The idea was too rough, though. If you wanted to just show master palette for the Genesis, you could have just showed the PC-Engine one.Quote:
Originally Posted by azonicrider
Tomaitheous is a short for Tomaitheous Gun. If that makes sense.
I tend to use the term NA or N/A for North America. Since that was the designated region for systems. It helps avoid confusion since most game forums are international.Quote:
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Bottino again.
Wait I gotta return to this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
No one brought up the SuperGrafx. The perfect example, tiny-ass upgrades that no one cared about.
SuperGrafx is more of an upgrade to the PCE, than a Genesis with 128/4096 colors.Quote:
Originally Posted by azonicrider
Aw man are you guys arguing about color palettes again? Just get a Super Nintendo already. :p Personally I really liked that more Genesis/MD games used a higher resolution.
They'll be like, "why stop at 128/4096 colours? lets also add 6 PCM channels, and 2 more background layers!" then voila, a proper SuperGrafx equivalent.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomaitheous
tomaitheous said that resolution was bollocks. But yea I like it too, 320x224 is proper 4:3 not 4:4.Quote:
Originally Posted by old man
What's 'proper' 4:3? It still displays as 4:3, except on emulators. Neither resolution is 4:3 with 1:1 pixels, if that's what you mean, since it would have to be 320x240.Quote:
Originally Posted by azonicrider
Wow all that from just the color? But yeah I agree, yet it would be ironic because limiting the color allowed the price of the Mega Drive/Genesis to be lower which in turn made it have a fighting chance against Nintendo, especially in 1989. I think I read about that in The Mega Drive Book.Quote:
Originally Posted by Guntz
Getting back to console sales in the North American market, without quoting anyone, there's a lot of misinformation out there.
I don't know that I have it all myself, but here's my understanding so far.
Sega took most of '91-'94. Nintendo took '95-'97. That latter fact, along with the thought that Sega pulled early, which led to the early 29 million reports, has led internet historians to believe that Nintendo won. The issue with that is that the Genesis was still going, so even if it was no longer outperforming the SNES, it was still adding more sales to when it did. Because of how well they did between '91 and '94, they kept their lead, and Nintendo never caught up.
For all the credit Donkey Kong Country gets, it's first, best, 2 months, November, and I have to assume especially Christmas of '94, where it collectively sold about 2 million, the Genesis still outperformed it by having the next 5-7 top selling games, around the 300,000 mark. By may of '95 it was also the fact that the SNES also had a version of NBA Jam: Tournament Edition that led to Nintendo outselling Sega that month, as the Genesis version was the top selling game of the month, over DKC.
Speaking of misinformation, see midnightrider's post.
There are no concrete numbers for that era. Those estimates are based on NPD, which are not exact, and even they admit their figures before the late 90s are very inaccurate. The fact that Wal-mart, a huge retail partner of Nintendo, was not tracked further undermines the usefulness of their numbers for that era.
A Nintendo investor posted internal numbers for that era at NeoGAF, but even they are not authoritative since there's no way to verify (they aren't part of a public filing). Nintendo Historical Shipment Data (1983 - Present)
That's still no different than every other street fighting game. If anything though, it's less noticeable when you lose shades in Alpha games than SFII, because it has more of a cel shaded anime style while SFII like most CPS games used a fully shaded airbrushed look.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeoVamp
If the Genesis had never received any ports of arcade street fighting games, then the hypothetical might seem too challenging. All the ports we actually got prove a minimum level of capability.
That's the whole point that you are the only one not getting. Those parrots aren't a rough estimate of anything. All you brought to the conversation was literally "32,768 is a larger number than 512". It's cool that you did the math for us, but it's completely out of context as an isolated figure and would only be relevant if you are making three brand new console which each have the exact same color flexibility and other specs and the only difference is the master palette. It's like posting two images with the same number of colors, but one is 320 x 224 and the other is 256 x 224 and saying how it proves that what the SNES really needed was Genesis resolution.Quote:
Originally Posted by azonicrider
Here are some contextual examples, which really drive home how minimal of a difference the size of the main palette is compared to sub-palette flexibility:
GAME GEAR SPEC vs SEGA MASTER SYSTEM SPEC:
12-BIT COLOR <-------------------> 6-BIT COLOR
http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/gg1.png http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/sms1.png
12-BIT COLOR <-------------------> 6-BIT COLOR
http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/gg2.png http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/sms2.png
12-BIT COLOR <-------------------> 6-BIT COLOR
http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/gg3.png http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/sms3.png
SYSTEM 16 SPEC vs PC ENGINE SPEC:
12-BIT COLOR <-----------------------------------------> 9-BIT COLOR
http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/s163.png http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/pce3.png
12-BIT COLOR <-----------------------------------------> 9-BIT COLOR
http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/s166.png http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/pce6.png
12-BIT COLOR:
http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/s161.png
9-BIT COLOR:
http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/pce1.png
NEO GEO SPEC vs PC ENGINE SPEC vs SUPER FAMICOM SPEC:
12-BIT COLOR <--------------------------------> 9-BIT COLOR <----------------------> 15-BIT COLOR
http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/ng4.png http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/pce4.png http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/sfc4.png
12-BIT COLOR <--------------------------------> 9-BIT COLOR <----------------------> 15-BIT COLOR
http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/ng5.png http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/pce5.png http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/sfc5.png
CPS SPEC vs MEGA DRIVE SPEC vs SUPER FAMICOM SPEC:
12-BIT COLOR <-------------------------------------------> 9-BIT COLOR <----------------------> 15-BIT COLOR
http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/cps6.png http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/md6.png http://superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/sfc6.png
Check out all those SNES HUD layers. Even if you ignore that limitation of the hardware, why isn't the rest of the image of the SNES screens 16 times better looking than PCE? Why isn't it at least two times better or even 1:1?
What about System 16, which people often say should have been the Genesis hardware? Why do all the games feature poorly shaded and colored elements?
The Game Gear is the most tell-tale. If the jump from 64 colors to 4096 colors is so minimal with the same sub-palette specs, then how can a jump from 512 - 4096 "fix' the Mega Drive more than an increase in sub-palettes?
If there didn't happen to be third 16-bit gen console which just happened to also have 9-bit color, only with massive sub-palettes, that has shown that it can do produce images at least as good as SNES/SFC has done, then it would actually be more of a hypothetical. When you factor in how only the Genesis can use any of its sub-palettes for tiles AND sprites, it's pretty much a no-brainer that doubling the sub-palettes would produce games that would look comparable in color/shading/detail to the best PCE/SNES games to the average person.
4096 was more than enough for consoles or arcades that generation. 32,768 was beyond overkill. 512 was enough to get the job done if you could use it well enough.
You're completely missing the point of increasing the number of colours. With a bigger pool you can select fewer colours that mix better. 64/512 to 64/4096 is a far bigger leap than 512/512 to 512/4096. After 4096 increases basically stop being noticeable for anything but gradients.
Your master system examples are terrible, try this:
http://agtp.romhack.net/images/proje...alstone/15.png
http://www.genkivideogames.com/imagesnew/G3425shots.jpg
Also your golden axe pic is overly saturated. It's almost as bad as the original in the total opposite direction. Overly saturated colours fit lower bit palettes much better than flat, low saturation colours. A directed conversion of the golden axe picture would look pretty bad.
Me thinks Tiger's pictures are just digitally converted, not by hand. Maybe thats too obvious.
You remember that time I created an SMS ROM? https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8y...it?usp=sharing
I should change it to a Game Gear ROM, take advantage of the 12-bit palette, and show you a world of difference.
Uhh no. 4:3 is the aspect ratio of the TV screen, not the pixels. 320 and 256 res are all 4:3, because the TV is. Pixel aspect ratio is what changes for resolutions: 256x ~= 1.13, 320x ~=0.91, 344x ~=0.84, 512x ~=0.56, etc. It's the ratio of how wide the pixel is to how tall the pixel is, and this is for 240p (it changes for 480i). 224p is the same as 240p for the ratio, is it's just clipping - so the same of 448i for 480i. But yeah, no.Quote:
tomaitheous said that resolution was bollocks. But yea I like it too, 320x224 is proper 4:3 not 4:4.
They are converted by hand, not automatic. IMO they looks a lot better than a simple automated downshift.Quote:
Originally Posted by azonicrider
I agree. But 4x16/512 to 8x16/512 would be a bigger increase than 4x16/4096. 4x16 is still limiting on color freedom (color detail), regardless of the larger master palette. 4096 would help for some games/type of art, but not all/most. It'd probably lead to more washed out looking games too (type color restriction coupled with a big master palette). I'd take a 6x16/1024 combo though (1bit for 1/2 step intensity shifting), for some of those tough to reach hues (mostly browns and cool greys/ grey blues/ grey purples).Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
I played a lot of arcades games BITD, in their original release years. They weren't desaturated/decontrasted looking like that. They had different gamma ramps, and were more contrasted looking. I've had this conversation with Charles MacDonald, who agrees, but said the MAME team isn't interested in doing anything about it (mostly because no one knows the actual gamma/ramp values). Thus, people believe that's what they really looked like back then thanks to emulators. But for the sake of argument and say that those colors were dead accurate, that low contrast looks horrible. Just because it's original doesn't mean it looks better. Bloodlines color hack is a perfect example of that.Quote:
Also your golden axe pic is overly saturated. It's almost as bad as the original in the total opposite direction. Overly saturated colours fit lower bit palettes much better than flat, low saturation colours. A directed conversion of the golden axe picture would look pretty bad.