Best 8/16 bit console hardware

C

chaphack

Veteran
Code: 
|          | Neo Geo  |   SNES   | Genesis  |   TG-16  |    NES   | Sega MS2 |
|----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------|
|Bits (CPU)|   8 + 16 |       16 |       16 |    8 + 8 |        8 |        8 |
|Bits (Gx) |       16 |       16 |       16 |       16 |        8 |        8 |
|CPU       |     68000|    65816 |    68000 |   HuC6280|     6502 |      Z80 |
|APU (Aud) |       Z80|  SPC???? |      Z80 |          |          |          |
|MHz       |   12.5, 4|      3.6 |      7.6 |  3.6  3.6|      1.8 |      3.6 |
|Graphics  | 320 x 224| 256 x 224| 320 x 224| 256 x 256| 256 x 240| 240 x 226|
| -2nd mode|          | 512 x 448|320 x 448*| 320x256**|          |          |
|Planes    |        3 |        ? |        2 |        1 |        1 |        1 |
|Colors    |4096/65536| 256/32768|   61/512 |  482/512 |    16/52 |   52/256 |
|Sprites   |      380 |      128 |       80 |       64 |        8 |       16 |
| - size   |  16 x 512|   32 x 32|   32 x 32|   16 x 16|    8 x 8 |    8 x 8 |
|Audio     |   15-lyr |PCM 8-lyr |   10-lyr |    6-lyr |     mono |     mono |
|RAM       | 64K+68Kgx|128K+64Kgx| 72K+64Kgx|  8K+64Kgx|  2K+ 2Kgx|        ? |
|          | (+2K Z80)|          |          |          |          |          |
|----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------|
|CD CPU/MHz|        ? |          |68000/12.5| 65802/16 |
|CD RAM    |430K VRAM |          |     768K |  CD= 64K |
|          | 64K SRAM |          |          | SCD=256K |
|          |7 mg DRAM |          |          | ACD= 2MB |
|----------+----------+          +----------+----------+
 
-Genny has a faster CPU and resolution than SNES?
-Neogeo colors are wow! Genny color is pathetic imo! :LOL:
-Neogeo and Genny uses the same CPU?
-So with all the sprites.colors power, Neogeo uses the same crappy audio as Genny.
-SNES audio rocks! Yes, i know it is from Kutaragi's team. :oops:
-What is the TG16 about? Specs look cool.
 
GBA specs


-CPU 32-Bit ARM with embedded memory
-MEMORY 32 Kbyte + 96 Kbyte VRAM (in CPU), 256 Kbyte WRAM (external of CPU)
-RESOLUTION 240 x 160 pixels
-COLOR Can display 511 simultaneous colors in character mode and 32,768 simultaneous colors in bitmap mode

Seems like a fast CPU but where is the audio part?
 
The TG16 beats the Genesis in all but one area, sound. The SCD and ACD blows away the SEGA CD too not to mention the Turbo Express which came out way before the Nomad 8)
 
SNES (and probably other consoles too, especially the Neo) has tons of additional graphics features. Alpha transparency with color addition or subtraction on sprites and backgrounds, clipping windows, mode7 or mosaic effects (Neo can do rotation and scaling on sprites too, not just on (one) background like SNES), etc etc.

Btw, SNES has up to 4 backgrounds in at least some of its display modes.


*G*
 
The TG16/PCE is better than Genesis/MD in terms of amount of colors on screen. 241 or 256 vs 64. their color palletes are the same. 512. the Genesis/MD is far superior in terms of parallax scrolling/line scrolling and other 16-bit tricks. Genesis/MD had more sprites, 80 vs 64 of the TG16.


NeoGeo has the same processor types as the Genesis/MD - a 16-bit 68000 plus 8-bit Z80 but both are clocked conciderably higher in the NeoGeo. then the NeoGeo has vastly more powerful graphics & audio chips than Genesis. for colors, sprites, scaling, near-CD quality audio, etc. the NeoGeo is somewhat more powerful than Sega's System16 arcade board or Capcom's CPS1. where as the Genesis is weaker than those two boards, and much weaker than NeoGeo.


Don't forget the NEC SuperGrafx. probably the most powerful 8-bit standalone games machine there is. its got 128 sprites, more ram/vram
2 background layers for parallax like Genesis. And higher capacity SHuCards. was never released in America. SG was originally going to be the PC Engine 2 and a 16-bit but got scaled back.
 
The formatting of that table is awkward.

Could Chap please go back and edit it, and put it into a
Code: 
 block?


SNES's sound processor is SPC700.

I'm sure most people are aware that overall, SNES was the weakest 16-bit console, though it had some seriously incredible hardware... it was held back by the pathetic CPU.  The 3.34MHz 65816 just can't keep up...

By the way, SNES's max resolution is a stunning [b]512x448[/b].  Granted, for general gaming situations it's a little too slow to be usable, but it's perfect for menus (which is what some games did use it for).

SNES was designed from the ground up to be an RPG-centric system... and hey, whaddya know, it IS. :)
 
"I'm sure most people are aware that overall, SNES was the weakest 16-bit console, though it had some seriously incredible hardware... it was held back by the pathetic CPU. The 3.34MHz 65816 just can't keep up... "

I completely disagree. The SNES was a far more capable machine than any of the the other consoles of the 16-bit generation (NEO GEO excepted). All you had to do was take a look at the multi-console games and the SNES version was almost always the better looking one.
 
SNES/SFC color pallete: 32,768 - displayable on-screen colors: 256

maybe 4096 colors displayable with programming tricks but the official amount was 256 as far as I know.
 
I stand corrected!
MD tho had a serious shitty palette and how many onscreen??

That's one of the reasons some games looked better on SNES (like Street Fighter II).

However some clever tricks employed by Treasure showed what you could do with the limited range. There games were gorgeous.
 
Just had a thought, the SNES was the last console Nintendo lead the market with. Man that is a loooooooooooooong time.
 
megadrive0088 said:
The TG16/PCE is better than Genesis/MD in terms of amount of colors on screen. 241 or 256 vs 64. their color palletes are the same. 512. the Genesis/MD is far superior in terms of parallax scrolling/line scrolling and other 16-bit tricks. Genesis/MD had more sprites, 80 vs 64 of the TG16.

Don't forget the NEC SuperGrafx. probably the most powerful 8-bit standalone games machine there is. its got 128 sprites, more ram/vram
2 background layers for parallax like Genesis. And higher capacity SHuCards. was never released in America. SG was originally going to be the PC Engine 2 and a 16-bit but got scaled back.
Click to expand...

The TG16 could also do parallax scrolling. One of the first incredible conversions were Vigilante and R-Type by IREM. Sure the TG16 only had an 8-bit cpu, but that cpu was clocked two times higher than the Genesis's 16-bit cpu. On the graphics side it had two 8-bit graphics chips running in parallel. In terms of sprites the TG16 supported larger sprites than the Genesis.

Edit: Oops I was comparing the SNES's cpu to the TG16.

Here is some interesting info posted by someone at another message board.

The only things I read about the 16-Bit P.C. Engine 2 and the Namco 16-Bit Super System (plus that deal between Namco & NEC/Hudson) were in EGM number 2 and number 3 from 1989.

The Namco system was supposed to rival the Super Famicom and be released in 1990.

The NEC P.C. Engine 2 was (at first) ment to be a true 16-Bit machine, unlike the 8-Bit SuperGrafx, with better graphics and sound. The Namco 16-bit system almost *became* the P.C. Engine 2, but the deal fell through. Namco & Hudson could not come to an agreement, from what was said. I wish I had more info but I don't. There isn't much of anything on the internet on either the Namco machine or the true 16-bit P.C. Engine 2 from what I have seen.

It was the Namco 16-Bit system was said to rival the Super Famicom in specifications. The never released NEC 16bit system is very much unknown. no specs were given other than it was going to have a true 16bit cpu, better graphics and sound than that PC Engine. of which, the SuperGrafx had only slightly better graphics, no cpu or sound improvement other than more memory available.

I am certain that a 16bit PC Engine 2 would have blown away the SuperFamicom, much like the original PC Engine blew away the Famicom. Nintendo chose a WEAK CPU for the SFC, one that was not much better than the 8-bit one in the PCE. NEC would have use an ultrafast 16bit cpu or perhaps even twin 16bit CPUs. And much better graphics. better than the SG, Mega Drive and SFC. probably NeoGeo quality or better. It was only at some point did NEC try to get the Namco 16bit system to use that as the PC Engine 2. The real PC Engine 2 would've been different, I believe. More like the PCE or SG, but much more powerful, so yeah, you're right. And I agree that the Mega Drive/Genesis was the best mainstream 16bit system around.
Here's a revalation for you. About the Namco 16bit home console. Apparently, it became a Namco arcade board.
Someone called deadsoul pointed this out to me on the assembler website message board for rare videogame hardware.

he said it was originally called NX-1. The arcade version is called NA-1.

http://www.system16.com/namco/hrdw_systemna1.html

this looks awfully console like. very few chips for an arcade board....
Click to expand...
 
With the SuperFx and SuperFx 2 chips developers could get around the slow processor cause those chips increased SNES's CPU speed to 10.5 and 21.0mhz. Here is some pics of SFX and SFX2 games

VF.JPG

Virtual Figher ported from PC but never released. FX2-chip

fxg1.gif

Power Slide from Elite. Never released. FX2-chip

Vortex.JPG

Vortex. You controll a walker, a jetfighter, a tank, a boggie and a car. FX-chip.
SF1.JPG

Star Fox (StarWing) - the first game to use the FX-chip. Produced by Nintendo and Argonaut. FX-chip
 
*ahem* first off, the SuperFX chips didn't NEARLY raise the SNES's processing to 10 or 20MHz. The SuperFX chips were limited to the 65816's timing; they had to process in 'phases' and couldn't be active all the time.

Second, SNES can display every single colour in its palette simultaneously. The actual 256 colour limitation is per object. :)

Like I said, SNES has some seriously shocking graphics and audio hardware, but they get held back really REALLY severely by the CPU (it's sorta like having a Voodoo5 5500 with a 333MHz Pentium II - the frame rates are going to be low overall, but with that slow a CPU, you can set 4x supersampled AA with seemingly no performance hit).
 
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