Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?

[fragmare]

lol say what?!?!  the PCE could have EASILY handled hyper fighting mode(s).

What are you basing that on? To me it looks like the PCE struggles to handle the game even at normal speed. I guess we'll never know the answer, though, unless it came from the one of the original programmers' mouths, or someone gets a hacked sped-up version running on the original hardware.

It's based on the fact it requires ZERO or nearly zero extra CPU cycles to simply speed up a sprite animation.  For example, if you have a sprite in VRAM and the timing is such that it displays a new frame every, say, 4 game ticks/vblanks, you could just as easily set up the timing so that a new frame is displayed every 2 ticks/vblanks, or every vblank for that matter.  All the other code (collision, gamepad polling, etc.) would remain the same.  In a game like SF2, the only thing you'd need to make sure of is that your code is fast enough to load character frames from ROM > VRAM within the alotted span of game ticks between one frame to the next.  Even the largest characters in SF2 (Zangief, Sagat, M.Bison) would top out at around 3KB when uncompressed, and that's assuming they just use a square sprite block (which they don't).  So it would actually be a bit less than 3KB per character, per frame.  Then also consider that a new frame needs to be loaded into VRAM instantly anyway if you press any attack button or execute any move.  All you'd be doing is speeding up the timing between frames.  And where do you get the impression the PCE is struggling to handle SF2' CE?  There's really no slowdown to speak of and minimal flicker.  Protip: The slowdown after a KO is intentional and is there for dramatic effect.  It's also in the arcade. 

[Colossus1574]

omg....sometimes i wonder why companies even bother with making stuff like this? even THE most desparate SF fan who ONLY owns a Master System would still not get any jollies playing this hackjob 

That's because TecToy IS a hackjob company..lol.

Hahaha, damn...thanks Tats  :oops:
I got fooled cause at the end credits, it says the usual "Thanks for playing, presented by Capcom and TecToy"....

[Tatsujin]

omg....sometimes i wonder why companies even bother with making stuff like this? even THE most desparate SF fan who ONLY owns a Master System would still not get any jollies playing this hackjob  

That's because TecToy IS a hackjob company..lol.

Hahaha, damn...thanks Tats  :oops:
I got fooled cause at the end credits, it says the usual "Thanks for playing, presented by Capcom and TecToy"....

TecToy is an independent working company STILL releasing/porting games for the MD & SMS in brazil. Though it's licensed work, it seems to be still very close to any other pirate & co. hack stuff when it comes to play value and gameplay.

[Tatsujin]

Protip: The slowdown after a KO is intentional and is there for dramatic effect.  It's also in the arcade.  

Btw. also one of the greatest, yet most simple invention in game history

[soop]

Protip: The slowdown after a KO is intentional and is there for dramatic effect.  It's also in the arcade. 

Btw. also one of the greatest, yet most simple invention in game history

I really like the flashing/disappearing ala Final Fight.

[SuperDeadite]

lol say what?!?!  the PCE could have EASILY handled hyper fighting mode(s).

What are you basing that on? To me it looks like the PCE struggles to handle the game even at normal speed. I guess we'll never know the answer, though, unless it came from the one of the original programmers' mouths, or someone gets a hacked sped-up version running on the original hardware.

Someone mentioned the X68k version. I own this one, and it's not perfect either. The frame rate is noticeably low. I think there was never a perfect conversion of this game to console or PC until the PS2 era.

What X68k are you playing it on though?  II' plays very nicely on a standard X68k.  Super SF II plays a bit too slow on a 10mhz machine though, but very nicely if you have 16mhz or faster.

Same with the FM Towns port.  On a 386? lol slowdown, on my 586@133mhz Fresh?  Rock solid 60fps baby.

[esteban]

So, can anyone help answer my earlier questions about different versions of SFII providing different AI?

I played SF2 Turbo SNES a lot when it was new, SF2 SCE Genesis when I got a Nomad a few years later, and more recently the PCE's SF2 CE. I've also dabbled a bit with the version on the Capcom Classics collection on PSP, which I assume is emulated from the arcade.

The AI within the same version of the game is identical as far as I can tell. Zangief still falls for the jumping straight up HK/Sweep trick every time, Ken nonstop shoryukens all the time, Sagat still "TIGER TIGER TIGER's" all the time. There are variances between the different editions though, M Bison and Sagat are much more difficult in the original SF2 than in most of the other games, for example.

Thank you, JKM (and Zeta before you) for Answering my questions. 

@tom, rover & co.

todo:

1x simple SFII' hack with double or triple speed.

highly appreciated, thx.

Hahahhahaha.  

[Nando]

[Black Tiger]

lol say what?!?!  the PCE could have EASILY handled hyper fighting mode(s).

What are you basing that on? To me it looks like the PCE struggles to handle the game even at normal speed. I guess we'll never know the answer, though, unless it came from the one of the original programmers' mouths, or someone gets a hacked sped-up version running on the original hardware.

Speed is one of the PC Engine's big strengths, especially over the Super Famicom. The PCE version of SFII' was far from what the PCE was capable of, but still could have run as fast as the other versions which were actually developed by Capcom. Even if this imperfect port was barely held together, bad ports aren't an indication of the potential of a console. They're just poor ports.

Still, I'm curious as to what signs you see that the PCE is barely handling the game. I know than in console war discussions, fanboys often point out the slowdown in rival consoles' SFII ports while ignoring the slowdown in their favorite console's port(s) and the arcade (it's programmed in as an effect).

It still sounds like you aren't very familiar with the PC Engine's library. You should try or watch decent videos of World Heroes 2 and Fatal Fury Special, which push around much larger sprites with even more animation. There's nothing comparable on Mega Drive/Mega-CD or Super Famicom... -not that it's proof that those consoles couldn't handle it though.

@tom, rover & co.

todo:

1x simple SFII' hack with double or triple speed.

highly appreciated, thx.

Might as well hack a version or two at speeds people would enjoy and then one that is as fast as the game can go without crashing, just to show people each time this argument comes up.

[RegalSin]

The question is how are the characters loaded into the vram/ram? Is it one big sprite or is it, a bunch of 16x16 or 32x32 sqaures?

I was playing Conan yesterday, and after the screen fills up with the same god forsaken blankie, ke-man, or whatever footsoilder you can see a slowdown in the game. The graphics are nice, but the ony thing I could imagine that would slow down street fighter is if two of the same characters is using their most sprite fizzled moves at the same time.
Would they move slower then another character with more area ( LxW )?

I do not think we will every find that out.

So far if I remember, the most sprites on screen would be
Two characters, and a bonus stage sprite. The next would
be a fighting stage with tons of on screen movable things,
like guiles or Balrog ( Vega's ) stage for example.

[Bonknuts]

lol say what?!?!  the PCE could have EASILY handled hyper fighting mode(s).

What are you basing that on? To me it looks like the PCE struggles to handle the game even at normal speed. I guess we'll never know the answer, though, unless it came from the one of the original programmers' mouths, or someone gets a hacked sped-up version running on the original hardware.

 I thought I posted about hacking the animation speed. There are animation sheets in the game, just like the arcade, that contain down counters for each frame. I was making them faster, for fun. The game played along just fine.

[kazekirifx]

It's based on the fact it requires ZERO or nearly zero extra CPU cycles to simply speed up a sprite animation.  For example, if you have a sprite in VRAM and the timing is such that it displays a new frame every, say, 4 game ticks/vblanks, you could just as easily set up the timing so that a new frame is displayed every 2 ticks/vblanks, or every vblank for that matter.  All the other code (collision, gamepad polling, etc.) would remain the same.  In a game like SF2, the only thing you'd need to make sure of is that your code is fast enough to load character frames from ROM > VRAM within the alotted span of game ticks between one frame to the next.  Even the largest characters in SF2 (Zangief, Sagat, M.Bison) would top out at around 3KB when uncompressed, and that's assuming they just use a square sprite block (which they don't).  So it would actually be a bit less than 3KB per character, per frame.  Then also consider that a new frame needs to be loaded into VRAM instantly anyway if you press any attack button or execute any move.  All you'd be doing is speeding up the timing between frames.  And where do you get the impression the PCE is struggling to handle SF2' CE?  There's really no slowdown to speak of and minimal flicker.  Protip: The slowdown after a KO is intentional and is there for dramatic effect.  It's also in the arcade. 

Okay. I accept that explanation. I wish they had added this feature in that case.

What X68k are you playing it on though?  II' plays very nicely on a standard X68k.  Super SF II plays a bit too slow on a 10mhz machine though, but very nicely if you have 16mhz or faster.

Same with the FM Towns port.  On a 386? lol slowdown, on my 586@133mhz Fresh?  Rock solid 60fps baby.

I have the X68k ACE, which is the same processor speed as the first gen X68k. Cool. I didn't realize it runs better on the faster machines. I tend to think most X68k games are not programmed to take advantage of the faster models (which is why I went ahead and purchased an older one), but it's good to know some of the newer titles do take advantage.

It still sounds like you aren't very familiar with the PC Engine's library.

That's slander. I grew up with the PCE and own the vast majority of the PCE and TG library. I may have just recently started actively posting here due to the high amount of downtime I've had at work lately, but I was an active member of the community back in the Turbo List days.

[Black Tiger]

That's slander. I grew up with the PCE and own the vast majority of the PCE and TG library. I may have just recently started actively posting here due to the high amount of downtime I've had at work lately, but I was an active member of the community back in the Turbo List days.

Then why do you think that the PCE is so slow that you question someone saying that the PCE could handle Turbo speed and why won't you quantify what exactly it is about the PCE version of SFII' that leads you to believe that "the PCE struggles to handle the game"?

You say that we'll never know if the PCE could handle more than SFII' unless it comes from "one of the original programmers' mouths", yet as I pointed out, there are games that do much more than what SFII' does. It doesn't matter if you own or have played the specific examples I gave, I suggested even simply watching videos of them since you're judging the SFII' port by looking at it.

[kazekirifx]

Then why do you think that the PCE is so slow that you question someone saying that the PCE could handle Turbo speed and why won't you quantify what exactly it is about the PCE version of SFII' that leads you to believe that "the PCE struggles to handle the game"?

You say that we'll never know if the PCE could handle more than SFII' unless it comes from "one of the original programmers' mouths", yet as I pointed out, there are games that do much more than what SFII' does. It doesn't matter if you own or have played the specific examples I gave, I suggested even simply watching videos of them since you're judging the SFII' port by looking at it.

All right. Point taken. I grew up with the PCE, but I'll admit I don't know too much about hardware/programming. I think my reason for viewing the PCE version of SFII as "struggling" is caused mostly by occasional flickers, and probably just an assumption that the lack of adjustable speed proves its impossibility. I remember the Die Hard Gamefan review saying this game was an "incredible feat" for a system so close to its end (or something like that). I always felt lucky the game runs at all. I also owned the Genesis version and SF2 Turbo on SNES back in the day, and to me it always seemed to be running more effortlessly on those systems, but that was just my perception, of course.

Also, is it just me, or is the AI in the PCE version kind of weak? I didn't have too much trouble finishing the PCE ver. on level 8 without continuing, but could never come close to doing this on Genesis or SNES. I especially noticed some predictable patterns the boss characters followed in the PCE version which made them easy to beat if you knew them. Now that I think about it, I think I also assumed back in the day that this weak AI might also be caused by hardware limitations. I think now it's more likely to be lazy AI programming, or is the easiness of the PCE version my imagination?

[SuperGrafx16]

I love the Sharp X68000 version because it is arcade-exact in every way ^__^