The Neo Geo was just a glorified Genesis.

[MN12BIRD]

I think the hardware is similar because those were some of the most popular processors of the 80's and the Motorola 68000 and Zilog Z80 were in most Arcade boards of the time. So it's no surprise two consoles designed by Arcade hardware manufactures used similar hardware. But the CPU is nearly twice as fast in the Neo Geo! That's hardly anything to shrug off. But that said I bet it really comes down to the GPU's here. Sega's VDP has nothing on the Neo Geo. The number of onscreen colors and sprites of the Neo Geo is in another freaking ballpark! They may have a similar main processor and co-processor but the graphics processor in the Neo Geo is in another league.

[synbiosfan]

Yeah, maybe, but Neo Geo had it's own ferris wheel and bitches!

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NGF fan huh...I guess it figures.

[sheath]

I think the hardware is similar because those were some of the most popular processors of the 80's and the Motorola 68000 and Zilog Z80 were in most Arcade boards of the time. So it's no surprise two consoles designed by Arcade hardware manufactures used similar hardware. But the CPU is nearly twice as fast in the Neo Geo! That's hardly anything to shrug off. Having a CPU running at double the speed of the competitors is pretty amazing on its own. I mean if IBM came out with an 8-core consumer processor tomorrow that runs at 7GHz on air wouldn't the tech industry go absolutely bananas? Saying it's barley faster when it's almost twice as fast is bananas! But even that said I bet it really comes down to the GPU's here. Sega's VDP has nothing on the Neo Geo. The number of onscreen colors and sprites of the Neo Geo is in another freaking ballpark here! They may have a similar main processor and co-processor but the graphics processors here are in another league.

Isn't the Sega CD CPU clocked at 12Mhz considered twice as fast as the Genesis CPU? Or is that just half again faster?

[MN12BIRD]

Well I guess the 68k in the Sega CD is twice as fast but does it have to devote clocks to like CD-ROM controlling tasks (or controlling the extra ASIC HW) or does all of its power go towards running software? I edited my post if you go back and check it because the CPU thing was a little over exaggerated. I mean you can technically OC a Genesis 68K to those speeds right? But like I said I think the main difference here is the GPU as you can see the number of onscreen colors and sprites on the Neo Geo are way beyond anything the Genesis or SegaCD are capable of.

[sheath]

As I understand it, the Sega CD CPU can DMA at 256KB per frame to the Genesis VDP, so once all of the data is loaded into RAM the 12Mhz Sub CPU and Graphics Co-Processor can get to work completely apart from the Genesis CPU's activities.

I really was trying to recall if the Sega CD's faster 68000 is considered twice as fast at actual game related computations or just half again.

[Joe Redifer]

There is something almost as good as an Ever Drive for the Neo. The super 120-1 cart and the many many versions of it. I have it, covers a good chunk of the Neo Library. Roms as well. The stuff is priced as it is far more rare than a Sonic 2 Cart.

SHIT that's rare! My basic point was that many Neo Geo owners likely wouldn't like it if the prices fell on certain games. Games like Nam 1975 or Magician Lord they don't care, but some people seem to buy games like Metal Slug more as an investment, hoping their game gains in value rather than to play and have fun with it. Some people buy games like Metal Slug to pose naked with them online, making sure nobody else will ever want that particular copy. Granted, this is true of any system. Point me in the direction of that 120-in-1 (AES version).

[evilevoix]

]

SHIT that's rare! My basic point was that many Neo Geo owners likely wouldn't like it if the prices fell on certain games. Games like Nam 1975 or Magician Lord they don't care, but some people seem to buy games like Metal Slug more as an investment, hoping their game gains in value rather than to play and have fun with it. Some people buy games like Metal Slug to pose naked with them online, making sure nobody else will ever want that particular copy. Granted, this is true of any system. Point me in the direction of that 120-in-1 (AES version).

Actually we dance half naked with them while simulating sex acts. It's teh only way we can get off as our standards are so high.


FWIW the price can only go up for the Metal Slug Series and the rare pricey games alike. Extremely limited and high quality, there was nothing like the Neo Geo in it's day. I come home from work and hug mine every day, twice on Sundays.

[Chilly Willy]

Well I guess the 68k in the Sega CD is twice as fast but does it have to devote clocks to like CD-ROM controlling tasks (or controlling the extra ASIC HW) or does all of its power go towards running software? I edited my post if you go back and check it because the CPU thing was a little over exaggerated. I mean you can technically OC a Genesis 68K to those speeds right?

The CD CPU is 12.5 MHz, so it's faster than the NeoGeo CPU.

Data can be transferred from CDROM using the DMA, CD CPU, or MD CPU. DMA is good for streaming data to the Word RAM or PCM RAM while the CD CPU does something else. If you are loading data into the Program RAM, you usually use the CD CPU since you aren't going to be doing anything until that data is loaded. Using the MD CPU is a little bizarre - the CD interface makes the data available in a register accessible by the MD CPU, which polls the register, transferring the data as it's ready to wherever. Basically, the CD CPU starts the transfer, but the MD side receives and stores the data on its side of the console.

Anywho, assuming you aren't loading data from the CD into Program RAM, the CD CPU runs full speed with very little overhead. So if you do things right, you can get the most of that 12.5 MHz. "Twice as fast" is a ballpark figure - the MD CPU runs at about 7.6 MHz, so twice as fast would be about 15 MHz, not 12.5. Most MD overclocking I've read about works fine at 10.x MHz for everything, but starts failing with some things as you go faster. So even an overclocked MD doesn't quite keep up with the CD CPU.

As to the ASIC, it can generate an INT when done, so the CD CPU doesn't need to wait on the ASIC - it just starts the first operation and continues running the game with the int handler starting any more ASIC operations (if any). The only time the CD CPU would need to wait is if it needed to wait for all ASIC operations to end so it could flip the Word RAM to the MD side. Even that could be handled by the interrupt with the proper coding.

[synbiosfan]

]







Actually we dance half naked with them while simulating sex acts. It's teh only way we can get off as our standards are so high.


FWIW the price can only go up for the Metal Slug Series and the rare pricey games alike. Extremely limited and high quality, there was nothing like the Neo Geo in it's day. I come home from work and hug mine every day, twice on Sundays.

One of rot's videos was actually shown on Tosh.O lol!

[Sik]

the Neo Geo did more sprites

But it completely lacked backgrounds, so those needed to be faked with sprites, countering a good amount of that advantage. That also made scrolling a bitch - guess why Metal Slug doesn't let you scroll in any direction (hint: the background is entirely made out of stripes).

Isn't the Sega CD CPU clocked at 12Mhz considered twice as fast as the Genesis CPU? Or is that just half again faster?

It's around 1.63 times faster.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Well the reason for metal slug only allowing you to scroll in one direction could be a game design choice. It is an arcade game after all.

Though the background being entirely made out of sprites could be why there's slowdown in the Saturn version if they didn't change it to backgrounds to optimize it.

[Jadty]

SNK-Capcom =Sega-Nintendo. We weren't expecting Mario on the MD any time soon the same applies here. However there was a Street Fighter game released on the Neo Geo in the Early 2000's, it's OK at best.

Source? If you mean SVC Chaos or Capcom vs SNK well, those are not really Street Fighter games after all.

[Sik]

Well the reason for metal slug only allowing you to scroll in one direction could be a game design choice. It is an arcade game after all.

It wouldn't be the first game designed around hardware limitations =P

Though the background being entirely made out of sprites could be why there's slowdown in the Saturn version if they didn't change it to backgrounds to optimize it.

This is another issue, there isn't even the slight hint of tiling at all in the game - every single part of the level backgrounds is unique. This makes the use of tilemaps completely useless since there is no tiling at all. This also made me wonder how do the CD ports work since it'd need to stream like crazy.

[Joe Redifer]

The PS1 version of Metal Slug loads halfway through the level. The Saturn requires the RAM cart. No tiling wouldn't be considered useless for a BG (except for saving memory). Using a highly detailed background would still free up sprites unless I am not understanding what you are saying.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Well if I remember correctly can't VDP2 on the Saturn display large bitmaps for scrolling backgrounds? Would converting the all sprite backgrounds to bitmaps help at all with performance?