Graphics: Turbo vs. Genesis - ye old debate

[ceti alpha]

If anyone thinks the Turbo could replicate, say, Gunstar Heroes without any loss whatsoever then they are fooling themselves.  That being said, anyone who thinks the Genesis could replicate , say, Air Zonk exactly would also be a fool.

The MD couldn't handle Sapphire, but the Sega CD could (with the requisite color loss, of course).  I'd like to see the Arcade Card handle Batman Returns or Soul Star.  Or Super Castlevania IV.  Can't be done.  But really, who cares?

Well, you could very well be right. But I think the Turbo could have improved in some features of the game, like the voices. As you say, each system has its own specialties.

[Joe Redifer]

They do, but I think the Genesis is capable of the better voice.  There's a discussion along with examples somewhere around here (the Turbo still has great voice).  If the Turbo wasn't the Turbo, it wouldn't be as cool!

[awack]

What we have here is empirical evidence vs theoretical or faith based evidence as far as what one system can or can not do, for Gunstar Heroes or Alien Soldier and the arcade card, well, there are no Treasure developed platform shooters on the pc engine, we only have system specs to go by, but we have direct evidence of how ACD games such as Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury 2, Fatal Fury Special, (World heroes2/World heroes) Strider and Maduo Monogatari turned out on each system.

As for Sapphire on the sega cd, again if we look at all the missing detail and animation of Art of Fighting(sega cd), i would say no.

With all the Mode 7 and transparencies, a direct port of Super Castlevania IV could not be done on the pc engine, but what about a remake, well, who knows, but we do know how a remake of Dracula X would turn out on the snes, going back to the Gunstar Heroes/Alien Soldier question, its interesting to note that Rondo when using Maria is a much faster game than SCIV, Bloodlines or Dracula X.

All said and done, we also have to take into consideration the competence of the developer, the experience with a particular system and how much effort is put into it.

[quoth09]

I don't think Turbo would have handled a game like Gunstar Heroes or Alien Soldier even with that Arcade Card Duo.

Likely not, but who cares NINTEGA.

The 68000 is gonna set your ass on fire.

GET LOST. NO ONE WANTS YOU HERE. EVER.

[oldskool]

reality is most here are kids and are not from the 16 bit generation or are just uneducated to the facts  the fact is the turbografx is more powerful than snes or sega back in the 80s not many understood the technical aspects of game consoles so they just judged power based on bits today we know ram clock speed etc are more important mips stands for machine instructions per second the turbo has higher mips than the genesis all of you speaking on resolution are painfully wrong the fact is that the turbografx 16 could get resolutions of 512- thats more than snes sega neogeo ps1 even n64 and dont say it wasnt used infact both sherlock holmes games on the turbo used it the turbos 8 bit cpu was faster than segas 16 and yes paralex scrolling was possible on the turbo just more taxing infact games like gates of thunder used more paralex than sega did what gamres released on both systems look better on the sega i ask you? only 1 golden axe and it was ported by a third party streetfighter 2 the most powerful game at the time is rated better on turbo than snes or sega more colorful sharper clearer sound cadash on turbo 4 players on sega 2 on turbo better graphics shinobi the sega game actually is rated higher on pc engine all the valis games exile etc almost all games released on all 3 systems are better looking and sounding on turbo and lets not forget its the oldest of the 3 colors mattered most in the 2d era like neogeo turbo could put up big colors the sega coundnt plus turbos 2 16 bit graphics chips could go beyond the sega or snes in mips as i stated thats why dracula x couldnt be made on sega cd  turbo shooters on sega cd have slowdown too

Do you really, truly, undeniably, with certainty know what you are talking about?

[nectarsis]

He must, his name says it all 

[Necromancer]

whoever taught you english should be fired.

..... he said while failing to follow the rules of capitalization? 

Do you really, truly, undeniably, with certainty know what you are talking about?

Obviously not, else he would've read the 20 pages of discussion and seen that those points had already been covered, nor would he attempt to prove the Turbo's prowess by comparing resolution, especially considering that he's wrong.  I'm not an expert, but 512x240 is not greater than 512x478 (SNES) or 640x480 (PS1 and N64).  Even if he were correct, the awesomeness factor of the TG-16 most certainly doesn't hinge upon Sherlock Holmes so who gives a shit?

[Joe Redifer]

I don't think Turbo would have handled a game like Gunstar Heroes or Alien Soldier even with that Arcade Card Duo.

Likely not, but who cares NINTEGA.

The 68000 is gonna set your ass on fire.

GET LOST. NO ONE WANTS YOU HERE. EVER.

Be nice.

[guyjin]

..... he said while failing to follow the rules of capitalization? 

Yeah, I'm a hypocrite. must be my Clinton-era upbringing.

[oldskool]

And MIPS = "Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages", machines instructions per second?  LOL.

Also, MIPS initially was a 32 bit architecture, since when was the Turbografx 32 bits?  Sure would be nice!
Another definition of MIPS = "Millions of Instructions Per Second" - which is more commonly used.

Do some research before jabbering your fingers...

MIPS Architecture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIPS_architecture

MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second)
http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid80_gci214097,00.html

[Nintega]

I don't think Turbo would have handled a game like Gunstar Heroes or Alien Soldier even with that Arcade Card Duo.

Likely not, but who cares NINTEGA.

The 68000 is gonna set your ass on fire.

GET LOST. NO ONE WANTS YOU HERE. EVER.

Be nice.

Thank you Redifer.

[awack]

Another definition of MIPS = "Millions of Instructions Per Second" - which is more commonly used.

I,m guessing thats the definition he is using, I'm kinda pulling these numbers outmybutt, but for the Genesis it is .8 MIPS and 1.5 MIPS for the PCE.

For resolution, i would put the Genesis 1st since more of its games use a higher(medium) resolution than the pce or snes, the Pce would be 2nd, more of its games use the higher (medium) resolution than i initially thought, it also has the high (512) resolution and the ability to switch between different resolutions on the fly, like in Art of Fighting. I put the snes dead last, because i don't know of single game that uses the higher resolutions.

[Tom]

I,m guessing thats the definition he is using, I'm kinda pulling these numbers outmybutt, but for the Genesis it is .8 MIPS and 1.5 MIPS for the PCE.

 The average PCE game runs about MIPS is 1.8. There are a lot of 2 cycle instructions that make up that higher number. The MAX MIPS is 3.58. It'll never reach that high, but it can go higher than 1.8 depending on the code. IIRC, an emulator author clocked Genesis games running at 0.8+ MIPS. Most sites like clock/8 for 68k MIPS, but it's closer to clock/9.

 The two processors are drastically different. So you can see that the MIPS rating doesn't show the true performance. If you coded the 68k like you would a 6280, it would run pretty slow - and vice versa (less so). The 68k is not fast per say and has slower memory fetch cycles, but it has more powerful addressing and register modes. It's easy to code for and has instructions that get more done in less overall cycles.

 I can't mention any details at the moment(I can later on), but I've seen the code for Art of Fighting port on the PCE. Funny that they translated quite a bit 68k code line for line by hand to the 6280 (you could see 68k line commented on the side). That might give some idea of the strength of the 6280

 Personally, I'd say the Genesis strength is in its sprite size configurability. Its greater than the SNES. In what I mean is, that you can really optimize a sprite sizes to reduce flicker. Streets of Rage 3 is thee most perfect example. That character art is optimized to the pixel, per row. Well, that and the AI keeps the 'stand by' characters out of the mother flickering way

 It's the number of sub-palettes that's embarrassing on the Genesis (4). Even the NES had more sub-palettes ( 8 ). Sega has no excuse. The SNES has 16(8+8) and the PCE has 32(16+16). Since all three 16bit systems have 16 color tiles, it's the sub-palettes that really matter for colors on screen since these are tile base systems.

[spenoza]

What seems clear to be is the completely different approaches taken by all 3 systems. The SNES is heavily dependent upon its specialized chips to the point that the CPU is anemic at times. The Genesis seems to be all about managing sprites with a flexible, efficient CPU, with the primary weakness being color palettes and inconsistent hardware build quality. The PCE, on the other hand, reveals itself as the earliest design of the three as probably the most general system. The PCE seems to be the most like the NES in many ways, and as such seems to be an extension of that philosophy. Just make a robust general system that can do lots of stuff and leave it to the programmers to sort stuff out.

[Lord Thag]

The popularity and awesomeness of a console has never, and I mean never, been tied to it's system specs. For example, look at the most popular/successful system of each era:

Original Era:

The 2600 is the most popular and successful console of the era by a huge margin, and it is vastly outclassed by the Intellivision and Colecovision.

8-Bit Era

The NES stomps the Master System, even though it is slightly less capable.

16-bit Era

A close match (in the US) with the Geny and SNES, though the Geny is somewhat inferior to the SNES

32-bit Era

Playstation wins over the far superior N64 by a mile, and topples the Big N from it's perch.

Last Gen

PS2 trounces the competition, and is the most inferior technically of the three.

Current Gen

The Wii. A console that could have been released ten years ago, and it's beating ALL the next gen stuff. The most capable console, the PS3 sinks like a lead brick.

At the end of the day, it's THE GAMES, not the capabilities of the system, that win. It's never been about capability. It's about accessability, affordability, and library size. The TG-16 and the Geny are very close technically. The Geny did well here, and the TG/PCE did well in Japan. Both systems have excellent games, though I personally favor the TG/PCE. If a system has fun games, regardless of the 'wow' factor, it will do well. Wii Sports anyone?

People want affordable fun. The system with the most affordable fun wins. Everytime.