Neo Geo vs SNES

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Hagane
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Re: Neo Geo vs SNES

Postby Hagane » January 21st, 2022, 6:44 pm

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

Hagane wrote: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.



That Sonic homebrew just to show that that blast processing thing was a marketing bullshit, yes it used every trick the 21 century can offer, also you could say the same for the Wolfenstein 3D homebrew on Genesis, same for the Mega Man X homebrew too, both even bigger in size than the originals ones. I forgot to say but there is a newer version of the Sonic homebrew which eliminate the rings slowdowns, it is the 1.1 version I guess.

Yes it takes more skill to code for the SNES, but the most important thing is that you can accomplish fast games with lots of sprites on screen on the console, Space Megaforce is impressive, Sparkster has some fast segments too, also there is Speedy Gonzales which is a Sonic based fast game on the console, Super Turrican 2 and many more..., and let's not forget Rendering Ranger with 128 sprites, pre-rendered graphics with more than 100 colors, real tranparency effects, Mode 7 bosses and without any slowdowns and sprite flickering, plus it's running on slow room on 60 fps, this game is way more impressive than any shooter on Genesis.

Also there are the SNES hacks which fixed the slow room problem like Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts and Gradius 3.


That Mega Man X homebrew on Genesis sucks cos they missed the point, Mega Man is not a run and gun game, it's a jump and shoot, it's more plataforming based, the challenge lies on the pixel perfect plataforming, on Mega Man games usually fewer enemies on screen since the NES interations, on the SNES version you could have put more enemies on screen too but it would have ruined the flow of the game, Mega Man isn't about that, it is not Contra.

Genesis has a more flexible hardware yes and that is great people can pull off some tricks that the 21 century can offer I guess, On the other hand the SNES hardware is hard to work with and that is why there are fewer homebrews, yet there are some impressive ones like the New Super Mario Bros homebrew for the SNES which is really impressive, check out the 1.5 version which fixed some gameplay bugs.

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DrLitch
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Re: Neo Geo vs SNES

Postby DrLitch » January 21st, 2022, 8:03 pm

Hagane wrote:That Sonic homebrew just to show that that blast processing thing was a marketing bullshit


Blast Processing was genius. 30 years later, it is still recollected and spoken about.

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


This will interest you and hopefully other folks here.

Development teams, optimization, planning, workarounds ...

Sonic on GBA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75T4WgksNhY

Genesis game, only worse, much much worse. Cannot hold linescrolling speed, frame rate in single digits sometimes.

PS1 Tomb Raider running on GBA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GVSLcqGP7g

Very odd, thought it was Aprils Fools or make belief, nope, apparently not. Not quite at PS1/Saturn level but not a gimped port either. In fact at a glance I thought it was actually the PS1 game.

Not saying the Genesis will run Tomb Raider any time soon, but curious how two things on other sides of the spectrum end up so much different.

SNES vs Genesis. I will say this.... I have a hard time seeing the SNES handling this Genesis title:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydMLculJDIc

Then again, there is Street Fighter Alpha on SNES. Who knows...........

strat
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Re: Neo Geo vs SNES

Postby strat » January 21st, 2022, 8:32 pm

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.


If you go through the ROM in a tile editor like YY-CHR, most of it is blank space. And even many of the graphics like the Sonic sprites are uncompressed. This demo did not blow through 512K of ROM!

ThePixelatedGenocide
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Re: Neo Geo vs SNES

Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » January 22nd, 2022, 3:32 am

strat wrote:If you go through the ROM in a tile editor like YY-CHR, most of it is blank space. And even many of the graphics like the Sonic sprites are uncompressed. This demo did not blow through 512K of ROM!


Thanks for the correction and the education. How big is the actual program itself?

I'm trying to learn about tile editors now, and so far, I'm mostly learning that it's way over my head, and I won't even be able to see the tiles if they're compressed.

So, here's my incredibly painful newbie questions - what all can a tile editor do? Can you use it to see where other kinds of coding reside too? Game logic, collision detection, audio, etc?

If that's too much -

Does it make it possible for artists to edit the tiles too, if we can make sense of all the puzzle pieces? Or would we need coding experience? I've seen people make requests, or struggle with palette and resolution limitations, and I'd like to give back to the community if possible.

ThePixelatedGenocide
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Re: Neo Geo vs SNES

Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » January 22nd, 2022, 8:08 pm

Hagane wrote:That Sonic homebrew just to show that that blast processing thing was a marketing bullshit


Never said it wasn't. Blast processing has nothing to do with processor speed, and was never actually used during the Genesis's lifetime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvvL6S5Buiw

yes it used every trick the 21 century can offer


And still reduces the number of moving objects in order to avoid slowdown. I was using the new version as the point of comparison - count the rings when you get hit. There's a very strict limit on the number, despite the SNES being more powerful in terms of the number of potential sprites on screen.

Anyways, my point wasn't that you shouldn't use the full potential of the hardware, it was that it still couldn't keep up with the Genesis's first Sonic game.

While the Megadrive's Megaman X homebrew allows it to actually add things to the game, that aren't needed. Kind of like George Lucas making a special edition.

We don't disagree on this, which is why I said many SNES games are more thoughtful than their Genesis counterparts.

With that said, the Wolfenstein port is superior to anything you could get on a stock SNES without wrecking the original intent. More power isn't always a bad thing.

Yes it takes more skill to code for the SNES, but the most important thing is that you can accomplish fast games with lots of sprites on screen on the console, Space Megaforce is impressive


Yes, it is.

But.

The backgrounds crawl by like you're a tourist taking photos, and the sprites are carefully managed to make certain they're not doing anything more ambitious than Recca on the NES. And often, they're not even that daring.

This game is a demonstration of good design and making a priority of the player's experience over all other considerations, but it's only impressive otherwise because it's on the SNES. On the Genesis, with the usual dithering and palette compromises, it wouldn't be nearly as impressive.

also there is Speedy Gonzales which is a Sonic based fast game on the console


Nowhere near as fast as Sonic with his speed boots on. The game's mostly just a slightly faster than usual 8-bit style, only using the power of the 16-bit upgrade for the improved image/sound quality - it's a very by the numbers production.

Super Turrican 2


It's not even as fast as the opening 3 seconds of Contra Hard: Corps. And that's throwing a gratuitous amount of sprites at the screen.

From watching all these games, it's pretty clear that Sega developers abused "moving things so fast that the player's senses are overwhelmed" for quick adrenaline shots. Which, to be clear, was already done on an Atari 2600, numerous times. Especially when a paddle controller was involved in a high score rush.

What makes the Genesis unique among consoles of the time is the amount of nonsense they can throw around the entire screen at full speed, and in a variety of directions - the SNES, whenever it's doing something like Uniracers or the first stage intro to R-type III, has to carefully consider priorities and how to make the best use of resources.

This doesn't make the Genesis better than the SNES or the SNES better than the Genesis. It just means that one allows more freedom, and one demands more contemplation. (Or at least an SA-1 chip, like the Gradius III hack.)

Rendering Ranger with 128 sprites


All carefully managed, as is the usual for good SNES design.

https://youtu.be/Tl7D25I6yDc?t=2760

During this boss battle, there's quite a bit of flicker, and slowdown, but the reason it's not interfering with the game is because the flicker has great frame pacing at 30fps, and the sprite priorities are carefully controlled, so that you're never lost without knowing where your ship is or how many ways you're about to die. And the slowdown is handled by again, keeping a steady frame rate, but this time they update different parts of the background on different frames.

Any player paying attention to the frame rate of the parallax is out of lives at this point, but you can see how it works by slowing everything down to the slowest possible speed in the Youtube settings.
Last edited by ThePixelatedGenocide on January 22nd, 2022, 8:28 pm, edited 6 times in total.

strat
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Re: Neo Geo vs SNES

Postby strat » January 22nd, 2022, 8:09 pm

A tile editor shows the entire contents of the rom. Uncompressed graphics will be readily viewable, code and data will just look like static. If you're making a rom hack, this is a good way to find empty space (though I would just double the size of the rom). It's hard to tell how much space the demo used up because it's not all one continuous chunk, but even if Sonic 1 can't be done on the SNES in 512K, it'll definitely fit in 1M, perfectly doable back then.

When the graphics are compressed, it might be possible to view them using a save state, but obviously the game can't be hacked that way. All you can really do is figure out the game's compression format, make a tool to decompress the graphics (they could be dumped into a file that opens with a tile editor) and recompress them into the game. This may involve tinkering with the game's assembly code, too.

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MSR1701
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Re: Neo Geo vs SNES

Postby MSR1701 » January 22nd, 2022, 8:10 pm

Have to say, this is a VERY interesting thread, gotten to where I look forward to notices of new posts. :)

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LoganRuckman
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Re: Neo Geo vs SNES

Postby LoganRuckman » January 22nd, 2022, 8:53 pm

MSR1701 wrote:Have to say, this is a VERY interesting thread, gotten to where I look forward to notices of new posts. :)


Jon threads usually turn out to be pretty awesome tbh. I always love reading through the threads he creates with his thoughtful and interesting topics and posts, and the fact that he always sticks to his guns no matter what.

ThePixelatedGenocide
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Re: Neo Geo vs SNES

Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » January 22nd, 2022, 11:02 pm

LoganRuckman wrote:
MSR1701 wrote:Have to say, this is a VERY interesting thread, gotten to where I look forward to notices of new posts. :)


Jon threads usually turn out to be pretty awesome tbh. I always love reading through the threads he creates with his thoughtful and interesting topics and posts, and the fact that he always sticks to his guns no matter what.


Even if the evidence is overwhelmingly against him and he's reduced to trolling, he won't change his mind.

But yeah, he comes up with interesting topics. And the research I have to put in leads to fascinating rabbit holes.

Hagane
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Re: Neo Geo vs SNES

Postby Hagane » January 23rd, 2022, 12:12 am

ThePixelatedGenocide wrote:And still reduces the number of moving objects in order to avoid slowdown. I was using the new version as the point of comparison - count the rings when you get hit. There's a very strict limit on the number, despite the SNES being more powerful in terms of the number of potential sprites on screen.

Anyways, my point wasn't that you shouldn't use the full potential of the hardware, it was that it still couldn't keep up with the Genesis's first Sonic game.


You have to take into account that just one guy did that demo, on the original Sonic game a whole first party team made the game with a lot of care, I know it must be hard for fanboys to see Sonic running on SNES, DF Retro’s John Linneman, a well known Sega fan, he was just speechless when he saw it, he could not believe it.

Also on that Sonic demo he wasted one background layer only for the status bar, he could have used sprites too like on the Genesis version, and another background layer could have been implemented, maybe another background layer with transparency effects would look cool, he could have put more colors on the scenery too. Also there is an updated version of the Sonic demo which runs better than the previous one.



While the Megadrive's Megaman X homebrew allows it to actually add things to the game, that aren't needed. Kind of like George Lucas making a special edition.


Let’s face that Mega Man X wasn't a game that pushed the SNES hardware, great game but technically very simple, standart graphics for a 16 bit game, Sonic was a more impressive game technically, wolfenstein impressive but still suffers from the usual dithering like on that Genesis Duke Nukem.



This doesn't make the Genesis better than the SNES or the SNES better than the Genesis. It just means that one allows more freedom, and one demands more contemplation. (Or at least an SA-1 chip, like the Gradius III hack.)


There is also a fast room Gradius 3 hack, without the SA-1 chip, which eliminates the slowdowns, that Parodius! game also uses the same Gradius 3 engine and runs faster, no to mention that the orginal arcade also has lots of slowdowns innit? The console version is not to blame.

Also let’s not forget that Genesis has its fair share of games with slowdowns, Thunder Force 4, Mega Bomberman, Jurassic Park, General Chaos, Granada and many others, it seems that some people like to ignore this fact entirely, what? the blast processor couldn't handle those Mega Bomberman's static screens? If it were a SNES game people would wrongfully blame the processor as usual.


All carefully managed, as is the usual for good SNES design.


Maybe because the SNES hardware used to be a harder machine to work with? Like I’ve said before, people could accomplish fast games on the console, it didn’t matter is it was carefully managed or not, they did it even back then with every trick the now dated 20 century could offer, some things were demystified and some people don’t want to accept it it seems.


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