How would you PWN a SNES fanboy?

[QuickSciFi]

The SNES may be an awesome powerhouse for RPGs, but if one adds the Sega CD and the Genesis together, one has quite a hefty bunch of RPGs as well. I've never really deemed the Sega Genesis as lacking in this genre.

[kool kitty89]

I've never seen an emulator that could eliminate the slowdown software created on real hardware. I have seen emulators that allow you to run the game faster than it was intended, but the slowdown moments would still show up.

I've yet to find a SNES emulator (or any other system emulator) that will make a game run smoother than the real game. Sure, you can run an emulator that will double the speed of a game, or slightly speed it up, but the software will still have the hiccups that occured on the real hardware. If anything, the emulator will usually create problems not found with the actual hardware and in some cases, won't run the program at all.

The other way of reducing Slowdown is to play a game at 50 Hz/PAL/Europe mode (assuming the game isn't already set to this), granted everythings slower in general, but slowdoen is greatly reduced as well. (like in Mega Man Wily Wars, the same is true for many PAL releases in general, which play slow as they were never optimized for 50 Hz; I;m not sure about PAL games optimized for 50 Hz, as theyre sped up to compensate, and will probably have similar slowdown)

The better emulators will stil have it, but others tend to eliminate slowdown. (a good emulator would have to have specific settings to do otherwise, I'm not talking about frame skipping, but rather overclocked CPU emulation, or looser/poorer emulation of the hardware in general, like removing the sprite limit and such, as Fusion offers for Master System)

The original Bleem (contemporary to the actual hardware) was capable of enhancing stock PS1 games when played on PC. (and this was at the time, not the considerablely more powerful current PC's) More recen PSX emulators are even better in this respect.

A prime example is older versions of SNES 9x, try playing Doom in v 1.41 (rather inaccurate) and then in a recent one like 1.51, or ZSNES (which has been more accurate in general than 9x, particularly comparing older versions). 1.51 emulates the borderline playable framerate (below 15 fps) and some graphical glitches (the odd random confeti-like artifacts), while 1.41 plays closer to 30 fps and has no such glitches. (though the audio is a bit off)
Star Fox also plays much too fast in 1.41, it should be, borderline playable. (and screws up the cutscenes, going too fast, cutting the audio short)

I agree about the game genie issue though, not realy a factor.

LMAO! from the point of view of a European, SNES fanboys list nothing but imports

Final Fantasy II - never released here
Final Fantasy III - never released here
Chrono Trigger - never released here
Earthbound - never released here
Lufia - Never released here (Our Lufia is actually the 2nd game renamed)
Super Mario RPG - never released here

You need to take into account that this forum is populated by both Americans and Europeans, virtually everything I've seen mentioned up to this point (apart from Panarama Cotton and Gley Lancer) was available in Europe, I don't see why we can't bring up games like Alien Soldier and Zero Wing which were actually released here.

Yeah, it seems RPGs in particular weren't very popular in UK/Europe, for whatever reason.

Technically, FFII and FFIII (both Famicom titles) were never released in the US either, our "FFII" and "FFIII" were actually FFIV and FFVI relabeled (V wasn't released over here either). So up to FFVII, the only one with the correct title was the original NES game.

[jimpoleshuk]

You might call me a fan boy but I don't have anything against Genesis. Nor have I ever thought SNES was better then Genesis.

The Only two things I might mention is:

1) Larger Library of RPGs. Yes, I know Genesis has them too, just fewer of them. However, I've never gotten into the CDs

2) Better resale value.

BTW My favorite game of all time (any system) is Phantasy Star IV

[Cornugon]

The z80 instructions translate better to the 68k than the 6502. Z80 is faster for register to register stuff and slower for immediate and direct addressing. The fairs well on the 68k (the 68k can do both though). The 6502 being a totally different arch, has lots of usage of immediate and direct addressing. Also direct+indexed addressing (lots of that going on). Not only that, but it's much faster on the 6502 for such direct addressing. The 6502 can also add/sub/shift/cmp with direct addressing where as the z80 can not. Z80 code is optimized for registers operations.

ld a,#imm = 7 t cycles on the z80
lda #imm = 2 cycles on the 65x
cp #imm = 7 cycles z80
cmp #imm = 2 cycles 65x

ld a,(absolute) = 13 t cycles
lda absolute = 4 cycles

ld a,(XI+n) = 19 cycles (there is no equiv to the 6502 instruction, but this is the closest)
lda absolute,x = 4 cycles

On the opposite end, the z80 has 16bit hardware macro instructions. These emulate just fine on the 68k, but the 6502 uses several instructions for these operations - making more emulation overhead.

most 16bit operations on the 6502 are usually just 8bit+16bit->16bit. So you don't have the full impact of a 16+16->16 stack of opcodes, but you still have a branch opcode (with are 2 min or 3 max cycles on the 6502. compare that with 10 cycles on the 68k and it still has to do the emulation of that and it's own 10 cycle branch opcode). Anyway, the point is that the 6502 doesn't translate well to the 68k for emulation like a z80 does. And I haven't gone into all the other stuff on the 6502 that's a pain to emulate on the 68k; zeropage indirect, indirect-indexed, indexed-indirect, flag status updates for register loads, etc. On top of that, the 6502 is very fast cycle wise for its instructions too. That's why you can get away with 1mhz (c64) or 1.79mhz (nes) VS 3.58 and 4 mhz Z80's.

Ahh okay, I was always told years ago a Z80 was better than 6502 cpu's, but it's just because the Z80 is more complex doesn't mean it's faster/better?

But wasn't the MOS 6500 based on Motorola's 6800? Or are the differences between an 6800 and 68000 astronomical?

[Cornugon]

The other way of reducing Slowdown is to play a game at 50 Hz/PAL/Europe mode (assuming the game isn't already set to this), granted everythings slower in general, but slowdoen is greatly reduced as well. (like in Mega Man Wily Wars, the same is true for many PAL releases in general, which play slow as they were never optimized for 50 Hz; I;m not sure about PAL games optimized for 50 Hz, as theyre sped up to compensate, and will probably have similar slowdown)

I think they're not really sped up, but probably would have frames removed. The framerate is also 10fps lower, and since most Megadrive games don't make use of the extra horizontal scanlines (are there any that DO make use of them?) it's not that the CPU or VDP would have to work much harder.

From own experience:
Sonic 1 plays slower, but suffers from slowdowns when you loose all your rings.
Sonic 2 is fixed, but suffers from the same slowdowns, and more because of your sidekick.
Sonic 3 is fixed, and doesn't seem to suffer much from slowdowns.
Vectorman (fixed) has slowdowns when a lot happens on screen.
Ecco 2 (fixed) doesn't have (much) slowdowns.
Castle of Illusion (not fixed), doesn't seem to have slowdowns, aside from the entire game that is
Castlevania The New Generation (at least the speed is fixed), not much slowdowns.

[jesus.arnold]

Fully optimised for PAL games i've seen usually have worse slowdown than NTSC, though I don't think I've ever seen a full screen Mega Drive game before anyway.

Trickstyle on Dreamcast is full screen but the slowdown is so appalling that the game is nigh on unplayable.

Metal Gear Solid is full screen but it runs even slower than if it were unoptimised.

The CPU's just can't cope with all the extra vertical lines I guess. It would be different if games were originally designed with the European TV standard in mind in the 1st place instead of having to be adapted.

The only console I've seen with worthwhile PAL optimisation on it is the N64, it's actually arguable that some of Rare's games actually run better in PAL than NTSC.

[Cornugon]

The CPU's just can't cope with all the extra vertical lines I guess. It would be different if games were originally designed with the European TV standard in mind in the 1st place instead of having to be adapted.

The only console I've seen with worthwhile PAL optimisation on it is the N64, it's actually arguable that some of Rare's games actually run better in PAL than NTSC.

Don't forget the Amiga CD32

[jetlag]

Nintendo just can't handle Sega's Jawusumness responces.

It's that simple.

[jesus.arnold]

Don't forget the Amiga CD32

Yeah, back in the day most games here were designed for PAL in the 1st place due to Europeans making games for themselves and the markets being kinda' separate from each other, sometimes I wish it had stayed like that

[Chaniyth]

I'm a fanboy for... VIDEO GAMES! Wow, imagine that!

First and foremost, it's all about the games, and both the SEGA Genesis / SEGA Mega Drive, and Super Nintendo had amazing games in their own right.

Let's get down to some facts shall we?

• Growing up in the 16-bit era, I never had a SEGA Genesis, I had a Super NES. So I was pro-Super NES in those days. [More Details Here.]
• SEGA Genesis was designed in an era to compete directly with NES and Turbo Grafx 16. NOT, Super NES.
• SEGA Genesis was originally an "arcade at home" style console, whereas the Super NES was more of a "casual gamer" console.
• SEGA Genesis CPU was a widely used CPU in those days, the Motorola 68000 @ 7.67MHz. This CPU was in everything from Arcade machines, to home computers. This made porting arcade games and other 68k based games easy.
• Super NES CPU is a custom CPU by Ricoh, it's the Ricoh 5A22 @ 3.58MHz which is based on MOS Technology 6502 family of CPU's, this meant most arcade games had to be re-coded to suit the CPU arch [and other hardware as well] used in the Super NES. Which is why alot of arcade ports for Super NES are inferior to the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive ports.
• "Blast Processing!" was a marketing gimmick thought up by SEGA's marketing department to show that the CPU on their system was faster than the Super NES. They knew that the average consumers would have no idea what "Blast Processing!" was, but that it would just simply make the SEGA Genesis the "better system".
• BOTH systems have differing advantages in different genres of games. The "best console" really ultimately depends on what genre of games you ultimately prefer. Simple as that.
• SEGA Genesis has over 900 game titles. Super NES has over 800 game titles.

[Re-post, with slight edits]

Now, when it came to graphics the only time I can truly see a major difference between SEGA Genesis and Super Nintendo [some games are an exception, in some games u could see major differences, even gameplay wise could often be different], was when a digitized photo/digitized graphic is used, or a special technique is used that one or the other console couldn't preform, and if it wasn't done in hardware it could usually be done in software. Also don't give me that shit of "Super NES has better resolution!", oh really? Is that why most games used only 256x224? I outlined more info on this in the technical specifications section below.

To me, the SEGA Genesis, just simply has a better colour pallet selection. I mean, most games and "cartoon" style games on the Genesis looked alot better than the SNES version, it's like on the SNES version, the art designers always went for the softer, pastel colours, where as the Genesis game art designers usually went for the darker, more rich colours. Even though Genesis was only able to do 64 colours on screen at one time, most games looked damn good when compared to SNES versions of the same game. Most SNES games did not use all 256 colours anyway, this was usually reserved for digitized graphics/photos only. I much prefer the Genesis' "dark, more mature" colours, over the SNES childish pastel colour over-useage by the games graphic designers. But that's me, that's MY opinion.

Also, it doesn't matter if the SNES had "better" sound. Yes, for digitized audio samples it was substantially better, but even that is debatable due to the muffled quality of the digitized sound, seriously, i'd rather have a "gritty" understable audio sample [Genesis] than a "higher quality" yet muffled audio sample [Super NES]. However, for music on both consoles, it ultimately depended upon the arrangement [choice of instruments used]. The Genesis would produce some amazing chiptunes through FM Synthesis that would blow the SNES away if the composer was competent enough. There are many titles which express this. There are even videos on Youtube that show this. Just search for them. The Genesis was more than capable of producing amazing music tracks!

[/End Re-Post]

Now, let's get on with some technical specifications for each system.

Sega Genesis/Mega Drive [Source: dEX: Sega Genesis: Specs]

# CPU: Motorola 68000 at 7.67 MHz (NTSC) / 7.61 MHz (PAL)
* 1 MByte (8 Mbit) ROM Area
* 64 KByte RAM Area

# Co-Processor: Z80 @ 4 MHz (Not Present in MK-1631)
* Controls PSG (Programmable Sound Generator) & FM Chips
* 8 KBytes of dedicated Sound Ram

# Video:
* 64 simultaneous colors of 512 color pallete.
* Pixel resolution: 320 x 224
* VDP (Video Display Processor)
o Dedicated video display processor
o Controls playfield & sprites
o 64 KBytes of dedicated VRAM (Video Ram)
o 64 x 9-bits of CRAM (Color RAM)
* 3 Planes: 2 scrolling playfields, 1 sprite plane

# Sound:
* PSG (TI 76489 chip)
* FM chip (Yamaha YM 2612)
* 6-channel stereo
* 8 KBytes RAM
* Signal/Noise Ratio: 14dB


Super NES [Source: Super NES Programming / Wikibooks]

* Core
* CPU: Nintendo custom '5A22', believed to be produced by Ricoh; based around a 16-bit CMD/GTE 65c816 (a predecessor of the Western Design Center 65816). The CPU runs the 65c816-alike core with a variable-speed bus, with bus access times determined by addresses accessed, with a maximum theoretical effective clock rate around 3.58 MHz. The SNES/SFC provided the CPU with 128 KB of Work RAM.

* The CPU also contains other support hardware, including:
o for interfacing with controller ports;
o for generating NMI interrupts on Vertical blanking interval;
o for generating IRQ interrupts on screen positions;
o Direct memory access unit, supporting two primary modes, general DMA (for block transfers, at a rate of 2.68MB/second) and Horizontal blanking interval DMA (for transferring small data sets at the end of each scanline, outside of the active display period);
o multiplication and division registers.

* Cartridge Size Specifications: 2 - 32 Megabits(Mb) which ran at two speeds ('SlowROM' and 'FastROM'). Custom address decoders allow larger sizes, eg. 48 Mb for Star Ocean and Tales of Phantasia

* Sound
o Sound Controller Chip: 8-bit Sony SPC700 CPU for controlling the Digital signal processor running at an effective clock rate around 1.024 MHz.
o Main Sound Chip: 8-channel Sony S-DSP with hardware ADPCM decompression, pitch modulation, echo effect with feedback (for reverberation) with 8-tap FIR filter, and ADSR and 'GAIN' (discretely controlled) volume envelopes.
o Memory Cycle Time: 279 Minutes
o Sound RAM: 512 kilobit(Kb) shared between SPC700 and S-DSP.
o Pulse Code Modulator: 16-Bit ADPCM (using 4-bit compressed ADPCM samples, expanded to 15-bit resolution, processed with an additional 4-point Gaussian sound interpolation).
o Note - while not directly related to SNES hardware, the standard extension for SNES audio subsystem state files saved by emulators is SPC_sound_format(.spc), a format used by SPC players.

* Video
o Picture Processor Unit: 15-Bit
o Video RAM: 64 KB of VRAM for screen maps (for 'background' layers) and tile sets (for backgrounds and objects); 512 + 32 bytes of 'OAM' (Object Attribute Memory) for objects; 512 bytes of 'CGRAM' for palette data.
o Palette: 256 entries; 15-Bit color (BGR555) for a total of 32,768 colors.
o Maximum colors per layer per scanline: 256.
o Maximum colors on-screen: 32,768 (using color arithmetic for transparency effects).
o Resolution: between 256x224 and 512x448. Most games used 256x224 pixels since higher resolutions caused slowdown, flicker, and/or had increased limitations on layers and colors (due to memory bandwidth constraints); the higher resolutions were used for less processor-intensive games, in-game menus, text, and high resolution images.
o Maximum onscreen objects (sprites): 128 (32 per line, up to 34 8x8 tiles per line).
o Maximum number of sprite pixels on one scanline: 256. The renderer was designed such that it would drop the frontmost sprites instead of the rearmost sprites if a scanline exceeded the limit, allowing for creative clipping effects.
o Most common display modes: Pixel-to-pixel text mode 1 (16 colors per tile; 3 scrolling layers) and affine mapped text mode 7 (256 colors per tile; one rotating/scaling layer).

Yes, yes, I know that the SEGA Genesis specs given are not as extensive as the Super NES specs section, most online sources have only those little bits of technical details available. If anyone wants to provide full details for each item listed for the SEGA Genesis tech details, please do so, in a seperate reply.

In the end, both consoles won in those wars, it was a stale mate really. Both companies were more than able to moved on into the next gen consoles era. Both consoles have some amazing games [and crappy ones too]. Folks, it all boils down ultimately to one thing, your own personal opinion on what the "better system" was. In my OWN PERSONAL OPINION, in my later adult years [as a teen I didn't have a SEGA Genesis], I personally feel the Genesis was the better system. Remember this folks, technical specs on paper ALWAYS looks better than is usually actually achievable, however through amazing coder teams and special hacks, sometimes those technical specs can be shown in all that they are worth, and then some. Both systems are a testament to that.


* This post is my own personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of this website, it's administration, or other members therein.

[Jeckidy]

Amen, Chaniyth. I agree a great deal with what you said especially in regards to the colors and sound. Genesis had that more unique chippy sound to it, and SNES music was not always better as the fake midi instruments used were often cheesy and rather irritating, but like you said a good arranger could make music sound good on that as well. And yes, alot of SNES games used overly bright colors. Compare SNES Ghouls 'n Ghosts with the Genesis one. The Genesis one is more detailed and has a darker look to fit the theme.

[mugenmidget]

I was a big SNES fanboy back in the day, seeing SEGA Channel made me weep!

First time SEGA entered my life was when I got a Dreamcast (after SEGA left the hardware business, unfortunately) to play some Marvel vs. Capcom 2 after I had seen it in an arcade and wanted to have it at home.

I got to playing a lot of awesome games on that system, then for one of my birthdays a great friend of mine gave me his Genesis and game collection. From there I've been picking up a lot of awesome games and can now fully embrace the SNES and Genesis.

[Cornugon]

Amen, Chaniyth. I agree a great deal with what you said especially in regards to the colors and sound. Genesis had that more unique chippy sound to it, and SNES music was not always better as the fake midi instruments used were often cheesy and rather irritating, but like you said a good arranger could make music sound good on that as well. And yes, alot of SNES games used overly bright colors. Compare SNES Ghouls 'n Ghosts with the Genesis one. The Genesis one is more detailed and has a darker look to fit the theme.

Or compare Super Shadow of the Beast to Genesis/Megadrive Shadow of the Beast: The SNES-version is a really bad rendition or some sort of 'happy remix' of the Amiga original (and plays at the wrong parts too), while the G/MD version is just it's 'own' sound, and while it sounds much different to the Amiga's I like it, it still has a 'dark' sound and I find it rather interesting.

[retrospiel]

• SEGA Genesis has over 900 game titles. Super NES has over 800 game titles.

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...739#post167739

# Sound:
* PSG (TI 76489 chip)
* FM chip (Yamaha YM 2612)
* 6-channel stereo
* 8 KBytes RAM
* Signal/Noise Ratio: 14dB

Should be:
# Sound:
* PSG (TI 76489 chip)
* 4-channel mono
* FM chip (Yamaha YM 2612)
* 6-channel stereo
* 8 KBytes RAM
* Signal/Noise Ratio: ?!dB (varies among different models)

[TmEE]

that 14db SNR is pulled out someone's ass... it would have to mean you have pretty much nothing but noise. The SNR is between 50...60db in normal config, and probably reaching 80...90db when some modding is done.