Could the Sega CD have pulled off Sega's arcade 'super scaler' games ?

[OverDrone]

The Mega drive had a port of the game ,so did the Master System . Just play Soul Star to see the Mega Cd could have handle a decent port of the game

Those ports should never have been attempted, though. At least the MD Afterburner II and Outrun ports managed to capture the look of the arcade games, with a similar intensity to the game play. The Galaxy Force II port didn't. The tunnel sequences were frankly embarrassing at the time.

Soul Star is impressive with how much stuff is moving and shooting on screen (particularly the free roam sections) but it can chug heavily in some of the more demanding bits, and the frame rate seems compromised compared to Thunder Hawk and Battlecorp out the gate anyway. GFII arcade looks like it moves a lot more sprites than the Mega CD could handle IMO.

I would say it would be a lot more pared back in comparison to our other hypothetical ports.

[Team Andromeda]

Those ports should never have been attempted, though. At least the MD Afterburner II and Outrun ports managed to capture the look of the arcade games, with a similar intensity to the game play. The Galaxy Force II port didn't. The tunnel sequences were frankly embarrassing at the time.

Soul Star is impressive with how much stuff is moving and shooting on screen (particularly the free roam sections) but it can chug heavily in some of the more demanding bits, and the frame rate seems compromised compared to Thunder Hawk and Battlecorp out the gate anyway. GFII arcade looks like it moves a lot more sprites than the Mega CD could handle IMO.

I would say it would be a lot more pared back in comparison to our other hypothetical ports.

OutRun run like a joke onthe Mega Drive and was totally outclassed by the PC Eng version , plus it sounded like a joke too . SEGA ported the likes of Outrun to the Master System or G-Loc (running on the same board as Galaxy Force II) to both the Mega Drive and Master System .

Given a good team and good and full use of the Mega CD ASIC hardware we could have had a very decent port of Galaxy Force II on the Mega CD - of coruse detail would be cut and the frame rate would be in the low 22 fps or so. But that would be expected as at the time almost every port of a High End SEGA coin up was cut back for the home port.



Soul Star shows a decent port would have been more than possible . I must put up videos of the game running through scart on my Framemister to show off the true delights of the game

[Team Andromeda]

I never realised Jaguar used scaling, I just dismissed it as a lazy Amiga port job like the Lotus games.
Heavenly Symphony also uses scaling and rotation to nice effect although it is choppy.

XJ 220 came out 1st onthe Mega CD, it was then latter ported to the Amiga and also the Snes (though it was never released) . It was also the 1st Mega CD game that used the ASIC chip through out the whole game . Yeah F1 beyond the limits using the ASIC chip and is choppy - but it was handling so much stuff inthe background (car retirements, dynamic weather, over 20 cars on track) . The like of Geoff F1 GP 2 on a decent PC run at like 22 fps .

[OverDrone]

If these ports did happen BITD, Sega probably would have got Probe or the like to do them anyway

I'm just happy the 32X ended up getting a couple of good games instead

[Team Andromeda]

If these ports did happen BITD, Sega probably would have got Probe or the like to do them anyway

I'm just happy the 32X ended up getting a couple of good games instead

That's why I sad given a decent team and this could and should have happened in 1991/2 not 1994 and 1995 . After 1994 we had the Saturn to handle near perfect ports of SEGA scaler games .

[zetastrike]

Would people have wanted ports of these games bitd? It's easy to own the system now and wish it had Outrun, Space Harrier, Super Hang On, etc, but in 1992 would they have been seen as dusty arcade games?

[Team Andromeda]

Would people have wanted ports of these games bitd? It's easy to own the system now and wish it had Outrun, Space Harrier, Super Hang On, etc, but in 1992 would they have been seen as dusty arcade games?

Yes in the early 1990's Arcade ports sold in decent numbers and no system had the Hardware to handle decent ports of SEGA coin up's even in the 90's , so it would have been a massive deal to have the Mega CD in 1991 to handle quality ports of SEGA Scaling coin up's , it was a great deal to us Saturn users to have a Arcade Perfect port of OutRun in 1996 lol . The biggest letdown of the Mega CD was that so many games just looked like a Mega Drive game, when many people wanted Mode 7 like effects and the ASIC chip should have been used far more in Mega CD games not just in Arcade ports but in Platform games on bosses Ect

[Barone]

IMO:

Space Harrier -> Would have been a good one to port to the Sega CD using the ASIC. While the arcade has a fast pace, the real problem of the MD port is its choppiness which the Sega CD's ASIC would probably solve. The extra RAM of the Sega CD would also help in some ways.

Super Hang-On -> Wouldn't make sense to use the ASIC 'cause it would halve the frame rate to something like the MD port already had. Also, this game doesn't have a ton of sprites on the track side, so it really wouldn't be the best use of the Sega CD. OTOH, having it running on the Sega CD's CPU would guarantee a 50% frame rate boost compared to the MD version and you could restore all the original arcade advertising and sprite variability which was cut down in the MD version due to cart size restrictions. And having the arcade OST too.

OutRun -> I'd also prefer something running at 30 fps than 20 fps (or less) with the ASIC. But here you can have arguments to go both ways, since the amount of sprites is quite higher than on Super Hang-On. And the sound effects could be hugely improved compared to the mediocre MD port.

Turbo OutRun -> Surely could have been better than the atrocious MD version. It could have been a cool thing actually.

After Burner II -> A proper port, with good amount of sprites on the floor and using the ASIC, could have been tried but here again I'm not sure if the final result would be that much better than the MD port.

Galaxy Force II -> Lol, no. Just no. One of the problems here would be the amount of RAM a proper port would require. I don't think the Sega CD would be enough.

Thunder Blade -> This one seems like a good one to try with the ASIC. It's hard to imagine something that could be as bad as the MD version.

[Team Andromeda]

IMO:

Space Harrier -> Would have been a good one to port to the Sega CD using the ASIC. While the arcade has a fast pace, the real problem of the MD port is its choppiness which the Sega CD's ASIC would probably solve. The extra RAM of the Sega CD would also help in some ways.

Super Hang-On -> Wouldn't make sense to use the ASIC 'cause it would halve the frame rate to something like the MD port already had. Also, this game doesn't have a ton of sprites on the track side, so it really wouldn't be the best use of the Sega CD. OTOH, having it running on the Sega CD's CPU would guarantee a 50% frame rate boost compared to the MD version and you could restore all the original arcade advertising and sprite variability which was cut down in the MD version due to cart size restrictions. And having the arcade OST too.

OutRun -> I'd also prefer something running at 30 fps than 20 fps (or less) with the ASIC. But here you can have arguments to go both ways, since the amount of sprites is quite higher than on Super Hang-On. And the sound effects could be hugely improved compared to the mediocre MD port.

Turbo OutRun -> Surely could have been better than the atrocious MD version. It could have been a cool thing actually.

After Burner II -> A proper port, with good amount of sprites on the floor and using the ASIC, could have been tried but here again I'm not sure if the final result would be that much better than the MD port.

Galaxy Force II -> Lol, no. Just no. One of the problems here would be the amount of RAM a proper port would require. I don't think the Sega CD would be enough.

Thunder Blade -> This one seems like a good one to try with the ASIC. It's hard to imagine something that could be as bad as the MD version.

Barone you make a couple of good points, but I'll just add my own thoughts on the ones I disagree with .

Super Hang-On it would have been lovely to see the Mega CD version use full scaling even if it used the window effect of Jaguar XJ 220 to up the framerate . Then of course like you say you could have add in more detail on sideboards ect and seeing as Super Hang-On had one of the best soundtracks even in the Arcade, its would have been immense to have that music score coming off CD and so Arcade perfect and of course with the Mega CD you could have had Arcade quality sound effects

Galaxy Force II - I really don't get your issues over it . Soul Star shows would could have been done and GF II port with Soul Star Gfx and Arcade quality sound effects and arcade perfect sound track on the Mega CD would have been amazing back in 1991/2 . Also the Mega CD had 6 Mbits of system Ram for each level, most Mega Drive games (more so for Arcade ports) only had like 4 MegaBits Cart for everything . Using the ASIC chip reduces the need for frames stored and one look at something like Final Fight CD shows the Mega CD had more than enough Ram for each level. This would be 1992 one wouldn't be expecting a Arcade perfect port but the Mega CD had the scailing and sound hardware to handle the best port at the time

OutRun given that the Arcade version only run at 30 fps then going down to 22 fps wouldn't have that big of a deal for full ASIC scaling . The MD version really is quite poor it's so jerky/choppy with its scaling effect and the sound effects and music isn't that great . Just to have a Arcade perfect soundtrack of Outrun in 1991/2 on the Mega CD would have been massive for me , never mind to have full ASIC scaling and Arcade quality sound effects

Good shot on ThunderBlade though , the ASIC Hardware could have handle the top down sections so much better

Its also make me sad that SEGA never brought Strider to the Mega CD using the Final Fight CD engine - for a more or less Arcade perfect port with Arcade sound effects and arcade perfect music (and rearranged music score along with all the cut scene and Arcade speech

[zetastrike]

IMO:

Space Harrier -> Would have been a good one to port to the Sega CD using the ASIC. While the arcade has a fast pace, the real problem of the MD port is its choppiness which the Sega CD's ASIC would probably solve. The extra RAM of the Sega CD would also help in some ways.

Super Hang-On -> Wouldn't make sense to use the ASIC 'cause it would halve the frame rate to something like the MD port already had. Also, this game doesn't have a ton of sprites on the track side, so it really wouldn't be the best use of the Sega CD. OTOH, having it running on the Sega CD's CPU would guarantee a 50% frame rate boost compared to the MD version and you could restore all the original arcade advertising and sprite variability which was cut down in the MD version due to cart size restrictions. And having the arcade OST too.

OutRun -> I'd also prefer something running at 30 fps than 20 fps (or less) with the ASIC. But here you can have arguments to go both ways, since the amount of sprites is quite higher than on Super Hang-On. And the sound effects could be hugely improved compared to the mediocre MD port.

Turbo OutRun -> Surely could have been better than the atrocious MD version. It could have been a cool thing actually.

After Burner II -> A proper port, with good amount of sprites on the floor and using the ASIC, could have been tried but here again I'm not sure if the final result would be that much better than the MD port.

Galaxy Force II -> Lol, no. Just no. One of the problems here would be the amount of RAM a proper port would require. I don't think the Sega CD would be enough.

Thunder Blade -> This one seems like a good one to try with the ASIC. It's hard to imagine something that could be as bad as the MD version.

That's really interesting. Hearing you say that brought to mind the X68000 port of SHO. Is that like what you're describing? Because that port is really nice. I'm assuming that the performance boost from the MCD 68000 would mainly be useful for games like that with relatively few scaling object instead of something really elaborate like GFII.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

That's really interesting. Hearing you say that brought to mind the X68000 port of SHO. Is that like what you're describing? Because that port is really nice. I'm assuming that the performance boost from the MCD 68000 would mainly be useful for games like that with relatively few scaling object instead of something really elaborate like GFII.

I think he's referring to the fact that the Genesis version runs a lot smoother if you overclock the CPU. So assuming there's no other bottlenecks a Straight up port of the Genesis version running on the Sega CD CPU instead could possibly run better just due to the Sega CD CPU being clocked higher.

[Barone]

Super Hang-On it would have been lovely to see the Mega CD version use full scaling even if it used the window effect of Jaguar XJ 220 to up the framerate . Then of course like you say you could have add in more detail on sideboards ect and seeing as Super Hang-On had one of the best soundtracks even in the Arcade, its would have been immense to have that music score coming off CD and so Arcade perfect and of course with the Mega CD you could have had Arcade quality sound effects

Again, I see many more cons than pros when compared to a software rendered version.
Let me point a few other technical issues to you:

- The MD version runs at full screen 320 x 224. You can forget about that with the ASIC in the mix. You'd need to reduce the rendered area in order to save as much bandwidth as you could. Pretty much every single Sega CD game which makes heavy use of the ASIC has a non-fullscreen rendering area; Jaguar XJ220's is actually 240 x 205.
With that said, you'd either have to crop the original field of view (which would probably hurt the gameplay) or you'd have to redraw a lot of sprites.

- Unlike the simplified European engines (Lotus/Top Gear/Jaguar XJ220), you simply couldn't have shit like this in a Super Hang-On port:


Of course, Super Hang-On has far more sparse track side objects than the Jaguar game and that could possibly make up for it, but we don't know for sure.
The other thing is that for each line of track you render you'll have some calcs involved (for the rendering perspective itself, but also for positioning objects and vehicles), so in that sense SHO is certainly more complex than Lotus/Top Gear/Jaguar XJ220. Still on that note, the height of the road (number of scrolling lines) is overall higher on SHO than on those games.

- The draw distance would also be a headache. For both cars and track details the draw distance of Jaguar XJ220 is a bit shorter than normal. You'd need to draw further in order to preserve the visuals of MD/Arcade SHO.

- You'd likely have to use lower-res sprites for the track side than you have in the MD port. Again, the desperation for saving bandwidth is a constant.

- In practical situations, everything you're rendering with the ASIC will have to share the same 15 colors (it's unlikely to use more than a single plane for VRAM and bandwidth savings) (and I think the trick used by Soul Star wouldn't be useful here). See XJ220 for posterization side effects (which could have been reduced with better use of those colors but it's another limitation right there).

- IDK how exactly the collision detection between your bike and the track side stuff would work. In SHO, unlike the other games I cited above, you can really cut some corners and "drible" objects. The objects position are carefully recalculated each time they're redrawn; so IDK how it would work if you add more "steps" to their animation. Depending on how it's implemented, you may end up having to add some more calcs when compared to the MD version and those aren't necessarily cheap.

- Slowdown. XJ220 has plenty of it, specially when the cars fill the screen. Playing SHO in the harder difficulties you'll see quite a lot of traffic and having the frame rate of the game to be affected by the flow of the traffic is not something that I'd like in a game as SHO, where precise reactions are required to master it.

- The audio advantages you cited could be achieved despite the non-use of the ASIC.


I recommend this thread for better technical details about the ASIC usage and capabilities:
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...ASIC-questions

Galaxy Force II - I really don't get your issues over it . Soul Star shows would could have been done and GF II port with Soul Star Gfx and Arcade quality sound effects and arcade perfect sound track on the Mega CD would have been amazing back in 1991/2 . Also the Mega CD had 6 Mbits of system Ram for each level, most Mega Drive games (more so for Arcade ports) only had like 4 MegaBits Cart for everything . Using the ASIC chip reduces the need for frames stored and one look at something like Final Fight CD shows the Mega CD had more than enough Ram for each level. This would be 1992 one wouldn't be expecting a Arcade perfect port but the Mega CD had the scailing and sound hardware to handle the best port at the time

Sorry, but as amazing as Soul Star is it's nowhere near the level of Galaxy Force II in terms of the amount of shit you have going on the screen at any given moment.
Night Striker here is a better reference IMO. Reduced draw distance would hurt and the pixelation would be a must.

Not all of those 6 Mbits are actually useful all the time thanks to hardware bugs and drawbacks of the funky Sega CD design. But even if they were there, the thing is always how much you can transfer from the ASIC to Mega Drive VDP and that's not a whole lot if you're aiming at 15+ fps.

OutRun given that the Arcade version only run at 30 fps then going down to 22 fps wouldn't have that big of a deal for full ASIC scaling . The MD version really is quite poor it's so jerky/choppy with its scaling effect and the sound effects and music isn't that great . Just to have a Arcade perfect soundtrack of Outrun in 1991/2 on the Mega CD would have been massive for me , never mind to have full ASIC scaling and Arcade quality sound effects

The MD port is kinda meh IMO.

That's really interesting. Hearing you say that brought to mind the X68000 port of SHO. Is that like what you're describing? Because that port is really nice. I'm assuming that the performance boost from the MCD 68000 would mainly be useful for games like that with relatively few scaling object instead of something really elaborate like GFII.

I think he's referring to the fact that the Genesis version runs a lot smoother if you overclock the CPU. So assuming there's no other bottlenecks a Straight up port of the Genesis version running on the Sega CD CPU instead could possibly run better just due to the Sega CD CPU being clocked higher.

This.

Also, the X68000 "port" of SHO is actually a very simplified adaptation and doesn't hold a candle to the MD port.
The MD port is 1:1 with the arcade in terms of gameplay, except for the lack of analog controls support. And of course, the game runs much slower.
But the traffic waves, track side objects positioning, collision detection, scrolling, etc. All of that is pretty much the arcade code running on the MD.

The X68000 version is way off: choppy scrolling, track side objects are far more sparse and move in a awkward way, collision is iffy, sprites significantly reduced in size, etc; I believe whoever ported it didn't have full access to the original source code.
In a single image:


That's the X68000 version running on real hardware. And you can see an AI bike running completely off the track.
No, thanks.


And, yes, I'd reserve the ASIC use for stuff that is really sprite-heavy and not so dependent on speed sensation. A game like Soul Star is what really works well with it. Or something as Wing Commander.
Racing scalers weren't really a good use for the ASIC given the limitations imposed by the Mega Drive's VDP setup.

[Team Andromeda]

The MD version runs at full screen 320 x 224. You can forget about that with the ASIC in the mix. You'd need to reduce the rendered area in order to save as much bandwidth as you could. Pretty much every single Sega CD game which makes heavy use of the ASIC has a non-fullscreen rendering area; Jaguar XJ220's is actually 240 x 205

I know and I would have taken that for full use of Scaling and rotation , I would have been more that happy for a window display like that used in Batman Returns and Cliffhanger on the Mega CD and a frame rate of 22 fps

Slowdown. XJ220 has plenty of it, specially when the cars fill the screen. Playing SHO in the harder difficulties you'll see quite a lot of traffic and having the frame rate of the game to be affected by the flow of the traffic is not something that I'd like in a game as SHO, where precise reactions are required to master it.

I don't get your points over Lotus or XJ 220 . Lotus never came out on the Mega CD and XJ220 has very very little slowdown at all and I only tend to see it in 2 player mode. XJ220 just looks so much better than almost any Mega Drive racer when it comes to scaling track side objects and cars thanks to the use of the ASIC chip, which makes the scenery scale past so smoothly and it runs at near enough 30 fps and that was from a tiny British code house . If SEGA Japan had put it's elite consumer CS Team on a Mega CD port of Super Hang On with the mandate to make full use of the ASIC chip full access to the source code and the Arcade team and with all the best R&D tools from SOJ tech team , then we really could have had a brilliant port.

T

Sorry, but as amazing as Soul Star is it's nowhere near the level of Galaxy Force II in terms of the amount of shit you have going on the screen at any given moment

Its the closest we got to a 16 bit system giving us GF II like graphics and it showed what the Mega CD could do when asked and used . No one expected Arcade perfect not even on the Mega CD (because all SNES and MD Arcade ports lost detail and effects when being ported to the home) , but the Mega CD had the hardware to have given us the closest port possible at the time and that's all you could have asked for at the time

Night Striker here is a better reference IMO. Reduced draw distance would hurt and the pixelation would be a must

Night Stiker isn't a good example (its not the best example of Mega CD programming, like Gale racer isn't on the Saturn) , Soul Star is not only handling and drawing more , Night Striker doesn't even use any Rotation effects , something witch Soul Star, Cliffhanger, Batman Returns and GF II use and yet Soul Star still looks much better with better detail too.

Or something as Wing Commander.
Racing scalers weren't really a good use for the ASIC given the limitations imposed by the Mega Drive's VDP setup.

Wing Commander on the Sega CD leaves all other home ports standing (other than the 3DO ) its makes great use of the Mega CD extra hardware in all area's Sound/GFX and storage . Sure it's a little jerky but it was handling some pretty advanced AI for the time . Its overlooked and underrated gem of a Mega CD game

[OverDrone]

Would people have wanted ports of these games bitd? It's easy to own the system now and wish it had Outrun, Space Harrier, Super Hang On, etc, but in 1992 would they have been seen as dusty arcade games?

For a '92 release of those games, if I was calling the shots at SOJ at the time I would have added a remix mode that mixed up the stage theme, enemies and patterns, FMV intro and arrange soundtrack option at the very least to help justify their age. The ports would be the springboard for further arcade translations to draw the 'core' gamer crowd to the Mega CD, in an effort to move away from cart media early on.

I would have bought them anyway, lol.

[Barone]

I know and I would have taken that for full use of Scaling and rotation , I would have been more that happy for a window display like that used in Batman Returns and Cliffhanger on the Mega CD and a frame rate of 22 fps

OK. Gotcha.
I still don't think 22 fps would be any easy to achieve, especially if we're talking about solid frame rate.

I don't get your points over Lotus or XJ 220.

Simplifying: the Sega CD already struggles with ASIC-enabled XJ220 which is based on Amiga 500's XJ220 (which is simply a Lotus rip-off) and its base line scrolling engine is simpler than SHO's in several aspects.

XJ220 has very very little slowdown at all

and it runs at near enough 30 fps

This is not true. At all.
While not severe (except for when the weather effects are in use or in 2P mode) it's certainly noticeable, not really consistent, not really good in terms of speed sensation.
It's also dips bellow 20 fps.

Certainly there was room for improvement. However, pretty much any other game making good use of the ASIC had its frame rate around 15-20 fps, if that much.

Its the closest we got to a 16 bit system giving us GF II like graphics and it showed what the Mega CD could do when asked and used . No one expected Arcade perfect not even on the Mega CD (because all SNES and MD Arcade ports lost detail and effects when being ported to the home) , but the Mega CD had the hardware to have given us the closest port possible at the time and that's all you could have asked for at the time

If you'd get rid of the made-of-stream-of-sprites floor in favor of something like the floored Soul Star stages use (Mode 7-looking floor + animation) you could have something closer to the reality.
But I still see MAJOR struggles to pull it off.

Night Stiker isn't a good example (its not the best example of Mega CD programming, like Gale racer isn't on the Saturn) , Soul Star is not only handling and drawing more , Night Striker doesn't even use any Rotation effects , something witch Soul Star, Cliffhanger, Batman Returns and GF II use and yet Soul Star still looks much better with better detail too.

I'm using other arcade ports as reference while you're telling me that games designed from scratch just for the hardware are better references. I guess not.

Wing Commander on the Sega CD leaves all other home ports standing (other than the 3DO ) its makes great use of the Mega CD extra hardware in all area's Sound/GFX and storage . Sure it's a little jerky but it was handling some pretty advanced AI for the time . Its overlooked and underrated gem of a Mega CD game

Yeah, certainly not enough praise has been given to the team for that achievement.