Rondo of Blood Thread

[EvilEvoIX]

Compare the NeoGeo and the NeoGeo CD.  Both play the exact same games and have the same sprite hardware, the CD version was created to be cheaper.  Carts went for $250+ while the same game was sold on CD for $60 or so.  The trade-off is that when using CDs you have to pre-load the data into RAM.   

The NeoCD therefore had a whopping 7mb of RAM, but when you only have a single speed CD-ROM, it takes a long time read that much data, hence the infamous load times.  And even then 7mb wasn't enough hence cuts had to be made to later games.

The Loads killed that system, later games had to cut animation just to make the loads happen the same day.  It is rumored that the 3rd Level Hell in Dante's Epic Poem that people were forced to play KOF 99 via Neo Geo CD.

[A Black Falcon]

What is the sprite limit on Sega Cd?  Also again isn't it significantly easier to load more frames of animation on a cd vs a cart?  I know that the frames have to load off the cd but there has to be a benefit of having a massive storage space to fit highly detailed sprite information?

You can put a lot of stuff on the CD, sure, but you're very limited by how much you can use at any one time.  The Sega CD has more RAM than the TG16 Super CD (like triple, I think?), but it also has some strict limitations on how much stuff can go between the system and CD drive because of limited bandwidth on the bus connecting the system and CD drive.  There the TG16 has an advantage -- that back port isn't as limited I think.  At least, I think that's right...

Either way though you need to deal with the amount of RAM you have available, so you can't just load anything that's on the CD.  Street Fighter II on HuCard is one example of that (Arcade Card might have been able to do it, but not Super!).  On the Sega CD,  for instance, the Pier Solar developers said that if they were going to do a CD-based version of the game they'd have to cut down on the amount of animation in the game because of either bus or RAM limits that carts don't have.

[spenoza]

And the final boss will never be forgotten...

I don't remember it, so I guess it can be forgotten.  :^P~

[EvilEvoIX]

So going back to forgotten worlds on the Sega CD from the PCE, it wouldn't be as good based upon what?  Colors?  What is the Sprite limit for the Sega CD, is it the Same as the Sega Genesis?  Here are the Specs I could find, strange that the Sprite limit wouldn't be up'd in any way.  The system appears to be a scaling power house however. 


Sega CD 1992-1995
CPU:    7.67 MHz 68000
Sub-CPU:    12.5 MHz 68000
CPU Co-Processors:    3.58 MHz Z80 (Audio) 3
Texas Instruments 76489 (PSG Audio):
4 Channels 4
Yamaha 2612 FM Audio:5
6 Channels:6
10 Audio Channels total
VDP7
Hardware Shadow and Lighting 8
Sub-CPU Co-Processors:    Ricoh RF5C68A Compatible:
8 Channel 12.5 MHz PCM Sound 9
Digital to Analog Converter10
Graphics Co-Processor:
Scaling and Rotation:
sprites and backgrounds11
Resolutions:    256x224, 320x224, 320x448 12
CPU RAM:    64 KB
Video RAM:    64 KB
Sub-CPU RAM:    768 KB13
PCM RAM:    64 KB
CD Cache:    16 KB
Backup RAM:    8 KB
Boot ROM:    128 KB 14
Colors On Screen:    61 (30-75 in game, average 50) 15 16
Color Palette:    512
Sprite Max & Size:    80 sprites 17at:
8x8, 8x16, 8x24, 8x32
16x8, 16x16, 16x24, 16x32
24x8, 24x16, 24x24, 24x32
32x8, 32x16, 32x24, 32x32 18
Sprites per Scanline:    20 at 320x224, 16 at 256x224 19
Background Planes:    2 layers with 16 colors per 8x8 pixel tile20
VDP handles scrolling as single planes, independently scrolling 8 line rows, and independently scrolling lines.21
Each 8 line row can can be displayed over or under others. 22

[Tatsujin]

please dear god,

do not let start that EvilEvoIX dude any tech talk inhere again.

thanx and so much apreesh'd.

[Black Tiger]

So going back to forgotten worlds on the Sega CD from the PCE, it wouldn't be as good based upon what?  Colors?  What is the Sprite limit for the Sega CD, is it the Same as the Sega Genesis?  Here are the Specs I could find, strange that the Sprite limit wouldn't be up'd in any way.  The system appears to be a scaling power house however.

Any shortcomings in the PCE version aren't a result of it being on PCE. Every game ever made is not as good as it can be for the hardware. Saying "the PCE Forgotten Worlds would be the same on Sega-CD but would have 2 players" is misunderstanding so many things.

Again: A port of Forgotten Worlds for either PCE or Sega-CD could be very detailed and support 2 player gameplay. You could also have lots of parallax in a PCE version. But the PCE port we got uses sprites which are larger than they need to be and were cobbled together inefficiently, so sprite bandwidth is wasted. If you are going to put an overly ambitious, yet inefficient port on Genesis/Sega-CD, then it will still not be as good as it should be for the hardware.

It's still a given that color/detail can't come close to a potential PCE version, but you could make a Genesis version which potentially keeps more sprites from the arcade version.

I don't see how hardware scaling would help Forgotten Worlds.

Why are you spamming a wall of specs you don't understand?

[GohanX]

Any shortcomings the pce port had is more than made up for by the awesome soundtrack. I don't even like playing the arcade version now, I miss the CD quality tunes.

[bob]

admittedly, my only experience with rondo has been a burned CDR on an emu and i bought it off the wii VC.
I finally bought the real disc and i cant wait to properly dig into it.
i hate this thread for costing me monies. 

[Bonknuts]

So going back to forgotten worlds on the Sega CD from the PCE, it wouldn't be as good based upon what?  Colors?  What is the Sprite limit for the Sega CD, is it the Same as the Sega Genesis?  Here are the Specs I could find, strange that the Sprite limit wouldn't be up'd in any way.  The system appears to be a scaling power house however. 

 A ground up port to the Genesis? Yeah sure and would have 2player support. Porting it as is, no. You'd get less color and more flicker if you added 2nd player. The PCE port is unoptimized in sprite cell arrangement. SegaCD brings nothing to the table for this, except sample playback and red book audio. I already stated before, any added graphic benefit of the SegaCD asic - uses single 15 color pseudo bitmaps. Do you really want ALL sprites to share the same 15 colors and be choppy at hell? No, you don't. That aspect isn't going to help you.

To answer your question:
 The Sprite pixel scanline limit is the same on the SegaCD as the Genesis. Unless you use the bitmap mode (scaling/rotation/blitting), but the frame drops a ~lot~ and the colors are limited to 15 for a single 'plane'.

[EvilEvoIX]

So going back to forgotten worlds on the Sega CD from the PCE, it wouldn't be as good based upon what?  Colors?  What is the Sprite limit for the Sega CD, is it the Same as the Sega Genesis?  Here are the Specs I could find, strange that the Sprite limit wouldn't be up'd in any way.  The system appears to be a scaling power house however. 

 A ground up port to the Genesis? Yeah sure and would have 2player support. Porting it as is, no. You'd get less color and more flicker if you added 2nd player. The PCE port is unoptimized in sprite cell arrangement. SegaCD brings nothing to the table for this, except sample playback and red book audio. I already stated before, any added graphic benefit of the SegaCD asic - uses single 15 color pseudo bitmaps. Do you really want ALL sprites to share the same 15 colors and be choppy at hell? No, you don't. That aspect isn't going to help you.

To answer your question:
 The Sprite pixel scanline limit is the same on the SegaCD as the Genesis. Unless you use the bitmap mode (scaling/rotation/blitting), but the frame drops a ~lot~ and the colors are limited to 15 for a single 'plane'.

Thank you, that;s all I was asking.  Too much E-dick waving for my taste otherwise.

[Black Tiger]

Thank you, that;s all I was asking.  Too much E-dick waving for my taste otherwise.

I've played Street Fighter 2, on the PCE.  I don't think it's as good as the md or snes.  How can you even argue it runs at the same speed?  I have all three games the md certain runs the most fluid and the least amount if slow down.  What game on the PCE comes close to the later games on the MD?  Everyone and their mother screwms Dracula x.  Great game but not the end all be all.  The music is for sure.  Not one example given that moves as smooth as Vector man or earthworm Jim or Alien Soldier.  I just get anger from people.

This is my point exactly, I just don't see the PCE doing games like Vector Man or Aladdin, not as smooth it just can't.  Colors hell yeah but not the smooth animation and speed of Vector man I just ran through that game again I don't see it.

Obviously you are comparing a CD 788 Megs to a 15-20 meg cart.  We all know it can load more frames of animation with a larger CD however in terms of say Earthworm Jim or vector man, you really see the TG16 pulling that off?  I doubt it I really do.  I have spent hours running through my collection on my puter and the closest thing I can see is Magical Chase in terms of Cart.  I am not even that impressed with SSFII, slow and small sprites for some reason.  The shooters really floor me however.  The PCE lacked support I'll give it that but it did what it did well, massive color, it owned the 16Bit genre unless you include the Neo Geo which most of us do not.  That said I like Dracula X but it's not runnign crazy animation or a lot of stuff going on like again Vector man or Alien Soldier.  Gunstar Heroes being another.  The Mega Drive coudla really had a color increase though Bloodlines and Dynamite Headdy had a bunch a tricks to get past 64 limit.

The neo geo could indeed do Mario kart.  It's a sprite monster it would just "brute force" the floor as it were.

This is why I've owned my neo 4 10 years now and have had 2 cabs.  The Neo rules.

However, many of us are experiencing significant slowdown on our machine thanks to this gif of yours. Terry is cool as hell, but you're being a prick by bogging down other people's PCEFX experience. We would appreciate it if you'd replace it with a less CPU-intensive graphic.

Ok I see your point now.  Ill post up a PCE animation it's far less grafical intensive .

Tricks are a term used when you make a system do what it wasn't designed to do.  The Neo Geo NEVER had anything 3D imagined for it.  It had 2D muscle that still flexes impressively to this day.  The M6800 it has now is more than powerful enough to do 3D if asked properly and again can scale and animate what it needs to to make a "mode 7ish style" similar to what the Mega Drive can do.

People forget the neo can do a maximum of 380 sprites on screen they can range in size from 1×2 to:16×512.  They are scalable and can be animated to do whatever is needed in real time.

Mode 7 is a SNES hardware trick that has scaling and rotation.  This is also facilitated by the most part on the SNES by additional helper chips that in effect are additional hardware.  The snes needs this due to a weak 16-processor that couldn't possible run it.  The MEGADRIVE cannot do mode 7 however the M6800 can more than do it via hardware computation.  The neo geo more so as it has the same processor and its almost twice as fast.  It would need to do it with large animated sprites however or tricks beyond our understanding like that 3D cube I posted.  It's all up to the programmer.

Now I have to compare cards to Carts vs CD’s?  Why do the rules keep changing? I thought the CD didn’t count as an add on as it didn’t add any horse power?  Preferences on sound chips?  Hey listen that is a 100% valid argument but comparing the sound quality from say a VHS Vs a Blue Ray you MAY prefer the VHS but one is technically better.  Now the MD and the PCE are not that far apart as the previous example but one is clearly better, certainly clearer.

Bonk is obviously a great game, I have all three on Chip, but when I sit down to play these things and the game is beat my first time through on all of them, there is something amiss.  Grafx wise just a bunch of still sprites with almost zero animation.   The fire in game is just rapid color changes.  Now in terms of Art Design it is indeed a work of art but serious lacks anything other than color to make it part of the next generation of console gaming.  There is nothing amazing going on in that game except for the style.

The genesis FM is indeed glorious.  What it lacked was competent hands.  Listen to Dynamite Headdy, listen to Earthworm Jim, Listen to Streets of Rage.  This is just not an argument.  You made sound using tech and know how from the 2000’s, how about we keep this argument in the late 80’s early 90’s OK?  BTW you should see what is being done with the MD sound chip these days, but that’s not fair right?  And I hope that sound clip you left me was a Joke because it sure sounded like it.
Not doing this, sorry.

This argument has gone back and forth for years.  Look at the games and what the system is capable of.  Later MD games would be really hard to visualize on the PCE.  The PCE is really good at color and I think that is the systems strong suit.  The md has poor color but can be displayed cleverly.  Systems and chip sets have strengths and weaknesses.  In my experience the PCE does shooters really well.  The md certainly does animation better, and the snes did RPGs.  It was an amazing time as all systems were so different and had so much personality.  I don't think that the PCE suffered so much from it's "bit-ness" however it really does straddle the line between 8bit and 16bit.  When push comes to shove you won't see earthworm Jim on the PCE or Ranger x, at least not without noticeable sacrifices.

 Says the man who's lacks any real understanding or even experience coding for these systems. I *know* that you are here just to troll. Go back to Sega16, please.

 The PCE hucard setup lacks system ram. 8k is enough to handle all variables, but it's no where near enough to decompress and keep graphics in a buffer for fast access (like the Genesis and SNES). Thus piss poor compression schemes used and minimal animation. I've seen quite a few hucards store graphics in 8 color tile format (sprites and bg tiles) to save on space. The PCE was originally setup for 32k (you can see the evidence as the first 8k bank is mirror on the next three banks. The supergrafx actually fills those slots), and it that would have helped tremendously in using schemes like LZ compression BITD (like Genesis and SNES did).

 The PCE doesn't lack speed (game logic speed is faster than the snes and about even with the Genesis). The PCE doesn't lack vram bandwidth; it can write to vram during all of active display (if vblank isn't enough). It does have block transfer instructions which are essentially dma 'instructions'  (while not as fast the snes DMA or Genesis DMA, it's a hell of a lot faster than any manual copy method and the previous 8bit game platforms lacked this). The PCE doesn't lack VRAM; it has the same as the Genesis and SNES. Matter of fact, the PCE vram layout is like the Genesis in that it's pretty flexible as where to put stuff (tiles/sprites/SAT); unlike the snes that's more rigid in it's layout. The PCE's sprite scanline limit is also inline with the other two systems. The sprites can be any of the different sizes on screen like the Genenis and unlike the snes that's limited to only 2 sprite sizes per screen.

 The PCE being the first system out, of the next generation, does lack a few things compared to system that came out *afterwards*. And the second BG layer is pretty much the only thing to stand out. If you want to criticize the PCE, do it for that. Not all this other bullshit.



 Anyway, I thought this was supposed to be processor vs processor, and not game console vs game console. Let's get back on track.

Not quite extreme.   The more 16-bit operations you do, the more the 68k will begin to win out.   Unless you make frequent, proper use of the zero page.

So it really just depends what kind of game you're making.  What's really funny though, is you would most often be using 16 bit numbers for RPGs (for stats, EXP, gear, combat stuff), so you won't even notice that there's a speed difference.  Smile

 Even if you gave the 68k the full benefit of doubt and said all 16bit operations are faster, how many 16bit operations do you have to execute per 1/60 frame in relation to everything else? I would think an RPG would be the lowest; it'd not like you're going to be hitting those on  1/60th frame basis (at least not for turn base RPGs).

 

Some other exemples, are super aleste, ans rendering ranger R2

 The '816, even with its hindering 8bit data bus, would smoke both the 6280 and the 68k at the same clock speed. Even with the 8bit data bus, the '816 is faster at both 16bit and 32bit math cycle wise. But if the '816 had a model with a full 16bit data bus, it would just be stupidly crazy fast.

Yes i think so, this is the strong department of this machine, colors and sprites moving, but his sprites limit is very low for a certain kind of games, like beats them all.

 I understand the 16 wide sprite cell setup on the pce, but it wouldn't have been that hard for have a 'half flag' in the SAT that would treat all sprites as 16x8 instead of 16x16. That goes a long way IMO. But that said, MD has a much better sprite size setup (smaller is better in this case) for beatem ups. But if you designed a beatem up from the ground up, you can get something better than Crest of the Wolf/Riot Zone. Check this out:

 All the sprites have been resized to 32 width segments (the top half are offset from the legs). Right there, that's seven 32 wide sprites per scanline. It's not busting the scanline limit. Of course, you wouldn't be fighting all 7 at once; take a note from the SOR2 and SOR3 games - move sprites to the top and bottom and have them wait (sometimes the game even moves them off screen). Also have them fall back really far (almost all the way off screen), etc. SOR2 and more so with SOR3, plays really dirty with the AI to keep the sprite scanline limit down.

FIRST OF ALL!!!!  Thank you for calling me a man.  Second of all, the thread is titled Md 68k and hu6280 comparison
So we are just comparing single chip sets here, not the whole multichip architecture.  Toe to toe between these two the MD68K is more powerful and can handle more operations so end of thread right?  Well wrong of course that would be silly, almost as silly as what you wrote above so allow me to retort.

I’ve played these systems to death.  Who knows more about what an Indy car or a NASCAR can do, the engineer or the driver?  Just because I didn’t sit there with my dick in my hand and a computer keyboard in the other doesn’t mean I don’t know what these systems can do.  I have all three of them since day one, act one, scene one.  I have all the games now as well and years of experience.  One thing that is not acceptable is theoretical stuffs that haven’t been done.  Technically the new Dodge Viper is geared to 300 MPH in top gear, so it’s the fastest car in the world right?

About even with the Genesis in game logic, that’s an interesting way to put it, some folks would call it SLOWER.  The SNES is a pile of shit in processing power but we all know it is designed with multi chip architecture to pull it’s weight, just like the PCE.  Obviously if it was only the HU6280 we’d be calling it the NES 2.
It’s not just the 2nd back ground layer.  The sound took a huge hit.  The CD add-on covered this beautify because no one can argue with CD quality sound but the actual sound FX are quite stratchy.  Now I didn’t say they were not appealing, but man the sound is iffy at times.

Lets look at Bonks Revenge and Sonic 2, both came out around the same time, both were major mascots.  I think the MD could handle that game so long as the developer did something with the colors.  You mean to tell me you can get Sonic 2 on the PCE?  Seriously?  This is my point, hell even the NES had a decent port of Bonk with it’s 24 colors or so.
My point is missed every time with the fanboi rose colored glasses however.  We all love the PCE, hell I have three versions of the systems and basically all the games.  It get’s hours of my attention.  But in comparison of the hardware, specifically the specific chipsets in this particular thread, we all know which system is more powerful.

That’s all my fingers hurt.

Well how the f*ck am I supposed to argue with this?

[Tatsujin]

[EvilEvoIX]

I have no life and nothing to do other than what is on this site.

Exactly, now excuse me while I play my 16 Bit Sega Genesis. 



P.S. I still like you guys better then the folks over on www.neo-geo.com  They hold Grudges for years.

[Bonknuts]

EvilEvoIX:

Don't be butt hurt. If you have the knowledge to hack-it in these tech discussions, then that's fine. If not, then just be a gamer like everyone else - and enjoy your games. We're all gamers in the end.

No need to make up stuff or continue to argue with facts that you have no understanding of. If you want to be proud of the Genesis and its library, then there's nothing wrong with that. There are a lot of AAA titles on the system and show off what it can do. But most of us that talk tech, specs, etc - are devs for systems. It's in our nature. And when someone spout misconceptions or just plain non-truths (while plugging thier ears), it gets old and annoying. Real fast.

[EvilEvoIX]

EvilEvoIX:

Don't be butt hurt. If you have the knowledge to hack-it in these tech discussions, then that's fine. If not, then just be a gamer like everyone else - and enjoy your games. We're all gamers in the end.

No need to make up stuff or continue to argue with facts that you have no understanding of. If you want to be proud of the Genesis and its library, then there's nothing wrong with that. There are a lot of AAA titles on the system and show off what it can do. But most of us that talk tech, specs, etc - are devs for systems. It's in our nature. And when someone spout misconceptions or just plain non-truths (while plugging thier ears), it gets old and annoying. Real fast.

Hack it?  I'm sorry is this some sort of battle I walked into or a discussion?  I've been here before, anything bad said is poor development or bad programming, anything good and it's hardware superiority, I am well aware of how it works on this site or any other site dedicated to classic 16-Bit era machines.  If I push it further some nut takes the day off work and counts every frame of animation from a PCE CD Game and posts it compared to a 2KB ROM from 1978 and declares victory, enough I just don't give enough of a shit at this point it's madness.  I am not dumb enough to argue on this site any more, not even for fun which carried me for a good six months before people caught on.  (48 Bit Bios Revision) 

Back on topic.....

I simply asked what the sprite limit was on a Sega CD and how an apples to apples translation of Forgotten Worlds would work on Sega CD from a PCE CD comparison.  The main point of contention was single player vs multi on the Genesis.  Then what about the Sega CD, someone's E-Dick got stepped on and then who gives a f*ck but oh no then I get what amounts to the new testament of "Butt Hurt" posted..  Someone mercifully posted the answer, that's it.  ,   People wana flop their E-Dick's in other members mouth, have at it, leave me out of it.  Some seem to like it, me I don't buy that shit nor am I impressed with any E-superiority you care to boast about. 

Make stuff up?  I asked a f*cking question.  I swear people like to argue at the drop of a hat.  I have all major late 80's-early 90's 16 Bit Era systems and I've played them for about 25 years now.  I have a broad understanding of what they can and can not do in terms of colors or sprites or slowdown or music.  Can I program a game?  Can I understand code?  Hell no and never pretended to do so.  All I asked was what the Sega CD added in terms of sprites and what benefits the system would add to a CD title of Forgotten Worlds.  I see that the Sega CD is indeed still limited to 80 Sprites so I see that it's best traits are scaling and obviously less slowdown in certain style games not to mention KILLER FMV and music 

This site I swear people just wana argue over nothing.  God forbid someone mentions EWJ people I am warning you.