I know this topic has beaten into the ground but aside from the processor speed and resolution recently discussed what are some of the other technical advantages that the Genesis has over the Snes and vice versa?
Printable View
I know this topic has beaten into the ground but aside from the processor speed and resolution recently discussed what are some of the other technical advantages that the Genesis has over the Snes and vice versa?
Back in our school The Mega Drive was everything that was cool. I knew nobody who had a SNES (unless they also owned a Mega Drive) and Sonic was super cool with his super awesome speed. I guess I just went to a more enlightened primary school than most and thus avoided much of the 16-bit arguments.
Mega Drive: 10 vs. 8 sound channels. Sound can be at 44 kHz, SNES is locked at 33 kHz I think. Mega Drive has 22 kHz as a standard though. The Mega Drive sound hardware is better for synthesizing, while the SNES is better for sampling. Does anyone know what games uses the 44kHz?
For graphics, there is also the shadow/highlight modes available on Mega Drive.
Treasure also said the 16/32-bit 68k was better suitable when making multi-jointed bosses, not just the processor speed determined this.
SNES: Transparencies, 4 background layers, 256 colours on screen, 32 768 total, scaling & rotation, V-RAM... and a lot more, I think.
Huzzah, another tech discussion! Can't get enough of those. (Seriously.)
Off the top of my head before I hit the sack:
The Sneeze has built-in background scaling/rotation capabilities (Mode 7), the Genius doesn't. Most racing-perspective games on the Genesis utilized the cruddy, re-drawing software scaling which wasn't as smooth or purdy as real hardware scaling. A handful of notable Genny games however, with crackshot developers behind them (Konami, Treasure, Clockwork Tortoise) featured near-genuine scaling and rotation (through bad-ass hardware engines and trickery) that at best managed to look slightly worse than the SNES's Mode 7.
The SNES featured a higher and more varied color palette (256 colors max., out of palette of 32,768) than the Genesis (61 colors max, out of palette of 512), though the Genesis could provide the illusion of more colors through techniques like shadow/hilight and if you have piss-poor video connections, lots o' dithering. But piss-poor color palette is still a piss-poor color palette.
The SNES has a digital sample-based sound suite, the SPC700 that can output 8 channels of ADPCM sound. The Genesis has an analog, FM synth/PSG-based sound suite, the YM2612+SN76489 combo that outputs 10 channels of variable quality audio. Long story short, some genres and types of music are better in one sound suite and vice versa, while as far as abilities, proximity to CD-Quality sound and features go, the SPC700 has the Genesis' sound beat fair and square.
The SNES also accepts and has often used extra cartridge chips to enhance its hardware's graphic/sound/storage capabilities for many games, while the Genesis only notably had the SVP chip, solely used for the port of the 3D racer "Virtua Racing".
Anyone is free to correct all of this. I'm going to bed now, dreaming of Mai and Chunners.........and Jello.......
Megadrive is made from a sexy black plastic, whereas Snes is made from a boring grey plastic that often turns an ugly yellow over time, yuck!
MD kicks ass, but unfortunately, nobody could afford to get one form Anttila back then in Estonia (after getting free form Russia)... SNES was cheaper and slightly more popular... still nearly nobody knows about these machines.
And MD's sound is 52KHz, least YM2612, PSG has probably lower sampling rate... but the poor sound mixing circuits in MD doesn't let that 52KHz shine like it should :(
And well done FM music sounds LOT better than sample based music of SNES, but unfortunately US developers didn't have very good sound tools, and maybe the composers didn't like FM that much either.... some European sound drivers (listen Mega turrican) and many Japanese ones just kicked ass (with music made by good composers).
Genesis has Blast Processing, SNES don't.
Mate....that's actually very interesting!Quote:
Originally Posted by TmEE
I never knew about the channels and graphics features. The bit about Estonia is interesting also.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dingo
The US SNES is fugly. The UK and Japanese design is better.Quote:
Originally Posted by playgen
But black is sexier.
Genny 1 clearly win that battle
Oh yeah, the Genny was almost always better suited for sports games. Which explains why they are so damn easy to come by everywhere you go.
Actually the max colors on screen without hsync tricks or transparency/sub/add is 2048 colors. It has a few modes were each tile can show 256 colors and use one of eight 256 color palettes. That's just the background layer. The 16 color sprites still have their own eight 16 color palettes (240 colors total for sprites).Quote:
Originally Posted by Aarzak
That's pretty subjective. I've heard some kickass tunes from my Genesis, but I've yet to see it rival games with kickass sound from the SNES. I love the Genesis FM sound, but some games it just got tiresome with the same old instruments synths and when they tried to create new instrument sounds to distance itself from sounding the same, they tended to sound "rough" and "gritty" or "harsh". One of the reasons why I like the earlier Genesis titles music than the later ones.Quote:
And well done FM music sounds LOT better than sample based music of SNES
Genesis has a headphone jack, SNES does not. Point: Genesis.
Also, the official 6-button arcade stick for Genesis is better than any stick I have ever tried for SNES. And I've tried lots. The stock SNES pad sucks ass for 6-button fighters. SNES fans argued that their versions of Street Fighter had better audio, but who cares when the controls suck and are so much better on Genesis? I remember making great use of Tournament Mode in the Genesis version of Super Street Fighter II, with a bunch of friends who frequented the local arcade. None of us would touch the SNES port, however.
And uh... Genesis has better games. Or rather, a greater number of games that are good.
I think the SNES cannot do explosion sound effects well at all. Both SMW and "Batman Returns" use a similar sounding explosion sound that comes off phony and unrealistic.
I think perhaps "muffled" is the word you may be looking for?
That would be the word.
The cases obviously. Great clamshell designs, easy to maintain. Wish I was smarter as a kid and had kept them instead of putting all my Genny games in plastic bags (which probably let to their quicker than intended demise)
Wait... you put you carts in plastic bags? Why?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ugly Bob
SO! ITS WAS YOU!! The horrible monster that threw away those wonderful cases, the one we all curse when we find that loose Toejam and Earl. GRRRRRRR
JK. Seriously though everytime I find a loose cart I ask myself why? What would possess someone to throw one of those away. I can see a Nes box if I wasn't a collector but a nice tough plastic case to hold games.
Not sure why I threw the cases away, maybe it wasn't just me, I had two brothers as well. Or perhaps my parents...
It is odd though as my first Genesis was my uncle's, and he kept his cases. Shouldn't learnt something...
I guess the reason was to prevent myself from losing them, I didn't have any real storage units as a kid, or extra bookshelves. They were used for stupid stuff, like clothes and books.
Darn it.
Probably because back then there was more of a concept of 'game cases as disposable packaging', much like you'd throw away a macaroni box. Only in the past decade or so has the mindset of 'game cases as showpieces' become widespread, as with DVDs, CDs, etc.
I've been collecting a lot of Game Gear games over the past year or so and I really only want complete games with boxes and instructions. For some games, this is extremely difficult to do. One thing I have noticed, however, is that Europe and Australia are much more fertile shopping grounds for complete games than the US. I guess we Americans were more prone to throw away the packaging than others. Just an observation.
Of course this works out well for Game Gear and Sega Master System collectors since these systems were not regionalized.
Gamegear was even better in Brazil - all the games came in plastic boxes like master system ones.
I thought it went like this:
1) Japan - best place for complete games. Asians are neat freaks who have a gene for keeping games in perfect condition.
2) USA - average. Have to look around, but MIB are avaliable.
3) EU - horrific. Can't find anything that wasn't shredded by a dog and picked out of the trash by a scavenger bird.
Nope, from my experience of buying lots of games worldwide:
Japan is best, if they keep the boxes they generally keep them mint.
Europe is good too, we generally keep games complete, finding games in excellent conditon is easy.
US tend to chuck boxes away, so while carts might be in good condition, its not as good as a complete game.
Australia is bad for condition, its tough to find stuff in good order.
And Brazil is the worst, most people there just don't look after their gaming stuff at all.
Here is how I see it:
Japan: Everything arrive mint/complete. Not a scratch on anything. They've held it with silk gloves and stored it in a vault.
Europe: Normal. Hold with dirty or clean hands. Manual may be teared because of all the reading. Box may have lost hanger, or maybe not.
Iraq: Items are black sometimes due to suicide bombing. Sometimes they've been in Saddam's secret vault in his palace, so they may be good.
USA: Always crappy. The box NEVER has the hanger. Games are stored in McDonalds pommes frites equipment it seems, because all games are dirty and look "glancy". There are also at least five stickers on the boxes to remove. Yuck!
That's a very good point. Sod whatever happened to Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, who ended up with his mint condition Mega Drive games?Quote:
Originally Posted by Zebbe
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zebbe
Hehe they call them French fries here, Pommes Firtes is Sweden and Germany. Oh crap wait that's not right either. For awhile they were FREEDOM FRIES! The games here are always covered in rental store stickers and they even put these damn things on the cart it self over the paper label. On top of that many retards decided that the nice plastic cases were disposable. Plus no discount at the used video game store if the manual is missing.
For all you Europeans, nobody *EVER* calls french fries "Freedom Fries".
Born of anti-French sentiment and patriotism towards Emperor Bush, everyone I knew mocked the implied name change even back then.
Even more embarrassingly supposedly it started in cafeteria that our congress eats at because they were annoyed with the French government. Who knows. It just always made me laugh.
Yeah, that one never took off.
Phhh forget freedom fries I want FREEDOM TOAST!1
I'm glad people sorta calmed down after all that 9/11 crap. My god, big American flags on Japanese cars and teenager listening to "I'm glad to be an American" are not images I cherish.
I know Saddam bought lots of PS2s because Sony said you could launch missiles with it. How is an Emotion Engine supposed to do damage? You need Blast Processing! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Mr Smith
Some muslims decided to rename some Danish cake into "Muhammed cake" or something during the Muhammed drawing scandal. It reminded me of that freedom fries thing.
Sounds like the same type of out of hand over emotional nonsense.
Emotions are crap. That is why Saddam failed. He had too many Emotion Engines.
They are good when they tell you it is important to go get food or to run when you are in danger but not so good when you have to ability to control millions. And yes far to many Emotion Engines,
I purchased a SNES after playing 2 games at a friends house, Sunset Riders (which played so much better than the version I had on the Mega Drive) and Super Aleste which to this day remains one of my favorite SHMUPS of all time and pretty much the only descent one the SNES had.
I think all the playground rivalry is very much behind me, both my SNES and Mega Drive sit side by side and I love them both equally but for very different reasons.
I still class the MD as a serious gamers machine and the titles I own reflect that, it was from an era when I took my gaming FAR too seriously.
The SNES on the other hand was my fun chill out and relax console, I think I only owned about 4-5 games, but all were seriously excellent.
And Mystic Quest to this day remains the only Final Fantasy game I actually like (makes sense as most of the FF fanboys think it's shit)
I dont honestly think looking back you can class either console as 'better' than the other, and although the SNES had more commercial success the Mega Drive is certainly the more fondly remembered console.
I never played Super Aleste - I'm actually trying to get me a copy :p - but I recommend another darn good shmup in my opinion: Axelay.Quote:
Originally Posted by mick_aka
As for the topic's subject, one of the most simple answers is that the MD's gallery is far more diverse and competent than the whole bunch of SNES titles.