Graphics: Turbo vs. Genesis - ye old debate

[OldTurboBastard]

Now here's a fun poll:

What do you think would've benefitted more? The Turbo Grafx 16 having an extra background layer or the Genesis having palette capabilities as the TG16  ? We sorta already have a TG16 with an extra background layer thanks to the Super Grafx, but I'd like to hear comments regarding this .

Of course I'd say the turbo with the extra BG plane (i'd better after this thread...) but the genesis could have definitetly used the extra color. Alot of games came off "dark" or maybe "dim" is the better term on the genesis, even when using the bright colors.

Too bad we could'nt have seen more from the supergrafx. The backgrounds in Aldynes did'nt take great advantage really, yeah they were multi-plane but not all that impressive (maybe this is because I knew it was no longer a challenge to pull off...hmmmmm), although some of the giant bosses were cool (not sure if any actually used the second BG plane) . Ghouls and Ghosts was cool, but we'd seen it before...Would have been great to see some more original shoot 'em up stuff on there having so many sprites and the dual BG layer.

[Joe Redifer]

Here is an oversaturated looping animated GIF of Kolibri scrolling that I created for no reason other than to piss off dial up users 




PS - It's really not that jerky.  It lost something in the Quicktime-to-GIF conversion.  I apologize.  Please don't ban me!

[ceti alpha]

Too bad we could'nt have seen more from the supergrafx.

I agree. It's a shame that the Supergrafx had such a short shelf life. Seems like such a waste to only have a handful of games for a system. NEC/TTI really should have concentrated solely on the next 32 bit (PC FX) or even a 64 bit system. I mean NEC should by all rights be running the gaming show at this stage of the game. They had already figured out the CD format before other companies had even thought about it. It just seems like they were spreading themselves thin releasing a bunch of different versions of the PC Engine and PC Engine Duo, the Supergrafx and whatnot. I would have really liked to have seen a 3D Bonk game in the likes of Super Mario World, or a 3D Dungeon Explorer. 

[Tatsujin]

they just should've made the DUO based on the SGFX technology, then all would've be fine!!

[ceti alpha]

they just should've made the DUO based on the SGFX technology, then all would've be fine!!

Indeed. Though I wonder why NEC just didn't put a 16-bit processor in the Supergrafx. Seems like a lot of trouble to go through building a new machine to only make it a little better than the PC Engine. I guess that's why it failed. 

I just remember seeing the Supergrafx for sale in the gaming magazines of the day and thinking it was so mysterious. What was it like? What were the games like? There was only ever a tiny picture of it in the advertising pages so it was hard to tell how big it was and the finer details of it.

I guess the only reason I would ever want one is if for nostalgia's sake. But I would have to find a pretty sweet deal.

[malducci]

Indeed. Though I wonder why NEC just didn't put a 16-bit processor in the Supergrafx. Seems like a lot of trouble to go through building a new machine to only make it a little better than the PC Engine. I guess that's why it failed. 

 Why? That would make it not backwards compatible. The original processor in the PC Engine is fast enough - much faster than the SNES CPU and its video arch was much more complex than the SGX. I'd take an increase palette over a processor upgrade. Actually the PC-FX is sort of what the SGX (or PC-Engine 2) was supposed to be = increased palette, new processor, twin VDCs (the same as the SGX), scaling/rotation BG layer. It even has the same PSG audio system. Maybe PC Engine 2 was upgraded into a PC-FX (new processor and iDCT for MPEG) and the SGX was stripped and released to buy them some time until the PC-FX could be released? I wouldn't doubt that since the SCD was doing so good, that they delayed the release of the PC-FX (in whatever state/revision it was in), but that's just pure speculation.

[Necromancer]

Why? That would make it not backwards compatible. The original processor in the PC Engine is fast enough - much faster than the SNES CPU and its video arch was much more complex than the SGX.

Agreed, but could they have jacked up the 6280's speed but left it switchable to the original speed?  I'm guessing that the original processor will choke if it has to handle 128 sprites at once (*cough* snes slowdown *cough*).

Maybe PC Engine 2 was upgraded into a PC-FX (new processor and iDCT for MPEG) and the SGX was stripped and released to buy them some time until the PC-FX could be released?

I doubt it, as there's five years between the two.  The PC-FX is far too advanced for '89, and would've been far too expensive.  Even NEC wouldn't have been dumb enough to develop such a failure.... wait, that's exactly what they did.  Twice, though their failures weren't due to price.

[ceti alpha]

That would make it not backwards compatible.

I see your point, but this goes back to my original point a few posts up. Why did NEC even bother with the Supergrafx in the first place? They didn't need to buy time until the PC-FX because the PC Engine was still holding its own. People didn't want to shell out coin for a new system that had crazy expensive games. This is all speculation, but I tend to believe that if NEC played their cards better not only in North America, but in Japan as well, they would one of the big names in the gaming industry today. But there's obviously no way to prove that. 

[ccovell]

This may sound like Greek but give it some thought:

White Elephants to Take the Wind out of the Opponent's Sails

[ceti alpha]

White Elephants to Take the Wind out of the Opponent's Sails

OK, I'm probably misinterpreting your statement here, but from what I can gather you are saying that the Supergrafx is the "White Elephant".  I am able to see the Supergrafx as a white elephant. It is at the same time a blessing and a curse - excellent graphics yet of no real practical use. There are only a handful of games and the hardware is underutilized due to technical issues. But yet the games it does have are better than its opponents.

Is that what you're saying here? Or am I way off? hehe 

[Necromancer]

I believe that Chris is saying that NEC wanted to steal some of Nintendo's thunder by rushing the SuperGrafx out the door ahead of the SNES.  It makes sense to me: they got a little of the big N's media attention for themselves and then abandoned the SuperGrafx once it served its purpose.

[ceti alpha]

I believe that Chris is saying that NEC wanted to steal some of Nintendo's thunder by rushing the SuperGrafx out the door ahead of the SNES.  It makes sense to me: they got a little of the big N's media attention for themselves and then abandoned the SuperGrafx once it served its purpose.

Ah, OK. hehe. Yeah, true. I guess I've always underestimated the effect Supergrafx had on the Super Famicon in Japan.  Did it really take that much wind out of the SF's sails?

[BonkThis]

I see alot on here with folks trying to declare the turbo as having more impressive graphics than the genesis.

 The Turbo could replicate the missing extra plane by using sprites, but the Genesis couldn't do anything about the lack of colors (which resulted in nicely detailed games with washed out colors).

but the turbo struggled to pull it off and sacrificed sprites to do it half as well. After hearing from some others in here, that's still the main (and perhaps only) disavantage of the turbo, but it's a big one in my book that. I don't think i've ever looked at a genesis game and siad "this would great if i had three more shades of aqua #3". I have definitely fired up a turbo game (forgotten worlds etc) and said "where' the parallax?" or better yet noticed the background flickering in psychosis cause it's really an extra sprite that the turbo can't handle.

having said all this, I still love the Turbo as i said before the games sem to have a quality that makes them more fun to play.

That a refund on the 2 cents

mortal kombat on the genesis made me wish for more color.

[handygrafx]

SuperGrafx could not have been the PC-FX in 1989 or even 1990. that would not be possible or practical.


what the SuperGrafx should have been, IMO, is something more like  a "Super X68000" in a console, with a faster clocked 68000.  without the floppy disc drives,  with more colors on screen (4096) the same palette (65,536)  the addition of true hardware scaling & rotation.  maybe more sprites (say 256 16x16).    something roughly as powerful as Sega's highend boards with Super-Scaler technology.   a real leap above the PC-Engine, something with more power than the SNES,  more or less on par with the NEO-GEO, though more reasonably priced with games costing no more than $90.      also the "Super CD-ROM" should've been a CD-ROM for this SuperGrafx.  the regular PC-Engine would use CD-ROM2  system card 1.0 2.0, 3.0 etc but leave Super-CD-ROM exclusive to SuperGrafx. even if only say 50 or 40 or so SuperGrafx  SHu-Cards and SCDs came out, if the quality of the games remained very high, it would've been so much more worthwhile.

[awack]

My understanding of the super grafx thang is that it was made in anticipation of the release of the super famicom which they (NEC/HUDSON) thought was going to be much more powerful than it turned out to be.

They must have thought that the pc engine + cd with future memory upgrades could easily compete with the super famicom, hell, look at the two games that were released on regular pc engine hucard and the super famicom, raiden and street fighter 2, raiden being superior and street fighter is up in the air.