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NEC PC-Engine/SuperGrafx => PC Engine/SuperGrafx Discussion => Topic started by: Otaking on May 01, 2011, 10:33:34 AM
Title: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Otaking on May 01, 2011, 10:33:34 AM
I've taken the top three voted for HuCards from each year on this thread. http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=7020.msg117763#msg117763 Some years I've taken more than three when games had equal votes.
This poll is only for fun, not to be taken too seriously. :D
Edit: The poll is standard HuCards only, I've not included the Super Grafx games.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Black Tiger on May 01, 2011, 10:43:25 AM
Dungeon Explorer. Still as good as any game ever made.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Otaking on May 01, 2011, 10:43:32 AM
My vote is Soldier Blade. :D
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: TheClash603 on May 01, 2011, 10:48:46 AM
I voted Cadash, but only because Air Zonk and Moto Roader were not on the list.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Otaking on May 01, 2011, 10:55:32 AM
yeh as per rules set above it's in the list. It was the only HuCard from 1994 that received a vote. But apart from 21 Emon I think it was the only other HuCard released in 1994, lol :D
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Jesse813 on May 01, 2011, 11:05:00 AM
my vote is for PC Denjin 8)
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 01, 2011, 12:19:52 PM
WHERE THE f*ck IS CHINA WARRIOR THIS POLL SUCKS. I HATE IT.
i voted neutopia.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: runinruder on May 01, 2011, 12:46:44 PM
My favorite HuCard games are The Legendary Axe (http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/search/label/Legendary Axe) and Sinistron (http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/search/label/Sinistron).
But they're not on the list, so I voted for Gunhed (http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/2009/02/blazing-lazers.html).
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: BlueBMW on May 01, 2011, 12:59:55 PM
Voted Air Zonk myself :P Excellent music, great gameplay, just all around awesome!
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: turbogrfxfan on May 01, 2011, 01:07:10 PM
i voted r-type
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: rag-time4 on May 01, 2011, 01:32:20 PM
My favorite HuCard is Image Fight. Since it's not on the list, I'll abstain.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Jesse813 on May 01, 2011, 01:54:41 PM
Dungeon Explorer for sheer chip generated musical bliss. :)
The game is like, top 5 HuCard soundtracks of all time. Some of those melodies are so eerie and epic.
Agreed good sir. :)
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: spenoza on May 01, 2011, 06:30:06 PM
I confess that I love Parasol Stars. It's a solid game all around, graphically, musically, mechanically. Plus, with so many levels it has lots of play value.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: sunteam_paul on May 01, 2011, 08:45:20 PM
No PC Genjin, no vote.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Otaking on May 01, 2011, 10:36:51 PM
That one I was surprised too it didn't make the list, but it didn't receive a single vote for the best 1989 game.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: SuperPlay on May 01, 2011, 10:45:53 PM
Devil Crash for me :-)
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Necromancer on May 02, 2011, 09:12:46 AM
This is like Sophie's choice, only much harder....
In a ménage à trois of Bomberman '94, Dungeon Explorer, and Soldier Blade, I've picked the latter.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: _joshuaTurbo on May 02, 2011, 09:32:32 AM
I voted Bomberman '94. Little shocked Street Fighter II CE isn't on this list.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Tatsujin on May 02, 2011, 09:48:02 AM
But hey, there is strip fighter II..at least.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Otaking on May 02, 2011, 09:52:28 AM
Devil Crash is an awesome game, but I am surprised it's currently in first position as the greatest HuCard of all time. I would of guessed GunHed or R-TYPE would be at or near first place.
The way MC is talked about constantly you would guess it would be getting more votes. :D
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Otaking on May 02, 2011, 09:54:40 AM
I voted for Hana Taka Daka....because someone has to !
Hana Taka Daka deserves alot more praise than it gets IMO.
Agreed
I've only ever heard good things about it. :P In fact, Ivanec's review on The Brother's Duomazov (http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/search/label/Hana Taaka Daka) begins with "Hana has a good reputation among those who have played it..." (http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/search/label/Hana Taaka Daka)
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: nectarsis on May 02, 2011, 04:45:07 PM
I voted for Hana Taka Daka....because someone has to !
Hana Taka Daka deserves alot more praise than it gets IMO.
Agreed
I've only ever heard good things about it. :P In fact, Ivanec's review on The Brother's Duomazov (http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/search/label/Hana Taaka Daka) begins with "Hana has a good reputation among those who have played it..." (http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/search/label/Hana Taaka Daka)
I assumed he meant needs to be mentioned more aka under appreciated. ;)
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Black Tiger on May 02, 2011, 05:59:22 PM
SF2CE is the pinnacle of HuCards, but since it's not on the voting list, oh well.
Technically its pretty impressive since its the biggest, and since it does things Super CDs could never do. It isn't actually all that fun though...to actually play...in 2011, IMO. The bigger picture has to be considered, and in the grand scheme of things once SFII' Turbo was released I played Champion Edition about two times.
For a true SF fan back in the day the lifespan of this HuCard was only about a month between its release in June and the SFC release of Turbo in July. And honestly since the game cost almost $150 (plus a $50 controller) that cash was better spent in the arcade playing a CPS version of Turbo while waiting for the home version.
The timing for SFII' on PCE really sucked :(
It is cool that it was the only home version of SFII' for a long long time, until the Capcom Collection series came out for PS and SS, I think, but in 1992 I was only interested in the newest update. Now that all 5 versions of SFII are really damned old, I still don't care to play SFII'. I vastly prefer Super Turbo and, on occasion, The World Warrior (just because its so massively unfair), or Rainbow Edition. SFII' is great if you, for some reason, don't have 50 other version of Street Fighter II in your possession, but its honestly kind of useless now. I'd rather player other fighters on PCE like Asuka, Flash Hiders, or AVG. Sure, they are inferior games, but that haven't been totally superseded like SFII' has been.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Vecanti on May 06, 2011, 05:46:56 AM
SF2CE is the pinnacle of HuCards, but since it's not on the voting list, oh well.
Technically its pretty impressive since its the biggest, and since it does things Super CDs could never do.
I've heard that before and I always wondered from a technical stand point what people meant by that. What Does SFII do on HuCard that would not be possible if it were on a Super CD?
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: SignOfZeta on May 06, 2011, 06:31:20 AM
The Super System Card doesn't have enough RAM to load both characters, the BG, and all the sounds from a then-modern fighting game all at once. That's why the Arcade Card was invented.
Fighting games are massive RAM hogs, which is why almost nothing ported to Playstation survived animation cuts.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: awack on May 06, 2011, 08:46:12 AM
Just to add to what SignOfZeta said which is absolutely right.
SFII has 12 levels/fighters, what you have to understand, is that you play two fighters/levels at once, but you only access the CD once per level...so thats almost one load for two levels.
So why do Side scrollers(a couple) and shooters end up better on the DUO as far as unique sprite frames, sprite size and unique BG tiles are concerned...because some of the best CD games have two loads per level(level and Boss) To put this into context, remember that a single CD access per level(level and Boss) of 64K/Half a meg (CDROM2) is enough to compete with 8 meg cartridge games.
Thats a bit of an over simplification, because design/memory allocation can come into play.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Black Tiger on May 06, 2011, 10:20:16 AM
Although 2 megs would be tight for any kind of SFII port, what I've heard from programmers is that because the sprites are so animated and so fast, that they can't use compression either. Too bad the Arcade Card wasn't released sooner...
The Super System Card doesn't have enough RAM to load both characters, the BG, and all the sounds from a then-modern fighting game all at once. That's why the Arcade Card was invented.
I think that the sounds could be done with adpcm. They wouldn't be as clear as the HuCard SFII though. But I'm sure that the ACD fighters would've just stuck wih adpcm.
SF2CE is the pinnacle of HuCards, but since it's not on the voting list, oh well.
Technically its pretty impressive since its the biggest, and since it does things Super CDs could never do. It isn't actually all that fun though...to actually play...in 2011, IMO. The bigger picture has to be considered, and in the grand scheme of things once SFII' Turbo was released I played Champion Edition about two times.
For a true SF fan back in the day the lifespan of this HuCard was only about a month between its release in June and the SFC release of Turbo in July. And honestly since the game cost almost $150 (plus a $50 controller) that cash was better spent in the arcade playing a CPS version of Turbo while waiting for the home version.
The timing for SFII' on PCE really sucked :(
It is cool that it was the only home version of SFII' for a long long time, until the Capcom Collection series came out for PS and SS, I think, but in 1992 I was only interested in the newest update. Now that all 5 versions of SFII are really damned old, I still don't care to play SFII'. I vastly prefer Super Turbo and, on occasion, The World Warrior (just because its so massively unfair), or Rainbow Edition. SFII' is great if you, for some reason, don't have 50 other version of Street Fighter II in your possession, but its honestly kind of useless now. I'd rather player other fighters on PCE like Asuka, Flash Hiders, or AVG. Sure, they are inferior games, but that haven't been totally superseded like SFII' has been.
I didn't get SFII' the week it shipped, but it was still several months and what seemed like an eternity during that generation, until Turbo arrived for Genesis and SNES. Both of those games contain Champion Edition though, so the PCE port isn't really the only version of CE.
Champion Edition is still my favorite version of SFII to this day and I chose it over all others to buy as a dedicated cabinet from an arcade vendor around the time that Alpha 3 was current. Even if I preferred 'Turbo, the PCE game was the only portable 16-bit port until the Nomad was released and it got a huge amount of play time on my TE.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 06, 2011, 11:09:45 AM
I think that the sounds could be done with adpcm. They wouldn't be as clear as the HuCard SFII though. But I'm sure that the ACD fighters would've just stuck wih adpcm.
You can only play one sound at a time with ADPCM. That would immediately suck as soon as one person throws a hadoken and the other throws a sonic boom
HADOSONICBOHADOSONIHADO
etc. etc.
thas what you'll hear.
and then the punching effects too.
HADO*WHUMP*
YOGA *SwooooosH*
etc. etc.
it would be retarded
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: termis on May 06, 2011, 11:34:58 AM
Yeah, back then, Turbo was the version to play -- and this was still true as new versions kept on coming out -- but as time passed and the idea of "playing the latest & greatest version" no longer became relevant, CE version eventually reclaimed its status as being my favorite. If I had to explain, in retrospect, the additions in Turbo seems a bit... I dunno, tacked on. For example, Chun Li's fireball, and Ryu/Ken's air-spin kicks just doesn't seem "natural" at all. It all just seems a bit hodge-podgy just to go against all the hacks in its time. And couple other minor gripe include strange default color schemes (Purple gi on ken, drab gray on Chun Li, strange flesh tones of Blanka/Dhalsim, etc...), and the default speed being too fast IMO (though it seemed right at the time, but in retrospect, I think the too-quick pace de-emphasizes some of the strategy of the game) - yes, I undertand it can be adjusted, but not in the arcades, and fast was the way people were used to playing Hyper by the time it hit homes anyway.
And it's true that the timing+cost of the PCE version really wasn't worth it to vast majority of folks at the time. No argument there. And even now, if I want to play CE, I'll pop in SF collection in my saturn most of the times. Still, I'll pop in CE in my PCE once in a while just to marvel at what the little 8-bitter did. But hey, we don't live in the past, and we now enjoy the systems/games for what they are now.
Edit: just noticed Zeta said Super Turbo, not Hyper Fighting. For me, by the time Super Turbos came around, my interest was waning in SF2 (I think this was generally true too, since the first SSF was kind of a flop IMO). I was under the impression that Hyper Fighting was the version of choice for most folks this day, but I could be wrong...
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Vecanti on May 06, 2011, 07:05:42 PM
The Super System Card doesn't have enough RAM to load both characters, the BG, and all the sounds from a then-modern fighting game all at once. That's why the Arcade Card was invented.
Fighting games are massive RAM hogs, which is why almost nothing ported to Playstation survived animation cuts.
You think so? I look at an entire level of Lords of Thunder or this level in Gate of Thunder, and I just seems like the one SFII background and few sprites pale in comparison. Now maybe the CD is loading data as the level is playing and there is just no pause as you go through the shooter and you can't notice it and that wouldn't work with SFII type game?
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Bonknuts on May 07, 2011, 04:45:41 AM
The Super System Card doesn't have enough RAM to load both characters, the BG, and all the sounds from a then-modern fighting game all at once. That's why the Arcade Card was invented.
Fighting games are massive RAM hogs, which is why almost nothing ported to Playstation survived animation cuts.
You think so? I look at an entire level of Lords of Thunder or this level in Gate of Thunder, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9xobNpBJVU&feature=player_detailpage#t=1130s and I just seems like the one SFII background and few sprites pale in comparison.
'Zeta has it right. There's not enough CDRAM for an identical copy of PCE SF2 hucard to run via Suoer CD 3.0. Lords of Thunder and Gate of Thunder have 'tiled' style backgrounds. I.e. A lot of the level is made with reused tiles. SF2 has a lot of unique detail. But ignoring that, and assuming the whole BG was loaded into VRAM (which is the case on the hucard version), the sprites themselves is the real problem. There's just waaay too much unique frames of animation of two players to fit. GOT and LOT also use compression on the sprites, and decompresses them in real time as a back ground process (from what I saw in the debugger), and even compressed, it doesn't match that of SF2's # of frames of animation. None of the SF2 games on cart for the 16bit systems could be decompressed in real time, that's why the carts are big and all the sprite frames are uncompressed. You need fast as possible access to the frames for vram updates. 256k isn't going to cut it. I mean, the code has to use some of that ram too. You'd need 512k to 640k to do it properly and equivalent (handle 2 chars frames + code). The arcade card started proto working stage development stages in summer-ish 1992. I wouldn't doubt it that SF2 was probably projected for it. But the AC was delayed (AoF was already finished and ready by fall 1993). But there's no direct evidence of that, just speculation.
Quote
Now maybe the CD is loading data as the level is playing and there is just no pause as you go through the shooter and you can't notice it and that wouldn't work with SFII type game?
It's not. It's playing CDDA tracks. They could have streamed data via the sub channel, but they didn't (no game does and only CD+G's did that). But you can easily test this for your self. Take the disc out (open the lid) while playing any level of GOT. You can play through the level without the music. The only game that I know of that streams the level is the Tenchi wo Kurau game, and it used chiptunes because it needs access to the CD for data (can't play CDDA tracks at the same time).
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: SignOfZeta on May 07, 2011, 07:47:28 AM
Edit: just noticed Zeta said Super Turbo, not Hyper Fighting. For me, by the time Super Turbos came around, my interest was waning in SF2 (I think this was generally true too, since the first SSF was kind of a flop IMO). I was under the impression that Hyper Fighting was the version of choice for most folks this day, but I could be wrong...
Super Turbo didn't have the massive PacMan-scale popularity of the earlier versions (didn't even have a contemporary home version, unless you count DOS/3DO), but it was the game to play at least until Street Fighter Zero came out.
You have to realize that the true 2D fighting game fans haven't stopped playing Street Fighter and KOF since SFII was released, and there was a 10 year gap where only one Capcom 2D fighter came out for consoles. So what are they playing every day? Rock Band? Call of Duty? f*ck that shit!
Until SFIV and MvC3 came out it was primarily, MvC2 and CvS2 (most popular) then probably Super Turbo (DC/XB/PS3 version or arcade re-release), Third Strike, and SFZ3. Most people broke out Super Turbo a least once in a while. Its true that things don't "match", some moves have too many frames of animation to blend in with the old stuff, the voices are all f*cked up, etc, but its a little better than Turbo was. As a game it is really really good. The damage is still high compared to a new game, but nothing compared to SFII' where a well placed (or lucky) throw or 100 Hand Slap can shave off %30.
The SNK fans had something to play pretty regularly until KOF XI. Then there was a huge wait, then the putrid but promising KOF XII, and now a huge wait. People really want a home version of KOF XIII, but it might never happen.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 07, 2011, 11:50:34 AM
Listen dont mention MvC2 or im going to find a way to ban your account.
That game should not be mentioned, ever.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Black Tiger on May 07, 2011, 02:04:54 PM
I think that the sounds could be done with adpcm. They wouldn't be as clear as the HuCard SFII though. But I'm sure that the ACD fighters would've just stuck wih adpcm.
You can only play one sound at a time with ADPCM. That would immediately suck as soon as one person throws a hadoken and the other throws a sonic boom
HADOSONICBOHADOSONIHADO
...it would be retarded
You mean like the "retarded" arcade original? :wink: The highlighted section of your quote is exactly how the HuCard and arcade versions are. The HuCard version only uses a single channel for voice and a separate single channel for sfx. Sfx and voices cancel each other out in different variations between various versions of the game.
The voices for an Arcade Card port could be done with adpcm like the ACD fighters, using PSG for sfx. But it would be cool to hear a sample heavy game that mixes adpcm and regular pcm samples. :)
Maybe multiple channels of samples could run out of the adpcm channel at a reduced quality if programmed the right way, like how the Genesis versions do? The Genesis version also seems to use only 2 channels for samples, but allows voices to overlap and cancel out sfx at times.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 07, 2011, 02:38:02 PM
I dunno if the PCEs adpcm thing can work like that. At least not with what I've messed with. You load the samples into the chip, and fire off where / how long of a sample you want to play and playing another one retriggers everything. MAYBE would some hardcore fiddling, it would be possible... but Im not sure.
I dont recall the PCE SF having that problem, or the arcade one. I know each character cancels their own voices out if you launch a new attack quick enough (hadoken to shoryuken).. but I don't recall each player cancelling each others effects out. OK, That one has it kind of I guess, when the elephants and shit cut off the shoryuken.
But, I think the problem would be far more prominent on the PCE... assuming ADPCM was used
The best way to do it would be to play samples on the PSG channels itself and not use ADPCM (like the PCE one does already, since its the best version! mWhahahha). Use the PCM as extra storage!! :) lol
I fired up my new copy of SF2 from BlueBMW (my copy from Falling Junk broke).
I forgot how good the chiptunes sound lol
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: nat on May 07, 2011, 02:59:39 PM
Agreed. Lots of people get down on how the music in the Duo's port of SFII' is inferior to all the others, but I actually prefer it over every other port. The best reasoning I can come up with is other people are loyal to the sound of whatever port they grew up with and anything that sounds different just isn't as "good."
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 07, 2011, 03:56:59 PM
The PCE's sound is my favorite sound, so hearing Guile's tune all PCE chirpy is f*cking awesome.
anyone who says its inferior is a tool.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: TheOldMan on May 07, 2011, 05:39:06 PM
A very wierd though hit me when I was reading this....
Quote
I dunno if the PCEs adpcm thing can work like that.
What if the adpcm sound (which is stereo, i think) had different voices on each channel? Think you could mute the left side if the player wasn't in an attack? Sort of just toggle the channels to get the right sounds?
You would have to load the adpcm channels seperately, and you -might- (okay, probably) would have to track where you left off when you needed to change sounds. Think it would works?
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 07, 2011, 07:03:34 PM
A very wierd though hit me when I was reading this....
Quote
I dunno if the PCEs adpcm thing can work like that.
What if the adpcm sound (which is stereo, i think) had different voices on each channel? Think you could mute the left side if the player wasn't in an attack? Sort of just toggle the channels to get the right sounds?
You would have to load the adpcm channels seperately, and you -might- (okay, probably) would have to track where you left off when you needed to change sounds. Think it would works?
No, the ADPCM chip isn't like that. You load up raw samples and set the playback rate, offset and length to play, and fire it off. There aren't independent channels.
You can see more about it here, sort of. The formatting on the page is all f*cked up and meth-induced. Whoever put it up didn't proof-read it or something. It used to not be jacked up, so who knows what happened there. http://archaicpixels.com/index.php/MSM5205
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Black Tiger on May 08, 2011, 04:20:22 AM
Agreed. Lots of people get down on how the music in the Duo's port of SFII' is inferior to all the others, but I actually prefer it over every other port. The best reasoning I can come up with is other people are loyal to the sound of whatever port they grew up with and anything that sounds different just isn't as "good."
Although the sound is nothing special by PCE PSG standards, the composition is better than everything, including the arcade. I love a lot of the sounds used in the Genesis version, but it's pretty unbalanced and sounds unfinished. The incorrect note at the end of the title screen music is hard to listen to. I prefer the original compositions overall to the SNES WW & Turbo remakes (they are different from each other), but the stereotypical SNES reverb fart sounds are what make it less enjoyable for me today.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: awack on May 08, 2011, 04:55:20 AM
Like has been said, two medium/medium large sized sprites with 77 to 100 frames each, eats up allot of memory, and you cant stop in the middle of a fight to load more data from the CD.
You can how ever do that with other games like Winds of Thunder, Rondo of Blood and Beyond Shadowgate, screenshots below show the variety in each level from WOT, no cartridge shooter on the mainstream consoles came close in terms of sprite frames/variety.
Level one (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/516_3.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1259_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1259_2.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1301.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1301_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1303.png)
Level two (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1310.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1313.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1313_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1314_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1316.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1318.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1318_1.png)
Level three (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1320.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1321.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1322_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1323.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1325.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1328.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1329.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1329_1.png)
level four (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1331_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1334_2.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1335.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1336.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1338_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1339.png)
Level five (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1438_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1439_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1440.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1448.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1448_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1451.png)
Level six (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1452.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1454_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1456.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1457_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1458.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDWindsofThunderJ-110507_1459.png)
Infact, the only thing that comes close that Ive found is a cutemup, Parodius 2 (SFC) thats because its twice as large as other shooter at 16 megs, but not only does Winds of thunder have more frames and variety, just look at the characters below :o...WOT is a monster of a shooter.
Like has been said, two medium/medium large sized sprites with 77 to 100 frames each, eats up allot of memory, and you cant stop in the middle of a fight to load more data from the CD.
I was trying to get into more of the Ram VS Rom limitation. The SuperCD card is basically 2meg of RAM. I'm thinking in a technical terms are there somethings a HuCard rom can can do that RAM can't?
A much better way to ask my question to clear things up is this, are we saying that if NEC had said we want to send out a SFII demo to stores that consisted of just 1 Level, and just 2 characters and nothing else, no continue screen, no selection screen, simply let's say, Chun Li level and just Chun Li Character and Ryu. Nothing else. No nother screens. That that would not fit in a 2Meg HuCard?
A full 1/8 card size of the entire finished game 1 level, 2 characters, but without all 12 characters, 12 full levels, 2 bonus levels, all the speaking for the continue screens, start screen, settings screen, selection screens, all the unique endings for each individual character, the intro animation, etc? That was more what I was getting out, is there some thing different when using 2Meg card vs 2Meg ram from the SuperCD card?
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 08, 2011, 08:17:34 AM
I dunno, the more I look at it, MAYBE they could have done a SCD release of SF2.
Some things would need tweaked (animation frames especially), but these two fighting games are by no means awful games.
I really like both of them actually.
I mean, if they could port it to the Commodore 64, they can port it to the SCD
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: awack on May 08, 2011, 08:23:22 AM
Yeah, the two fighters per level is the key, its like combining two levels but only one load time(2megs) where is other type of games can have four loads every two levels(8megs).. which is why the duo can do games like Rondo, WOT, Beyond shadowgate etc, cartridge memory is more versatile in a way since you can use any amount during at any point during a game, if they wanted, they could have put four fighter each round in SFII..there are other limiting factors that would make that unlikely though..
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is there some thing different when using 2Meg card vs 2Meg ram from the SuperCD card?
Bonknuts should be able to confirm or deny this, but i think that 2meg CD memory is if anything better than 2meg card, since it acts as system memory, and helps get around the limited system memory(8KB for pce)
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Black Tiger on May 08, 2011, 08:44:15 AM
I dunno, the more I look at it, MAYBE they could have done a SCD release of SF2.
Some things would need tweaked (animation frames especially), but these two fighting games are by no means awful games.
I really like both of them actually.
I mean, if they could port it to the Commodore 64, they can port it to the SCD
If they simplified the backgrounds of SFII so that they were more like those games, then they might have been able to have pulled it off. But the stages might've ended up looking closer to this-
It wouldn't have been that bad, but a SFII game with noticeably repeating tiles would break the game's mystique.
I was trying to get into more of the Ram VS Rom limitation. The SuperCD card is basically 2meg of RAM. I'm thinking in a technical terms are there somethings a HuCard rom can can do that RAM can't?
First, instant access to a wider range of memory. And the second is reusable data. A level or area can be build of assets reused from other areas, partially or completely - and not look the same. Those are the two strengths of hucard vs CD (specially format/design).
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A much better way to ask my question to clear things up is this, are we saying that if NEC had said we want to send out a SFII demo to stores that consisted of just 1 Level, and just 2 characters and nothing else, no continue screen, no selection screen, simply let's say, Chun Li level and just Chun Li Character and Ryu. Nothing else. No nother screens. That that would not fit in a 2Meg HuCard?
Not bit for bit of the hucard version. Ignoring sprite frames for just for a sec, you still need game logic/code. You still need sprites sheets. You need animation tables. Etc. These are lookup tables with timings per frame, sequences of frame animation, meta-sprite object to low level object (real sprites). That can take up a nice chuck, especially for a fighting game with a lot of animation - not just the literal pixel frames themselves. Then add the actual pixel frames in. Samples take up space, so put them in ADPCM ram (whether you use ADPCM to play them or not. ADPCM access for read/write is slow, but fast enough for PSG PCM driver to read out and play). 2megs is 256k. Code+lookup tables are probably going to be 64k+ at minimum, but probably more. And BG data could remain all in vram (i.e. it's a separate read and load from CD). And assuming no chiptune music driver (CDDA instead). You have roughly 192k best case scenario and probably 128k worst case, left over for sprite frames. Split the difference and say it's 160k free for sprite frames. Dhalsim's fighting sprite frames (and projectiles) as 130k in the PCE hucard. That's more than half of the available sprite reserved CDRAM right there. Some characters have a little less and some have more space requirement. So could you do it? Yes, but it wouldn't be exactly like the hucard. There would be missing frames of animation. And that's assuming all areas load from CD (map/stage/character select, continue/loose screen, etc). If this were SGX SCD, you could probably just get away with it. With its additional 24k of ram, plus having two VDC's you could have more room in each VDC. I.e. preload a few sprite frames stay in vram memory. But back to the PCE, so if the scenario you chose had two chars that required less than a total of 160k (or whatever is really available) of sprite frame ram - then sure. But what good is that, if you have to cripple other characters to conform to that?
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A full 1/8 card size of the entire finished game 1 level, 2 characters, but without all 12 characters, 12 full levels, 2 bonus levels, all the speaking for the continue screens, start screen, settings screen, selection screens, all the unique endings for each individual character, the intro animation, etc? That was more what I was getting out, is there some thing different when using 2Meg card vs 2Meg ram from the SuperCD card?
Between a 2meg hucard(rom) vs 2meg CDRAM (ram)? No, no difference. But what you're missing is that the the SF2 game itself doesn't neatly divide each stage area into evenly divided parts. If you forced it into such, something would have to give. And like I said previously, rom has the direct ability to reuse any asset of the entire rom for whatever purpose. It's a form of compression. And it's makes design mechanism that still gave advantages to hucards over CDRAM. And it's not like that 20meg hucard has lots of wasted space, because it doesn't. It's packed. Even the BG tiles are compressed (which, with a rom that size you'd figure there wouldn't be a need to for such relatively small screens).
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: awack on May 08, 2011, 09:01:19 AM
oops, i forgot these two large characters, similar but very different in outline and detail.
the four legged creatures middle right. Looks even more impressive in comparison than before :shock: (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/1zlzz-1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/1zlv.png)
God, im an idiot, i keep leaving large charcters out of the WOT sprite sheet, like i said, a monster of a shooter.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 08, 2011, 09:34:28 AM
Well if you drop some of the animation frames, thered be less overhead.
Its not like other versions of the game didnt do this.
and no matter what you do it would never turn out like this pile of f*ck
Repeat a bit more tiles than the arcade, drop the animation frames some, itd be ok. I bet chiptunes would still fit in. You use the built in stuff, and all the music from SF2 could fit in like <16k of space.
also
Here is another reason why I hate when jackass Europeans touch Japanese games.
Why is Ken's music playing in Vega's stage. more importantly why are they all f*cked up rehashes, and who thought the guitars sounded good?
They sound like 3AM infomercial guitars.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Vecanti on May 08, 2011, 10:41:47 AM
Between a 2meg hucard(rom) vs 2meg CDRAM (ram)? No, no difference. But what you're missing is that the the SF2 game itself doesn't neatly divide each stage area into evenly divided parts. If you forced it into such, something would have to give. And like I said previously, rom has the direct ability to reuse any asset of the entire rom for whatever purpose. It's a form of compression. And it's makes design mechanism that still gave advantages to hucards over CDRAM. And it's not like that 20meg hucard has lots of wasted space, because it doesn't. It's packed. Even the BG tiles are compressed (which, with a rom that size you'd figure there wouldn't be a need to for such relatively small screens).
Yeah, but you don't have worry how efficiently you split and load it with CD. You can duplicate things if it's going to make it easier to load in to 2meg chunks later. You only have to worry about the single biggest point where you need the most data at once to have a complete level.
So with the idea of NEC creating a Demo HuCard of SFII it's really as simple as saying it's would be a limit of fitting 1 Level and just 2 characters into >2meg HuCard as well then? 1 level and 2 characters being the time I can think of there being the single point that most memory would be used/needed in SFII.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Black Tiger on May 08, 2011, 10:53:36 AM
Yeah, but you don't have worry how efficiently you split and load it with CD. You can duplicate things if it's going to make it easier to load in to 2meg chunks later. You only have to worry about the single biggest point where you need the most data at once to have a complete level.
Since you're talking about technical advantages/disadvantages: You don't have to worry how efficiently you split and load it with a HuCard either.
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So with the idea of NEC creating a Demo HuCard of SFII it's really as simple as saying it's would be a limit of fitting 1 Level and just 2 characters into >2meg HuCard as well then? 1 level and 2 characters being the time I can think of there being the single point that most memory would be used/needed in SFII.
Yeah, it's the same challenge whether it's cart/HuCard or CD. You're just trying to fit enough of the original game within a certain amount of space. With Super CD, you technically have 2 1/2 megs of space to work with and adpcm uses compression, so if the sample quality can be adjusted (can it?), the same quality samples should take up less space using adpcm than pcm. I don't know if you need more code to use adpcm samples though... But Bonknuts already pointed out that the character sprites alone, with no game code, sound or backgrounds, pretty much uses up 2 megs of space.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: SignOfZeta on May 08, 2011, 11:11:34 AM
I dunno, the more I look at it, MAYBE they could have done a SCD release of SF2.
I mean, if they could port it to the Commodore 64, they can port it to the SCD
Well, yeah, but they wanted it to not be shit.
Asuka and AVG are impressive, but I'm pretty sure if someone went through the effort to make one of those massive sprite sheets for these games and compare it to SFII' you'd see a huge difference.
SFII' is a six button game, three punches, three kicks. Three when standing, three different ones when crouching, three different ones when jumping, and often times three different ones when jumping diagonally. Also you have three different strengths of special (usually the same animation, but different timings and speeds need to be coded). You also have way more speech and the backgrounds have destructible obstacles, line scrolling floors, and animated elephants and bicycles and people and stuff.
In addition to being a f*cking great game just from a gameplay perspective, SFII was also pure graphical overkill from hell when it came out, which is partially why it was so successful. All the home versions are extremely good, considering the limitations. Even the b/w Gameboy one is surprisingly decent. They could have made something like Super Fighter 3 (bootleg FC cart) or the C64 game, but they are (or were) Capcom, and they don't put out much crap (well, now they do). If the PCE one was more like the C64 one it would have been extremely unpopular. Bad, not just for Street Fighter and Capcom, but bad for NEC. Keep in mind that the SFC version of SFII had been out for some time and it was very close to the arcade. A C64-quality version would have really made the PC Engine look like an 8-bit relic.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 08, 2011, 11:45:20 AM
I wasnt saying they make it C64 quality, I was just saying if they could manage that on the C64, the SCD should be able to handle a better game.
Its one of those never-going-to-know-for-sure things, unless someone decides theyre going to try and do it.
but even then, I doubt it would ever see completion.
and now that I think about it anyways, who cares if it wasnt on CD?
the card is easily accessible and playable.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Bonknuts on May 08, 2011, 01:44:14 PM
Yeah, but you don't have worry how efficiently you split and load it with CD. You can duplicate things if it's going to make it easier to load in to 2meg chunks later. You only have to worry about the single biggest point where you need the most data at once to have a complete level.
Correct. You don't have to worry about global efficiency side like you do on a cart rom project. But I think that's obvious. What's not so obvious, is just is how limiting 2megabits of ram can be, compared to a rom project. Sure, ADPCM can save space that you would normally store for samples (assuming your game/etc is using SFX samples), or as slow ram (cause it's much slower to access) giving you a total of 2.5megabits is no samples used. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure you can't read ADPCM while it's playing. You can only write to it while it's playing (huvideo does this to stream ADPCM from main memory to ADPCM memory). IIRC, it's because the play pointer register and the read pointer register are shared, but the write pointer register (that forms the address) isn't. I.e. you can't do 2.25megabit normal (2megabite fast, 0.25 slow) and 0.25megabit for sample playback via ADPCM controller combination at the same time. But I could be wrong, I'd have to look into it. ADPCM 8khz takes up less space than 7khz 5bit pcm, so it's an advantage to use ADPCM to store and play samples over normal interrupt+DDA method of the cpu. And ADPCM play takes almost no cpu resource too in comparison, which means no complex dual interrupt system (VDC and TIMER, both out of sync/phase) ).
Many CD titles are self contained areas/levels with redundant data. So it's faster to load a level/area/whatever, instead of seeking all over the place for different packets/chunks of data (funny, Rondo does exactly this though, making the loading longer than it should be). And lazily, they simple recopy/paste enemies from other levels of the game into these sections, when they could have added something unique to each level sprite or tileset, etc. A strength of the CD format severally missed out on, on most titles IMO.
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So with the idea of NEC creating a Demo HuCard of SFII it's really as simple as saying it's would be a limit of fitting 1 Level and just 2 characters into >2meg HuCard as well then? 1 level and 2 characters being the time I can think of there being the single point that most memory would be used/needed in SFII.
Correct. Though, you could make it even more painful but save some memory if you have the winning poses/etc part of the match as a 'load' section as well, but that would mean next rounds would have loads too (where as additional rounds of the same characters and same level would need no reloading if no character loose screens appeared,etc). If NEC upgraded the SCD 3.0 memory to logical additional 256k via cart instead of a funky number like 192k (which means multiple chips), then it's pretty likely that you would have seen a version SF2 on Super CD. And maybe only SCD. Dunno. There's no denying that SF2 port to SuperCD would have suffered some cuts in character frames of animation as it is now, but that it's only speculation as to if that's the main reason why they didn't do Super CD version. Maybe there were other influencing factors, like making an impressive hucard, making it available to all PCE systems CD or not, including portables, etc. But one would think, that if the the 2megabit CDRAM limit *wasn't* a huge factor as I and others are pointing out, then why wasn't there a slightly crippled SCD release of it at the same time or relatively close? But then again, why didn't we see any additional SF2 games for the ACD that had none of either projects limitations - yet saw impressive ports of Neo Geo games?
Also, Bonk 3 SCD game has missing frames of animation for giant bonk that couldn't fit into memory (or specific level design requirements, maybe most levels but not all). Yet the hucard version has the additional frames.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: nodtveidt on May 08, 2011, 02:52:04 PM
Many CD titles are self contained areas/levels with redundant data. So it's faster to load a level/area/whatever, instead of seeking all over the place for different packets/chunks of data
This is what I do, since it seems logical... reseeking multiple times, even in the same general area, is an expensive operation.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: spenoza on May 08, 2011, 08:30:09 PM
But then again, why didn't we see any additional SF2 games for the ACD that had none of either projects limitations - yet saw impressive ports of Neo Geo games?
Capcom ports for the PCE were almost universally programmed by NEC Avenue or some other company that was not Capcom. Capcom basically didn't get involved with the PC Engine, so decisions about platform and such were up to NEC/Hudson.
But let's think about the release timetable a little bit. Street Fighter II hit the SFC in June of '92 Street Fighter II' on PCE was released exactly 1 year later. A mere month later the SNES got Street Fighter II Turbo, skipping the '/CE release altogether. The MD lagged another 2 months in getting Street Fighter II' Plus: Champion Edition. While the PCE had the first release among the 3 consoles of the SF2 upgrades, it was also the only version not programmed by Capcom.
Further complicating this is that a single month after the MD release of SFII' Plus Capcom released Super Street Fighter II to arcades, with several new characters and upgrades to graphics, animation, and sound all around. NEC Avenue could likely have released an Arcade Card version of SFII' Plus/Turbo/Champion, but the Arcade Card didn't come out until March of '94, meaning that 5 months AFTER the release of Super SF2 to arcades players would be getting, essentially, the Genesis/SNES version of a slightly upgraded SFII' in a form available only to a more limited audience of gamers (those who bought the Arcade Card and already had a CD unit or Duo). And a mere 3 months after the release of the Arcade Card (June '94, one year after the release of the SFC SF2T), Capcom brought Super SF2 to the SFC.
The argument could be made that the Arcade Card could accommodate a more than passable port of SSF2, but I imagine the license cost to NEC Ave or Hudson would be large enough that it wouldn't have been worth the cost, disregarding the development time and the limited potential for sales. It could have boosted Arcade Card sales greatly if it had been released before the SFC version, but arriving later and with the hardware burden it would have required, it would have been a tough sell, even if it had been better than the SFC version and, later, the MD version. The Neo Geo licenses from SNK were probably much cheaper and helped differentiate the system, especially given how relatively badly the SFC and MD dealt with those ports (NEC Ave and Hudson were both much better dev houses than the companies that licensed the Neo Geo titles for the SFC and MD).
In the end, the PCE version of SFII' on Hucard was well placed to take advantage of the tail end of the PCE's market presence, and beat all other SF2 upgrades to market. It was available for anyone who owned any form of PC Engine compatible hardware, meaning more potential for sales. Given how few Arcade Card games were released, it was clear that the PCE dev houses knew the system's days were limited and were thus not eagerly embracing licenses or original IP left and right. I really think NEC Avenue handled the SF2 property on the PCE as well as could be expected, if not better. Had they taken any other approach I think they would have seen less success.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: awack on May 09, 2011, 07:25:14 AM
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Also, Bonk 3 SCD game has missing frames of animation for giant bonk that couldn't fit into memory (or specific level design requirements, maybe most levels but not all). Yet the hucard version has the additional frames.
Yep, memory allocation, how much memory you want to use and where. They decided to use a large chunk, not just for one, but for two large sprites Simultaneously, the lesson in my oppinion, is how not to design a game..no matter what level, you will be walking past the same brick, rock or tree trunk over and over and over again, character sprites have 2 or 3 frames each, Bosses are large, but not much better animation wise.
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And lazily, they simple recopy/paste enemies from other levels of the game into these sections, when they could have added something unique to each level sprite or tileset, etc. A strength of the CD format severally missed out on, on most titles IMO.
I might be wrong, but I'm guessing production time/cost. If you look at the average side scrolling action game, they have around 200 to 600 unique sprite frames, the absolute best, range from 700 to 1000 frames, Rondo has about 2900 frames, of which somewhere around 2600 are unique...not only that, but many are very detailed, try and draw several frames in the style of say Aladdin(cartoony) and then try in the style of Rondo/SOTN.
Level 3, almost looks like an entire game. (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/CD_072EAB00-049.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/CD_072EAB00-039.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/CD_072EAB00-035.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/CD_072EAB00-052-1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDAkumajouDraculaX-ChinoRondoJ-110503_1252_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDAkumajouDraculaX-ChinoRondoJ-110509_1234_1.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDAkumajouDraculaX-ChinoRondoJ-110509_1235.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDAkumajouDraculaX-ChinoRondoJ-110509_1241_1.png)
there are are quite a few more unique tiles than whats in the shots like this shot, but I'm just giving an idea. (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDAkumajouDraculaX-ChinoRondoJ-110509_1238.png)
Hell, they didn't even care if it was all visible to the player, I'm guessing they were thinking about putting a window there.
BG layer on BG layer off (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDAkumajouDraculaX-ChinoRondoJ-110503_1954.png) (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screens/CDAkumajouDraculaX-ChinoRondoJ-110503_1954_1.png)
I started ripping Asuka, but fighting games are just so damn boring to rip. Every time i play it, i find a new move you can pull off, the game is really hurt by the two button setup. I'm probably the only person who feels this way, but i prefer Asuka over SFIICE, its faster, more going on on-screen at once, great combination moves and other things like being able to step to the side to dodge.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 09, 2011, 11:21:22 AM
As a whole, Asuka 120% and Advanced VG are both more fun than SF2CE to me.
nostalgia and chiptunes are the only things keeping SF2CE interesting for me.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Bonknuts on May 09, 2011, 02:21:33 PM
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Further complicating this is that a single month after the MD release of SFII' Plus Capcom released Super Street Fighter II to arcades, with several new characters and upgrades to graphics, animation, and sound all around. NEC Avenue could likely have released an Arcade Card version of SFII' Plus/Turbo/Champion, but the Arcade Card didn't come out until March of '94, meaning that 5 months AFTER the release of Super SF2 to arcades players would be getting, essentially, the Genesis/SNES version of a slightly upgraded SFII' in a form available only to a more limited audience of gamers (those who bought the Arcade Card and already had a CD unit or Duo). And a mere 3 months after the release of the Arcade Card (June '94, one year after the release of the SFC SF2T), Capcom brought Super SF2 to the SFC.
It might have come out in March '94, but the card was supposed to come out in fall '93 (design wise, it was final and ready, etc). It was delayed because of production reasons (IIRC, relative to cost.. the ram ICs). The Arcade card started out mid-to-late '92, was upgraded and working/finalized mid '93 (the original arcade card has missing a lot of key features and required the CPU to be in slow mode (1.79mhz) to access the data ports). Art of Fighting was finished by fall '93 and ready for release. I can't say for other titles, as I don't have access to the source code for that project. But it wouldn't be unthinkable for other titles as well. That puts a different time frame to all of this. AoF came out in late '92, and it would've been released almost a year to date for ACD (though they had the direct source code for the Neo Geo version. I can see it in the comments and parts of the translation to 6280 code). SF2 game series were mostly upgrades to existing engines. Much easier to tweak and modify and existing engine that to build a game from the ground up. The turn around/dev time to produce the additional games in the series wouldn't have taken as long, since they already had SF2 CE developed and released. More profitable from that standpoint, and most profitable to produce a disc than a hucard with a custom mapper and lots of rom. But then again, your target audience is smaller. But, the more A list games you have for the new format - the more popular it becomes and the base increases (every potential Duo unit and user, was a potential buyer for the upgrade). They also should have played the benefit bi-compatible card more often of the ACD (SCD titles the loaded much less when using the ACD).
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I might be wrong, but I'm guessing production time/cost. If you look at the average side scrolling action game, they have around 200 to 600 unique sprite frames, the absolute best, range from 700 to 1000 frames, Rondo has about 2900 frames, of which somewhere around 2600 are unique...not only that, but many are very detailed, try and draw several frames in the style of say Aladdin(cartoony) and then try in the style of Rondo/SOTN.
They could have added small changes in detail to the enemies. I don't mean any major stuff and something more than just palette swaps. Once the original set was pixel'd, making more unique changes for additional sets would more of a trivial thing relative to starting from scratch. I'm not saying this with specifically Rondo in mind (though my comment about it was specifically the rather strange poor load scheme used), but generally to all CD games for the PCE. Sure, there are some exceptions but most don't feel like much of any advantage from the CD storage format itself (other than cinemas, adpcm streaming, or CDDA tracks). Some of those frames of animation you count aren't specifically a 'pixeled' frames (they use palette and/or multiple sprites overlaying via script or such). I'm specifically referring to pixel'd frames of animation (because they almost always take up most space to store each frame than the other method mentioned).
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: fragmare on May 09, 2011, 07:03:44 PM
Where the hell are SF2:CE and Nectaris/Military Madness?! Better question... where the hell is Ninja Spirit?!?!?! In lieu of those, I voted Devil's Crush. The music is amazing, and the replay value is better than anything else on this list, except for maybe Bomberman 93/04 in Battle mode.
I'd also like to point out that many of the enemies in WoT/LoT use "ball n' chain" sprite mechanics, which require next to no animation frames stored in RAM/VRAM. All you need is a body, a head, and a somewhat circular sprite you can chain together to form the "neck". The actual animation of said enemy is just executed in code by moving around those three sprites. Simple but effective... elegant, really. Dracula X, on the other hand, is a marvel... there are so many animated frames, it's ridiculous. Then again, it accesses the CD quite frequently.
I'll be pretty honest here and just say fitting two SF2:CE characters, the background tiles, voices, and code into 2Mbit (256KB) of RAM (at least without sacrificing animation frames) is pretty impossible. Have you ever gone through and looked at all the SF2 characters' frames? There are a LOT. Consider that each 16x16 sprite uses 128 bytes of RAM/ROM. Each SF2 character frame is comprised of ~16 of those sprites (give or take, depending on the particular animation frame). That's 2KB. Let's say each SF2 character has 64 unique animation frames (a pretty conservative estimate). That's 128KB. Double that, since there are two characters on-screen, and that's your 2Mbit (256KB) of RAM used up in character animation ALONE... that's not even counting background tiles and code. Perhaps if the Super System Card was 3 or 4Mbit, they could have pulled this off... but as it was, HuCard was the obvious choice for mass appeal without sacrificing the game's integrity.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Vecanti on May 10, 2011, 05:11:32 AM
Yeah, I see what you are saying. I was looking at it from even if each sprite was 1meg each, the system with SCD card + console ram is 2.5meg. There are 12 characters. 20meg card - 12meg = 8meg for the rest of the game. There are 14 levels(with bonus rounds), battle over screen with lots of talking (counting 10 to 1) that loads separately, 12 character endings that load separately, the opening screen animations, the setting screens and character selection screens, and so forth. You dived that 8 meg by all that other stuff. Are you loading .5 meg of stuff for each of just the 1/14 of the levels? If so 14 x .5 is 7meg +12meg for characters that is 19meg. That leaves 1 meg for all the other endings, openings, selection, etc. And still leaves room for it to be theoretically doable. :)
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: SignOfZeta on May 10, 2011, 05:42:43 AM
I'm sure that a version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo/Super Street Fighter IIX could have been done with the arcade card, and it would have been the best version of SFII until the PS and SS versions came out. It would have been better than the 3DO since while the 3DO version had larger sprites, it also had really pathetic backgrounds (missing things even the SNES ver of SFII had).
But would it have sold? Well, probably? Its hard to say. Capcom decided that Super was good enough for SFC and MD and that Super Turbo wasn't necessary. I found this really f*cking frustrating back in the day. If they felt that it wouldn't make money on the SFC then...its hard to make the case that it would have made any money as an Arcade Card release. It did get released on 3DO...a PCE version would have made more money than a 3DO version, wouldn't it?
Either way, it sure would have been nice.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: awack on May 10, 2011, 08:28:14 AM
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Some of those frames of animation you count aren't specifically a 'pixeled' frames (they use palette and/or multiple sprites overlaying via script or such).
Absolutely, in 2700/2900 total, i include most of that stuff, not all but almost all.I subtract 300 of those to get a total of 2400/2700, if i subtract 400 frames, thats removing 1 in every 6.8 frame.. thats to many in my estimation.
In contrast, the totals i got for Dracxx(1005/1080) SCIV(650/680) all include color cycling, mirroring, and sprite shifting.
Heres an example of Bloodlines (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screenshots/elizabethbartleym.png)
Not only that, but check this out, looking at the shot below, you will notice that the Dracxx dracula is just shifting sprites from left to right to simulate animation...right above his elbow, his arm shifts to the right a few pixels and then back, which is why you see his arm farther away from his body and then closer....now look at Rondos Dracula, from his upper body to his lower body to his face, those are all redrawn .
Still, i counted all of these as unique. (http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss114/bethcongo/screenshots/CDAkumajouDraculaX-ChinoRondoJ-0-107kll.png)
So, in the end, when you compare these games in detail, you realize that rondo is far, far more impressive than even the 2700/2900 versus 1005/1080 frames would suggest.
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It might have come out in March '94, but the card was supposed to come out in fall '93 (design wise, it was final and ready, etc). It was delayed because of production reasons
I read somewhere there was a fire at the plant that manufactured the memory and thats what set it back.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: spenoza on May 10, 2011, 09:12:44 AM
For all the mistakes NEC and Hudson made with the PCE hardware, I'm sure they were watching the market and aware that delays were likely. I'm not convinced the delay was last-minute and totally unexpected. Still, given the price up the upgrade AND the hardware requirements behind it, not to mention the quickly rising star of the SFC, there were tough decisions to be made. Nintendo did not make things easy on NEC and Hudson.
Also, Super SF2 used a new engine on brand new arcade hardware, not just a simple tweak. It was the debut of the CPS2 hardware and so the development would have been based on two options: totally reprogram the new SF2 for the PCE or do a massive retro-fit on the old engine.
I wonder if Super SF2 would really have been a solid boon to the Arcade Card and PCE in general. The SFC was already doing so well in the market, and access to Square titles and the great stuff Nintendo was putting out meant that the SFC Super SF2 would have been more than adequate even if an ACD release was better in some regard.
It might have come out in March '94, but the card was supposed to come out in fall '93 (design wise, it was final and ready, etc). It was delayed because of production reasons (IIRC, relative to cost.. the ram ICs). The Arcade card started out mid-to-late '92, was upgraded and working/finalized mid '93 (the original arcade card has missing a lot of key features and required the CPU to be in slow mode (1.79mhz) to access the data ports). Art of Fighting was finished by fall '93 and ready for release. I can't say for other titles, as I don't have access to the source code for that project. But it wouldn't be unthinkable for other titles as well. That puts a different time frame to all of this. AoF came out in late '92, and it would've been released almost a year to date for ACD (though they had the direct source code for the Neo Geo version. I can see it in the comments and parts of the translation to 6280 code). SF2 game series were mostly upgrades to existing engines. Much easier to tweak and modify and existing engine that to build a game from the ground up. The turn around/dev time to produce the additional games in the series wouldn't have taken as long, since they already had SF2 CE developed and released. More profitable from that standpoint, and most profitable to produce a disc than a hucard with a custom mapper and lots of rom. But then again, your target audience is smaller. But, the more A list games you have for the new format - the more popular it becomes and the base increases (every potential Duo unit and user, was a potential buyer for the upgrade). They also should have played the benefit bi-compatible card more often of the ACD (SCD titles the loaded much less when using the ACD).
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: fragmare on May 10, 2011, 09:34:32 AM
Yeah, I see what you are saying. I was looking at it from even if each sprite was 1meg each, the system with SCD card + console ram is 2.5meg.
The Super CD-ROM system used 2.0Mbit (256KB) of RAM, not 2.5Mbit. There was 64KB built into the unit and the Super System Card added another 192KB. In a Duo, the 64KB and 192KB were both simply just built onto the system board.
It really doesn't matter how you divide up the way you believe the HuCard allocated the data. It doesn't change the fact that each full character animation set used around 1Mbit (128KB) at a MINIMUM. I'm looking at this from a PCE pixel artist perspective... if someone told me to try to fit two SF2 characters into 256KB of RAM and still have room for code, backgrounds, and voices, I'd tell them they basically have three options: 1.) Compress the graphical data and suffer slowdown, 2.) Drop some animation frames and suffer choppy animation, or 3.) f*ck right off. There's just no way all that data is getting crammed into 2Mbit of RAM. ](*,)
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: SignOfZeta on May 10, 2011, 11:00:14 AM
There isn't a huge difference between CPS1 and CPS2 (see the CP Changer port of Street Fighter Zero to see what the CPS1 could do). I don't see why the existing SFII' couldn't just be ported to the Arcade Card and have the Super Turbo assets added to it. It's just five more characters/BGs and one super move each.
As for it being worth doing financially...again, that's hard to say. I'm sure it wouldn't have been worth it for Capcom, but it might have been worth it for Hudson or NEC to do it.
The absence of any decent port of SSFIIX (only 3DO and Marty ports existed) until years after it's arcade release is puzzling. Sure it would have sold in as large of numbers as SFII'Turbo, but neither to %95 of games in general, and it wouldn't have been very expensive to develop.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 10, 2011, 11:17:35 AM
Yeah, I see what you are saying. I was looking at it from even if each sprite was 1meg each, the system with SCD card + console ram is 2.5meg. There are 12 characters. 20meg card - 12meg = 8meg for the rest of the game. There are 14 levels(with bonus rounds), battle over screen with lots of talking (counting 10 to 1) that loads separately, 12 character endings that load separately, the opening screen animations, the setting screens and character selection screens, and so forth. You dived that 8 meg by all that other stuff. Are you loading .5 meg of stuff for each of just the 1/14 of the levels? If so 14 x .5 is 7meg +12meg for characters that is 19meg. That leaves 1 meg for all the other endings, openings, selection, etc. And still leaves room for it to be theoretically doable. :)
It's 2.5megabit *IF* you treated ADPCM ram as slow ram (which is fine, just not for code. But SF2 still needs 'samples', so it's almost useless to talk about ADPCM ram as holding anything else but audio. I.e. my statement that you can't play ADPCM samples and read other parts of it for non-audio use at the same time). Excluding ADPCM, it's 0.5 megabit for CD 2.0 and additional 1.5 megabit for SCD 3.0 upgrade, for a total of 2.0 megabit SCD 3.0 CDRAM.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Vecanti on May 10, 2011, 04:47:24 PM
Well, I think there should have been a SFII laseractive version anyway. Floor and sprites are SCD and the backgrounds laserdisc. Kickass!
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: SignOfZeta on May 10, 2011, 07:17:16 PM
I would assume that any port of SSFIIT would have been based off of SSFII for SNES.
I can't imagine why they would go that route when they already had the bulk of it done for the SFII' HuCard. Fundamentally it's almost the exact same friggn game. Add some new characters and backgrounds, different endings, supers, make Ken's shouryuken burn people...thats about it.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: spenoza on May 10, 2011, 07:50:54 PM
I would assume that any port of SSFIIT would have been based off of SSFII for SNES.
I can't imagine why they would go that route when they already had the bulk of it done for the SFII' HuCard. Fundamentally it's almost the exact same friggn game. Add some new characters and backgrounds, different endings, supers, make Ken's shouryuken burn people...thats about it.
SSF2 is actually a bit more different than simply that. I'm pretty sure there were some fundamental engine changes, even if it doesn't appear that way to the casual player.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: SignOfZeta on May 11, 2011, 05:54:02 AM
I'd like you to explain what you are talking about because I'm not a casual player of Street Fighter and I don't see much of anything fundamentally different. They changed the sounds a bit, added assets, it counts combos and reversals. Does the whole game need to be rebuilt to do that? I'd be surprised if anything but the first of the CPS versions were ground-up constructions.
EDIT: It occurred to be that the biggest difference between builds of SFII on CPS as compared to CPS2 were probably just related to the way the boards were made. As far as I can tell the whole point of switching to CPS2 at all was to combat piracy. There were some other minor advantages, but they weren't that big of a deal. Kind of like the PSPGo. Of course, this tactic worked for Capcom, but didn't for Sony. :)
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: spenoza on May 11, 2011, 07:28:25 AM
I'd like you to explain what you are talking about because I'm not a casual player of Street Fighter and I don't see much of anything fundamentally different. They changed the sounds a bit, added assets, it counts combos and reversals. Does the whole game need to be rebuilt to do that? I'd be surprised if anything but the first of the CPS versions were ground-up constructions.
Well, I don't think either of us has enough insider knowledge to truly assert one way or the other. I'm pretty sure, but I don't really have anything to hold up, which seems to be the same for you. So I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree pending any actual evidence either way.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: fragmare on May 11, 2011, 08:22:11 AM
Okay, I did a little more number crunching and I can say that unequivocally, absolutely, and without question there's NO way to fit all the SFII' CE data into 2Mbit (256KB) of RAM, even if you used the 64KB of ADPCM RAM for more data. Take a look at the sprite rip of Chun Li below from the Genesis SFII:SCE.
(http://fragmare.mindrec.com/chunli.gif)
I count 96 unique character frames. So (96 frames x ~2KB per frame) x 2 characters = ~384KB. Also consider this may or may not be a complete sprite rip, so if there are additional frames not in the sprite sheet, that adds more to the total.
Then I looked at the backgrounds from SFII' CE and they seem to use anywhere from 800-1000 unique 8x8 tiles. Each 8x8 tile uses 32 bytes of RAM/ROM, so that means each background image uses roughly 24KB - 32KB of space.
So we're already up to ~416KB... Add in another ~8KB for misc. background sprites, another ~16KB for music/sound effects code, and sampled voices, and a possible ~32KB for game code and we arrive at ~472KB... WAYYYY more than would fit in the Super CD-ROM systems RAM.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Black Tiger on May 11, 2011, 08:40:11 AM
I would assume that any port of SSFIIT would have been based off of SSFII for SNES.
I can't imagine why they would go that route when they already had the bulk of it done for the SFII' HuCard. Fundamentally it's almost the exact same friggn game. Add some new characters and backgrounds, different endings, supers, make Ken's shouryuken burn people...thats about it.
That's what I mean, all thr 16-bit console ports are built off of the SNES World Warrior engine. SFII' PCE obviously used new assets found in the other CE/Turbo ports. If NEC did do a port of SSFII or SSFIIT, it would probably look like the Genesis and SNES versions of SSFII, instead of a new unique port based off of the arcade version.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Bonknuts on May 11, 2011, 08:47:53 AM
I just looked at the SF2 hucard rom in TMOD2. E. Honda is 161k and Blanka is 143k. Assuming you had those two chars for a level, that's ~304k just for the frames. That doesn't include the code (game logic) or animation tables and other LUTs. And thoses frame sets are *packed* and optimized for size. No wasted space there (although uncompressed).
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: awack on May 11, 2011, 09:45:10 AM
I removed some of the duplicate frames, that leaves a total of 85 unique character frames.
On top of that, there are frames with only 3 to 6 pixels separating them from each other, like below, while others only switch out heads, they still count of course. Doesn't seem all that impressive(in relation to this thread), but according to Bonknuts, they are uncompressed, while other types of games,some times use compression for sprites.
I just looked at the SF2 hucard rom in TMOD2. E. Honda is 161k and Blanka is 143k. Assuming you had those two chars for a level, that's ~304k just for the frames. That doesn't include the code (game logic) or animation tables and other LUTs. And thoses frame sets are *packed* and optimized for size. No wasted space there (although uncompressed).
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Bonknuts on May 11, 2011, 11:05:17 AM
1010 16x16 cells. Or ~128k for Chun Li (ripped from the sf2 hucard rom). No face/portrait frames or other sprites for her.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 11, 2011, 12:13:38 PM
lol, that would make the most irritating slidey-matchup puzzle EVER.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: awack on May 11, 2011, 12:31:29 PM
So, its about 13 or so Megs out of 20 that are used for sprites, leaving about 7 for sndfx,music, code, BGs and misc....now that i think about it, ken is nothing more than a Ryu sprite with a different head.
Makes you realize that the genesis port had enough extra memory for two new characters and their BGs.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 11, 2011, 02:03:38 PM
So, its about 13 or so Megs out of 20 that are used for sprites, leaving about 7 for sndfx,music, code, BGs and misc....now that i think about it, ken is nothing more than a Ryu sprite with a different head.
Makes you realize that the genesis port had enough extra memory for two new characters and their BGs.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: fragmare on May 11, 2011, 02:36:30 PM
All this talk about SF2:CE PCE makes me want to revive this project. I completed all the graphical touch-ups, but nothing ever really got completed. :(
All this talk about SF2:CE PCE makes me want to revive this project. I completed all the graphical touch-ups, but nothing ever really got completed. :(
All this talk about SF2:CE PCE makes me want to revive this project. I completed all the graphical touch-ups, but nothing ever really got completed. :(
I'd like you to explain what you are talking about because I'm not a casual player of Street Fighter and I don't see much of anything fundamentally different. They changed the sounds a bit, added assets, it counts combos and reversals. Does the whole game need to be rebuilt to do that? I'd be surprised if anything but the first of the CPS versions were ground-up constructions.
Well, I don't think either of us has enough insider knowledge to truly assert one way or the other. I'm pretty sure, but I don't really have anything to hold up, which seems to be the same for you. So I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree pending any actual evidence either way.
So...even though there was no reason to build the game from the ground up, and no significant appreciable difference in sound, graphics, or gameplay, you are for some reason just assuming that the game was rebuilt from the ground up for Super...well, OK.
My point is that if a ACD version of SSFIIX was to be made by NEC or Hudson you wouldn't have to do that (even if it was done with the CPS versions, which I doubt, see: Occam's razor) and you wouldn't need to port anything from a SNES game (the source for which NEC would't even have access too). Building the game again or porting it from SNES before adding the Turbo elements...those are just needlessly complex directions. There isn't any logical reason whatsoever to do it when %80 of Super Street Fighter II Turbo already exists in the form of SFII'.
Step 1: Re-open the SFII' project
Step 2: Convert project to an ACD (hardest part?) while adding new routines for combo counting and reversal bonus.
Step 3: Add new characters, BGs, endings, moves, and color tweaks.
Step 4: Replace some sounds
Step 5: Compile image, ship, and profit...or more likely, loss :)
This is, more or less, what SNK did almost every year when KOF came out.
Maybe you guys have forgotten that these are all versions of Street Fighter f*cking II. It didn't change that much at all during those 5 games. In fact, the upgrades to the earlier games were done by swapping a few 24 pin ROMS and keeping the vast majority of the board.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: nodtveidt on May 11, 2011, 08:15:03 PM
It wasn't rebuilt for Super, and you can tell just by looking at the hardware differences between the PCBs... let alone looking at the dump of the program code. Nearly 90% of the code is unchanged between Champion Edition and Super. There are some minor changes in a few of the state machines (bugfixes, probably) with some additional states added for some characters and a few new control schemes, plus new entities added (for the new characters), some interface changes, and updated sound code can be found in the sound controller portion, with an interesting change in the music playback "flagging" subroutine. Core logic was only enhanced slightly, with some minor tweaks to just a few of the characters' AI cores (Dhalsim, Vega/M.Bison, and Balrog/Vega got the biggest tweaks, but Guile, E.Honda, and Blanka were virtually unchanged from CE... the rest had minor but noticeable tweaks). Underneath all the smoke and mirrors of the shiny new graphics and smooth new sound, the game is still pretty much the same old thing.
SOURCE: what I remember from an old post on romhacking.net, I believe it was...
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: spenoza on May 11, 2011, 09:29:30 PM
So...even though there was no reason to build the game from the ground up, and no significant appreciable difference in sound, graphics, or gameplay, you are for some reason just assuming that the game was rebuilt from the ground up for Super...well, OK.
I didn't say I thought they rewrote the engine from scratch, just that I think it's more than a couple bug fixes. I think they did some digging around and made some significant changes. That doesn't mean they trashed everything and started over. They did re-do an awful lot of the graphics and sound assets. The SFC version didn't update the original character graphics much, if at all, but the arcade did for many of them. So I you are right, in one sense. If they did just another port using the SFC graphical assets it wouldn't be as much change as if they did an original arcade port. But if you're going to create an ACD game, why settle for a SFC port? Why not do it one better and actually show off the hardware? If it's just the same game as the SFC version than why would anyone bother getting the ACD version, unless they just didn't happen to have an SFC?
Rover, % code change isn't nearly as important as what code was changed. You can change only 5% of the code in a project and still end up making massive functional changes.
I'm starting to think this is a matter of perspective, really.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Bonknuts on May 12, 2011, 12:54:48 AM
Isn't this whole back and forth between new engine/game written from ground up or just modified existing engine, the context of this discussion? Games tend to exist as engines and not everything hard coded. They're modular and allow changes and adaptations. That's the whole point of the ACD getting SF2. An engine already existed for the PCE via the CE release. You don't need to re-write a new engine from the ground up, thus less development time require/involved and thus less expense to produce the game. That said, any number of things could have been added or redone. You can change the pixel art without having to make a new game (sprites or BGs). I would assume something would have been upgraded or made additional to the ACD port vs the SFC port (other than CDDA).
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WOA! That's my bg edit, alright... Tom must've started doing something with it. O_O
He did. You can call me Watari. I'm one of the few that knows 'T' in real life ;) Mednafen (a number of builds back) included the new SF2+ mapper support that supports 68megabit hucards (the mapper is simple to make in real life, but the dev cart has to be custom and fairly large in size). It's just a simple extension of the SF2 mapper, but ranges $1ff0 to $1fff instead of just $1ff3. This build, IIRC, was used to test out the new replacement BG (new BG data inserted just pass the 20megabit range of the original).
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 12, 2011, 02:46:37 AM
He did. You can call me Watari. I'm one of the few that knows 'T' in real life ;)
and, back on topic, What would the benefit of SF2CE on SCD have been to people, if it were even possible/done?
I've noticed in the past some people (not on here in particular) prefer SCD games over HuCards almost always. Is it some doofy placebo effect?
For me I prefer HuCards. One because HuCard's are just plain cooler. 2nd it's seems (especially back then) more of a technological feat getting 20meg on to a HuCard and certainly gave a lot of credibility to the system, and of course 3rd HuCards have no load time!
I was personally more curious about it all from a technical limits of the SCD system itself stand point. In this case it seems that SFII was that barrier. Pretty interesting discussion.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 12, 2011, 04:05:16 AM
It depends for me. but it seems alot of CD games could have been HuCards, but maybe cost/mfg are what made the CD format more useful.
and more reliable!
I sometimes wish CD games had more chiptunes than they do. Some of the 90s CD audio was so frigging corny.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: SignOfZeta on May 12, 2011, 06:03:36 AM
I didn't say I thought they rewrote the engine from scratch, just that I think it's more than a couple bug fixes. I think they did some digging around and made some significant changes. That doesn't mean they trashed everything and started over. They did re-do an awful lot of the graphics and sound assets.
They really didn't change that many graphics from OG SFII to SSFIIX. There were a few basics added (Chun Li got a new standing high kick at some point, Super, I think), There were some new moves like Chun Li's Kikouken (which was originally made from existing frames in SFII' Turbo, but got its own animation in Super). Everyone got a super in SSFIIX. The endings changed. The re-drew Ken/Ryu's hadouken at some point. Ken has a flaming fierce shouryuken.
When it comes to things like standing, jumping, punching kicking, win pose...the stuff that makes up the vast majority of all the graphics, that shit hardly changed at all. Less popular characters like Guile and Zangief are almost indistinguishable between World Warrior and Grand Master Challenge.
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The SFC version didn't update the original character graphics much, if at all, but the arcade did for many of them. So I you are right, in one sense. If they did just another port using the SFC graphical assets it wouldn't be as much change as if they did an original arcade port. But if you're going to create an ACD game, why settle for a SFC port? Why not do it one better and actually show off the hardware? If it's just the same game as the SFC version than why would anyone bother getting the ACD version, unless they just didn't happen to have an SFC?
Ok, seriously, do you actually know Street Fighter very well? I'm obviously not talking about an ACD port of the SFC version because there IS no SFC version of SSFIIX to begin with.
The latest SFC version is just regular Super, not Super Turbo, and it is a more or less complete version of that game. Everything that was changed going from Turbo to Super in the arcade (new sounds, new fireball animation for Chun Li, flaming shouryuken, dorky new "Tiger Knee!" sample for Sagat, new endings) was also changed with the SFC version. I can't think of anything that was left out. It obviously doesn't have any of the Super Turbo changes because it isn't Super Turbo. The only home versions of Super Turbo (then, anyway) were 3DO and Marty.
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I'm starting to think this is a matter of perspective, really.
Its like this. NEC had SFII', and it was mighty good. In order to make SSFIIX all they had to do was edit the new elements in.
It wouldn't make any sense to build it from the ground up since the project was already %80 done.
It *really* wouldn't make any f*cking sense at all to use any aspect of the SFC version since it isn't Super Turbo. You'd have to port the thing to PCE, re-format it so it would load from a CD, then add all the Super Turbo assets (the super moves, the new sounds, the endings) in because they don't exist in Super.
It makes a lot more sense to just port develop a CD version of the game they ready had and did such a good job with, and then add everything that changed from SFII' to SSFIIX in one go.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Black Tiger on May 12, 2011, 08:04:15 AM
Obviously the MD and PCE SFII' ports were based on the evolving SFC SFII engine/game. A PCE port of Super or Super Turbo wouldn't need to port EVERYTHING from the SFC SSFII from scratch. But if they were going to update the PCE port's engine, why would they convert all the new sprites from scratch based on the arcade and try to make them match the current ones instead of porting them from the SFC/MD Super games?
And why wouldn't NEC have access to the SFC/MD assets since they did for the CE port? By the same logic that says that they would build off of the PCE SFII', they would also use assets from the existing SUPER ports. That's how all six 16-bit console ports of SFII were done.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Bonknuts on May 12, 2011, 04:34:43 PM
You know you've revealed/admitted yourself to be Tom like 5 different times on here, right? You can stop pretending you aren't him. :)
Just sayin'.
Heh, you disappoint me. Yeah, I think my comment must have went over your head (sorry, sometimes my sense of humor requires a specific point of view and/or knowledge of references). If I really wanted to hide who I am, I'm smart enough to know how to ;) I.e. My statement makes fun of exactly the opposite.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 12, 2011, 04:43:08 PM
You know you've revealed/admitted yourself to be Tom like 5 different times on here, right? You can stop pretending you aren't him. :)
Just sayin'.
Heh, you disappoint me. Yeah, I think my comment must have went over your head (sorry, sometimes my sense of humor requires a specific point of view and/or knowledge of references). If I really wanted to hide who I am, I'm smart enough to know how to ;) I.e. My statement makes fun of exactly the opposite.
oh.
well to be fair I was only half reading everything while doing something else, lol. Hence me editing the post and adding more later when I remembered to finish reading stuff, hah
I still dunno wtf you're reference is about though. care to elaborate?
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Digi.k on May 12, 2011, 10:36:15 PM
for me Parodius Da! very sure it was the first ever 8M HuCARD !!
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Necromancer on May 13, 2011, 02:29:49 AM
Rover, % code change isn't nearly as important as what code was changed. You can change only 5% of the code in a project and still end up making massive functional changes.
Umm... as a programmer myself, I am well aware of this, and this is also why I outlined exactly what was changed...
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: spenoza on May 13, 2011, 08:47:18 PM
Ok, seriously, do you actually know Street Fighter very well? I'm obviously not talking about an ACD port of the SFC version because there IS no SFC version of SSFIIX to begin with.
I've been talking about SSF2 this whole time, dude. I have not been talking about SSF2T. You've tried to bring it up, but I've doggedly stuck to talking about SSF2. The reason for this is my initial timeline post. SSF2T would have been so late to the party, had it ever existed, that one wonders if there would really be a point.
And I'm sorry, I misspoke on the porting thing. What I was referring to was that the SFC version of Street Fighter seems to be the version all the others are based upon. The SFC version had smaller character sprites, and all the other consoles based their versions off the SFC version and sprites rather than going back and re-doing everything from the arcade original. Saves time and money, yes, but it also means that it's hard to do the SFC versions one better, considering they are the reference point and not the original. For an ACD version of SSF2 I would have expected them to have aimed a little higher.
As for programming changes, there's no way to know. It all depends on how they programmed the PCE engine. If they used good, modular design practices maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but alternative programming methods could result in having to do an awful lot of digging to make some simple changes. In truth, I don't always know how easily amendable early console game engines are. I tend to assume they're initially coded to get the job done, not to be re-used or expanded, and thus will be a bitch to screw around with when making changes.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: blueraven on May 13, 2011, 10:43:44 PM
G'88
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: nodtveidt on May 14, 2011, 08:18:57 AM
As a general rule... when you're coding something for size efficiency, modularity is a huge issue. You need to be able to reuse as much code as possible, as there's just not much room for redundancy. On the other hand, when you have plenty of room for code storage but are still dealing with slow CPUs, you will want to optimize for speed, which may involve writing several versions of the same subroutine, often changing details just slightly to account for difference in usage.
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 14, 2011, 09:32:11 AM
modularity is something you do always for games. If not, you suck!
:D
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: nodtveidt on May 14, 2011, 09:56:37 AM
Usually. Not always. I can think of just a few occasions where you need the last ounce of speed and end up writing redundant code with minor exceptions between subroutines to get it. It doesn't happen often but if you need that last push in speed, you should be willing to explore the possibility. Then again, a coder's suckitude isn't measured in their ability to modularize their code... :lol:
Title: Re: Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll
Post by: Arkhan on May 14, 2011, 01:11:56 PM