>released a year before the genesis>482 colors on-screen >genesis only does 61Someone explain this to me. Are the specs misleading? Did sega cheap out?
Sega spent their budget on the CPU instead.
>>11105713>Did sega cheap out?Yeah and it was probably a mistake in the long run but there might not have been a long run without compromise. Thing is a console doesn't just sell on specs, it sells on games and developers don't invest in making games for a console that sells terribly right out of the gate. One of the cornerstones of a successful launch is a reasonable price, you can't launch at $300+ in the late 80's and expect to go anywhere. Of course these decisions hamper the console 3-4 years later when the technology is cheap and they are selling them for $100-150.Basically every console fell to this in some way. The PC Engine couldn't do parallax scrolling, the Mega Drive had color issues, the SNES had a crap CPU, they all sacrificed one thing... well almost everyone. Got $650?
>>11105713genesis was rushed and cost cut. they prioritized a familiar cpu and sound like >>11105715 said. adding a tiny bit more palette ram couldn't have been that expensive though, so i'm not sure.
the pc-engine can use more palettes than the genesis at one point which is where it gets extra colors fromI don't think sega cheaped out cause I mean sure the pc-engine is superior in terms of colors but what about other stuff like it's 8KB of ram vs the genesis and snes's respective 64KB & 128KB?
>>11105731>ramNot really a big deal. Yeah, more is better, but all your data (including code) just sits in the cartridge or vram on these consoles. It's not like n64 or something, where you load everything into ram. All 3 systems had the same amount of vram, way more important.Bigger problem is the single background layer. But that also has the positive side effect of letting you update vram almost anytime you want.
>>11105743vram didn't exist
>>11105757i hope you're baiting
>>11105773Have you ever thought about the Why of those 3 systems having the same amount of "vram"?Because it isn't vram.
>>11105794only the pc engine of the 3 uses a mmio port to access vram if that's what you're referring to. but it has full read write access to (nearly) the entire vram address space, so you're still wrong of course.
>>11105713>482 colors on-screenonly on paper. the pce could usually do a couple dozen more colors on screen than genesis but snes regularly hit 100+the snes regular did more onscreen colors than the pc engine as the palette was much larger
>>11105723>the SNES had a "crap" CPUBut it run sonic
I don't know why people obsess about palette size when MD games look great.Obviously devs had no problems working with those limitations.
>>11105997>But it run sonicIt ran a shitty half-completed tech demo of the least demanding Sonic game with a terrible, half-baked lightened up version of the physics model, and it still slowed down at even the slightest hint of action. That Sonic demo did nothing but prove what we all knew this whole time, that the SNES was totally incapable for running a game such as Sonic. Also the music was dull and terrible.
>>11105713>Are the specs misleading?Given most turbo games look like NES games, yeah.
>>11105723All these weird compromises is what makes retro gaming so fun. You then have Atari Lynx which does super scaling but it is noticeably blocky and Astrocade which is severly bottleneck by low ram but has a good video chip.>>11105727I've come to think that Sega was used to slapping mostly off the shelf parts for their arcade systems while NEC was a real electronics company so made some much better decisions in the hardware. Sega did have plans for scaling but would have to throw away chips that didn't pass so they simplified the chips a bit to be easier to make.>>11105713Yes they did but then they went way too far the other way with the Saturn which was a lot worse. Mainly cram and no video output on the expansion connector. 16 bit was the biggest gen where compromises really showed.
>>11106024Well, i mean, like, yknow man. Bonk probably isnt the best example.
>>11106202Bonk was the de-facto console mascot in the US thougheverbeit
>>11106207>the SNES has such amazing colour capabilities, truly goated
>>11105723>that sleek ass design>no compromises>full arcade pad as the default controllerits too bad the library is 99% arcade slop that doesnt translate to a home console experience well.
Sega decided that having backwards compatability with the master system was more important than color count. They slashed the palette ram to enable support for pic related (maybe 12 people owned one). Scrapping the converter idea would have left the genesis able to display all 512 colors on-screen (9-bit RGB)
>>11106024>so this is the fabled "super power"...such amazing colours, how could anything else hope to compete?
>>11105715Nah, the real reason is they wasted half the vdp die space on master system backwards compatibility.
>>11106231No, not all 512. 121, or maybe 181The tile encoding format only has space for 4 palettes. So realistically, you could only add more colors by adding a separate set of 4 palettes for sprites, and the layers.
>>11105715>the SNES had a crap CPUCartridges were crap too because devs using cheaper slow rom for their games.Also sound was shit in most games.AFAIK 256 simultaneous colors is the only thing it does better than the Genesis.
>>11106317meant to quote>>11105723
>>11105773I am master baiting
>>11105997talk when it runs a real game like vectorman
>>11106317>AFAIK 256 simultaneous colors is the only thing it does better than the Genesis.Totally worth throwing out literally everything else about the hardware design in favour of colour capabilities like these though! I mean this is just next level, Sega and NEC could never!
>>11106373>256-colours RPGs that can run in a potatoYeah, got the picture.
>>11106019Shut up Daniel/speccyfags
>>11106231Worth it for wonder boy 3
NEC, Sega, and Nintendo all cheaped out on different components.
>>11106236Sorry to argument as populum, but this game sold better than all but one Genesis game and it's sequels have continued to be best sellers on every Nintendo system since. By and large, people looked at it and said "wow that looks great!"
>>11106421NEC cheaped out on work RAM, Sega cheaped out on colour RAM, Nintendo cheaped out on CPU, graphics, audio, sound RAM, video RAM, cartridge boxes, plastic casing...
>>11106435>cheap boxesI remember trying to preserve my zelda box and opened it as reverently as a 10 year old could manage and it still only lasted like 1 year. I taped the shitout of it with scotch tape and got like 1 more year.
>>11106435How surprisingDenial and negationism from a Sega fan
>>11106236Well, yes actually, those colours do not resemble the garish NES palette whatsoever. SNES games typically had more pastel or mature colour schemes than PCE games
>>11106317The SNES's visual strengths are less about its base specs and more about the extra graphical features it offers. Transparent sprites, background transformations, and color blending (among other things) are all possible in some capacity on the Genesis but require some programming ingenuity and design concessions, so being able to get these effects without any limitations was a major boon for SNES developers (Having an extra background layer was also useful, so long as you weren't using it for just the HUD). The Genesis does outstrip the SNES as a raw sprite pusher, but pushing sprites isn't the only path to interesting graphics.
>>11106548>being able to get these effects without any limitations was a major boon for SNES developersThose limitations did come with serious limitations, however. Transparency effects slashed the colour palette count in half, and could not overlap with other transparent objects. Background transformations limited the system to a single layer with only 256 tiles.>pushing sprites isn't the only path to interesting graphicsIt is one of the most important metrics, by far. And the SNES is outclassed here so thoroughly that it is laughable.
>>11105713Hudson with NEC was better than SEGA.
>>11106008Exclusives look okay despite the limitation, but it's still pretty detrimental overall. It's more obvious on arcade ports, even snes Raiden looks much better than the MD one.
>>11106373That looks good it's just not tryhardy as those MD games trying hard to not look like 8-bits tier.
>>11106548>The Genesis does outstrip the SNES as a raw sprite pusherEven then it's pretty overratedSuper Aleste > MushaWild Guns > Dynamite dukeAxelay > Thunder Force 4 Cybernator > Target earthTurtles in time > Hyperstone HeistContra 3 > Hard corpsand so on
>>11106840TG-16 gamer has no their own contra…
>>11106840main advantage is the sega sprite engine is just less wasteful. the actual number of sprites isn't always a lot higher (though it can be). having more sprite sizes helps save vram and sprite slots. the SNES only allowing 2 sizes at once and only 16K for sprite tiles is legitimately super jacked up compared to the genesis and even the tg16 somewhat. but snes games had the biggest budgets and most effort behind them usually. so they could optimize everything towards those tight limits.hard corps slaps the hell out of contra 3 sprite count wise though. not sure why you mentioned that one
>>11106926>but snes games had the biggest budgets and most effort behind them usuallyAs if the MD didn't have a bunch of tryhard tech demo games.>hard corps slaps the hell out of contra 3 sprite count wiseidk the animations in HC are more over the top but that's it, and maybe there's a little more size variety.
>>11105723and yet with that said the genesis is still mostly stronger than the snes which came out years later
>>11105917snes almost never uses more colors than Genesis except ugly ass pre rendered games like donkey kong country.
>>11107349imagine being THIS delusional
>>11107364that's not ristar yawn
>>11107365>muh over the top saturation trying to hide 1/5 the color countYeah i'm glad it's not Ristar.
>>11107349The number of colours isn't quite as important as WHAT those colours are. SNES has access to nearly 33 thousand different colours, while the Mega Drive only has access to 512 different colours, leading to a lot of games suffering from crushed blacks, garish reds, flat greys, and a weird maroon tint to everything that looks like the Star Wars Blurays or DBZ DVD's, because more pleasant colours were just not available.
>>11107379
>>11107349Now that's some hardcore copium.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAcknPOgzTM
>>11107349Nigga where did you get copium that strong?
>>11106435How did they cheap out on audio?
Nice auster wannabe you got there
>>11107389MD version looks better though.The color limitations help keep the look more consistent and offer resistance to the artist's worst instincts.
>>11106438Seems unreasonable to me to expect a cardboard box to last years when it’s presumably being handled on a regular basis.
>>11107496They didn't. Anon is just baitinghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPc34mT8xBo
>>11107515Why use cardboard at all?Even cheaply produced C64 tapes could afford to come in plastic cases.Especially the vacu-formed ones are extremely cheap to make.
>>11106435Meh, even Sega developers from the 90s knew the Genesis was at a disadvantage vs the SNES.See quote from a treasure developer>"How can we overcome the Mega Drive's weaknesses?"
Which console From the 1980's would be ideal for me?>I hate Mario bros>I hate the NES>I hate Nintendo>anti-nintendo console>anti-pokemom games>console with anti-nintendo design>Anti-PC consoles>I hate MSdos
>>11107549A bullet in your brain, damn copypasta.
>>11107549Speccy?
>>11107540and the answer was meme multisegmented animations
>>11107526Those are cassette tapes though, they almost always came in plastic cases.SNES games came with a dust cover for the contacts, which implies the intention was not to store the cart in the box.Plastic cases were available for Super Famicom games
>>11107521The audio may be the greatest thing about the SNES, and that’s not to say the rest of it is bad.
>>11107549NINTENDO BAD
Well if Musha had been a SNES game it probably would've looked like the bottom pic
>>11107638>Those are cassette tapes though, they almost always came in plastic cases.Yeah but it's not like they used the standard audio tape cases so they could have used something widely different like a cardboard box or sleeve.
>>11107703top looks better though
>>11107707Not really, the contrast and saturation is all over the place
>>11107741That's the bottom one.The top is more muted and consistent.
>>11107743The top is definitely not more muted. It is indeed darker, but the tones themselves are harsher and the contrast is definitely more crushed and looking at the HSV values will prove it.Compare these tones (normal on top and edited on bottom): The top one sees value go down from 38 to 13 (-25, or a 66% reduction) while the bottom one sees value go down from 50 to 35 (-15, or a 30% reduction).
>>11107759HSV is very bad at accurately representing color perception.So looking at HSV differences linearly is meaningless.
>>11107703Super sleste already mogged it
>>11107763>HSV is very bad at accurately representing color perceptionMaths is very bad at accurately representing maths? Fucking idiot
>>11107775What kind of retarded argument is that?A model can be mathematically sound but that doesn't mean it represents the real world accurately.>In colour selection where "lightness" runs from zero to 100, a lightness of 50 should appear to be half as bright as a lightness of 100. But the usual formulations of HSB and HLS make no reference to the linearity or nonlinearity of the underlying RGB, and make no reference to the lightness perception of human vision.>The usual formulation of HSB and HLS compute so-called "lightness" or "brightness" as (R+G+B)/3. This computation conflicts badly with the properties of colour vision, as it computes yellow to be about six times more intense than blue with the same "lightness" value (say L=50).>Nearly all formulations of HSB and HLS involve different computations around 60 degree segments of the hue circle. These calculations introduce visible discontinuities in colour space.>Although the claim is made that HSB and HLS are "device independent", the ubiquitous formulations are based on RGB components whose chromaticities and white point are unspecified. Consequently, HSB and HLS are useless for conveyance of accurate colour information.>If you really need to specify hue and saturation by numerical values, rather than HSB and HSL you should use polar coordinate version of u* and v*: h*uv for hue angle and c*uv for chroma.
>>11106403>Worth it for wonder boy 3which got a pc engine port that was better anyway, kek
>>11106896closest you're gonna get is genji tsushin agedamawhich is actually pretty darn fun. easy on first go but you can play with the (hidden) difficulty options and give your character very little health
what killed the pce's capabilities was low storage hucards and a lack of AAA developmenti do agree limited VRAM fucked it though. there are very few higher resolution pc engine games, NEC actively told developers to avoid it when possible.R-type uses it, looks gorgeous but its a flickery mess. aoi blink uses it but that game is pretty basic graphically, though the pastel colors are lovelyimagine if konami bothered making more than 10 games for the system, and capcom wasn't mostly licensed portsi love the system to death but theres really only a couple dozen games that truly push the console, and they are mostly shooters, fighting games, or untranslated RPGs
>>11105713Sega gimped the colour capabilities of the VDP because of the Master System compability.But the PC Engine is still limited to a 512-colour master palette though.>>11106024>Given most turbo games look like NES gamesThat's an early game and still looks substantially better than NES games, in fact, the NES has a port of that game and it doesn't look as good.
>>11106024cmon nowhttps://youtu.be/cFZaYvlAmPA?si=URHHlcwrcXwjXaskhttps://youtu.be/tfrRDkTnXrg?si=YVVkcVjW3mH1Tn3p
>>11106317>devs using cheaper slow rom for their games.original hardwarefags btfo yet again
>>11106373>>11106812alttp is a good game but my brother in christ it looks like shit compared to its clones
>>11107901Fun part is the best parodius game on snes uses slowrom with no extra chips whatsoever.
>>11107909Meh, still inferior detail and shading, now Beyond Oasis that's interesting art.
>>11106241>wasted half the vdp die space on master system backwards compatibility./thread
>>11107850it didn't have limited vram, at least not compared to the genesis and snes. they all had 64KB.the reason nec told people to avoid high res mode is because they thought running the vram as fast as that mode requires would cause instability. it doesn't though, at least I've never heard of it happening. they relaxed those recommendations later on anyway.
>>11106241kekmaster system's cool thoughstill that was a dumb move
