Best 8/16 bit console hardware

[marconelly!]

Neo Geo was a very powerful piece of hardware but it still lacked some of the hardware features SNES had (most notably transparencies and color addition/substraction)

SNES had pretty damn amazing video chip, IMO, even with a slow ass CPU, games for it were usually better looking than Genny games.

 

[Blade]

In my experience, the Genesis and SNES hardware are rather close with different advantages on either side.

As far as which one has the overall better hardware goes, though.. I think SNES. It was always the victor in multi-platform games, and had the best graphics in exclusive games too. Nevermind the whole Super FX thing, which was a slight boost even though it doesn't count as SNES hardware. Yeah, I see those two (SNES and Genesis) the same way I see GCN and Xbox.. pretty freakin' close in hardware but when it comes down to it the Xbox/SNES is better.

 

[chaphack]

From my emu -X-perience, i say SNES is easily better than Genny. I say it is even better than GBA. Colors and audio are yummily good!
I love the Neogeo "look" best though. The colors are say, contrastingly beautiful.

Come to think of it...

Genny = PS2
SNES = GC
Neogeo = Xbox

 

[zurich]

Well IMO, the thing that put the SNES over the Genesis graphics wise was simply its colour pallete.. nothing really more to say about it. Gen games were FUGLY with 64 colours.

 

[Clashman]

Just had a thought, the SNES was the last console Nintendo lead the market with. Man that is a loooooooooooooong time.

Actually, I believe Sega sold more Genesis consoles, at least in the U.S. Could be wrong, though.

 

[PC-Engine]

Most multiplatform games looked better on TG16 than on the Genesis. One example would be SFII CE. The Genesis just didn't have the simultaneous color variety as the TG16 let alone the SNES. Anyone who's seen and played Vigilante and R-Type on TG16 would know how beautiful the graphics the TG16 is capable of.

 

[zurich]

Most multiplatform games looked better on TG16 than on the Genesis. One example would be SFII CE. The Genesis just didn't have the simultaneous color variety as the TG16 let alone the SNES. Anyone who's seen and played Vigilante and R-Type on TG16 would know how beautiful the graphics the TG16 is capable of.

I wonder how much I could get for my still-very-much-working TurboExpress on EBay.. complete with Military Madness, Bonk's Revenge, and that F-16 Flight Sim... :

 

[Deepak]

I believe that these consoles are from last millenium!

BTW, my first console was Media (a clone of NES)....then MegaDrive...

 

[PC-Engine]

Most multiplatform games looked better on TG16 than on the Genesis. One example would be SFII CE. The Genesis just didn't have the simultaneous color variety as the TG16 let alone the SNES. Anyone who's seen and played Vigilante and R-Type on TG16 would know how beautiful the graphics the TG16 is capable of.

I wonder how much I could get for my still-very-much-working TurboExpress on EBay.. complete with Military Madness, Bonk's Revenge, and that F-16 Flight Sim... :

Those are the only games you have? Have you tried the import SFII CE on the TE? A 99% arcade perfect conversion on a portable was unheard of back then, but SFII CE was solid proof 8) Too bad the TE didn't have 6 buttons for those types of fighting games :?

www.tzd.com still sells the TurboExpress brand new for $150 so you probably couldn't get more than $75 for it. I keep mine just as a collectors item. I had like 20 HuCard games, but my nephew secretly sold them

 

[Grall]

Tag:

SNES can't do 256 colors per object like you said. Sprites are like 16 colors per sprite, and they share palette registers for the backgrounds. So 256 colors is IN TOTAL. Unless one uses HDMA, interrupts or something like that to load new values into the palette registers on different scanlines of course, but that's "cheating".

The hardware of old was always palette mapped. 256 separate color regs for 128 sprites would be wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy over the top for hardware of that era. Hell, nobody would do it even today.


Besides, you overstate the weakness of the CPU, in my opinion. Have you seen Super Aleste for example? One would never think that game was possible on SNES unless you saw it with your own eyes, hehehe! There are many other games that are technically very competent and look awesomely good too, many of them shooters actually, lol. RType3, Axelay, the DK Country series, etc etc.

If one knows how to program that stupid CPU it's got, then wonders can be performed. Makes me wonder what today's consoles could REALLY do if programmed by genius assembler coders, heheh. Probably something at least twice as good-looking as what the average high-level coder manages.


*G*

 

[Tagrineth]

SNES can't do 256 colors per object like you said. Sprites are like 16 colors per sprite, and they share palette registers for the backgrounds. So 256 colors is IN TOTAL. Unless one uses HDMA, interrupts or something like that to load new values into the palette registers on different scanlines of course, but that's "cheating".

Well, I dunno, I've seen numerous examples of well over 256 colours, and there's a demo out which displays every possible colour all at once. It's possible though.

Hell, pagefault wasn't even aware of this '256 colour limitation'; he always said the docs that say 256 colours max were wrong. And keep in mind I'm talking about the current top coder of ZSNES.

The hardware of old was always palette mapped. 256 separate color regs for 128 sprites would be wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy over the top for hardware of that era. Hell, nobody would do it even today.

Saturn and Jaguar could probably do it. Then again, those two consoles are sprite beasts from hell.

Besides, you overstate the weakness of the CPU, in my opinion. Have you seen Super Aleste for example? One would never think that game was possible on SNES unless you saw it with your own eyes, hehehe! There are many other games that are technically very competent and look awesomely good too, many of them shooters actually, lol. RType3, Axelay, the DK Country series, etc etc.

DKC isn't anything special. Prerendered sprites are that game's only claim to fame; as far as I can think, there are never more than 2-3 enemies onscreen at once.

Same with R-Type, there simply aren't ever more than 3-4 enemies at once, and there can only be 4-5 shots IIRC before there's some slowdown.

Here's a great example of the 65816 just dying: Check out Super Bomberman 2's single player...

If one knows how to program that stupid CPU it's got, then wonders can be performed. Makes me wonder what today's consoles could REALLY do if programmed by genius assembler coders, heheh. Probably something at least twice as good-looking as what the average high-level coder manages.

Some devs have been working magic on the PS2...

Genny = PS2
SNES = GC
Neogeo = Xbox

Actually, I'd say that group of consoles doesn't quite match up to today's:

Genesis / PS2 - great CPU, everything else mediocre
SNES / Xbox - Severely underpowered CPU, everything else reigns supreme
I can't think of a decent match for GCN. Was there a balanced and cost-effective system back then?

And most people agree that while Genesis sold more units overall, SNES sold more software, so it's more or less a tie... the only true tie this young industry has ever achieved.


Edit: Fixed the sole quote tag screwing over my post...

 

[Reznor007]

*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).

Well, technically the SuperFX 1 chip runs at 10.5MHz, and SFX2 runs at 21MHz.

 

[Reznor007]

SNES can't do 256 colors per object like you said. Sprites are like 16 colors per sprite, and they share palette registers for the backgrounds. So 256 colors is IN TOTAL. Unless one uses HDMA, interrupts or something like that to load new values into the palette registers on different scanlines of course, but that's "cheating".

Well, I dunno, I've seen numerous examples of well over 256 colours, and there's a demo out which displays every possible colour all at once. It's possible though.

Hell, pagefault wasn't even aware of this '256 colour limitation'; he always said the docs that say 256 colours max were wrong. And keep in mind I'm talking about the current top coder of ZSNES.

The hardware of old was always palette mapped. 256 separate color regs for 128 sprites would be wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy over the top for hardware of that era. Hell, nobody would do it even today.

Saturn and Jaguar could probably do it. Then again, those two consoles are sprite beasts from hell.

Besides, you overstate the weakness of the CPU, in my opinion. Have you seen Super Aleste for example? One would never think that game was possible on SNES unless you saw it with your own eyes, hehehe! There are many other games that are technically very competent and look awesomely good too, many of them shooters actually, lol. RType3, Axelay, the DK Country series, etc etc.

DKC isn't anything special. Prerendered sprites are that game's only claim to fame; as far as I can think, there are never more than 2-3 enemies onscreen at once.

Same with R-Type, there simply aren't ever more than 3-4 enemies at once, and there can only be 4-5 shots IIRC before there's some slowdown.

Here's a great example of the 65816 just dying: Check out Super Bomberman 2's single player...

If one knows how to program that stupid CPU it's got, then wonders can be performed. Makes me wonder what today's consoles could REALLY do if programmed by genius assembler coders, heheh. Probably something at least twice as good-looking as what the average high-level coder manages.

Some devs have been working magic on the PS2...

Genny = PS2
SNES = GC
Neogeo = Xbox

Actually, I'd say that group of consoles doesn't quite match up to today's:

Genesis / PS2 - great CPU, everything else mediocre
SNES / Xbox - Severely underpowered CPU, everything else reigns supreme
I can't think of a decent match for GCN. Was there a balanced and cost-effective system back then?

And most people agree that while Genesis sold more units overall, SNES sold more software, so it's more or less a tie... the only true tie this young industry has ever achieved.

I was pretty sure SNES sold more in the end, with the DKC games being a second wind(wow, look at those graphics!).

 

[Reznor007]

As for the topic at hand, the best 16bit console technically is the NeoGeo. Games are still made for it today(which is somewhat sad). While it had essentially the same sound system as Genesis, NG games usually sound better as they have more sound samples to use. Just listen to some of the Metal Slug soundtracks.

SNES had better games overall though.

 

[London Geezer]

by the way, with all this talk about 16bit consoles, why is it that SNES games with 3d graphics are seen as outstanding for the time (even though the 3d graphics was pretty lame) while games like Virtua Racing on Genesis never get mentioned? i mean i agree it doesn't hold a candle to the arcade version, but still it was quite an achievement at the time.

 

[Tagrineth]

by the way, with all this talk about 16bit consoles, why is it that SNES games with 3d graphics are seen as outstanding for the time (even though the 3d graphics was pretty lame) while games like Virtua Racing on Genesis never get mentioned? i mean i agree it doesn't hold a candle to the arcade version, but still it was quite an achievement at the time.

Perhaps because the SNES's 3D games were better? Or the hype over Argonaut's SuperFX chips? Or... I dunno. TBH, though, even without the SuperFX, SNES can do full-speed, high quality rotation and scaling ("mode 7") of a background plane (Super Mario Kart was the first game to showcase this).

Star Fox still looks pretty good, despite the Arwing model (for example) having ~22 polygons (I counted them myself!)...

 

[London Geezer]

Star Fox still looks pretty good, despite the Arwing model (for example) having ~22 polygons (I counted them myself!)...

 

[PC-Engine]

I can't think of a decent match for GCN. Was there a balanced and cost-effective system back then?

That I think would be the TG16 aka PC-Engine 8)

Oh btw Chap your chart has some incorrect info for the TG16.

Custom 8bit CPU: HuC6280 (7.16MHz)
Video Processor: HuC6270
Color Processor: HuC6260
Color Pallet: 512
On screen: 512 (256 for sprites, 256 for the background.)
Sound: 6 channel stereo (5-bit sampling)
Can Control 64 sprites at once (16 colors and 32x64 max size.)
Ram: 8 Kbyte
Video Ram: 64Kbyte " 512 Kbit"
Cart Size: 256Kbit - 20 Megabit Max. (SFII CE) Normally 8 Mbits

 

[Tagrineth]

By the way, London-boy, I looked up Virtua Racing: It is not a Genesis game... it's 32X. 32X has a 32-bit, ~20.8MHz SH-1, and IIRC also some sort of dedicated 3D hardware.

 

[London Geezer]

By the way, London-boy, I looked up Virtua Racing: It is not a Genesis game... it's 32X. 32X has a 32-bit, ~20.8MHz SH-1, and IIRC also some sort of dedicated 3D hardware.

no darling. i had the genesis version of the game. there was a genesis version (major cuts in graphics), a 32X version (bit better looking) and a Saturn version (apparently same as arcade)...