Pc engine on par technically with snes / genesis ?

[Keranu]

Show me. One is enough.  

No matter what I show you, you might just say it's not good enough for your tastes. It's hard to please everyone's opinions, but the general opinions for the graphics of games like Sapphire is that it looks outstanding. It's kind of like a Matrix situation; I can't show you what you are looking for, you'll have to find what it is you are looking for .

Those Genesis games look way better than any overhead Duo game, easily. Beyond Oasis alone is way beyond what the PC Engine was capable of, hell Gotzendeiner is one of the most graphically impressive PC Engine games and it chugs when there are more than a few sprites on screen and they're not even close to as big as the ones in Beyond Oasis.

I believe it's fair enough to say that anything the Genesis can do, the PCE can do, except something like sound since their soundchips are so different. Especially when it comes to colors because the Genesis and PCE palette are very similar from what I know and the PCE doesn't suffer the severe color limitations. 32 colors for background and 32 colors for sprites, ouch.

Keranu where are you getting the extra color from in your screen shots? I counted only 16 colors for the NES DQ game (the maximum it could put on the screen out of a total palette of 52) and 84 for the PCE Xanadu game. Granted 1 color isn't a big deal I am just curious what method you are using to count the colors. Maybe your method is counting the transparency channel of the PNG format as a color? By the way the Super Mario 3 shot you posted only has 8 colors, not 12.

Got the color counts from pasting the image into Tile Studio and using the color count tool. It's probably including the invisible colors too, so that's more than likely where the one extra color is coming from.

[nodtveidt]

Put the developers of those Genesis games on the PCE hardware and you'd see the same game appearance on the PCE. Why? Because back then, it was all about developer skill, not hardware capabilities. As we've already seen, each of the systems of that generation had their advantages and disadvantages, and that was what this thread was really all about...hardware ability, not the ability of the game developers. Bad or slow algorithms, sloppy code, and a lack of dedication will always affect the product, and the PCE had more of these developers than any of the consoles of that time.

[Joe Redifer]

What are some good examples of PCE/Turbo overhead games that do NOT feature a tiled or patterned look like Xanadu does?  The screenshots don't have to be good enough for me or Seldane or anyone else.  I am just curious.

[Keranu]

Anearth Fantasy Stories (Seldane you might want to check this one out for graphics, it looks amazing. It's hard to find screenshots for it though), Fray in Magical Adventure, and Ys IV could qualify for what you are looking for, I guess. It's hard to find overhead games back from then in general that didn't really repeat tiles.

[Black Tiger]

Okay sure, there are more colors, but design-wise, it looks like an NES game. A Super CD-ROM game from 1994!

Here are some nice overhead Mega Drive games. I find all of these much nicer-looking than LoX: (in fact, LoX doesn't even compare to them)

Hmm, looking at these screenshots, I haven't seen ANY overhead PCE game that looks better than these games. LoX2 and Ys IV are in the same league, but they aren't really better-looking (and they are SCD games!)

I still find the original Phantasy Star better looking than the Genesis versions.

Gameplay-wise, I find overhead games in general, especially 3/4 perspective ones, as well as 3D games aren't as good as sidescrolling/2D gameplay.

As for good graphics in an overhead game, -the PC Engine didn't get as many overhead games. It's like comparing Genesis sports games to PC Engine sports games.

If you just want to go by nice looking graphics in general, then even any fanboy has to admit that at the very least, the PC Engine has games with as-good-as anything on Genesis graphics.

And the games in those pics aren't the best examples of Genesis graphics, especially PSIV's overhead. The Genesis has way better looking games art/detail & technical/graphics(cleaned up)-wise. And so does the PC Engine(Magical Chase alone trumps them all).

I could've put up some decent Anearth Fantasy Stories pics, but my Magic Engine key doesn't work anymore and there's more than 5 minutes of people standing around talking at the beginning.

[Keranu]

I took a bunch a good pics of Anearth Fantasy Stories once (which included the battle system, which you can never find pics of online ) and emailed them to a friend, but I don't have them saved anymore . I can't even remember what the battle system was like in that game, I just remember it looked waaaay cool.

[Digi.k]

I hope some people don't mind me borrowing some of their screenies for this...

ok so we like to look at nice pics then  I guess when you come to looking at the pc engine and dismissing it as underpowered you sure don't look hard enough ^__^  

haha someone post some genesis screenies of Afterburner and compare it.


games from IREM run in one of the pc engine's higher resolutions.


I sure like to find a genesis/megadrive shooter that looks as nice and colourful as this:


or this.




Need I mention the colour of these pc engine's screenies compared to the Genesis/megadrive's...

and as I've said from somewhere else before .. not bad considering the pc engine's cpu isn't much faster than the NES's.. but in terms of graphics its far from the NES..

[runinruder]

Beyond Oasis is the type of crap that seems graphically impressive in screenshots only to reveal itself as graphically limited in action.  Yeah, the ogre guy looks really cool when you see him in screens.  Then you play the game and realize you have to fight him and two other guys seven hundred freakin' times during a repetitive, mediocre five-hour adventure that forces you to tread through a lot of dull, drab, similar-looking environments.  Look at a few screens and you've seen all there is to see.  Wow, what a remarkable technological achievement.  

Xanadu 2 was the opposite for me in that it looked pretty good in screens, but breathtaking in action.  I think its environments contain a lot more beauty and variety than BO's.

[Keranu]

and as I've said from somewhere else before .. not bad considering the pc engine's cpu isn't much faster than the NES's.. but in terms of graphics its far from the NES..

I hope you don't mind if I correct this, but PCE CPU is a helluva lot faster than NES' and it's close to the speed of the Genesis. In fact, programmers (I am not one, so bare with me) will tell you that the PCE CPU is technically faster than Genesis CPU because it uses less clock cycles or whatever, check out nod's posts in the earlier pages of this thread. Yay for PCE .

[Digi.k]

and as I've said from somewhere else before .. not bad considering the pc engine's cpu isn't much faster than the NES's.. but in terms of graphics its far from the NES..

I hope you don't mind if I correct this, but PCE CPU is a helluva lot faster than NES' and it's close to the speed of the Genesis. In fact, programmers (I am not one, so bare with me) will tell you that the PCE CPU is technically faster than Genesis CPU because it uses less clock cycles or whatever, check out nod's posts in the earlier pages of this thread. Yay for PCE .

ok thats cool with me, thats another plus that the pc engine has over the genny.

I think im gonna post some more games tomorrow.

[GUTS]

Beyond Oasis absolutely smokes Xanadu, I'll take similar looking environments over ridiculous amounts of fetch quests and crappy tiled overhead view graphics anyday.  Now compared to say BLOOD GEAR it's not even a contest, BLOOD GEAR plays better than both of those games.

[malducci]

A note on PS IV - it looks much better on the real hardware than on any emulator. On emu it looks like a dithered mess, but on the Gens TV output it blends oh os nicely  I like the look of PS II over PS 4 - just slightly though, but that could change since I've haven't logged more than 6 hours on PS4.

 I think Gotzendeiner look average at best - not impressive from what I've seen - it's play control is too sloppy for me.

 Seldane, those pics are awesome examples of great Gen games. But we all know that any graphics the Gen can display(colors and res), the PCE can do as well - OK sans shadow/highlight since it display colors not available in the 512 palette - see Charles Macdonalds 1536+ color demo for MD.

 I agree with Nod, Sega had strict requires for granting a license to any given game to be published, while Hudson was much more leaniant. I remember reading a statement by Hudson saying they knew they couldn't complete with Sega and Nintendo so they focused and simple gameplay and fun (I wish I could remember the source).

 Sega was one of the kings of the arcade business - I think this is the most determining factor to Sega's success in the 16bit era (3rd in Japan, but #1 and/or #2 in the US depending on who you ask).


 LoX:II






Gulliver Boy





 Anearth Fantasy
(looks a lot like Ys I & II artwork...)




 De Ja
(no reason really to post it, but ...)

not bad considering the pc engine's cpu isn't much faster than the NES's.. but in terms of graphics its far from the NES..

 The NES cpu is based on the original 6502, the PCE based on the w65s02 - there's a noticable difference alone right there - not to mention the PCE runs at 7.16mhz and the NES runs at 1.79mhz. Besides, the PCE's huc6280 CPU is even faster than the Gens 68k in a bit of the same operations - MIPS(millions instructions per second) wise it's faster than the NES, SNES, and a hair faster then the MD. It's all in how you use it Actually the 68000 isn't famous for it's speed, but it's architecture and cost - very popular in embedded systems with its orthogonal instruction set and wide address range. The 68k is useful for operations that aren't that crucial in 16 bit games, i.e 32bit add/sub, 32bit multiply/div, etc.

Agree with runinruder with BO. It looks awesome, but average at best game - couldn't get into it. The wasn't there a Zelda clone for Gen or was BO susposed to be it?

I sure like to find a genesis/megadrive shooter that looks as nice and colourful as this:

 Sorry, but the MD has some great shooters. Gaiares is graphically the most impressive use of 64colors IMO.

 There are plenty of awesome graphics on the MD, sega sure knew how to make use of those onscreen 61 colors.

BTW: I'm stuck in Anearth Fantasy - nobody answers the babies cries int he beginning

[Keranu]

Great post, malducci; I pretty much agree with everything you said. I also wanted to point out that last pic you posted of Legend of Xanadu II with the random roman characters... were you trying to translate it or something? If so, lemme know! And keep me up with your other projects.

[runinruder]

I agree that even the mighty Xanadu 2 can't top Blood Gear.

[Odonadon]

Piping in myself, there are a lot of PCE games that look worse than Genesis games color-wize.  So again, comparing games to games is futile, especially in a hardware discussion

When you ask most serious coders what really defines performance, you'll get MIPS as your answer.  No matter how many special backgrounds you can push, it all comes down to a MIPS facter at the end of the day.  Mind you that is today, and "back then" everyone defined power by "bits", but keeping Malducci's latest post in mind (the PCE boasts MIPS figures higher than SNES and Genny), I think it's fair to say that the PCE is more powerful  

OD