Neo Geo vs SNES

[JohanOberg]

And it seems like a disproportionately high percentage of people who like the SNES only like it because of RPG's or slow adventure games.

And it seems like a disproportionately high percentage of people who like the Neo Geo only like it because of fighting games.

Two can play at that game

[jon]

Not that I know anything about the making of consoles but why didn’t the SNES have the 68k blast processor the Neo Geo and Genesis has. The SNES was made after both of them. The SNES not having a fast processor pretty much ruined fast paced games.

[ActRaiser]

Not that I know anything about the making of consoles but why didn’t the SNES have the 68k blast processor the Neo Geo and Genesis has. The SNES was made after both of them. The SNES not having a fast processor pretty much ruined fast paced games.

With hardware there are always tradeoffs. If you want a faster processor then you'll get a crappy sound chip. You have to design the hardware to meet the product costs. That fancy chip that allows mode7 scaling and rotation could be swapped out for one with a faster clock. Swap in less RAM, more RAM, etc. It's always a game of tradeoffs. Who knows what they were thinking at the time but from a hardware perspective engineers want the world. The product team needs costs low so they can sell it. If you make the hardware too good you'll overprice yourself out of the market, aka Neo Geo. Sure, it's an arcade system but between Nintendo and SNK who do you think made more revenue and profit in the same amount of time?

As for fast paced games give Contra III a shot on the SNES. That was fast enough for me.

[Hagane]

How many King of Fighters do we need??

Neo Geo is ok-ish I guess, some cool games, Metal Slug is fantastic, but it just can't beat both Genesis and SNES library of games with its wide array of genres, you won't find on Neo Geon series like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Mega Man, Contra, Final Fantasy, Sonic, Mario, Street of Rage, Final Fight, Zelda, Castlevania, TMNT..., I could go on and on really.

Neo Geo too many fighting games yet no Street Fighter uh, and what about the Neo Geo CD, you can take a nap during the loading screens, also it was expensive as hell, you had to sell a kidney to buy one and then sell the other kidney to buy some games, it's still very expensive for collectors indeed.

It's a powerfull machine, but not enough for it's price, it can't do real transparency effects, no sprite or background zoom/scalling features, more brute force than the SNES yes, but SNES could kick the Neo Geo out of the water on the special effects department, just check out what Mode 7 can do.


SNES isn't just RPGs, it is just a narrow minded way of view, I love SNES and I'm not that much into RPGs, there are a lot of fast paced arcade games on it too: Space Megaforce, Axelay, Contra 3, Turtles in Time, Smash TV, F-Zero, Wild Guns and so on and on, check out the japanese only Rendering Ranger which is up there with any shooter on NG. SNES had a good processor too as good as the Motorola 68000 (both Genesis and Neo Geo same processor but with different MHz), the problem was the "slow room/fast room" thing, some hacks even fixed some slow problems on some SNES games, SNES would not run some games like Space Megaforce if it didn't have a very good processor.

[MSR1701]

Not that I know anything about the making of consoles but why didn’t the SNES have the 68k blast processor the Neo Geo and Genesis has. The SNES was made after both of them. The SNES not having a fast processor pretty much ruined fast paced games.

Nintendo chose the processor they did for reasons that I am trying to recall. At one time they were planning to build in Famicom compatibility into the SNES, which heavily influenced the initial design, and then there was the SNES Playstation concept that influenced the final design (Sony also had a hand in designing the SNES sound processor).

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

Not that I know anything about the making of consoles but why didn’t the SNES have the 68k blast processor the Neo Geo and Genesis has. The SNES was made after both of them. The SNES not having a fast processor pretty much ruined fast paced games.

In some ways, the SNES chip is more efficient than a 68000, and you can accomplish more per clock cycle. The worst speed issues had more to do with the ROMs being expensive and 3rd parties being unable to afford the fastest available.

Unfortunately for gamers, running the games in what was originally intended as a compatibility mode for NES titles simply made more business sense.

But there were other issues. Databus bottlenecks, 8-bit math, and the chipset not being as well understood as the 68000. Plus weird sprite tile organization - the largest sprite tiles would require twice the cpu calls, due to the way they were stored. And you can only ever use two sprite tile sizes at a time, so you're forced to make some really awkward compromises involving too many sprites or invisible pixels. Also, unlike the Megadrive, there was a hard limit on the resources you could dedicate to sprite control. It's why the best of the SNES library generally leans more towards something more thoughtful like Super Metroid or Chrono Trigger rather than the wild insanity of a Treasure run and gun. (Even Contra III and Rendering Ranger are restrained by comparison.)

Not that you can't get amazing results with the stock SNES hardware (see Parodius and Megaman X), but you have to know exactly what you're doing and have a really good budget. Otherwise, you end up with a cautionary tale like Gunforce. The original was the spiritual ancestor of Metal Slug. coming from many of the same people. But on the SNES? It really suffers, and became so obscure it's not even reviewed on this site.

And, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I couldn't find evidence of somebody even asking for one?

[Hagane]

Not that I know anything about the making of consoles but why didn’t the SNES have the 68k blast processor the Neo Geo and Genesis has. The SNES was made after both of them. The SNES not having a fast processor pretty much ruined fast paced games.

Funny that there are lots of slowdowns on Metal Slug for Neo Geo, you can even find slowdowns on the allmight powerfull 68000 16 MHz processor too.

Every hardware has its problems, sometimes you can blame the hardware and sometimes you can put the blame on the production team for the lack of effort, you can find slowdowns on any console even on some Genesis games like Thunder Force 4 and Mega Bomberman, there are lots of sprite flickering and some slowdowns here and there on Gunstar heroes too despite Genesis having a fast processor, also some SNES games are very ugly despite having a wide color palatte, it can work both ways, Doom Troopers on Genesis runs faster than the SNES version, on the other hand Pitfall on SNES runs faster than the Genesis version, even the much talked about Super Metroid when you get the speeder booster Samus can run faster than Sonic.

[jon]

The SNES having a very slow processor compared to the Genesis (and Neo Geo) is evident especially with the sports games that were on both being much better on the Genesis than the SNES. When you think of Madden, or NHL '94, or a number of other sports like basketball and golf you think about the Genesis. No one wants to play those games on the SNES. Not only was the processor slower, but they had the same problem the NES had, not enough technology to have a lot of sprites on the screen. The SNES had extremely serious problems having big sprites. For a "90's" console it just was a disapointment.

[Voor]

SNES is my favorite console of all time, and I’m not an RPG genre or like slow adventure games (unless you count games like super Metroid In that category).

I don’t care about technology or blast processing or the FXchip or any of that. I like 2D platformers, and snes excelled at that, as well as other genres.

Neo Geo has some excellent games, but the console itself just wasn’t accessible.

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

You're right that the development team matters more than the raw system specs. But...

even the much talked about Super Metroid when you get the speeder booster Samus can run faster than Sonic.

In a lower resolution game, featuring simpler background tiles, each pixel perfectly placed, and a black GUI overlay over the top of the screen to help buy more VBlank time for the cpu.

Sure, it proves that smart design often matters more than hardware - it's why Nintendo's survived the kind of disasters Sega couldn't.

But, with that said...why not examine a fair contest between the two systems?

There's a Sonic homebrew for the SNES, made by one of the best homebrew coders around, using every trick the 21st century can offer, to gain the best possible performance.

And it looks every bit the part. It's convinced a lot of people that Sega's speed advantage was just marketing hype.

Except the engine sometimes has to kill the number of moving objects on screen to keep pace, despite running in a lower resolution and the SNES hardware being able to display more sprites onscreen than the Genesis. For example, when Sonic gets hit, and the rings go flying. Even the original slows down, so the homebrew version doesn't even try to compete.

And it took the same size as the entire game on Genesis in order to make a brief Green Hill demo, without a single boss fight.

Meanwhile, that same coder made a Megaman X homebrew for Megadrive. And there, faced the opposite problem - the engine's able to throw a few more enemies on screen at once, without slowdown. Which was an opportunity embraced. Right before the first stage fight with Vile, the number of flying drones onscreen is doubled. The enemies are easy enough to avoid, so its purely to show off.

But in places where the extra speed makes a difference, it's clear the game's challenge wasn't designed for it. The game's harder than the SNES classic.

So yeah, you can get slowdown or high speeds on either system. But it takes a lot more skill to code a good high speed action game on SNES than it does on Genesis. And a lot more discipline to make something restrained on Genesis.

It's also why the Genesis is filled with primitive polygon simulations, terrible mode 7 homebrew effects, and 20fps software sprite scaling - it's a lot more flexible than the base SNES hardware, so you can get experimental without making something *completely* unplayable.

And it's why the Neo Geo has the least diverse library around. All it can do is make sprite tiles - even the backgrounds. This really limits what you can do, if you aren't treating the background strips like a pretty wallpaper. Look at Riding Hero and Blue's Journey - how many fans and business owners wanted their expensive new luxury console attempting more of that?

No matter how talented a developer is, it pays to know the strengths and weaknesses of your platform.