NEC interview on SuperGrafx & Power Console

[SGX Engine]

Galaxy Force, After Burner, Thunder Blade, Out Run, etc were the type of games suited to the SuperGrafx, especially if the higher-end capabilities had made it, along with that controller.

[SamIAm]

Without scaling hardware or more CPU power, I'm not sure how much better Space Harrier and OutRun would have been than their vanilla-PCE counterparts. With larger Hucards, they could have made some improvements, and the increased VRAM and sprite bandwidth would have helped, but it would still be a far cry from the arcade versions. That goes for pretty much all of those games.

When I look at the SGX, it seems to me like it has two meaningful advantages over other systems, including the PCE: the number of sprites it can draw on one horizontal line, and the high amount of VRAM available. So, what kinds of games can make the best use of those things? Horizontal shooters quickly come to mind for the sprites...but I think the best genre would be side-scrolling beat-em-ups. With the VRAM, you can store lots of animation, and with the sprite bandwidth, you can put lots of guys on the field at once. It's a shame that the genre was still only finding its legs in 1989.

You know what I think would have been a cool SGX release game? R-Type. It was such an attention-getter on the PCE 18 months before. Why not give Japan the all-in-one 512mb 512KB Hucard that the US got, have the player sprite and bullets drawn by the second graphics processor to eliminate flicker, and split up the tiles a bit to get dual-layer scrolling like the arcade version? Assuming they had the assets saved (and judging by their release of R-Type CD years later, they did), I would imagine that one programmer and one artist could knock that out on a fairly short time-scale. Call it "R-Type Perfect" or something.

[Vimtoman]

Thanks Guys. Really interesting.

Does that mean Strider dumped SuperGrafx capability for arcade card?

It's probably more accurate to say it was basically cancelled and then when AC software supply was looking real bad they decided to reschedule it. The AC came out several years after the SGX, they didn't even have the Super System at this point. I wouldn't assume the project dated back to 1989/1990 but...then again it was kinda so-so so maybe it does.

IIRC the game was "coming soon" for an extremely long time but it could have been two separate projects. So far I think we have yet to see proof that anything was ever coded or developed for the SGX version.

Maybe it would be worth trying Strider on a Surpergrafx ?

[SamIAm]

Maybe it would be worth trying Strider on a Surpergrafx ?

You mean, play the Arcade Card Strider CD on a SGX to see if it does anything differently?

It's probably been done before, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to look again.

Were I a hacker with lots of free time, I might try to rig up an automated system with Mednafen to boot each game in the entire CD library once in SGX mode and again in normal PCE mode, making a savestate precisely one or two seconds after pressing Run at the loading screen, and comparing each pair of savestates to see if there aren't any differences. By doing this, we could take a big step toward being able to say once and for all whether any CD games detect the SGX.

Of course, since a game might take longer than one or two seconds to detect it, it wouldn't be 100% conclusive, but it may be the best we could hope for in the short-term.

Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised to see an easter egg out there somewhere, especially in a Hudson/NEC Avenue game.

[SignOfZeta]

Phantasy Star III for the SGX ? SGX was designed as an "arcade" machine, it would be irrelevant to port an RPG to the SGX. It would be better to port arcade games.

Galaxy Force, After Burner, Thunder Blade, Out Run, etc were the type of games suited to the SuperGrafx, especially if the higher-end capabilities had made it, along with that controller.

I think you guys are hugely overrating the SGX. It's enhancements are so small, and it's software so early in the PCE's life, that a normal person genuinly can't even tell there's anything special about SGX games. Graphically games like Sapphire, Dracula X, Street Fighter II', Gate of Thunder or Ys' IV completely blow the doors off every SGX game.

And that controller. Jezuz. What a piece of crap that thing would have been. The size of a Barbie Dream House, but unlike the BDH it has a calculator built in. If they had made that thing it would be almost impossible to find a working one today. You know that flight yoke thing would have *sucked*.

[Black Tiger]

Phantasy Star III for the SGX ? SGX was designed as an "arcade" machine, it would be irrelevant to port an RPG to the SGX. It would be better to port arcade games.

Galaxy Force, After Burner, Thunder Blade, Out Run, etc were the type of games suited to the SuperGrafx, especially if the higher-end capabilities had made it, along with that controller.

I think you guys are hugely overrating the SGX. It's enhancements are so small, and it's software so early in the PCE's life, that a normal person genuinly can't even tell there's anything special about SGX games. Graphically games like Sapphire, Dracula X, Street Fighter II', Gate of Thunder or Ys' IV completely blow the doors off every SGX game.

And that controller. Jezuz. What a piece of crap that thing would have been. The size of a Barbie Dream House, but unlike the BDH it has a calculator built in. If they had made that thing it would be almost impossible to find a working one today. You know that flight yoke thing would have *sucked*.

It can do CPS1 ports at the arcade resolution with pixel-for-pixel assets and all of the full sized sprites. By 16-bit console standards, sorite limiations are no longer an issue. Plus you get another tile layer and we've seen how capable the PCE can be with only one.

The SuperGrafx could do a "beat-em-up" game with 4 players at once fighting 10 enemies on screen. Those 4-player Konami arcade games like TMNT would be "arcade perfect" for the time.

[Necromancer]

512mb R-type huey?

[SamIAm]

Why, yes...That's what mine says... If you're interested, I might let you have it...for the right price, of course... 

[touko]

In the 90's era all guys have only 16bits cpu to the mouth, ok, but which ??
68K ??, of course no other choice, but this CPU was more expensive than the whole Hu6280 (including sound), and not more powerfull,the slow interrupt system would also have been a problem  in the consumption of  CPU cycles.
An ARM CPU then ,in that case no problem 
It would have been impossible to lunch a complete new hardware with only two years after the PCE,even if not perfect, the SGX was the good choice for upgrading the actual PCE quickly with little R&D and reuse close to the whole chips and other components .
The drawback with the SGX is really the hucard format IMO,and also like chris said, it's not easy to play with priorities between the two VDC,mainly for sprites .

1941 is probably the best showcase of that, I think.

i agree, for me a good exemple that the SGX can do.

[SGX Engine]

You know what I think would have been a cool SGX game release game? R-Type. It was such an attention-getter on the PCE 18 months before. Why not give Japan the all-in-one 512mb 512KB Hucard that the US got, have the player sprite and bullets drawn by the second graphics processor to eliminate flicker, and split up the tiles a bit to get dual-layer scrolling like the arcade version? Assuming they had the assets saved (and judging by their release of R-Type CD years later, they did), I would imagine that one programmer and one artist could knock that out on a fairly short time-scale. Call it "R-Type Perfect" or something.

Yeah I think that would have been a great idea. Then SGX would be launching in November 1989 with Battle Ace and R-Type, giving the system a better impression for gamers and devs like.

[shubibiman]

I think you guys are hugely overrating the SGX. It's enhancements are so small, and it's software so early in the PCE's life, that a normal person genuinly can't even tell there's anything special about SGX games. Graphically games like Sapphire, Dracula X, Street Fighter II', Gate of Thunder or Ys' IV completely blow the doors off every SGX game.

And that controller. Jezuz. What a piece of crap that thing would have been. The size of a Barbie Dream House, but unlike the BDH it has a calculator built in. If they had made that thing it would be almost impossible to find a working one today. You know that flight yoke thing would have *sucked*.

Sure the controller was a huge wasteful gadget. It's a good thing it was never released in the end.

Am I hugely overrating the SGX ? I don't think so. Only 5 games were released for the system and the 5th one looked like this :





I don't know if you've ever played the arcade version of 1941 but the way the SGX handled this port pretty much shows that loads of other faithful arcade ports could have been released. I'm not talking of games such as Galaxy Force 2 and other Sega "3D"games.

Most of the devs here that have spent a huge amount of time working on the SGX all say that it was a powerful system.

And even if games such as Winds of Thunder or Dracula X are beautiful, I find some of 1941's background way more impressive and detailled than anything else on the PCE.

[touko]

And even if games such as Winds of Thunder or Dracula X are beautiful, I find some of 1941's background way more impressive and detailled than anything else on the PCE.

Of course it is, even more if you consider the 8mb hucard,and thanks to the 128ko of VRAM .

[esteban]

WE ALL AGREE: From 1989 onward, all new PCE products (CoreGrafx, DUO, SuperCD, LT...and GT, too?) should have been equivalent to SuperGrafx hardware.

An aggressive "upgrade your old PCE" campaign + coupons + candy would sweeten the deal.

Altered Beast SGX would be launch title.

Cross-promotions between SuperGrafx, Capcom/Konami shmups and popular confectioners would be paramount to success.

For example, imagine a Reese's SuperGrafx campaign:

 

A series of 7 collectable Gradius/Parodius/Gyruss SGX stickers, exclusively found in Reese's products. 

A series of 9 collectable 1941/Legendary Wings SGX stickers, exclusively found in Reese's products. 

A series of 15 collectable Strider/Altered Beast SGX stickers, exclusively found in Reese's products!

The SGX juggernaut would have been unstoppable.