Pc engine on par technically with snes / genesis ?

[peonpiate]

Ive been a fan of older systems for a while now, and ive been a gamer since the nes days. one thing i have noticed and always wondered about was how the tg16 was always panned for being a 8 bit system at its heart...and said to be a hyped up nes more or less due to that.

Now, EGM was the main source of that type of information.

However upon looking up its tech specs ive noticed that ts CPU speed is twice the speed of the snes's and equal to the genesis's...even though its 8 bit that raw speed still matters to an extent. and its color capabilities are better than the genesis's and arguably equal to the snes. Its resolution sizes can equal them both aswell and its sound isnt to far off from the genesis though snes murders them both in that area.

So.. unless im missing something here...technically it is more powerful than genesis and slightly weaker than the snes all things considered.

would that be correct ?


for example-
PCE SF2 is about the same as the snes port graghics wise
Drac X on pce pisses all over the snes version
the SNK games tend to be better than the genesis/snes versions etc

[Digi.k]

This is quite a tricky subject ^__^

I would say its on par with the megadrive/genesis but I think the genny just pips in in the way it hurls sprites around (and my reason for saying that is Treasure games like gunstar heroes).  But it displays less colours than the PCE and I would also say that the PCE had better sound chip than the genny.

The SNES isn't what I would call a sprite pusher but for fancy sprite effects like sprite rotation, sprite scaling and transparencies it can't be beaten in the 16 bit console wars.  Plus the SNES had a colour palette of 32k colours and an amazing sound chip produced by none other than Sony.

My only complaint about PCE software is that I wished companies like Hudson Soft pushed the system a bit more with their software especially with the HuCARD format.  I would say that out of their 60+ HuCARD games only about 10 really pushed the system in terms of graphics .. because at its heart the PCE is a 8bit machine I think some companies just treated it like an 8-bit system.  

You can find some fantastic CD stuff though..

I actually think the SNES version of Castlevania 4 was one of the best.. but  Dracula X on both systems the PCE version wins hands down because its on CD and has a much larger storage than SNES cartridge and more stuff like intro, redbook audio and voice acting


Can't really say much the SNK ports but I just loved the SNES takara version of Samurai Spirits/showdown.

take a look at some of these videos I think they really demonstrate PC Engine being a competent machine. These vids have been made mostly from ppl from these very forums! (*cough* shameless plug)

Devil Crash/crush

Gradius

magical chase lvl 4

pc genjin2/bonks revenge

parodius stages 6 & 7

pc denjin/air zonk

super star soldier stage 5

dragon spirit stages 7 & 8

dragon saber stage 7

Sunteams videos:
R-type

afterburner II

Ninja Spirit's videos:

Genpei Toumaden/Samurai ghost

son son II

bloody wolf

Ninja spirit

You can find a lot more videos on youtube of PC Engine games from other membes and lots on dracula X.

[FM-77]

and its color capabilities are better than the genesis's and arguably equal to the snes.

Definitely not. The PCE has 512 colors to choose from, while the SNES has 32,768. That's a HUGE difference. Games like Donkey Kong Country would be impossible to make on the PCE.

Oh, and about Chi no Rondo vs Dracula XX -- the PCE game is considered better in terms of gameplay by most (but not me, I gave the SNES game a fair chance, and I find it superior to the PCE game) but it is definitely not even comparable to the SNES game in terms of graphics. The prettiest PCE games just can't win over the prettiest SNES games in terms of graphics.

So.. unless im missing something here...technically it is more powerful than genesis and slightly weaker than the snes all things considered.

Also not true. The SNES is much more powerful than the PCE. I don't know how the PCE and Mega Drive systems compare, but from the looks of software, the Mega Drive is more powerful. At least in terms of graphics and speed. Or maybe Sega just had better developers.

[merriman_bk]

The thing that really makes me like my pce duo better than my snes is that the sound is better for many games, esp. the cd ones (ofc since they're cd quality sound).  I mean I loved Street Fighter II as a kid, one of my all time nostalgia favs, I could play it all day I like it that much.  And even with it I could tell instantly that the sound of the version for my pce is a lot better than the snes version, made me get into it even more.  Plus the graphics are about the same, for how much weaker the turbografx/pce is it's surprising what they were able to accomplish with it (at least with some games).

[takashirose]

Most of the games for the TurboGrafx/Turbo Duo were exclusives so if someone wanted to play those games, they had to buy the system.  I love my Turbo Duo.  Of course there were a lot of exclusive Super NEs games that I love to play.  The same goes with the genesis.  It's all about the games.

[FM-77]

That's not really what this is about, this is about what the hardware can accomplish, not how good the games are. There are excellent games on all three platforms.

[Joe Redifer]

even though its 8 bit that raw speed still matters to an extent.

True, and it is a zippy little machine for the most part.  A tad bit slower than the Genesis, though.

its color capabilities are better than the genesis's and arguably equal to the snes.

Well it has the same total number of colors as the Genesis, the only difference is that it can put more on screen.  The SNES has a ton more colors to choose from than both, but I think it can only display 256 at any given time.

Its resolution sizes can equal them both as well

Yes and no. I've never seen the Turbo/PC Engine game with an interlaced mode even on a static screen.  This doubles the vertical resolution.  Most Turbo games run in 224p or 240p and never in 480i.  Sonic 2 on the Genesis' 2 player mode ran in 480i (or 448i to be precise).  the SNES supposedly had a 448i mode but I've never heard of any games that ran in it.  As far as horizontal resolution goes, yes, it has plenty of cool modes that are rarely used (like the 512 mode).

its sound isnt to far off from the genesis though snes murders them both in that area.

Murders?  I completely disagree.  I am a big fan of the TurboGrafx-style of sound (mostly just tone buzzes and whatnot, but still pleasant), but the Genesis has better sound capability as well as cleaner digitized sound reproduction.  There isn't anything on the TG-16 that sounds anywhere near as good as the music from Streets of Rage 1 and 2.  The SNES has fewer sound channels than the Genesis, but better hardware to make that sound.  It sounds better for the most part, but the SNES still sounds like a 16-bit cartridge.  The difference isn't mindblowing, and I really hate the overused SNES reverb effect.  This all is kind of subjective here.

So.. unless im missing something here...technically it is more powerful than genesis and slightly weaker than the snes all things considered.

Not more powerful than the Genesis.  I'd put it right under the Genesis.  The Turbo only has one background screen whereas the Genesis has 2 plus better sprite abilities (the SNES has 4 backgrounds).  In order to have overlapping scrolling layers, the Turbo has to use sprites as one of the layers whereas the Genesis does not.  Also, the SNES cannot do sprite scaling and rotation.  It can only scale and rotate a background plane.  The Sega CD can scale/rotate both sprites and background planes.

PCE SF2 is about the same as the snes port graghics wise

Not really since it is missing at least 1 layer of scrolling that the SNES has.

Drac X on pce pisses all over the snes version

I agree (I am a HUGE Castlevania fan), but I think it's more from a design perspective than anything to do with either system's capabilities.  The SNES version looked really bright and the game shouldn't be bright and cheery.  The SNES version also had a lame fire effect in the first level that I do not think looked very good at all.  Sure, it was transparent and all that, but that doesn't mean it looks good.  the PC Engine version had a lot more space to work with.  Each level could have up to 2 megs of power-packed data whereas the entire SNES version only had a wimpy 8 megs.  Plus I enjoyed the control better on the PCE version, but that's just me.

[Digi.k]

there aren't many genesis games that sound as good as Street of Rage anyway.. but thanks to the magic that is yuzo koshiro the genny sounds wonderful.. makes me wonder what the pce could do if Yuzo used its sound chip.

If you really want to make a fair and decent sound comparison.

You could compare sound and graphics on :

PCE Afterburner II & Genesis version
PCE Devil crash/crush & Genesis Dragons Fury
PCE Aero Blasters & Genesis version
PCE Tatsujin & Genesis Truxton
PCE Populous & Genesis version
PCE Raiden & genesis version
PCE Kyuukyoku Tiger & Genesis version
PCE bomberman 94 & Genesis mega bomberman

Those are ones that I can only think of right now where you can make a direct comparison of graphics and sound..

Probably can think of more after I've digested this pizza XD

[malducci]

Also not true. The SNES is much more powerful than the PCE.

 Unless you think graphics effecs/colors equal power, I think not.

 The MegaDrive CPU is the exact same model from 1979 version - no changes. While the CPU is actually internally 32bit with 32bit arithmic functions, it fairs less then 1.2 MIPS. It has its strengths, but also has many weaknesses. Depending on what your using it for, its slightly faster or slower than the PCE's Huc6280 (1.4 MIPS). Example, the Huc6280 can increment a value in memory in just 6 cycles with a single instruction( 1 byte), while the MC68000 take much more cycles to execute and multiple bytes for each instruction. Huc6280 code is smaller in size in comparison to the MC68000, therefore taking less space (about 2.5-3 times smaller). The MC68000 does have powerful functions, that are not practical or useful for console gaming code.

 The SNES CPU is slower in performance than the PCE and the MD.


 System strengths-

 MD - The FM chip, 2 plains of backgrounds, linear memory address mode, fast cpu, 64k of ram, most games ran in 320x224

 SFC - Sony SPC music chip(board), hi-color palette, rotation/scaling, 4 background layers

 PCE - Very fast CPU, very fast VDC, 481 colors on screen without any tricks, up to 64x32 sprite size, three resolutions 512,320,256, fast video DMA.

 System weaknesses-

 MD - PSG(ugh!), only 64k of vram for the two background maps(planes), larger CPU code, 61 colors onscreen - only 30 for sprites

 SFC - slow CPU(3.58mhz) - runs even slower when accesssing slow rom(2.68mhz), only 64k for all 4 background planes and sprites( should have been 128k atleast!), non-linear address mode, games ran in 256x224(200) res to save on vram usage

 PCE - only 1 background plane - no tile flipping for background map, only 8k of system ram,  256pixel sprite limit for 320 and 512 resolution mode, no FM chip(IMO), non-linear address mode

[SignOfZeta]

About SFII': I'm a huge fan of PC Engine, Street Fighter, SFC, and 16-bit in general. I've played...a crapload of Street Fighter, and honestly I think the SFII' HuCard is way way too overrated by PCE fans.

Its a nice version, and more than most people thought possible on the PCE. It was the best version of SFII at the time...but that only lasted about two months (maybe less, I can't remember) until the SFC version of SFII'Turbo came out.

The sound...is a joke. The samples are good, and they sound more like the CPS1 version, but they cancel each other out! If one dude says, "hadouken", and the other dude says, "shouryuken" in the middle of it, you only hear half of the "hadouken". SFII' is really slow of course, so it doesn't stand out as badly as it would in a faster game where the samples are being kicked out more frequently, but its still pretty stark. The music is pretty weak too. Again it sounds more like CPS, but not actually as good as the SNES. I consider the SNES sound chip to be one of the great classic electronic instruments of all time, ranking up there with the Moog Modular, and the TR808. I *love* it. Listen to the music in Earthbound/Mother 2. Just amazing.

As for Dracula X: I have no idea why people compare Dracula X for PCE, and Dracula XX for SFC. They are two different games. One is not a port of the other. The SFC ver. is more like a quasi-sequel, or something. They are both very good. I totally perfer the PCE version, obviously, because the level design is better overall, and of course the CD audio, and cinemas are the big draw. The SFC version is way nicer looking, even if that might not necessarily be a good thing considering the tone of the game.

I love 16-bit, and one of the cool things about it was how the three major systems all had their own good, and bad points. You just cannot do Chrono Trigger, Macross, or Super Mario Kart on the PCE, or MD. Likewise you can't do Gunstar, or Thunderforce 3 on the PCE, or SNES. And of course you can't do Y's IV, of Drac X on the other systems.

Well, actually, the Mega CD could probably do a really good job of Drac X, but it never did so...there you go.

[takashirose]

But if the Sega CD could do a really good job of Dracula X, then why did the Lords of Thunder port not come out as good as the Duo version?

[Joe Redifer]

Ask Hudson.  The Sega CD Lords of Thunder was a quick and dirty port of the TurboGrafx version, kind of like the Saturn version of Symphony of the Night.  The systems could do better (especially in the Saturn's case since it was basically made for 2D games), but the developers chose not to.  There was no need to have excruciatingly loud sound effects on the Sega CD version, but the developers chose to and not because of any system limitation.  They didn't have to reperform the music, but they did (I love how some Turbophiles say the Sega CD system itself is inferior because of the music issue in this game).  And they didn't have to use sprites as one of the background layers for the Sega version, but since it was a quick and sloppy port, they did.

Why does Sega CD Dungeon Explorer play more like a wimpy Gauntlet instead of like, well, Dungeon Explorer?  Developers!

[takashirose]

But the Sega CD could only output 61 colors at a time.

[Odonadon]

This is definetely tricky as you need to be specific what you are asking for when you talk power.  Do you mean graphics capabilities?  Most people consider how powerful a machine is by going by it's MIPS value.  Does this equal power?

System strengths-

MD - The FM chip, 2 plains of backgrounds, linear memory address mode, fast cpu, 64k of ram, most games ran in 320x224

I will have to dispute the FM chip as being a strength - I find FM sound unbearable.  I think the PCE is far superior to the Genesis in terms of audio simply because I think it sounds better.  But does that mean it actually is more powerful?

For me, it breaks down to this in order of what "feels" like it has more power:

PCE
SNES
Genesis

I rank PCE above all simply because of the CD unit and arcade card.  You can claim more power when you have more memory and storage space to work with

The SNES is notoriously slow (check out Super R-Type) but has a wonderful colour palette and fantastic sound chip.  However, the PCE can display more onscreen colors at a time than either SNES or Genesis, which usually makes games seem more vibrant and cheerier.

The Genesis just gives you a "dull" feeling all around because of it's color pushing limitations and awful FM Sound.

OD

[merriman_bk]

About SFII': I'm a huge fan of PC Engine, Street Fighter, SFC, and 16-bit in general. I've played...a crapload of Street Fighter, and honestly I think the SFII' HuCard is way way too overrated by PCE fans.

Its a nice version, and more than most people thought possible on the PCE. It was the best version of SFII at the time...but that only lasted about two months (maybe less, I can't remember) until the SFC version of SFII'Turbo came out.

The sound...is a joke. The samples are good, and they sound more like the CPS1 version, but they cancel each other out! If one dude says, "hadouken", and the other dude says, "shouryuken" in the middle of it, you only hear half of the "hadouken".

Yah dude I'm not that picky, I was mainly referring to the background music anyway and nah I don't care if it's overrated -- everybody has their fav ports.