Genesis vs TurboGrafx Parallax. How do they compare?

[Tasuke]

well, i suppose it would rather complete my Genny MOD.2/ SEGA CD MOD.2 set.

all i'd need further is a MOD.2 A/V cable, and i'd be in business...

[Kamahl]

Transfering 1/2 tile per line will also result in 100% CPU occupation (the VDP will hang the CPU for 16 or 32 pixel cycles if the FIFO gets 125% full), unless some clever processing interleaving takes place between writes.
Like write 2 words, do stuff, write another 2, do stuff, etc..

Meh, not worth the trouble then, good old scanline sacrifice at the bottom is the greatest anyway (SoulStar updates so much crap at the same time it's not even funny).

[sheath]

It’s a fun add-on. Don’t pay too much but is nice to have for Knuckles and VF and V-Racing. There isn’t anything amazing on the unit and it being rushed is obvious but is a nice change of pace and you kinda get the jist of where they were going with the unit. Virtua Fighter may look a lil’ rough but plays amazing. Just look for a proper bundle with common games, you can have fun.

Argh! Shadow Squadron, Bah!

[kool kitty89]

Probably. Funny how much having that (which was planned anyway), would have changed things. A lot of the perception that the TG-16 can't compete with the genesis comes from the lack of a second background layer. At least that was my reaction at first.

I think that's more of a minor issue overall.
The big issue was not technical whatsoever, but totally up to NEC's management and marketing.

In spite of the hardware limits (and plenty of mitigating advantages -including low cost), NEC probably could have dominated the North America (maybe even Europe) marketing if they'd pushed their corporate weight around and had good management backing that up. (ie like Sony did with the PSX -and Management like what Sega got in 1989 with Katz followed by Kalniske)

If hardware really WAS an issue, the SGX (which would have been a low-cost add-on along with standalone console under better management) could have been pushed more anyway. (with the right marketing behind it too)

Then there's the totally tangent advantages that CD-ROM brings (which would have been priced FAR cheaper -at or below cost- than historically) and how significant that could be if good marketing allowed it to really catch on in the west. (more so if they were smart and rolled the SGX into the Super CD standard)

Besides, if full-on add-ons didn't end up panning out in the US, they (and 3rd parties) could have pushed more for on-card enhancements for sound, RAM, coprocessing, etc.



Part of that management would have been a sleeker form factor for the US with at least 2 controller ports (maybe even have all 5 built-in) and have 3 or 4 button controllers available at launch in light of the MD. (and later on push 6 button more)
An AV port also should have been present.

For Europe, they probably would have been best to keep the compact JP form factor, but maybe modify it slightly and add 2 controller ports built-in. (pricing would be tight in all cases, taking advantage of NEC's vertical integration, massive funds, and the low cost hardware in general)


Another part of management would be expanding relationships with western developers and publishers to get them onboard with favorable licensing contracts and start working on collaborative efforts with western developers. (possibly building western 1st party studios like Sega did)

Plus, pushing more for bringing all applicable (western friendly/marketable) JP developed games over to the US and investing in adapting some that were "too Japanese" to directly translate.

And, of course, push saturation marketing with their massive corporate budget. (like Sony)


Hell, with strong western (especially European) dev support, you'd have seen the hardware getting pushed a lot more and probably a lot more impressive turbo-chip format games too (assuming the CD didn't take off like Japan).
Software MOD players probably would have emerged in some later games too.

The SNES is limited to updating VRAM during Vblank (like the MD), except it has much less bandwidth than the MD. It can do the least updates of all 3 systems (PCE being the best since although it's not as fast as the MD, it can do it during active display).
If you waste it doing dynamic tiles, you won't be animating sprites a lot.

Yep, the same reason the PCE is so damn good at animating things.

Technically, the MD would close the gap as you clipped the screen a bit more, but that's an obvious trade-off. (less clipping for PAL, though)
Then there's the trade-off of halting the CPU during DMA, but the DMA block transfer also being faster than the PCE's CPU driven updating.

Transfering 1/2 tile per line will also result in 100% CPU occupation (the VDP will hang the CPU for 16 or 32 pixel cycles if the FIFO gets 125% full), unless some clever processing interleaving takes place between writes.
Like write 2 words, do stuff, write another 2, do stuff, etc..

Hence why clipping the screen is a much more practical option.

It would have been nice if the MD implemented a ST/Amiga style 16-bit latch with 50/50 bus split for the 68k without wait states. (so you could have a slow DMA mode with interleaved memory accesses and no hit to the CPU)

Meh, not worth the trouble then, good old scanline sacrifice at the bottom is the greatest anyway (SoulStar updates so much crap at the same time it's not even funny).

BC Racers updates the full-screen, but at a rate low enough that a larger screen size should have been fine.

Then there's Virtua Racing updating a full 256x192 frame at 15 FPS. (BC Racers is full frame too -almost all is on a single 16 color bitmap frame converted to a single tile layer- but it updates at a nominal 12 FPS )

[Kamahl]

I think that's more of a minor issue overall.
The big issue was not technical whatsoever, but totally up to NEC's management and marketing.

There's no denying NEC's retarded management and marketing, but the lack of a second background layer does cause a bad first impression (assuming, like me, the first game you saw was bonk or keith courage and not gate of thunder).

Hell, with strong western (especially European) dev support, you'd have seen the hardware getting pushed a lot more and probably a lot more impressive turbo-chip format games too (assuming the CD didn't take off like Japan).
Software MOD players probably would have emerged in some later games too.

Yup, europeans really liked to push the hardware, though they always seemed to mess something up. Usually gameplay.

BC Racers updates the full-screen, but at a rate low enough that a larger screen size should have been fine.

Then there's Virtua Racing updating a full 256x192 frame at 15 FPS. (BC Racers is full frame too -almost all is on a single 16 color bitmap frame converted to a single tile layer- but it updates at a nominal 12 FPS )

Soulstar updates almost the entire screen (minus the HUD and sacrificed scanlines) when you're entering the mothership or the mining platform PLUS a bunch of sprites for the mines, enemies, and their/your weapons (and yes, those are sprites, they're not blitted to the background).
All of this at around 24-30 fps.

What a work of art that game is...

(EDIT: Just remembered it's probably doing a horizontal mirror on the tiles... so it's only half, still... VERY CLEVER)

Afaik, doing the scanline sacrifice gives the MD almost twice the normal update time, bringing it to PCE levels except you have plenty of time for the processor (unlike the PCE where updating at the MAX would mean the processor isn't used for anything else)

[evilevoix]

I think that's more of a minor issue overall.
The big issue was not technical whatsoever, but totally up to NEC's management and marketing.

In spite of the hardware limits (and plenty of mitigating advantages -including low cost), NEC probably could have dominated the North America (maybe even Europe) marketing if they'd pushed their corporate weight around and had good management backing that up. (ie like Sony did with the PSX -and Management like what Sega got in 1989 with Katz followed by Kalniske)

How would have NEC dominated the North American market? When compare systems and their hold on the market one must look at the entire history of its library and its accomplishments. Launch titles could make or break the unit, the MD and the SNES made huge splashes and separated themselves from the rest of the market. I never saw anything like this with the PCE with the notable exception of Bonk. Most people on this site have argued that the system wasn’t limited at all it was the marketing and development team. IIRC I knew exactly what a TG16 was, saw commercials all the time for it, and bought the double unit with birthday money. I don’t think Marketing was an issue so that is a victory for management, what is left is the games. You guys showed me some amazing looking games that came out for the system in 1995, well past the prime of the “16-BIT” generation. Would it be fair to state that the hardware and the software generally represented a short fall in the market on a step by step basis, meaning that launch title for the TG16 Vs Launch for the MD and then later the SNES all the way through the systems lives and their ultimate deaths?

[Kamahl]

How would have NEC dominated the North American market? When compare systems and their hold on the market one must look at the entire history of its library and its accomplishments. Launch titles could make or break the unit, the MD and the SNES made huge splashes and separated themselves from the rest of the market. I never saw anything like this with the PCE with the notable exception of Bonk. Most people on this site have argued that the system wasn’t limited at all it was the marketing and development team. IIRC I knew exactly what a TG16 was, saw commercials all the time for it, and bought the double unit with birthday money. I don’t think Marketing was an issue so that is a victory for management, what is left is the games. You guys showed me some amazing looking games that came out for the system in 1995, well past the prime of the “16-BIT” generation. Would it be fair to state that the hardware and the software generally represented a short fall in the market on a step by step basis, meaning that launch title for the TG16 Vs Launch for the MD and then later the SNES all the way through the systems lives and their ultimate deaths?

They packed Keith Courage with the system (compare that with altered beast... yeah).
They "accepted" the "you're only 8bit" jab by sega and started claiming they're were "in between" (surprising they were this stupid isn't it?)
They had much more money than sega and nintendo, and could totally drown them in advertisements
They could have used that money to make it much more attractive for developers to code for the PCE instead of the MD or SNES
They could have sold the system at a cost for a while to undercut Sega and Nintendo.
They could have joined the SuperGrafx with the Super CD.
They could have brought over a ton of awesome games that stayed in japan.
They could have funded american devs.
They could have launched the system in europe... (You'd get a ton of awesome looking games from this, even if they played like crap )

The US library is a joke other than GoT and LoT and stuff, they didn't even bring over spriggan, that game is a freaking masterpiece.
LoX 2 looks like a SNES game, it's not very big, there shouldn't be much of an issue translating it. That game would fill the "SNES RPG" void pretty well.

They were really freaking dumb :S

If you were to fix all of their management mistakes the system would have done WAY better just from that. A stronger investment in HuCard games from american devs would have been a huge help, possibly with some addon chips on the cards.

[evilevoix]

They packed Keith Courage with the system (compare that with altered beast... yeah).
They "accepted" the "you're only 8bit" jab by sega and started claiming they're were "in between" (surprising they were this stupid isn't it?)
They had much more money than sega and nintendo, and could totally drown them in advertisements
They could have used that money to make it much more attractive for developers to code for the PCE instead of the MD or SNES
They could have sold the system at a cost for a while to undercut Sega and Nintendo.
They could have joined the SuperGrafx with the Super CD.
They could have brought over a ton of awesome games that stayed in japan.
They could have funded american devs.
They could have launched the system in europe... (You'd get a ton of awesome looking games from this, even if they played like crap )

The US library is a joke other than GoT and LoT and stuff, they didn't even bring over spriggan, that game is a freaking masterpiece.
LoX 2 looks like a SNES game, it's not very big, there shouldn't be much of an issue translating it. That game would fill the "SNES RPG" void pretty well.

They were really freaking dumb :S

If you were to fix all of their management mistakes the system would have done WAY better just from that. A stronger investment in HuCard games from american devs would have been a huge help, possibly with some addon chips on the cards.

The system didn’t hurt for advertisements. I admit that they should have argued that they had two 16-bit chips and said more is betterer! I feel the Super Grafx was too little too late and having a CD unit combined with again another installment of NEC hardware. From what I understand the Super Grafx could have been done day one, shoulda did that.


Lots of cool games for all the big systems of the time trapped in Japan. There really wasn’t an application killer on the PCE like Sonic or Mario. You could argue Bonk, easily it’s most recognizable game but I doubt it really sold as many systems like Sonic/Mario did. I can’t imagine Bonk being that big in Japan.

I just checked LoX2 and do you really think that game is on par with a SNES game? It does look good but SNES good? You really don’t think the hardware had anything to do with the systems failure?

[Kamahl]

The system didn’t hurt for advertisements. I admit that they should have argued that they had two 16-bit chips and said more is betterer! I feel the Super Grafx was too little too late and having a CD unit combined with again another installment of NEC hardware. From what I understand the Super Grafx could have been done day one, shoulda did that.

Of course.

Lots of cool games for all the big systems of the time trapped in Japan. There really wasn’t an application killer on the PCE like Sonic or Mario. You could argue Bonk, easily it’s most recognizable game but I doubt it really sold as many systems like Sonic/Mario did. I can’t imagine Bonk being that big in Japan.

Bonk isn't nearly as good as sonic or mario, it wasn't that big in japan either. NEC was desperate for a mascot to use in the US (remember, they'd already conquered the japanese market) and Bonk was the closest. Bonk's Adventure was released for the Amiga and NES too, it can't even be really considered a mascot for the system.
Plus the super bonk games on the SNES.

I just checked LoX2 and do you really think that game is on par with a SNES game? It does look good but SNES good? You really don’t think the hardware had anything to do with the systems failure?

The hardware did have to do with the system's failure but IT DIDN'T HAVE TO. It was salt in the wound so to speak.
Addon chips on the cards, the inclusion of the SuperGrafx on the SuperCD, the european devs and their "hardware abusing" tendencies, all of it could have greatly contributed to getting really good looking games on the system.
Pretty much the only companies that pushed it were:
Compile
Hudson/Red
Capcom (in 1 game)
Konami (in 1 game)
Masaya (good looking games but not really pushing the hardware at all)
ICOM (in 1 game)
Naxat (1 or 2 games)
Falcom (in 1 game)
So yeah, only 2 out of all of them really tried. Not really a lot of help here

LoX2 is on par with a SNES game graphically for sure. In fact it looks better than a lot of snes games. Only the late era games like FF6, Chrono Trigger, Seiken Densetsu 3, Terranigma, Tales of Phantasia, Star Ocean and stuff look better.

[evilevoix]

Of course.Bonk isn't nearly as good as sonic or mario, it wasn't that big in japan either. NEC was desperate for a mascot to use in the US (remember, they'd already conquered the japanese market) and Bonk was the closest. Bonk's Adventure was released for the Amiga and NES too, it can't even be really considered a mascot for the system.
Plus the super bonk games on the SNES.
The hardware did have to do with the system's failure but IT DIDN'T HAVE TO. It was salt in the wound so to speak.
Addon chips on the cards, the inclusion of the SuperGrafx on the SuperCD, the european devs and their "hardware abusing" tendencies, all of it could have greatly contributed to getting really good looking games on the system.
Pretty much the only companies that pushed it were:
Compile
Hudson/Red
Capcom (in 1 game)
Konami (in 1 game)
Masaya (good looking games but not really pushing the hardware at all)
ICOM (in 1 game)
Naxat (1 or 2 games)
Falcom (in 1 game)
So yeah, only 2 out of all of them really tried. Not really a lot of help here

LoX2 is on par with a SNES game graphically for sure. In fact it looks better than a lot of snes games. Only the late era games like FF6, Chrono Trigger, Seiken Densetsu 3, Terranigma, Tales of Phantasia, Star Ocean and stuff look better.

Bonk looked comparable on the NES which really hurt the TG16’s cred. Super bonk looked great IMHO albeit a lil’ slow in gameplay. Chrono Trigger is literally art, it’s just art. I agree with LOX 2 may be on par with earlier SNES titles but we all know how SNES took the ball and ran with it.

[Kamahl]

Bonk looked comparable on the NES which really hurt the TG16’s cred. Super bonk looked great IMHO albeit a lil’ slow in gameplay. Chrono Trigger is literally art, it’s just art. I agree with LOX 2 may be on par with earlier SNES titles but we all know how SNES took the ball and ran with it.

Super Bonk 2 is pretty fun, the first one kinda sucks.
Yeah using Bonk as a mascot wasn't a very good idea. Sonic was both fun as hell and showed off the hardware. Bonk was entertaining and looked like an improved NES game... meh.
They really should have developed a mascot specifically for the PCE.

[awack]

I just checked LoX2 and do you really think that game is on par with a SNES game? It does look good but SNES good?

I just checked LoX2 and do you really think that game is on par with a SNES game? It does look good but SNES good? You really don’t think the hardware had anything to do with the systems failure?

The system didn’t hurt for advertisements

Not true, my TV was inundated with Genesis commercials, i didn't see my first TG16 commercial until a year later...i lived in Durham NC and had friends and relatives in Virginia Beach, and not a single person i knew what a TG16 was until i told them, but most of them who were in a particular age group, not only know what a genesis was, but had one.


Slightly better in my oppinion, the two best looking RPGs on the two systems are Seiken Densetsu 3 and LOX 2, SD3 has better looking over head sections but the Boss fights in LOX2 look better than anything in SD3, SD3 does have some cool mode 7 and translucent fx, but LOX2 has really nice looking cutscenes.


Beyond Shadowgate looks better than both, so who cares





LOXII, Falcom, release date..06/30/95. Seiken Densetsu 3, Square Soft, release date..09/30/95.


Pce boss fights left snes boss fights right

[awack]

pce over head action left snes over head action









I starting to think that allot of people dont actually own a duo and the games that are being talked about..

[evilevoix]

I don’t have a duo. I have a TG16 with a broken CD unit . Those pics are colorful for sure. I can’t comment on any RPG’s except Zelda 64 and Chrono Trigger as these are the only two games I have seen at length.

[Kamahl]

SK3 looks better :P.
That's not to say LOX2 doesn't look awesome. In fact I'll retract what I said before about Final Fantasy 6, the boss fights in LoX2 are just way too good looking.
Also worth pointing out is that emulators do not emulate the color of the PCE correctly, it's 9bit but there's some kind of color conversion done, Tom did a post about it some time ago:

Left - Emulator
Right - Real Hardware