the myth of the sega cd

[Drakon]

Oh okay I didn't know that. Still scaling / rotation aren't used a whole lot in 2d games.

Didnt the sega CD have much better scaling and rotation capabilities than the SNES? they could have done some interesting stuff with that.

[Barone]

Wasn't there a programing trick that let you display MORE than 64 colors on Genesis/Sega CD?

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post510353
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post510356
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post510387
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post510389
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post510394
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post510410
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post510422
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post510457
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post510504

Yeah all 64 colours of it.

Didnt the sega CD have much better scaling and rotation capabilities than the SNES? they could have done some interesting stuff with that.

Yep. Have a look:












BC Racers actually runs better on the Sega CD than on the 3DO and on the 32X thanks to its ASIC:



Despite of what Nintendo made people believe, graphics aren't all about number of on screen colors .

[sheath]

The SNES can only scale and rotate one single background of up to 256 colors, not sprites and not objects. So SNES Mode 7 games consist of the scrolling floors and animated sprites that don't scale at all. Even the screen through in Turtles in Time is just three frames of animation, not Mode 7. The benefit of such a limited background mode is that it can scale at 60FPS, though I'm not sure how many games achieve this.

The Sega CD's Graphics Co-Processor is a blitter, which can take as many objects and turn them into scaling or scrolling objects as the programmer can adequately code. It is limited mainly by the DMA speed to the Genesis VDP, which means that for full screen 320x224 scaling games you are limited to 15-20FPS. I think it has been discussed that 30FPS was possible but not 60FPS. Batman Returns is probably the fastest "scaling" Sega CD game at 20FPS, and I used to swear it was 30FPS.

[Breetai]

You know what the sega CD needed to be more successful in the US?

MOAR SPORTS GAMES!

It looks like you're being sarcastic here, but actually I think it really did need more sports games. How many Madden games were on it? None. If Madden games were released alongside their Genesis counterparts, they definitely would have moved a few more units. There was one NHL game released on it. When NHL '95 did not come out on it, people here noticed that and concluded that the Sega CD was on its deathbed. Even NHL '94 was too late. NHLPA '93 could have easily been released on it, as well as John Madden Football '93, LaRussa Baseball, Bulls vs. Blazers (with ALL the teams!), etc. Sega could have promoted the Sega CD as the best platform for sports games in the US, and it would have done much better.

[Chilly Willy]

I don't usually care much for sports games, but many people do. The Genesis was always good at them because it had a strong CPU. The Sega CD gave it another that was even stronger, so it could have been the best sports platform out until replaced by the 32-bit generation.

[bultje112]

I don't usually care much for sports games, but many people do. The Genesis was always good at them because it had a strong CPU. The Sega CD gave it another that was even stronger, so it could have been the best sports platform out until replaced by the 32-bit generation.

and whatever sports games it had were usually very good like fifa, sensible soccer and nhl 94.

[Guntz]

On the subject of untapped potential. I think that had to do with two things.

1) Bad marketing
2) No color increase

The SNES's 256 on-screen colors really enhanced all of the system's built in graphic effects, along with the add-on chips. The Sega CD didn't feel much different because it was still in 64 colors. Sega should have used a video patch cable on the Sega CD and forego the 32X entirely. In fact, wasn't the 32X initially started to fix the low color of the Genesis?

[Drakon]

No, the snes was started to fix the low colour of the genesis

In fact, wasn't the 32X initially started to fix the low color of the Genesis?

[TrekkiesUnite118]

On the subject of untapped potential. I think that had to do with two things.

1) Bad marketing
2) No color increase

The SNES's 256 on-screen colors really enhanced all of the system's built in graphic effects, along with the add-on chips. The Sega CD didn't feel much different because it was still in 64 colors. Sega should have used a video patch cable on the Sega CD and forego the 32X entirely. In fact, wasn't the 32X initially started to fix the low color of the Genesis?

Or they could have simply hooked up the CRAM expansion lines to the Expansion port. That would have made adding more color rather simple from what I've heard on the subject.

[Guntz]

Hindsight is 20/20. The SCD expansion port was originally intended for a floppy drive, not CPUs, graphics chips AND a CD drive.

[Team Andromeda]

The SNES's 256 on-screen colors really enhanced all of the system's built in graphic effects, along with the add-on chips. The Sega CD didn't feel much different because it was still in 64 colors

I don't agree at all . The games that did use the Mega CD looked so much better than anything the standard MD or a Snes could offer - The 3D sections to Cliffhanger, Batman Returns just totally outclassed anything possible on the Snes or MD and looked right at home with a SEGA coin-up and then there's the likes of Soul Star and Battle Corps were which quite amazing and doing stuff that even the Neo would find though to do and the port of Wing Commander on the Mega CD is the best version of the game around (other than 3DO or PC) and totally outclassed the Amiga or Snes versions - thanks to full use of the Hardware.


That was SEGA Mega CD really trouble - A total lack of games that used the extra Hardware and those that did came far to late in the life cycle , for which SEGA Japan should be blamed for

Hindsight is 20/20. The SCD expansion port was originally intended for a floppy drive

Nope , if SEGA felt floppy was the future they could have just made the Mega Drive floppy only .

[Da_Shocker]

Well this is what Sega gave us and it looked like this game may have been pushing the SCD kinda far or was just a shitty programming job.

[retrospiel]

No color increase ...it was still in 64 colors.

Back in the day this wasn't much of an issue at all. For some, maybe, but most people were perfectly happy with the graphical capabilities of the console.

It definitely wasn't a problem for hand drawn pixel art. Tough luck if you tried to market it as a FMV player with photo realistic graphics though.

And SOA's solution to this was "Okay we failed with SCD but only because the hardware could not produce the photo realism we wanted! Let's fix this by releasing yet another add-on!" and indeed they re-released their SCD library for 32XCD. They would have kept going on with it if 32X didn't fail. It never even occurred to them that the games itself might have been part of the issue.

Sega should have used a video patch cable on the Sega CD and forego the 32X entirely.

That would have been a good idea actually.

[Tanegashima]

The Sega CD was a better leap forward in tech, more suitable add-on for the Genesis, and meaningful experiment in gaming than the 32X was.

32X was just a needless piece of shat that insulted the hardware it was attached to, and had no place in the market.

How could you? How could you?
I love my 32X...

[evildragon]

Nope , if SEGA felt floppy was the future they could have just made the Mega Drive floppy only .

Um, the expansion port WAS originally intended for a floppy drive.

http://segaretro.org/Mega_Drive_Floppy_Disk_Drive

Also if you look at schematics onto how it's wired up, it's easy to see. It didn't even have audio out originally, only input.