Hardware pushed to the limits according to Sega-16 members

[tomaitheous]

How many tiles was used in lemmings?

Open it up in a debugger and have a look for yourself:

(screen shot shown only with sprite layer enabled)

The game is using a combination of real sprites (5 lemming show in pic are hardware sprites as well as the cross hair) and software blits (background tiles). The in game map/detail doesn't seem to use more than 100 tiles or so (a lot of what's in vram during gameplay is just left over title screen or previous screen detail/tiles). It might use more tiles for more detailed stages (dunno), but it definitely has enough to spare. The hardware sprites help keep the cpu resource down (software blitting, as well as updating vram, takes a bit of cpu power).

[Barone]

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...r-Sega-Genesis

[goldenband]

The game is using a combination of real sprites (5 lemming show in pic are hardware sprites as well as the cross hair) and software blits (background tiles).

This was my guess, and I'm inordinately pleased that I was right. Are the tiles computed on the fly, or are there massive banks of pre-rendered tiles for every possible combination (I can't imagine this would be the case)?

[tomaitheous]

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...r-Sega-Genesis

This reeks of total crap:

- Stefano tells that Tec Toy's programmers were struggling to develop a FPS engine which could run on the Mega Drive to the point they were about to give up. Then someone in the team suggested to have a look into SMS' Phantasy Star dungeon levels.
- For what is implied by Stefano, Tec Toy had access to the source code of Phantasy Star because they had translated it to Brazilian Portuguese previously and, according to him, without that reference they would have never been able to pull off MD's Duke Nukem 3D

They couldn't be any more different. I mean, that's a huge leap. Maybe they looked at it originally, but I highly doubt it had anything to do with the current rendering of Duke Nukem on the Genesis.

[Mad Moham]

This reeks of total crap:

They couldn't be any more different. I mean, that's a huge leap. Maybe they looked at it originally, but I highly doubt it had anything to do with the current rendering of Duke Nukem on the Genesis.

I was thinking the same thing. Duke Nukem is a very impressive technical achievement, but Phantasy Star is not real time 3D. While its impressive for SMS, its not using anything like the techniques in Duke Nukem. I think Stefano remembered the story incorrectly, or maybe the programmer he talked to was just having a bad day. Having said that, he doesn't say anything about the algorithm used, so it could be something simple rather than a large part of the game engine. I still found that video interesting though as the licensing had been a mystery to me.

[Team Andromeda]

I was also impressed with F-16 Fighting Falcon and the 3D sections of Phantasy Star onthe Master system , plus Forsaken N64, Burning Rangers (Saturn) plus Vagrant Story onthe PS looked increabile back inthe day

[segarule]

The game is using a combination of real sprites (5 lemming show in pic are hardware sprites as well as the cross hair) and software blits (background tiles). The in game map/detail doesn't seem to use more than 100 tiles or so (a lot of what's in vram during gameplay is just left over title screen or previous screen detail/tiles). It might use more tiles for more detailed stages (dunno), but it definitely has enough to spare. The hardware sprites help keep the cpu resource down (software blitting, as well as updating vram, takes a bit of cpu power).

Thanks by analysis well done.
Conclusion:
Lemmings not pushed hardware to limits.
At least PS 3D labyrinth could be a rare example.

[Gogogadget]

Lemmings is less pushing the limits of the SMS, and more clever programming.

I always thought Duke Nukem 3D was unlicensed, because you know, Brazil.

[Barone]

I always thought Duke Nukem 3D was unlicensed, because you know, Brazil.

Couldn't expect anything more thoughtful from you.

[Team Andromeda]

F355 must be pushing the Dreamcast hard too given it was running on 4 Na@MI boards at the time and its all but perfect on the DC and running at full screen res at 60 fps with no slowdown . I seem to remember a interview with AM#2 saying that had to re-write the code over 4 times to get the game to run at 60 fps and not lose nothing inthe port

[gamevet]

The arcade version of F355 had 3 monitors, which is a lot of graphics power.

[Barone]

F355 must be pushing the Dreamcast hard too given it was running on 4 Na@MI boards at the time and its all but perfect on the DC and running at full screen res at 60 fps with no slowdown . I seem to remember a interview with AM#2 saying that had to re-write the code over 4 times to get the game to run at 60 fps and not lose nothing inthe port

Man, if you could find where that interview is/scan the interview it would be awesome.

Also, some people claim the physics in the PS2 version were simplified compared to the DC one. Is there anyone here who would be able to categorically tell us if such claim is accurate or not?

[Blades]

^I heard they were the same. The PS2 also has a widescreen mode and supports wheels. I remember reading an interview with Yu Suzuki about how easy it was to port it over to the PS2. I'll try to find it.

From Gamespot.

Aside from that, Ferrari F355 Challenge for the PlayStation 2 is essentially unchanged from its Dreamcast cousin, and the in-game physics model of the F355 is as demanding as ever.

Ecco on the other hand...

[Team Andromeda]

The arcade version of F355 had 3 monitors, which is a lot of graphics power.

Yes with a separate powering the 3 screens and another NA@MI board added fro grunt . So the DC versions is a bit of coding magic

[Team Andromeda]

Man, if you could find where that interview is/scan the interview it would be awesome.

I have it somewhere , I'l did it out I think it was EDGE mag