Nat and Tat, you guys are confusing line scrolling (giving each scanline a parallax effect) with moving two background layers around.
If they can both be used to produce the same visual on screen, what's the difference to the player one way or the other?
Barring Battle Ace and Darius Plus/Alpha, ALL the SGX games do make use of the two independent background layers of the SGX. Please check them out. A second layer cannot be reproduced out of sprites on the PCE because there just aren't enough to do it full-screen.
Since you seem to have a mental block about SGX games, play the 1st level of Sonic on the Genesis. See the foreground plane where all the enemies are? See the sky/water background that scrolls around independently behind it, with line scrolling even?
Example: In the distance there is a cityscape. There are buildings closer to me than that layer. They scroll independantly in front of the city scape,
passing over it. There is still a closer "plane" in which the characters and enemies reside. This example is taken from the first level of Shockman 3, a non-SuperGrafx game.
I knew long before getting into this debate that the Turbo doesn't have a "real" second background layer.
This was never the issue. I was never debating the Turbo and SuperGrafx had the same number of "real" background layers. I am saying the Turbo seems to simulate multi-layered scenery in software.You seem intent on beating me over the head with the fact that the SuperGrafx has 2 background layers. That's great, and I always knew that. There are countless Turbo games that look, to me, like they have multiple background layers. I realize these are not "real" background layers in a technical sense. Please keep in mind that you are a developer (coder, dabbler, whatever) and I am simply a player. I see what's on my screen and pay little mind to how it gets there. It seems to me that the same technique used to simulate multiple background layers in, say, Shockman 3 could be used to create a port of, say, GnG, that is visually the same as the SuperGrafx version.
The SGX can do all this just fine. The PCE cannot.
Uhhh. OK.
See my example a couple paragraphs back. Feel free to explain how this is different than your Sonic example. From a developer's standpoint, I get the picture these are quite different. To me, a game player, these appear to be the same.
But anyway... I was responding to this comment which I had found to be untrue:
The problem with SuperGrafx games in general is that none of them take advantage of the hardware. I can't think of anything on the SuperGrafx that couldn't be done just as well on the "regular" Turbo/PCE.
The games that are there do take advantage of the hardware, viz: 2 scrolling planes.
And how can you reply to statements like that without comparing what the SGX could do that the PCE could not?
Nat, perhaps it's better to say something like "The problem with SuperGrafx games in general is that none of them really impress me," since one's opinion is just that, and I cannot argue with that. But to say that none of the games use the unique features of the SGX hardware is just false.
Fair enough. Let me rephrase: "The problem with SuperGrafx games in general is that none of them take full advantage of the hardware."
Don't get me wrong, all this makes me sound a SuperGrafx-hater. I love my SuperGrafx and the games even if for no other reason than the pure novelty, and the fact that attached to the CD-ROM^2 unit it's the biggest console I've got.
