, so I was pretty happy. It's a compromised port, but it succeeded in bringing the arcade experience into the living room.
I just love seeing how the PCE, with its 1987 technology, can rival the SNES.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: SignOfZeta on March 07, 2012, 10:14:45 AM
The PCE ver was the only port of SFII' until the 32--bit era. Therefore, if you don't want to play anything but this exact version, and you never bought a Playstation, Saturn, or supergun, then the PCE ver is best.
To most SFII fans though the PCE ver became useless as soon as SFII' Turbo was released on SFC a month or so later (for $30 less on a sytem that already had a six button controller). These days the main purpose of SFII' on PCE is to give hardcore PCE fanboys something to jerk off to and from what I've read over the years here it does a marvelous job of that.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: RegalSin on March 07, 2012, 11:12:03 AM
Lets get one thing straight. Fighting Steet was on the PCE, as well. It was not an add-on or some kind of combo game. The actually game itself was on the PCE.
Without TURBO then the PCE game is supreme. It is almost arcade perfect, and was portable in full color. Compared to the Gameboy game.
You can't count the Saturn or Playstation versions to the PCE, because those systems was made years, after the PCE and has 3D graphics chips built into them, that makes the processing power of the PCE looks laughable. That is like skipping three generations.
The strenghts are
1. Age 2. Arcade comparison 3. Unmodified 4. Originalism
The first two makes sense but I will admit playing TURBO is what made fighting games a complete game changer. That game changer was not done by Capcom. If the PCE was as popular as the Famicom in Japan it would have also seen other versions of the same game.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Bonknuts on March 07, 2012, 11:21:30 AM
To most SFII fans though the PCE ver became useless as soon as SFII' Turbo was released on SFC a month or so later (for $30 less on a sytem that already had a six button controller). These days the main purpose of SFII' on PCE is to give hardcore PCE fanboys something to jerk off to and from what I've read over the years here it does a marvelous job of that.
I would think it's more simply that it's a good game on a system they like. Same Genesis stuff, same as SNES stuff. Ports have their charms, you know? You come off as having some sort of resentment for people actually liking the port/game. You hate'n?
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Black Tiger on March 07, 2012, 11:41:47 AM
The PCE ver was the only port of SFII' until the 32--bit era. Therefore, if you don't want to play anything but this exact version, and you never bought a Playstation, Saturn, or supergun, then the PCE ver is best.
SFII' was included in the Genesis and SNES versions. You could consider those versions 2-game SFII collections.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Joe Redifer on March 07, 2012, 04:05:51 PM
Lets get one thing straight. Fighting Steet was on the PCE, as well. It was not an add-on or some kind of combo game. The actually game itself was on the PCE.
The game itself was not an add-on (obviously) but you needed an add-on to play it since it was an early CD-ROM game.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Vecanti on March 07, 2012, 06:03:19 PM
I was wondering, evryone seems to diss the PCE port of Street Fighter 2 as "good for the system, but not as good as the SNES". Why do people like the SNES version more?
Which version for the SNES? The original SFII on SNES looks bad and doesn't play near as well. It might have some extra parallax, but the player animation is really lacking, the resolution looks much lower to me when I've had them side by side.
They improved things with Turbo, but the original sold more copies so I think more people played that crap version on the SNES than the Turbo. Besides SFII being on a HuCard makes the PCE version way cooler.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: soop on March 07, 2012, 08:37:16 PM
Adding the hyper fighting mode to the PCE version would also have been nice, since the the only thing required for it would be some extra code to speed up the fighting (the Chun Li fireball could just have used the Dhalsim fireball and been recolored blue, which is essentially what it is anyway).
Actually, there's more to Hyper Fighting than speeding it up and adding Chun-Li's kiko ken.
more colours, mid-air cyclone kicks, Dhalsim's dissapearing trick, Ken's teaked dragon punch... There's a lot of small changes.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Tatsujin on March 08, 2012, 01:08:33 AM
Right, and moar animations as well.
Schtreet Fighter
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Necromancer on March 08, 2012, 02:02:46 AM
To most SFII fans though the PCE ver became useless as soon as SFII' Turbo was released on SFC a month or so later (for $30 less on a sytem that already had a six button controller).
You sound like the retards that buy Madden or Call of Duty every six months, yelling "OMG! This is teh bestest game evah! Burn the old one!"
These days the main purpose of SFII' on PCE is to give hardcore PCE fanboys something to jerk off to and from what I've read over the years here it does a marvelous job of that.
So it's not a good game? A later improved version doesn't negate how good the prior game was.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: bust3dstr8 on March 08, 2012, 03:26:24 AM
Nothing against the PCE version...I can't stand any version of CE. It's Hyper Fighting or Bust :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: SignOfZeta on March 08, 2012, 05:56:20 AM
To most SFII fans though the PCE ver became useless as soon as SFII' Turbo was released on SFC a month or so later (for $30 less on a sytem that already had a six button controller).
You sound like the retards that buy Madden or Call of Duty every six months, yelling "OMG! This is teh bestest game evah! Burn the old one!"
Come on. Don't you know by now that I am absolutely not that guy at all? I guess not.
I have a LOT of fighting games and by no means do I abandon them when they are old. I have a shitload of KOFs and I love all of them (except maybe 2001). I consider all of the Vampire games to be great. SSFIIX, for example, is a game I will literally play for the rest of my life. SFII'Turbo is the same, to a lesser extent. I'm still interested in nearly all of the "versus" games, and I even like SFIII:SI. People still play SSFIIX in tournaments to this day and I'm a huge fan of it.
SFII' though...there just isn't much reason to ever play this game again unless you are a PCE fan. Turbo was a much better game all around. Since there are five versions of SFII its not hard to imagine that some are going to be forgotten. The games are SO similar and its so inexpensive to buy all of them now, that people will pick whatever version they want and play that. Overall, that version is not SFII'.
Its good that you brought up Madden though. Since there is one Madden on TG-16 I assume that version gets more play here with people than any other simply because its on Turbo. Of course even SFII on Gameboy is more fun than any Madden game, but I think there is some comparison to be made here. If someone doesn't have a PC Engine then there is pretty much a %0 chance they are ever going to play SFII'. It would also not be the first Super Street Fighter II. Both of those games are now pretty much fan-less. Bumps on the road to progress made in SFII'Turbo and SSFIIX.
If what you really want is to play some SFII regardless of platform, you aren't going to be playing this version. If you have some sort of pro-NEC agenda then the PCE version is best. I'm sure there is some forum full of 3DO shitheads being the same way about SSFIIX since that was a 3DO exclusive for several years.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Black Tiger on March 08, 2012, 06:15:57 AM
Champion Edition in any form is still my favorite SFII.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Necromancer on March 08, 2012, 06:30:13 AM
I'm sure there is some forum full of 3DO shitheads being the same way about SSFIIX since that was a 3DO exclusive for several years.
I was thinking along the same lines when I made the comment that PCE had the only release of Dash(CE). The discussion is now turning into "what is your favorite SFII release" rather than "do you like the PCE release of SFII".
I like and play(ed) the PCE SFII'. But after playing ST, it's boring.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: spenoza on March 08, 2012, 08:46:23 AM
I was just the perfect age when Street Fighter II originally hit the arcades, and I played the original version of it quite a bit (just as I had Street Fighter/Fighting Street before it). I think CE(') is the best version of the game. I know lots of people love Turbo, Super, and Super Turbo, and they are great games, but I prefer the original release line (II, II CE, and II Turbo) best, and CE is the one I like best of the original line releases. There is probably some nostalgia at work, here. I wasn't playing in arcades much when Super and ST came out.
Also, even though the audio doesn't sound as high-quality as the SNES audio, it sounds a little clearer. The SNES audio is too filtered. Meanwhile, the Genesis audio is rather sad and sounds too harsh. Graphically I don't have a preference between the SNES and PCE releases.
So the PCE CE release is kinda the perfect release for me.
Edit: BT, if I may offer a bit of advice: I love your SFII comparison works, but the images on the MAIN page aren't labelled the way they are in the sub-pages, so it's hard to tell which image goes with which console, especially considering you put the images in the reverse order of the game system logos at the top of the page.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Bonknuts on March 08, 2012, 12:07:56 PM
SFII CE is the last street fighter game I played in the arcades or cared to play. I stopped caring about the series after that. But up until and including that, I played the hell out of the arcade games. I like playing ports that platform specific charm to them. If I didn't, I wouldn't play any ports except for the most 'superior' ones. Probably MAME (if I didn't have the arcade PCBs). Most people tend to follow that logic without being labeled a 'fanboy' or some such insult. Why should SF2 get any sort of exemption? Strider is superior in the arcade to the Genesis one, yet when I get the urge to play the game - I go straight to the Genesis version. I play Splatterhouse on the PCE rather than the arcade. Rtype on the PCE rather than the arcade (and love the crap out of the original arcade version. I probably put near as much money into that as I did any SF2 arcade cab - BITD).I could go on and on listing such examples. Ports have their charm. It has nothing to do with being a blind fanboy and rubbing one off.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: nodtveidt on March 08, 2012, 12:25:55 PM
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Sadler on March 08, 2012, 12:53:38 PM
I own several SF ports in addition to the PCE port, including World Warrior, Turbo, Super and Alpha 2 for the SNES. I played SF a fair amount in the arcade and a shit ton of the various SNES ports BITD. SF2 is one of my favorite games. I didn't play the PCE port until a couple years ago. I was definitely impressed (especially given that my experience with fighters on the PCE at that time was limited to Fighting Street), but the music really disappointed me. Nowadays I tend to choose the PCE version which I freely admit is mostly due to my fanboyism. Having said that, I never liked SSF2 as much as earlier versions and I never considered Turbo a great improvement on Champion Edition. The music in the PCE version doesn't really bother me anymore, but I'm going to say something sacrilegious here: I actually prefer the SNES controller, I just have an easier time accessing all 6 buttons. Still, like I said, I almost always go for the PCE port nowadays.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: SignOfZeta on March 08, 2012, 01:45:15 PM
When I play SFII these days it's usually SSFIIX on a system like DC or something else where the port is nigh on perfect. If I'm going to play any 16-bit era port it will almost always be SFII' on PCE. Why? Because I'm a PCE fanboy. I like that is a showboat game that is much better than other fighters on the system, even when stuff like FFS is technically superior. I like that it's the biggest HuCard. I like that it's a HuCard at all, and therefore proves that CDs aren't always better.
I fully admit that I have political reasons for playing this game though. I'm not going to say I like it because it has "two unique control schemes" (WTF? Yeah, one that works and one that is a f*cking nightmare) nor am I going to say that I like the PCE version best because my favorite version of SFII is SFII' anyway. Why? For what reason would anyone prefer Dash unless they just really liked brutalizing people with Guile and Vega, very very slowly? Seriously. None of that "personal preference" or "I have a right to my own opinion and therefore don't need any justification for my opinion" bullshit. If I had to pick a favorite 16 bit version of SFII (non-CPS) I would honestly say that it probably IS the PCE version and pretty much because it's on PCE. I'm not going to pretend Super Turbo is a lesser game in order to justify it.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: spenoza on March 08, 2012, 03:13:30 PM
What's wrong with personal preference, and why do the reasons for preferring one over another matter? I mean, many of us offer those explanations unbidden, but really, in the end, does it ultimately matter? Nope. You like what you like.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Vecanti on March 08, 2012, 03:47:44 PM
If you take a stock PC Engine and stock SNES with any version SFII the PCE version wins.
Why?
Because you can turn on turbo fire and just hold down one button and kick everyones butt with Chun Li's super fast kick. :)
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: kazekirifx on March 08, 2012, 06:10:22 PM
I like the PCE version, but I have to honestly say it's not the best. While it has many good points, let us not forget the following flaws of the PCE version:
1. No multiple speed settings like the SNES/Genesis versions both had. (I really liked this, and I doubt the PCE could have handled it.) 2. That black space at the top of the screen. 3. Only one PCM channel makes it so the PCE version doesn't have multiple simultaneous voices
Personally, I prefer the Genesis 6-button controller over the Avenue Pad 6. SNES pad sucks for SFII.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Frank_fjs on March 08, 2012, 09:15:15 PM
The original SNES version (World Warrior) didn't have multiple speeds, it ran slow and had huge black borders top and bottom.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: termis on March 09, 2012, 02:05:04 AM
SFII' though...there just isn't much reason to ever play this game again unless you are a PCE fan. Turbo was a much better game all around...
...If what you really want is to play some SFII regardless of platform, you aren't going to be playing this version...
... If I had to pick a favorite 16 bit version of SFII (non-CPS) I would honestly say that it probably IS the PCE version and pretty much because it's on PCE. I'm not going to pretend Super Turbo is a lesser game in order to justify it.
Nah, as shocking as it may be to you, I prefer CE over any SF2 (and looks like I'm not the only one here) - and this having nothing to do with my PCE port preference for the 16-bit era SF2. i.e. When I boot up to play SF2, most of the times it's my saturn SF2 collection disc, and from the choices I have there, I'll play the CE version 3 out of 4 times.
I do admit that when Turbo was in full swing back in the days, it was hard to go back to CE once you got used to the turbo speed, but after leaving SF2 for a good number of years, what I found myself coming back to was CE, not the turbo. There are just things about the turbo version that seems a bit... "patched on", shall I say -- speed that now seems artificially fast, the new hodge-podge after-thought special moves, and even the default colors of characters were a bit off.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: soop on March 09, 2012, 02:13:39 AM
No I agree actually. Turbo was artificially fast, and TBH I thought the speed turned it into more of a button mash.
I do like the new moves in turbo, but all in all, the bigger sprites in CE, and the 4 playable bosses are more of a bonus to me.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Bonknuts on March 09, 2012, 03:08:44 AM
I like the PCE version, but I have to honestly say it's not the best. While it has many good points, let us not forget the following flaws of the PCE version:
1. No multiple speed settings like the SNES/Genesis versions both had. (I really liked this, and I doubt the PCE could have handled it.) 2. That black space at the top of the screen. 3. Only one PCM channel makes it so the PCE version doesn't have multiple simultaneous voices
Personally, I prefer the Genesis 6-button controller over the Avenue Pad 6. SNES pad sucks for SFII.
SF2 on the PCE actually uses two PCM channels. One for music instruments and one for sampled FX. I spent a good amount of time tracing through this game (for various reasons), it's not impressive as the presentation leads it to believe. I mean, the code isn't super optimized or anything like that. It's just standard written code like other PCE games. That said, I was able to tweak timing in the animation tables to speed up characters. I doubt the code/engine as is wouldn't be capable of faster speeds. Hell, the SNES Turbo ran pretty fast (with the cheat code) and that was on the stock SNES processor - which is slower than the PCE's.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Black Tiger on March 09, 2012, 05:33:07 AM
I like the PCE version, but I have to honestly say it's not the best. While it has many good points, let us not forget the following flaws of the PCE version:
1. No multiple speed settings like the SNES/Genesis versions both had. (I really liked this, and I doubt the PCE could have handled it.) 2. That black space at the top of the screen. 3. Only one PCM channel makes it so the PCE version doesn't have multiple simultaneous voices
Personally, I prefer the Genesis 6-button controller over the Avenue Pad 6. SNES pad sucks for SFII.
1. The arcade only had one speed. Both the arcade and PCE are more than capable of pulling it off. But it's a feature of Turbo/Hyper Fighting, so you might as well compare it to SSFIIT. Why exactly do you think that the PCE couldn't handle speed? Do you think that it is weak? Have you played many PCE games?
2. The PCE version has the same exact same amount of black space/bars as the SNES version. The Genesis version has 8 extra pixels of visible background. The PCE version at least uses the black space to host the score text (and has superior fonts all-round).
3. The Genesis only has one sound channel and you can hear what it sounds like to split it for overlapping samples. The PCE can do 6 samples at once and uses a second channel for music and sfx samples. The only reason the PCE version doesn't overlap the voices is because the arcade didn't do it. Both the arcade and PCE are more than capable of pulling it off.
The SNES stock pad is the equivalent of the giant stock 3-button pad for Genesis. If you can swap in a Genesis 6-button pad, you can swap in a good SFII-friendly SNES pad. Like the Hori Fighting pad which is available for both PCE and SFC.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: incrediblehark on March 09, 2012, 09:17:46 AM
I really like the pce version. the speed settings were overrated to me anyway, and i actually like the music. I like playing Street Fighter on every system it was released, each one has its own charms. If its not the arcade version its not going to be perfect anyway. and the Hori Fighting commander is a lot better than the avenue pad 6.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: SignOfZeta on March 09, 2012, 11:19:17 AM
Dang. People do not understand SFII very well...kind of amazing considering it was THE game for a couple of years.
A few things:
There are five versions of SFII. The most popular one today is Super Street Fighter II Turbo (aka: SSFIIX) which didn't even get a 16bit home port. The PCE version is SFII': Champion Edition which was the least significant upgrade Capcom made. It allowed two people to play the same character against each other and the ability to play as bosses. It also had minor ballence tweaks but it needed a LOT more. I am not one to complain about ballence AT ALL in fighting games but this this is crazy. Furthermore, its so slow that all the unfair shit like re-dizzy combos are really easy to pull off.
All 16bit console ports are letterboxed and have resized sprites. This is partially related to shrinking the ROM size but also because Capcom's CPS systems use a weird resolution. Ask JapJac about that.
All versions have f*cked up sound, including the arcade. What I mean by this is that they all sound like the system they came from. As shitty as the Genesis sounds, it's more in line with the arcade version, and late 80s/early 90s arcade sound in general. The SNES version is much cleaner sounding but more it's own sound than the arcade sound. Etc.
All OEM controllers sucked for SFII so bullshit comparisons between Avenue 6 and SNES or whatever are pointless. It takes an act of God to achieve a decent combo on any of that crap. While Sega's six button is probably best, and Sega's three button the absolute worst, the real choice back then was a stick from Hori, MAS, or someone else.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: RegalSin on March 09, 2012, 11:42:45 AM
So we all can agree that Street Fighter II is an issue that must not be ignored.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: BigusSchmuck on March 09, 2012, 11:56:53 AM
I don't see why people think the chip tunes are superior to that of the snes version, but whatever. :P Its a great version nevertheless, about the only reason why I would have gotten this back in the day is to play it on the go as I already had the snes turbo version.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: SignOfZeta on March 09, 2012, 01:59:49 PM
I like the PCE version, but I have to honestly say it's not the best. While it has many good points, let us not forget the following flaws of the PCE version:
1. No multiple speed settings like the SNES/Genesis versions both had. (I really liked this, and I doubt the PCE could have handled it.)
lol say what?!?! the PCE could have EASILY handled hyper fighting mode(s). It's the same exact damn game with sped up character animations and a few extra moves per character... there's nothing really fancy or special about that. Even the SNES's turd of a CPU (which is considerably slower in both clock speed and overall efficiency than the Genesis or PCE CPU) could handle hyper fighting just fine. I'm pretty sure the only reasons they didn't include hyper fighting in the PCE version were a.) time constraints. they wanted to get the game on shelves before the SFC/MD versions came out. b.) ROM size/cost. That little bit of extra code and the few additional sprites required for hyper fighting mode would have pushed it over the 20Mbit limit and they would have needed to make it a 24Mbit HuCard (with a considerable amount of wasted space). While I enjoy hyper fighting and would have liked to see NEC include it in the release, i fully understand why they didn't. Working on hacking/translating the PCE SF2' ROM with Tom a couple years back made me understand just how tightly the SF2 HuCard is packed with data. There's not much room to spare.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: esteban on March 09, 2012, 11:52:24 PM
I read this entire thread, again, from the first post. "Why?" I ask myself.
So, seriously, here are some things I'm curious about:
(1) I always assume that the most fun would involve two evenly-matched human players (2) Since #1 is not always possible, I would assume that single-player mode is important for many folks? (3) Are there important (albeit subtle) differences in the AI (across all ____ versions of SF II) for single-player matches?
If I were a fan of SF II, I know that the single-player experience would be an important consideration when evaluating a game. My brother, who has always been obsessed with SF II, prefers playing with humans.
(http://junk.tg-16.com/images/cook_1.gif) Cook prefers to mash buttons when playing Street Fighter II'.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: spenoza on March 10, 2012, 02:43:59 AM
I don't see why people think the chip tunes are superior to that of the snes version
Protip: All music on the SNES is "chiptunes."
Well, one could argue that since the SNES's audio is sample-based like the Amiga, rather than waveform-based like PSG and FM synth, that it might be considered a slightly different beast.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Bonknuts on March 10, 2012, 02:58:31 AM
I don't see why people think the chip tunes are superior to that of the snes version
Protip: All music on the SNES is "chiptunes."
Well, one could argue that since the SNES's audio is sample-based like the Amiga, rather than waveform-based like PSG and FM synth, that it might be considered a slightly different beast.
Meh, it's just a different form of creating the instruments. Sample based synth. It's not like they're nothing but samples playing by some list or such, or like the PCM channel setups on the Genesis and PCE/TG16. The sample is only one part of the over all 'instrument', it's pitch bent into the whole octave range and have modifiers like volume envelope, lfo envelope, loop points inside the sample for further keying and bending the sound, etc. The SPU in the SNES could easily replicate the PCE audio (one 32sample waveform, played at different frequencies). But yeah, most people associate chiptune with more primitive audio hardware. But really, it just means chip generated music in realtime VS prerecorded like red book or just streaming in general.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: spenoza on March 10, 2012, 03:16:29 AM
I don't see why people think the chip tunes are superior to that of the snes version
Protip: All music on the SNES is "chiptunes."
Well, one could argue that since the SNES's audio is sample-based like the Amiga, rather than waveform-based like PSG and FM synth, that it might be considered a slightly different beast.
Meh, it's just a different form of creating the instruments. Sample based synth. It's not like they're nothing but samples playing by some list or such, or like the PCM channel setups on the Genesis and PCE/TG16. The sample is only one part of the over all 'instrument', it's pitch bent into the whole octave range and have modifiers like volume envelope, lfo envelope, loop points inside the sample for further keying and bending the sound, etc. The SPU in the SNES could easily replicate the PCE audio (one 32sample waveform, played at different frequencies). But yeah, most people associate chiptune with more primitive audio hardware. But really, it just means chip generated music in realtime VS prerecorded like red book or just streaming in general.
I think to many, however, chiptune implies a certain kind of sound, and while some SNES tunes do have that kind of sound, many others sound more like MOD, IT, or S3M tracker files, which have a distinctly different sound than chiptunes. Also, the SNES has that DSP and seems to default to doing lots of funky filtering (which actually makes some things sound less good) and thus renders things less chip-tune-y. By your argument, with which I don't entirely disagree, quite a bit of Playstation and Saturn audio could be considered chiptunes, even though those tunes often sound commensurate with yellow book and red book audio.
So I guess it kinda depends on whether you view chiptunes from a strictly technical viewpoint, a mostly technical viewpoint, or an artistic/stylistic viewpoint.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Joe Redifer on March 10, 2012, 07:41:21 AM
SNES is 100% chiptunes. Case closed.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Black Tiger on March 10, 2012, 10:57:37 AM
I don't see why people think the chip tunes are superior to that of the snes version, but whatever. :P Its a great version nevertheless, about the only reason why I would have gotten this back in the day is to play it on the go as I already had the snes turbo version.
The composition, or actual "music", sounds better to many people, myself included. Whether you enjoy the sounds being used by any version more than others is a separate aspect. Most retro game commentors online seem to be completely oblivious to the actual music in games (which many seem to not even actually play) and are only concerned with the type of sound being used. Again, going by the comments I often read, many of those people don't even seem to actually listen to the sounds being used either, and only like the sound of their favorite console while despising the sounds of rival consoles. More often than not these people are SNES fans.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: ccovell on March 10, 2012, 11:44:27 AM
The word "chiptune" is said to originate on the Amiga, actually (ca. 1988-89). Amiga MODs, etc, usually used large samples for "modern" sounding music, but some composers and tracker programmers opted to use extremely short SID-like sample loops (square waves, triangle, etc) to sound like older sound chips.
"Chiptune" was invented after sample-based computers came along to distinguish the two styles of sound. Before that they were just called SIDs, beeper-music, etc.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: spenoza on March 10, 2012, 01:41:49 PM
"Chiptune" was invented after sample-based computers came along to distinguish the two styles of sound. Before that they were just called SIDs, beeper-music, etc.
So, pre-Amiga music would be chiptunes, and Amiga and modern audio would be post chiptune?
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Arkhan on March 10, 2012, 01:49:01 PM
nowadays Chiptune is just the hipster douche slang for over arped horse shit.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: esteban on March 10, 2012, 05:53:09 PM
So, can anyone help answer my earlier questions about different versions of SFII providing different AI? (http://junk.tg-16.com/images/pcg0.png)
I'm not interested in attempts by Capcom to "balance" the players' strengths/weaknesses. I'm talking about the sophistication of the computer opponent's offensive/defensive strategies.
So, can anyone help answer my earlier questions about different versions of SFII providing different AI? (http://junk.tg-16.com/images/pcg0.png)
I'm not interested in attempts by Capcom to "balance" the players' strengths/weaknesses. I'm talking about the sophistication of the computer opponent's offensive/defensive strategies.
AI is pretty primitive on any fighting game. Did things actually change across the five versions of SFII? Well, yeah, because they added four more characters and those have needed AI routines. :) Other than that...? Probably not. Playing SFII by yourself is the sound of one hand clapping. Its pointless. The game hasn't retained its popularity for 20 years because of the one player experience.
Other things:
There are most definitely five versions of SFII. Its total revisionist bullshit to say now, 20 years later, that many of these revisions are so slight they don't deserve to be called different games. Sure, some of the upgrades were very minor (mainly SFII') but they are different games. They have different entries in Capcom's catalog they were released on home systems with different names, and only two actually share the same board, IIRC. Turbo was sold as an upgrade to Dash, but I think it was also sold complete. SFII is non-upgradable, as are Super and Super Turbo, which were both sold on non-upgradable CPS2 boards. I might be wrong about a details or two there, but the idea is basically correct.
The SNES makes chip tunes. The "sound" isn't what makes it a chip tune. The term existed long before the current definition. If its not coming out of a tape or a CD or a solid state synths (i.e.: the Space Invaders arcade board) then its chip tunes.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: spenoza on March 11, 2012, 10:28:30 AM
Seems to me the term "chiptune" is ill-defined and has variable meaning depending on context and the community using it. I don't think our discussion has solved anything. It's pretty unimportant, anyway. Ambiguous terminology seems to exist only to cause arguments.
I think of Street Fighter II as a 2.0 release, with II' being 2.5 and II Turbo being a 2.7, at least by feel. And Super feels like a 3.0 release, with Super Turbo being 3.2. They're all different, clearly, but they're all also clearly sharing the same lineage.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: bust3dstr8 on March 11, 2012, 01:03:23 PM
Capcom released a sixth game on CPS2 which is all the 5 versions in one handy dandy case.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Ninja Spirit on March 11, 2012, 04:00:49 PM
Sharp X68000 version takes it
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Tatsujin on March 11, 2012, 04:20:00 PM
lol, x68k was the system that MADE Street Fighter II, how could it get possibly better than that?
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: SuperDeadite on March 11, 2012, 04:50:55 PM
So, can anyone help answer my earlier questions about different versions of SFII providing different AI? (http://junk.tg-16.com/images/pcg0.png)
I played SF2 Turbo SNES a lot when it was new, SF2 SCE Genesis when I got a Nomad a few years later, and more recently the PCE's SF2 CE. I've also dabbled a bit with the version on the Capcom Classics collection on PSP, which I assume is emulated from the arcade.
The AI within the same version of the game is identical as far as I can tell. Zangief still falls for the jumping straight up HK/Sweep trick every time, Ken nonstop shoryukens all the time, Sagat still "TIGER TIGER TIGER's" all the time. There are variances between the different editions though, M Bison and Sagat are much more difficult in the original SF2 than in most of the other games, for example.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Chuplayer on March 12, 2012, 10:17:24 AM
Capcom released a sixth game on CPS2 which is all the 5 versions in one handy dandy case.
Do you mean the CPS2 Hyper SF2? Because that one was kind of like fanservice many years later. In fact, I didn't even know until recently that there was a CPS2 version. I thought the only version that ever came out was on the PS2. (And maybe the original XBOX.)
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: kazekirifx on March 12, 2012, 08:58:11 PM
lol say what?!?! the PCE could have EASILY handled hyper fighting mode(s).
What are you basing that on? To me it looks like the PCE struggles to handle the game even at normal speed. I guess we'll never know the answer, though, unless it came from the one of the original programmers' mouths, or someone gets a hacked sped-up version running on the original hardware.
Someone mentioned the X68k version. I own this one, and it's not perfect either. The frame rate is noticeably low. I think there was never a perfect conversion of this game to console or PC until the PS2 era.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Tatsujin on March 12, 2012, 09:39:38 PM
@tom, rover & co.
todo:
1x simple SFII' hack with double or triple speed.
highly appreciated, thx.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Colossus1574 on March 12, 2012, 09:50:06 PM
Fools! The Sega Master System port is the only one that matters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97uaJrUmzho
omg....sometimes i wonder why companies even bother with making stuff like this? even THE most desparate SF fan who ONLY owns a Master System would still not get any jollies playing this hackjob :-# What's most f'd about it is that it's SF:CE but yet they used the character select art from Super!? Which is where i give it it's props, the art there is pretty impressive.
Anyways, with surprisingly 6 pages already on this thread, i have to chime in since i was HUGE SF fan (my avatar might give that away, haha) back then and still am a SF player now (SF x Tekken anyone?). I don't have much to say in regards to what system was best for it...I'm just gonna say that as long as whichever version had tight enough controls for when me and my SF posse fought to not effect the matches, i'm down for any SF. I had the PCE one, my other buddy had the Genny, and another the SNES, and we'd play whichever one just depending on who's house we we're hanging out at. I was just thankful enough these home versions were close enough to arcade (in terms of combo timing, and strategies) that when we sparred/practiced at home, we'd be able to put up a fight "and then some" when we hit the arcades for the real challenges! Quarters up and all!
I'd rather talk about the historical significance of Street Fighter 2 (and all it's versions) to that period of time in video games, actually :-"
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Tatsujin on March 12, 2012, 09:55:04 PM
omg....sometimes i wonder why companies even bother with making stuff like this? even THE most desparate SF fan who ONLY owns a Master System would still not get any jollies playing this hackjob :-#
That's because TecToy IS a hackjob company..lol.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: fragmare on March 12, 2012, 09:58:26 PM
lol say what?!?! the PCE could have EASILY handled hyper fighting mode(s).
What are you basing that on? To me it looks like the PCE struggles to handle the game even at normal speed. I guess we'll never know the answer, though, unless it came from the one of the original programmers' mouths, or someone gets a hacked sped-up version running on the original hardware.
It's based on the fact it requires ZERO or nearly zero extra CPU cycles to simply speed up a sprite animation. For example, if you have a sprite in VRAM and the timing is such that it displays a new frame every, say, 4 game ticks/vblanks, you could just as easily set up the timing so that a new frame is displayed every 2 ticks/vblanks, or every vblank for that matter. All the other code (collision, gamepad polling, etc.) would remain the same. In a game like SF2, the only thing you'd need to make sure of is that your code is fast enough to load character frames from ROM > VRAM within the alotted span of game ticks between one frame to the next. Even the largest characters in SF2 (Zangief, Sagat, M.Bison) would top out at around 3KB when uncompressed, and that's assuming they just use a square sprite block (which they don't). So it would actually be a bit less than 3KB per character, per frame. Then also consider that a new frame needs to be loaded into VRAM instantly anyway if you press any attack button or execute any move. All you'd be doing is speeding up the timing between frames. And where do you get the impression the PCE is struggling to handle SF2' CE? There's really no slowdown to speak of and minimal flicker. Protip: The slowdown after a KO is intentional and is there for dramatic effect. It's also in the arcade. ;)
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Colossus1574 on March 12, 2012, 10:07:55 PM
omg....sometimes i wonder why companies even bother with making stuff like this? even THE most desparate SF fan who ONLY owns a Master System would still not get any jollies playing this hackjob :-#
That's because TecToy IS a hackjob company..lol.
Hahaha, damn...thanks Tats :oops: I got fooled cause at the end credits, it says the usual "Thanks for playing, presented by Capcom and TecToy"....
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Tatsujin on March 12, 2012, 10:19:30 PM
omg....sometimes i wonder why companies even bother with making stuff like this? even THE most desparate SF fan who ONLY owns a Master System would still not get any jollies playing this hackjob :-#
That's because TecToy IS a hackjob company..lol.
Hahaha, damn...thanks Tats :oops: I got fooled cause at the end credits, it says the usual "Thanks for playing, presented by Capcom and TecToy"....
TecToy is an independent working company STILL releasing/porting games for the MD & SMS in brazil. Though it's licensed work, it seems to be still very close to any other pirate & co. hack stuff when it comes to play value and gameplay.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Tatsujin on March 12, 2012, 10:23:09 PM
lol say what?!?! the PCE could have EASILY handled hyper fighting mode(s).
What are you basing that on? To me it looks like the PCE struggles to handle the game even at normal speed. I guess we'll never know the answer, though, unless it came from the one of the original programmers' mouths, or someone gets a hacked sped-up version running on the original hardware.
Someone mentioned the X68k version. I own this one, and it's not perfect either. The frame rate is noticeably low. I think there was never a perfect conversion of this game to console or PC until the PS2 era.
What X68k are you playing it on though? II' plays very nicely on a standard X68k. Super SF II plays a bit too slow on a 10mhz machine though, but very nicely if you have 16mhz or faster.
Same with the FM Towns port. On a 386? lol slowdown, on my 586@133mhz Fresh? Rock solid 60fps baby.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: esteban on March 13, 2012, 12:59:24 AM
So, can anyone help answer my earlier questions about different versions of SFII providing different AI? (http://junk.tg-16.com/images/pcg0.png)
I played SF2 Turbo SNES a lot when it was new, SF2 SCE Genesis when I got a Nomad a few years later, and more recently the PCE's SF2 CE. I've also dabbled a bit with the version on the Capcom Classics collection on PSP, which I assume is emulated from the arcade.
The AI within the same version of the game is identical as far as I can tell. Zangief still falls for the jumping straight up HK/Sweep trick every time, Ken nonstop shoryukens all the time, Sagat still "TIGER TIGER TIGER's" all the time. There are variances between the different editions though, M Bison and Sagat are much more difficult in the original SF2 than in most of the other games, for example.
Thank you, JKM (and Zeta before you) for Answering my questions. (http://junk.tg-16.com/images/pcgs.png)
lol say what?!?! the PCE could have EASILY handled hyper fighting mode(s).
What are you basing that on? To me it looks like the PCE struggles to handle the game even at normal speed. I guess we'll never know the answer, though, unless it came from the one of the original programmers' mouths, or someone gets a hacked sped-up version running on the original hardware.
Speed is one of the PC Engine's big strengths, especially over the Super Famicom. The PCE version of SFII' was far from what the PCE was capable of, but still could have run as fast as the other versions which were actually developed by Capcom. Even if this imperfect port was barely held together, bad ports aren't an indication of the potential of a console. They're just poor ports.
Still, I'm curious as to what signs you see that the PCE is barely handling the game. I know than in console war discussions, fanboys often point out the slowdown in rival consoles' SFII ports while ignoring the slowdown in their favorite console's port(s) and the arcade (it's programmed in as an effect).
It still sounds like you aren't very familiar with the PC Engine's library. You should try or watch decent videos of World Heroes 2 and Fatal Fury Special, which push around much larger sprites with even more animation. There's nothing comparable on Mega Drive/Mega-CD or Super Famicom... -not that it's proof that those consoles couldn't handle it though.
Might as well hack a version or two at speeds people would enjoy and then one that is as fast as the game can go without crashing, just to show people each time this argument comes up.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: RegalSin on March 13, 2012, 03:32:34 AM
The question is how are the characters loaded into the vram/ram? Is it one big sprite or is it, a bunch of 16x16 or 32x32 sqaures?
I was playing Conan yesterday, and after the screen fills up with the same god forsaken blankie, ke-man, or whatever footsoilder you can see a slowdown in the game. The graphics are nice, but the ony thing I could imagine that would slow down street fighter is if two of the same characters is using their most sprite fizzled moves at the same time. Would they move slower then another character with more area ( LxW )?
I do not think we will every find that out.
So far if I remember, the most sprites on screen would be Two characters, and a bonus stage sprite. The next would be a fighting stage with tons of on screen movable things, like guiles or Balrog ( Vega's ) stage for example.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Bonknuts on March 13, 2012, 03:54:34 AM
lol say what?!?! the PCE could have EASILY handled hyper fighting mode(s).
What are you basing that on? To me it looks like the PCE struggles to handle the game even at normal speed. I guess we'll never know the answer, though, unless it came from the one of the original programmers' mouths, or someone gets a hacked sped-up version running on the original hardware.
I thought I posted about hacking the animation speed. There are animation sheets in the game, just like the arcade, that contain down counters for each frame. I was making them faster, for fun. The game played along just fine.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: kazekirifx on March 13, 2012, 03:24:42 PM
It's based on the fact it requires ZERO or nearly zero extra CPU cycles to simply speed up a sprite animation. For example, if you have a sprite in VRAM and the timing is such that it displays a new frame every, say, 4 game ticks/vblanks, you could just as easily set up the timing so that a new frame is displayed every 2 ticks/vblanks, or every vblank for that matter. All the other code (collision, gamepad polling, etc.) would remain the same. In a game like SF2, the only thing you'd need to make sure of is that your code is fast enough to load character frames from ROM > VRAM within the alotted span of game ticks between one frame to the next. Even the largest characters in SF2 (Zangief, Sagat, M.Bison) would top out at around 3KB when uncompressed, and that's assuming they just use a square sprite block (which they don't). So it would actually be a bit less than 3KB per character, per frame. Then also consider that a new frame needs to be loaded into VRAM instantly anyway if you press any attack button or execute any move. All you'd be doing is speeding up the timing between frames. And where do you get the impression the PCE is struggling to handle SF2' CE? There's really no slowdown to speak of and minimal flicker. Protip: The slowdown after a KO is intentional and is there for dramatic effect. It's also in the arcade. ;)
Okay. I accept that explanation. I wish they had added this feature in that case.
What X68k are you playing it on though? II' plays very nicely on a standard X68k. Super SF II plays a bit too slow on a 10mhz machine though, but very nicely if you have 16mhz or faster.
Same with the FM Towns port. On a 386? lol slowdown, on my 586@133mhz Fresh? Rock solid 60fps baby.
I have the X68k ACE, which is the same processor speed as the first gen X68k. Cool. I didn't realize it runs better on the faster machines. I tend to think most X68k games are not programmed to take advantage of the faster models (which is why I went ahead and purchased an older one), but it's good to know some of the newer titles do take advantage.
It still sounds like you aren't very familiar with the PC Engine's library.
That's slander. I grew up with the PCE and own the vast majority of the PCE and TG library. I may have just recently started actively posting here due to the high amount of downtime I've had at work lately, but I was an active member of the community back in the Turbo List days.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Black Tiger on March 13, 2012, 04:40:09 PM
That's slander. I grew up with the PCE and own the vast majority of the PCE and TG library. I may have just recently started actively posting here due to the high amount of downtime I've had at work lately, but I was an active member of the community back in the Turbo List days.
Then why do you think that the PCE is so slow that you question someone saying that the PCE could handle Turbo speed and why won't you quantify what exactly it is about the PCE version of SFII' that leads you to believe that "the PCE struggles to handle the game"?
You say that we'll never know if the PCE could handle more than SFII' unless it comes from "one of the original programmers' mouths", yet as I pointed out, there are games that do much more than what SFII' does. It doesn't matter if you own or have played the specific examples I gave, I suggested even simply watching videos of them since you're judging the SFII' port by looking at it.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: kazekirifx on March 13, 2012, 05:07:00 PM
Then why do you think that the PCE is so slow that you question someone saying that the PCE could handle Turbo speed and why won't you quantify what exactly it is about the PCE version of SFII' that leads you to believe that "the PCE struggles to handle the game"?
You say that we'll never know if the PCE could handle more than SFII' unless it comes from "one of the original programmers' mouths", yet as I pointed out, there are games that do much more than what SFII' does. It doesn't matter if you own or have played the specific examples I gave, I suggested even simply watching videos of them since you're judging the SFII' port by looking at it.
All right. Point taken. I grew up with the PCE, but I'll admit I don't know too much about hardware/programming. I think my reason for viewing the PCE version of SFII as "struggling" is caused mostly by occasional flickers, and probably just an assumption that the lack of adjustable speed proves its impossibility. I remember the Die Hard Gamefan review saying this game was an "incredible feat" for a system so close to its end (or something like that). I always felt lucky the game runs at all. I also owned the Genesis version and SF2 Turbo on SNES back in the day, and to me it always seemed to be running more effortlessly on those systems, but that was just my perception, of course.
Also, is it just me, or is the AI in the PCE version kind of weak? I didn't have too much trouble finishing the PCE ver. on level 8 without continuing, but could never come close to doing this on Genesis or SNES. I especially noticed some predictable patterns the boss characters followed in the PCE version which made them easy to beat if you knew them. Now that I think about it, I think I also assumed back in the day that this weak AI might also be caused by hardware limitations. I think now it's more likely to be lazy AI programming, or is the easiness of the PCE version my imagination?
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: SuperGrafx16 on March 13, 2012, 09:28:07 PM
I love the Sharp X68000 version because it is arcade-exact in every way ^__^
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: kazekirifx on March 13, 2012, 11:58:56 PM
I love the Sharp X68000 version because it is arcade-exact in every way ^__^
No. It's very close, but "exact in every way" is pushing it. X68k ports have (virtually) identical graphics to their arcade originals due to the resolution and color palette, but the hardware is still not identical to the original arcade boards, and the games still need to be reprogrammed. In the case of SF2, the X68k's single ADPCM channel is also a bit insufficient to handle both the music and SFX. (Of course, this is not an issue with MIDI support. But if you use MIDI, the music sounds less like the arcade original than the FM synth - though it may sound better depending on your preference.)
I do agree, though, that the X68k version is a very close port, and probably the best one in existence at the time.... IF you have one one of the faster X68k models and hard drive.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: majors on March 14, 2012, 01:26:26 AM
I love the [blah blah blah] version because it is arcade-exact in every way ^__^
I'll stick with the CPS1 release, because it IS arcade. It's really nice with the optional Capcom Impress attachment.
It's not the arcade version unless it smells of cigarettes, there's a queue of people waiting behind you and you don't know what a "hadoken" is, or how to do one.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Nando on March 14, 2012, 02:06:33 AM
SURE YOU CAN!
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: SuperDeadite on March 14, 2012, 02:14:41 AM
I love the Sharp X68000 version because it is arcade-exact in every way ^__^
No. It's very close, but "exact in every way" is pushing it. X68k ports have (virtually) identical graphics to their arcade originals due to the resolution and color palette, but the hardware is still not identical to the original arcade boards, and the games still need to be reprogrammed. In the case of SF2, the X68k's single ADPCM channel is also a bit insufficient to handle both the music and SFX. (Of course, this is not an issue with MIDI support. But if you use MIDI, the music sounds less like the arcade original than the FM synth - though it may sound better depending on your preference.)
I do agree, though, that the X68k version is a very close port, and probably the best one in existence at the time.... IF you have one one of the faster X68k models and hard drive.
How much RAM do you have? More RAM+16mhz = ADPCM driver loads up, and then you don't get the sound issue anymore, though I love the MIDI personally (I use Roland CM-64). Games don't have to be programmed to use the 16mhz, the machine just runs everything faster. It helps a lot with some games, even an old game like Salamander runs 100% slowdown free at 16mhz (the arcade slows down to a crawl, I own it). A few games run too fast at 16mhz, but not many.
I adore the FM Towns port though, the redbook music is fantastic, and it's silky smooth if you have a powerful Towns to run it on. :)
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: spenoza on March 14, 2012, 05:01:36 AM
How much RAM do you have? More RAM+16mhz = ADPCM driver loads up, and then you don't get the sound issue anymore, though I love the MIDI personally (I use Roland CM-64).
Not a RAM issue. The system only has one ADPCM channel. That's the issue. When playing with FM music, ADPCM parts of the music cut out whenever a voice or ADPCM sound effect is played. Not an issue when using MIDI for the music.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: esteban on March 14, 2012, 02:57:45 PM
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: kakutolives on March 14, 2012, 03:59:35 PM
coincidence as it may be. this game just turned into the first pc engine HuCARD game in my collection! I ended up getting it for 5 bucks plus shipping :D
(http://i41.tinypic.com/29dh4sn.jpg)
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Nando on March 15, 2012, 02:06:35 AM
Ok, ok so when do we get into the discussion of different arcade cabinets and different sound and monitor set ups? which one was THE TRUE SF experience? The arcade I think was way better than the arcade version.....
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Black Tiger on March 15, 2012, 03:18:19 AM
Aside from having to fool around with multiple floppies and different hardware configurations, the X68000 version was definitely the second crappiest port for the time, bested only by JapJac's CPS Changer port.
But at least the CPS Changer is a console and not a computer, so I think it's safe to say that the CPSC port is the king of home versions and completely desyroys the lousy X68K version. But the 16-bit console versions are far more impressive ports.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: majors on March 15, 2012, 03:31:20 AM
Personally, I've always found those kinds of cabinets pretty gross, especially for games that predate them. Playing on one feels like playing emulation to me.
The day (pre-PCE version release) that I committed myself to owning the arcade, I was determined to have it in the cabinet I considered definitive for it-
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: soop on March 15, 2012, 05:50:55 AM
I like the red one more, but I do like the japanese style cabs for certain things. I saw some guy on youtube who collected naomi shooting cabs, and they looked fantastic.
However, the one thing I do remember from the arcade were the little instuctional cartoons. I'd need to have those on my perfect cab.
This is the closest I can find to illustrate my point, but I remember them being somewhere, maybe above the screen on the cab: (http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k66/minkyming/Others/50e5af12.jpg)
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Nando on March 15, 2012, 07:27:29 AM
we used to skip school and go to the local donut guy who had MK and a SFII cabinet.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: spenoza on March 15, 2012, 09:21:11 AM
That is the exact cabinet on which I played it way back when I first discovered the game, at a minigolf place in Indiana.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Joe Redifer on March 15, 2012, 09:52:37 AM
Nando owns the the very same physical cabinet you played in a different state?
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: RegalSin on March 15, 2012, 11:19:51 AM
Everytime I look an arcade cab a sense of joy, pops up inside me. Not nostlagia but something else.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: kazekirifx on March 15, 2012, 02:43:03 PM
Too bad that cab doesn't have the original game in it! :)
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Tatsujin on March 15, 2012, 02:45:04 PM
that cab looks so uber cheesy, it just turns in to cool again.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Black Tiger on March 15, 2012, 02:48:18 PM
I have a World Warrior cabinet that I bought with the game for like $75. After cleaning and repainting the cabinet, I was taking the newspaper off of the control panel when it slipped and yanked the wires. Ever since only a couple directions and a button or two work for either player's controls. But it still looks cool on advertise mode and I can pop the board into my CE cabinet whenever I want to play the actual game. :P
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: TheOldMan on March 15, 2012, 04:13:27 PM
Quote
I have a World Warrior cabinet that I bought with the game for like $75. After cleaning and repainting the cabinet, I was taking the newspaper off of the control panel when it slipped and yanked the wires. Ever since only a couple directions and a button or two work for either player's controls. But it still looks cool on advertise mode and I can pop the board into my CE cabinet whenever I want to play the actual game.
If the board plays fine in another cabinet, you just screwed up the wires and/or switches. Get an ohm meter and make sure the wires are okay, then check the switches. It might take a couple of hours, but you should be able to get that running again cheap.
Kinda reminds me of when I worked in an arcade. The boss was gonna trash a SFII CE board, and said I could have it if I could get it to work. 1 20-pin connector and 2 hours later, and I had it going. Too bad he lied. But when he moved the game back out, I made sure to take the connector back :)
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: soop on March 15, 2012, 11:31:20 PM
Man, my 2 Street Fighter II stories...
I own an original PCB from a place I used to hang out with arcade games. Unfortunately, I couldn't get to it before 2 of my friends had kicked the shit out of it. Looks like one of the chips burned out, but it's not really gonna come back to life now.
Second story: Me and a friend went to this club and they had a Street Fighter II machine. We put in our money and started to fight, but I noticed my side was broken - I couldn't move back (or block) and some of the kicks didn't work. Well I started abusing the stick and noticed the stick panel was loose. I flipped it over, and there were some jumpers loose, so I plugged them in, and got them all in the right place first time! There was also a plastic cup someone had jammed in there to collect anyy coins inserted, so I collected my repair fee (about £5), split it with my friend, and had a couple of free beers each and a game of Street Fighter :)
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: majors on March 16, 2012, 02:03:05 AM
The day (pre-PCE version release) that I committed myself to owning the arcade, I was determined to have it in the cabinet I considered definitive for it-
I picked up one of those with an Atomiswave inside. Decent cab, 25" Dynamo (if I recall) but with a little flare in the rear (um...no homo?) I sold it to someone, somewhere after I swapped the AW with something else. Once you go candy, you don't go back.
If we are gonna really get into "best cab"... (http://wiki.arcadeotaku.com/images/c/c1/Sega_Versus_City_cabinet_flyer.jpg) Head-to-head at it's best.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Father5&JoshUnion on March 16, 2012, 04:17:45 AM
To answer the OP's question- hell yes I like the PCE port of SFII CE!!
If I'm in the mood for Street Fighter in the midst of Xanadu or Ninja Spirit game time, all I have to do is pop in the chubby little HuCard, rather than getting another console set up. :P
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: SignOfZeta on March 16, 2012, 04:27:10 AM
Personally, I've always found those kinds of cabinets pretty gross, especially for games that predate them. Playing on one feels like playing emulation to me.
The day (pre-PCE version release) that I committed myself to owning the arcade, I was determined to have it in the cabinet I considered definitive for it-
I have no idea what you are talking about here. The fiberglass Japanese-style machines pack maximum monitor as close to the user as possible in the minimum amount of space, the allow for sit down play, and they have controls which destroy that Happ garbage. I don't know what you mean SFII "pre-dating" them either. The Versus City was practically invented for Super Street Fighter IIX.
BTW, I don't like the Versus City since its almost impossible to punch your opponent, shoulder bump him off his stool, or even have him hear your verbal insults. Its like playing in a vacuum. Not very SF, IMO. You're supposed to be uncomfortably close to your opponent while playing fighting games.
As for "gross" that would be the American machines made from MDF, which by this point is all rotting and full of squirrel shit. Also, even though way more people smoke in Japan they seem much less likely to put their cigarettes out on the control panel.
Honestly, its kind of like saying you prefer the American cover of Victory Run only because that's what you were familiar with at the time of release, despite that fact that it a) sucks, and b) isn't original.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Nando on March 16, 2012, 04:29:42 AM
BTW, I don't like the Versus City since its almost impossible to punch your opponent, shoulder bump him off his stool, or even have him hear your verbal insults.
I nearly said the same thing. I do prefer the crappy American cabs though, as a nostalgia thing. The Japanese ones look nice with some games, but they seem... Kind of sanitised, like it's something you'd see at a bowling alley or a multiplex cinema, rather than a true-blue arcade. Plus there's not much distinction between them. It would be like buying games that came in a clear case without any artwork showing.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: spenoza on March 16, 2012, 04:58:04 AM
I like both kinds of cabs. I think for a game I'm gonna tear through in 15-30 minutes I'd prefer to stand up rather than sit down. If I had a cab I was using for home console games, then I'd want a sit-down style.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Arkhan on March 16, 2012, 05:03:35 AM
I like standing up. Usually turns into bowing forward and leaning my junkregion against the cabinet to hold myself up, but I still like it.
It feels good to rub against my Tron cabinet. I DO IT ALOT.
I hate seeing cabinets with cigarette burns on them. f*ck those people.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: soop on March 16, 2012, 05:12:00 AM
I like both kinds of cabs. I think for a game I'm gonna tear through in 15-30 minutes I'd prefer to stand up rather than sit down. If I had a cab I was using for home console games, then I'd want a sit-down style.
It might actually look nicer in a home, and if you're gonna be playing different games, maybe you don't want branding.
As far as crappy cabs go, I remember there was a whole website about terrible homemade cabs.. this may be it, but it's blocked so I don't know http://www.wickedretarded.com/%7Ecrapmame/ (http://www.wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/)
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Arkhan on March 16, 2012, 05:21:34 AM
^^^ That MAME site is completely awesome. PAC MATT IS TAKING THE f*ck OFF.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: esteban on March 17, 2012, 12:02:54 AM
Call me crazy, but I prefer standing up. Humans can stand for HOURS at a time, especially when MegaZone is involved. (http://junk.tg-16.com/images/pcds.png)
I like both kinds of cabs. I think for a game I'm gonna tear through in 15-30 minutes I'd prefer to stand up rather than sit down. If I had a cab I was using for home console games, then I'd want a sit-down style.
It might actually look nicer in a home, and if you're gonna be playing different games, maybe you don't want branding.
As far as crappy cabs go, I remember there was a whole website about terrible homemade cabs.. this may be it, but it's blocked so I don't know http://www.wickedretarded.com/%7Ecrapmame/ (http://www.wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/)
I love this one (http://www.wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/29.html).
(http://junk.tg-16.com/images/pcds.png)
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: spenoza on March 17, 2012, 06:15:13 AM
Back on the Street Fighter II' discussion, to help allay kazekiri's fears that the PCE is somehow struggling with SFII', let me attempt to recall past discussions of PCE chip audio. I think I've seen the numbers 5-10% as to how much of a hit the CPU takes with complex PSG audio engines handling music. The SNES and Genny both have audio co-processors that do all the heavy lifting with sound, but the PCE does the audio work right in the CPU. That means the Hu6280 CPU in the PCE is likely taking a 5-10% overhead for the audio in SFII' (and all other HuCard games with quality audio engines, and some CD games, too). The PCE is clearly keeping up just fine, despite having a minor CPU handicap.
Anyone know specifically about how much the audio in SFII' taps the CPU, outside of these estimates I've seen bandied about in the past?
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Bonknuts on March 22, 2012, 02:31:08 PM
Back on the Street Fighter II' discussion, to help allay kazekiri's fears that the PCE is somehow struggling with SFII', let me attempt to recall past discussions of PCE chip audio. I think I've seen the numbers 5-10% as to how much of a hit the CPU takes with complex PSG audio engines handling music. The SNES and Genny both have audio co-processors that do all the heavy lifting with sound, but the PCE does the audio work right in the CPU. That means the Hu6280 CPU in the PCE is likely taking a 5-10% overhead for the audio in SFII' (and all other HuCard games with quality audio engines, and some CD games, too). The PCE is clearly keeping up just fine, despite having a minor CPU handicap.
Anyone know specifically about how much the audio in SFII' taps the CPU, outside of these estimates I've seen bandied about in the past?
I just looked at the DDA interrupt routine in the debugger and it looks like for a single sample being played, it clocked in at 15% cpu resource. For two samples (drums from music and punch sample) it clocked in at 25% cpu resource. I only measured using the debugger time stamp. But I did it at a point where the BG area had no hsync calls (so hsync wasn't artificially inflating it). Not sure how much the PSG music routine takes up itself.
I also did a quick load test on the game:
It runs the whole game at twice the speed. Since the game moves soo fast, use the music as a guide (since it's playing twice as fast) to judge if there's slowdown. Though, this isn't a true test of the SF2 game engine - because there's other stuff being done that's redundant and eating up more CPU resource than it would normally for double the speed. For instance, you wouldn't update the SAT twice as much, or do twice as many line scrolls (this include two title bars), run the PSG engine twice as much, etc. That and it's uploading vram twice as much too (a potential 4 player frames in a single NTSC frame).
Edit:
Here's another video showing off hacking the animation timing sheet: The video doesn't play at full speed on youtube, so I did a frame by frame advancement near the end. Both players are having their frames updated once per frame in vram. I hacked it so there was zero delay between frames of the 'resting' animation. What does that mean? It means the game engine has no problem updating any play frame (and both) in a single frame.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: nat on March 22, 2012, 06:42:29 PM
It's mildly comical that the console's stigma as "just a lowly 8-bit machine" is enough to warp people's perceptions so they actually think they're witnessing the system "struggle" to play SFII at full speed.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: spenoza on March 22, 2012, 06:53:03 PM
I just looked at the DDA interrupt routine in the debugger and it looks like for a single sample being played, it clocked in at 15% cpu resource. For two samples (drums from music and punch sample) it clocked in at 25% cpu resource. I only measured using the debugger time stamp. But I did it at a point where the BG area had no hsync calls (so hsync wasn't artificially inflating it). Not sure how much the PSG music routine takes up itself.
Geez... Why do samples put such a drain on the CPU? The PCE could have used an audio co-processor, that much seems certain.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Joe Redifer on March 23, 2012, 10:19:03 AM
It's mildly comical that the console's stigma as "just a lowly 8-bit machine" is enough to warp people's perceptions so they actually think they're witnessing the system "struggle" to play SFII at full speed.
Well have you noticed that it takes the PCE version .002 seconds longer from when you press RUN on the title screen to get to the character select screen than the other versions? This is clearly because of the shitty 8-bitness of the machine. I'm surprised the title screen doesn't start falling apart or something.
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Black Tiger on March 23, 2012, 11:13:23 AM
It's cool that even with such a heavy hit to the cpu to run samples with the engine NEC used, combined with all that extra stuff Tom has it doing at Turbo speed, the PCE still handles it all. Makes nat's point all the more comical. :P
Title: Re: Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?
Post by: Bonknuts on March 23, 2012, 06:28:54 PM
I just looked at the DDA interrupt routine in the debugger and it looks like for a single sample being played, it clocked in at 15% cpu resource. For two samples (drums from music and punch sample) it clocked in at 25% cpu resource. I only measured using the debugger time stamp. But I did it at a point where the BG area had no hsync calls (so hsync wasn't artificially inflating it). Not sure how much the PSG music routine takes up itself.
Geez... Why do samples put such a drain on the CPU? The PCE could have used an audio co-processor, that much seems certain.
Part of it is that the samples are compressed. Not loss-y (not that it matters), but they're bit packed. So it takes cpu resource right there (on every call) to shift, test, OR, etc. The routine itself isn't optimized either. Funny, cause the DDA routine/TIMER interrupt actually sits in ram (all the code) - yet they don't do any self modifying code (some PCE games do use self modifying code that I've seen). If they kept the samples at uncompressed 8bit, they could have gotten the dual sample output down to the 15% range (without optimizing the rest of the code). In comparison, Air Zonk also uses sample compression (lossy and RLE variant) and for a single channel it clocks in at up to 21% cpu resource. So SF2 is doing alright in comparison to that game, that's putting out samples for both channels. But yeah, it's still quite a bit of cpu resource there.