An unbiased comparison of Megadrive vs A1200 graphics?

[rexsu]

Originally Posted by Tsak

Imho one of the best (classic) examples in regards to a1200's 2D abilities must be Core Design's 'Banshee'. That's definitely an 'arcade quality' game there, has 8-way scrolling, pushes a ton of stuff on screen without compromising colors, has some of the most massive bosses seen in an Amiga game and runs fluidly at 50fps, never slowing down. It even showcases fancy fullscreen effects like rain and transparent fog.

Unfortunately this is not the case.
There are some slowdowns against some bosses and it's a 25fps game.
I never liked the control of the plane, not that responsive with a bit of inertia...
You add the big hud, the lack of in-game music and you definitely don't have an 'arcade quality' game imho.

[Retro1234]

I wonder how Banshee does it's smooth scrolling as it has a vertical status/score bar?

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by rexsu

I never liked the control of the plane, not that responsive with a bit of inertia...

So... too realistic?

[touko]

I never liked the control of the plane, not that responsive with a bit of inertia...

Typical occidental shmup signature
I hate when the player has inertia in arcade games, mainly shmup, i hated it in project X .

So graphicaly speaking, and only for this point of view(because it's the subject of this thread), the A1200 crush the MD .

[str0m]

Originally Posted by touko

Typical occidental shmup signature
I hate when the player has inertia in arcade games, mainly shmup, i hated it in project X .

So graphicaly speaking, and only for this point of view(because it's the subject of this thread), the A1200 crush the MD .

The standard ship in Project X has lots of inertia, swap to one of the others in the options menu and it plays a lot better

[Tsak]

Originally Posted by rexsu

Unfortunately this is not the case.
There are some slowdowns against some bosses and it's a 25fps game.
I never liked the control of the plane, not that responsive with a bit of inertia...
You add the big hud, the lack of in-game music and you definitely don't have an 'arcade quality' game imho.

Seems you're right, the game does use a mixed 25/50fps approach, however that's what I mean with 'right compromises'. There's no jerkiness around and everything feels super smooth, so for me this is a non factor (when done right). I've never seen any slowdowns either personally. I also agree in regards to the music, that's a big offender there.

With that said, I still disagree on the 'arcade quality' definition though. First off, it's clear the production values of this game are quite on-par, with amazing pixel art, varied gameplay and loads of attention to detail. I'd even say that for the pixel art specifically it leans much more towards Neo Geo quality than anything I've seen on the Mega Drive.

The game also doesn't seem to hold back when it comes to pushing loads of stuff on screen plus there are already are more colors, than what the Megadrive can handle. The HUD is not a big issue for me either, and besides, loads of Megadrive shooters do use some sort of off-screen HUD as well. As for inertia that never bothered me as well (at least not as much as on ProjectX f.e.).

Oh and btw, here's a video with all the shoot'em'ups ever released on the Megadrive for good measure
[ Show youtube player ]

[Photon]

Originally Posted by touko

You have a MD version of vroom or hard driving for exemple, and this

All 8-bits and up can draw lines or polygons, but very slowly, or else with limited scenes or movement. Some with more trouble than others.

Vroom is like Lotus, pseudo-3D. There's no world, only a track, and you can't even look to the side, let alone up or down.

Starfox is a third person corridor where you can't look sideways or up and down, and for MD is not released yet. It looks (from the wrong pixel aspect) like someone hacked the SNES ROM to remove some enemies. The SNES version put a CPU in the cartridge that could output the picture, which meant it wasn't limited to the tiles and sprites.

The software catalog for a platform displays its powers, I think. On Amiga, there are 100 ideas and perspectives that are playable, on Megadrive a handful or less 3D games. That's what I mean by "can't do 3D".

[Megalomaniac]

The Megadrive could do 3D, indeed it was probably superior to the A500 for 3D (though behind the A1200, look at COALA for evidence), where programmers use the Z80 for additional processing, such as LHX Attack Chopper or F22 Interceptor. It certainly trounces the SNES in that area, SuperFX or not (Starwing makes so many compromises and simplifications that you have to suspend your disbelief quite heavily). The relative lack of 3D games is simply down to it being a console market with only a few buttons on offer.

[vulture]

Well...I'm not sure about the SuperFX thing you said. Watching SNES Starfox and the fan-made one for MD , the SNES SFX version runs better. Still, mighty impressive of MD to do almost as good with stock hardware, but not better.

Also, I took a look at both LHX Attack Chopper and F22 Interceptor. LHX has so few things on the terrain, nothing special imo, but F22 does much better. But, still, Resolution 101 (for example) is more impressive than both.

[TCD]

Three quite cool videos about the '3D' techniques used on the MD:

CODING SECRETS: How Toy Story's "Next-Gen" 3D Depth Effect Was Created: [ Show youtube player ]
CODING SECRETS! How TOY STORY'S 3D was programmed: [ Show youtube player ]
Cancelled 16-bit Mickey "Doom" Game Uncovered: [ Show youtube player ]
They are made by the actual coder of those effects.

[stefcep2]

The A1200 has the best version of Nigel Mansell World Championship.

[jotd]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

I wonder how Banshee does it's smooth scrolling as it has a vertical status/score bar?

The vertical bar is a big (or several) 64 bit wide AGA sprite(s). AGA sprites can cover 64 pixels in width (ECS=16), and 256 pixels in height (like ECS). If you combine several sprites you can get 15 colors. And still have a smooth hardware scrolling, and possibly use the rest of the sprites for bullets, main ship, etc.. (not the case in Banshee IIRC, everything else is blitter-based)

[touko]

Well...I'm not sure about the SuperFX thing you said. Watching SNES Starfox and the fan-made one for MD , the SNES SFX version runs better. Still, mighty impressive of MD to do almost as good with stock hardware, but not better.

The superFX is a risc CPU @10mhz, not surprising it does 3D better than a 7.6 mhz 68k ..

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by touko

The superFX is a risc CPU @10mhz, not surprising it does 3D better than a 7.6 mhz 68k ..

If it weren't for the 65816 CPU in the SNES, i'd expect them to be comparable. RISC processors typically clock faster than early CISC designs but need more instructions to do the same work.

For example, my 1.5 GHz PPC Mac Mini could never keep up with a Core2 Solo of the same clock speed. Code density kills the cache performance in the PPC.

Back on topic:
For a Megadrive to keep up with an A1200, the A1200 would have to be stock with no FastRAM due to memory bottlenecks.

[touko]

May be, but a risc CPU is way better for doing math transformations than a general CPU, in fact it's his main purpose .So it's not surprising that the superFX,is more tailored for 3D stufs .
For exemple,with the superFx, the snes can run doom at a descent framerate, the MD cannot .

[Cris1997XX]

Originally Posted by touko

For exemple,with the superFx, the snes can run doom at a descent framerate, the MD cannot .

The "decent framerate" part is extremely debatable...even if the Mega Drive alone can't run Doom, there's the 32X port and its excellent hack called Resurrection: [ Show youtube player ]

[sokolovic]

32x is a bit more of an expansion than the SuperFX. ADoom runs quite well on my A1200 with a Blizzard 68030/50mhz.

On a side note, SuperFX or extra DSP chip is mandatory on the SNES to do 3D. That's the reason why Frontier was cancelled on this machine. No money to had extra chip to the cart.
As an Amiga player, I never was impressed by Starwing/fox. Nothing revolutionnary there. Polygonal 3D was common on computers when the game was released.

[touko]

@Cris1997XX : You can't compare a whole 32bits extension with a single RISC CPU .
The snes version is impressive to run so smoothly with only a simple add .
[ Show youtube player ]

I never was impressed by Starwing/fox. Nothing revolutionnary there.

Yes, but like all nintendo's games, the GP is top notch and really fun,that's the difference .

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Cris1997XX

The "decent framerate" part is extremely debatable...even if the Mega Drive alone can't run Doom, there's the 32X port and its excellent hack called Resurrection:

That would be impressive if it was a stock Mega Drive. However at £170 the 32x almost doubled the price of the system. Also the graphics have been cut down with fewer colors and textures, and some objects are missing. I guess they had to do this to fit it on a cartridge?

The 32x was released in Europe in December 1994. By this time the A1200 was selling for £279 and a 1MB RAM expansion with clock was £79, for a total price of £358 - the same price as a Mega Drive with 32x!

Originally Posted by touko

The snes version is impressive to run so smoothly with only a simple add .

Smoother than the 32x, but this version is even more cut down with no ceiling or floor textures. This is what it would look like on an A1200 using the Dread engine.

[Cris1997XX]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

That would be impressive if it was a stock Mega Drive. However at £170 the 32x almost doubled the price of the system. Also the graphics have been cut down with fewer colors and textures, and some objects are missing. I guess they had to do this to fit it on a cartridge?

The original 32X port (Along with the 3DO, PS1 and Saturn ones) was based on the Jaguar version, which was developed by ID Software themselves. It had cut down maps and missing enemies to fit into the limited RAM of the console. Most developers were lazy or didn't have enough time, so they decided to just use the same maps from the Jaguar game!