Street Fighter 2 - new Z80 PCM sound driver project

Please, could you spread your drivel in one of the threads below instead of derailing this one?
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...-Sega-Genesis)
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...-II-comparison
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...n-Oral-History
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...d-Genesis-port
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...-II-Turbo-beta
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...er-2-Prototype
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...-Fighter-games
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...hampionship-Ed
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...ampion-Edition

Thanks in advance.

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Originally Posted by tryphon

Yes, that version. I owned a PSX then, not a Saturn (not rich enough to have both) :)
And I maintain it's a great game, even if it's not the best version.

For the MD version being a port of the SNES, I think it hasn't much sense. Or else, define what a port is. If you says the game engine is the same, it's very unlikely given the differences between the 2 machines.

If you say they reused the gfx, it's much more likely, and I can't really ununderstand why : the MD shares the same resolution than the arcade version. Reducing the number of colors is not easier with the SNES version than with the arcade. The only reason to do that would be that there's not enough VRAM to handle everything, but I'd be surprised... But let's be honest, this game's gfx are pretty good for a MD, nobody would have thought at this time that SF2 would look so beautiful on a MD ! (I don't tell about SSF2, I didn't play the MD version of this one and it doesn't seem so pretty).

The music were definitely remade for the MD version, and the sound effects (except the voices) were good.

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Game engine could still be the same just modified to run on the Genesis.

And the Genesis doesn't share the same resolution as the Arcade SFII game (Arcade has more horizontal pixels + the sprites are much bigger and not sure if Capcom could of come up with an engine to handle the much bigger sprites or if the Genesis could even handle it well enough?). So it still would of had to be redone from the ground up if it weren't going to use the SNES graphics + use low res Genesis resolution to match the SNES.

Extra animations for the Genesis version could still be leftover animations from the SNES version too. As many things don't end up making the final cut for various reasons (rom space, overall game performance, etc). And creating a few extra frames is still a lot easier then de-doing the whole thing.



*reads more of topic*

Man, this is really silly. The game is a freaking port, people. And if it were build from the ground up on the Genesis + with some care, it would of come out way better then what we got. This is the whole point everyone is trying to say. And it's very true. Evidence everywhere. Do your homework first then realize there is no debate on this matter. Yeesh.

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Originally Posted by Thief

Man, this is really silly. The game is a freaking port, people. And if it were build from the ground up on the Genesis + with some care, it would of come out way better then what we got. This is the whole point everyone is trying to say. And it's very true. Evidence everywhere. Do your homework first then realize there is no debate on this matter. Yeesh.

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I see. So Capcom didn't care about porting it properly and went the lazy route of porting over the SNES version instead. Yet despite their apparent laziness, they strangely felt the need to add in other content, fixes, and improvements missing from the prior SNES versions....just cause.

Plus a whole extra mode.

Makes perfect sense to me.

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Originally Posted by Thief

And if it were build from the ground up on the Genesis + with some care, it would of come out way better then what we got.

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It would have had slightly better voices and.... thats about it. The Genesis versions are pretty good as is.

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Originally Posted by True Grave

I see. So Capcom didn't care about porting it properly and went the lazy route of porting over the SNES version instead. Yet despite their apparent laziness, they strangely felt the need to add in other content, fixes, and improvements missing from the prior SNES versions....just cause.

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YES exactly that. Debate over! Back to main discussion!

Yes, debate over, fr me at least.

A question concerning the different versions :

were the sprites redrawn for the SNES/MD version or were they copy/pasted from arcade, regardless of the wrong aspect ratio ?

If they were redrawn, does anyone know which ratios (ratii ?) was used (horizontally and vertically) were applied ? Was it automated or made by hand ? Captures would be welcome.

Er, I'm pretty sure the sprites are quite a bit bigger for the Arcade versions. Plus if they weren't redrawn for the SNES, them characters would look mighty fat in width alone. "SUPER FATSO OBESE FIGHTER II; With special turbo feature to get their fat ass in gear!" "Buy now! Powered by 40megs of megafatpower! A first for the Genesis & SNES! Act now! Capcom want your money now! ... As they are ready to release another... er, yeah, you can't hear that part." >_>;;

Personally, I have always thought that the MD version was a lazy, badly ported version of the SFC version. As has already been stated, there is too much evidence proving that. CAPCOM JP didn't give a shit about the MD, so why would they bother starting from scratch and making the best version they possibly could? The low resolution ALONE is reason to think "bad SFC port!". The SFC version had to run at a lower resolution because of its pathetic, slow 1983 processor. I think the MD could have run the game full screen. Bare Knuckle 2&3 have multiple huge sprites moving around the screen at once, I see no reason to believe that SFII could not have used the full, or near full resolution of the MD. All SFC beat em ups also ran at a reduced resolution because they could not handle 4 sprites on screen at once otherwise.

PCE fanboys love to say that the PCE version is so much better than the MD version graphically. They also like to mention CAPCOM making the game which is false. It clearly says "Licensed TO NEC Avenue", not licensed BY. If SoJ put their best team on the MD version, I am sure they could have done a far better job than CAPCOM. I would still love to know what a MCD version made by the Final Fight CD team would have been like. They managed next to no loading with FFCD, I bet they could have pulled off a near perfect SFII. Especially if they used PCM/FM music instead of CD tracks.

Edit: I forgot to mention Rockman Mega World as another example of how much effort CAPCOM put into MD games.

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Originally Posted by SegaSonic91

Personally, I have always thought that the MD version was a lazy, badly ported version of the SFC version. As has already been stated, there is too much evidence proving that. CAPCOM JP didn't give a shit about the MD, so why would they bother starting from scratch and making the best version they possibly could? The low resolution ALONE is reason to think "bad SFC port!". The SFC version had to run at a lower resolution because of its pathetic, slow 1983 processor. I think the MD could have run the game full screen. Bare Knuckle 2&3 have multiple huge sprites moving around the screen at once, I see no reason to believe that SFII could not have used the full, or near full resolution of the MD. All SFC beat em ups also ran at a reduced resolution because they could not handle 4 sprites on screen at once otherwise.

PCE fanboys love to say that the PCE version is so much better than the MD version graphically. They also like to mention CAPCOM making the game which is false. It clearly says "Licensed TO NEC Avenue", not licensed BY. If SoJ put their best team on the MD version, I am sure they could have done a far better job than CAPCOM. I would still love to know what a MCD version made by the Final Fight CD team would have been like. They managed next to no loading with FFCD, I bet they could have pulled off a near perfect SFII. Especially if they used PCM/FM music instead of CD tracks.

Edit: I forgot to mention Rockman Mega World as another example of how much effort CAPCOM put into MD games.

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That's not how it works. Resolution is independant of processing power. PC Engine games don't run in a higher resolution than Mega Drive because the cpu is super duperer. The SFC runs at a specific resolution, not a reduced one, because it is the only one it has for normal games.The MD cpu is better at pushing around more interactive objects, but all 16-bit consoles are bottlenecked for sprites usually by their unique sprite display limits. Flicker/break-up and slowdown are completely different.

I've only ever seen people in PCE circles say the opposite of your claims. The PCE SFII' gets more praise in other gaming communities, often because it is used to further paint the MD itself in a negative light.

Fighting games tax the MD's color limits more than anything, but a mid res port of SFII would make the most of the hardware and the MD can handle arcade size sprites pixel for pixel except for certain combinations (I've already measured them out). There'd be minor occassional flicker, but I wouldn't bother redrawing frames like Blanka's kick or anything. But the MCD would still have the <6 meg content bottleneck, which arcade size sprite frames would eat up quick, especially if you tried to shoot for the full 12fps animation. The backgrounds could be more detailed in mid res, but would again eat up more space, leaving less for tile variety and/or sprite animation. A top quality MCD port would still have appeared more "arcade perfect" than most titles which received that description bitd. But the FFCD team are the wrong choice given how the color turned out compared to Capcom's SFIISCE port. Game mags and SNES fans would have been even more critical of the Genesis/MD with that kind of color and dithering and would be blind to the difference in resolution and animation.

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Originally Posted by SegaSonic91

Personally, I have always thought that the MD version was a lazy, badly ported version of the SFC version. As has already been stated, there is too much evidence proving that. CAPCOM JP didn't give a shit about the MD, so why would they bother starting from scratch and making the best version they possibly could? The low resolution ALONE is reason to think "bad SFC port!". The SFC version had to run at a lower resolution because of its pathetic, slow 1983 processor. I think the MD could have run the game full screen. Bare Knuckle 2&3 have multiple huge sprites moving around the screen at once, I see no reason to believe that SFII could not have used the full, or near full resolution of the MD. All SFC beat em ups also ran at a reduced resolution because they could not handle 4 sprites on screen at once otherwise.

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Ok.. you really don't understand what you're talking about. Some of those thing really have no relation at all. The 68k is from 1980, btw.

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PCE fanboys love to say that the PCE version is so much better than the MD version graphically. They also like to mention CAPCOM making the game which is false. It clearly says "Licensed TO NEC Avenue", not licensed BY. If SoJ put their best team on the MD version, I am sure they could have done a far better job than CAPCOM. I would still love to know what a MCD version made by the Final Fight CD team would have been like. They managed next to no loading with FFCD, I bet they could have pulled off a near perfect SFII. Especially if they used PCM/FM music instead of CD tracks.

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You do realize that NEC Avenue is generally consider in poor light by the PCE community, right? The very things you are claiming of Capcom, is what the PCE community claims of NEC Avenue. And given how the color turned out on the FFCD port - no thank you. Also, you don't understand any of the underlying hardware and requirements for game, so how can you make the qualifying statement that the SegaCD could do the exact same port for the SegaCD? Just two characters of SF2 requires a lot of space (even the PCECD couldn't do it for SuperCD). You'd have to cut space by preloading vram with all tiles, and hope there's enough ram left over for both code and sprites and sound fx. And there would be loading...

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Edit: I forgot to mention Rockman Mega World as another example of how much effort CAPCOM put into MD games.

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No, this would be their worse example. Rockman collection is serious subpar coding, even for Capcom, but it doesn't represent their average work (when do you ever take the worse example to represent the average???). You do realize that Capcom was never great at 'coding' efficiently for any console, right? Even on the NES (which I've stepped through code on). They made great games, not so much efficient code.

I concede that the FFCD port could have had better colour. But looking past the colour issue, which is still SoJ's fault for not including extra hardware, the backgrounds and sprites are EXACTLY the same as the arcade versions. Compare the SFC enemy sprites to the AC and MCD versions and it is very clear. Even comparing the underground section in the first stage, you can see that the MCD version is drawn exactly like the arcade version, the SFC version looks different.

CAPCOM always made fairly shitty arcade conversions as far as detail goes. The hideously re-drawn background characters in Blanka's stage for instance. The 6mbit limit could have been a factor... I do not know anything about technical aspects of programming, my thinking is that FFCD had the animation of 5 or 6 enemies at once, plus the boss and two player characters, so two characters and some animation in the background should be EASY! Right? LOL.

*sigh*, if only that rumour about SFII on the MCD when it was first release had been true. We will never know how good or bad a MCD conversion of a fighting game could have been. The 2 NG ports from Victor were a joke and SEGA, those wonderfully intelligent people, decided to release Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting and Samurai Spirits on cart. They would have been inferior to the (amazing) arcade card versions, but should have been better than cart! I will always wonder what they could have been like on cd. The same goes for every arcade conversion the idiots put on tiny carts, after the MCD was released.

And that concludes my conversation on the matter, I don't want to de-rail the thread more than it has been already.

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Originally Posted by tomaitheous

Ok.. you really don't understand what you're talking about. Some of those thing really have no relation at all. The 68k is from 1980, btw.


You do realize that NEC Avenue is generally consider in poor light by the PCE community, right? The very things you are claiming of Capcom, is what the PCE community claims of NEC Avenue. And given how the color turned out on the FFCD port - no thank you. Also, you don't understand any of the underlying hardware and requirements for game, so how can you make the qualifying statement that the SegaCD could do the exact same port for the SegaCD? Just two characters of SF2 requires a lot of space (even the PCECD couldn't do it for SuperCD). You'd have to cut space by preloading vram with all tiles, and hope there's enough ram left over for both code and sprites and sound fx. And there would be loading...


No, this would be their worse example. Rockman collection is serious subpar coding, even for Capcom, but it doesn't represent their average work (when do you ever take the worse example to represent the average???). You do realize that Capcom was never great at 'coding' efficiently for any console, right? Even on the NES (which I've stepped through code on). They made great games, not so much efficient code.

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You obviously did not detect that as sarcasm. When I talk about the "1983 processor" in the SFC, I am referring to that fact that it is the same as the pricessor in the Famicom, hence the 1983 comment *rolls eyes* I was unaware of the hatred of NEC Avenue in the PCE community. I can't see why, frankly. Other than royally fucking up Strider Hiryu, I have not had many issues with their games. Wait, Strider and that God-awful Renny Blaster >_<

Also, OF COURSE the Super CD could not handle SFII. You said "even the Super CD could not do it", you do know that the MCD had 3 times the memory of the Super CD, right?

Sorry for the double post, my phone will not let me edit. I should clarified that the Rockman comment was the sarcasm I was referring to.

http://media.giphy.com/media/ftXvsSyRzKXXG/giphy.gif

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Originally Posted by SegaSonic91

You obviously did not detect that as sarcasm. When I talk about the "1983 processor" in the SFC, I am referring to that fact that it is the same as the pricessor in the Famicom, hence the 1983 comment

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Heh, then you failed at delivering that sarcasm :p And it's not exactly the same processor as the Famicom. It's the same family, yes, but your comment implies something else. And to your credit, you've demonstrated that you don't understand how things related to each other on the hardware side. I mean, you are in the tech forum ;)

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Also, OF COURSE the Super CD could not handle SFII. You said "even the Super CD could not do it", you do know that the MCD had 3 times the memory of the Super CD, right?

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Not gonna really line-item reply your post here, but the point was.. is that you don't have a clear understanding of how this hardware works, so you're just qualifying your statements based on what you've seen. But FFCD != SF2, etc. Different games with directly different requirements. The SegaCD memory, albeit 6megabits, is not simply laid out like a cart development. There are things that can work against it, depending on the type of games. A game as simple as Golden Axe ported over lost the second player option. I'm not saying SF2 couldn't have been done on the SegaCD, but I am saying that simply seeing 6megabits of memory and what game Y did with it, that you can easily say with confidence that game X could be done (and possibly better than version X of it). The SegaCD is more convoluted and complex in its design for development (and that relates to how all assets are accessed), compared to something as simple as cart development (which is straight forward); something probably beyond the scope of this reply.

If you wanna have a discussion about SF2, or any of its variants, on the SegaCD - then created a new thread. I think it would be interesting to talk about it on a technical level.

Since the driver was replaced... could be possible to add cd-audio tracks for music if mega-cd attached?