Most objects on screen at same time in 16 bit era, think Amiga might win

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by hitchhikr

It's a 16 bit console due to it's main processor & data bus.
There's no such things as 24 bit consoles.

I guess it was just marketed that way, Wikipedia says "The Neo Geo was marketed as the first 24-bit system; its CPU is actually a 16/32-bit 68000 with an 8-bit Z80 coprocessor, while its GPU chipset has a 24-bit graphics data bus." Here's a picture of one of the boxes I found https://commondatastorage.googleapis...5709a/1600.jpg

[vulture]

Originally Posted by lionagony

Edit: As an aside does anyone know why when you pause a MD or SNES game of say a shmup with a lot of player bullets that you don't see all the bullets when you pause? I just tried it under emulation with Thunder Force IV and Space Megaforce. Are the sprites actually not updating each frame and it's just an illusion that there are more bullets at once or is something else going on because as you can see below when you pause Mega Typhoon everything you perceive at the time that's on the screen is actually on the screen.

Yes, it's an illusion, they're somehow blinking them so as to appear as 3 or 4 times more than what they actually are. Cool trick.

[Galahad/FLT]

My overriding memory of Galactic by Stavros Fasoulos had a ridiculous amount of objects on screen during later levels.

[Retro1234]

[ Show youtube player ] ? And its probably not even trying

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by vulture

Yes, it's an illusion, they're somehow blinking them so as to appear as 3 or 4 times more than what they actually are. Cool trick.

Cool, would love to know more about that but couldn't find anything through Google. I wonder if the Amiga is capable of the same thing?

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

[ Show youtube player ] ? And its probably not even trying

Nice, but it's not from an actual game, it's also using the SA-1 enhancement chip https://sneslab.net/wiki/SA-1

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by lionagony

Cool, would love to know more about that but couldn't find anything through Google. I wonder if the Amiga is capable of the same thing?

It's a very simple visual trick. On odd frames you show half the bullets, on even frames you show the other half. Your eyes don't perceive change fast enough and so you might at most perceive a slight flicker, but usually it just makes the colours look semi transparent.

But it only really makes sense with sprite hardware, so whilst you could do it on the Amiga you probably wouldn't since you'd be using Bobs instead and there is no advantage there since once a bob is drawn it stays drawn.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

It's a very simple visual trick. On odd frames you show half the bullets, on even frames you show the other half. Your eyes don't perceive change fast enough and so you might at most perceive a slight flicker, but usually it just makes the colours look semi transparent.

But it only really makes sense with sprite hardware, so whilst you could do it on the Amiga you probably wouldn't since you'd be using Bobs instead and there is no advantage there since once a bob is drawn it stays drawn.

Oh wow, the consoles are such cheaters Thanks for the explanation. Do you think it would work with sprite multiplexing, like could the 156 Mega Typhoon bullets I showed in the screenshot earlier be able to look like 312 with that trick?

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by lionagony

Oh wow, the consoles are such cheaters Thanks for the explanation. Do you think it would work with sprite multiplexing, like could the 156 Mega Typhoon bullets I showed in the screenshot earlier be able to look like 312 with that trick?

Maybe. The main reason for doing on consoles is either you're hitting the max sprite limit or, more likely, the max per scanline. Amiga sprites are kind of weird but I guess it's possible you might be able to pull of a similar trick by using different copper lists per frame.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

Maybe. The main reason for doing on consoles is either you're hitting the max sprite limit or, more likely, the max per scanline. Amiga sprites are kind of weird but I guess it's possible you might be able to pull of a similar trick by using different copper lists per frame.

Awesome. The Amiga has so much untapped potential still almost 40 years later.

[aros-sg]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

It's a very simple visual trick. On odd frames you show half the bullets, on even frames you show the other half.

I think it may be even simpler than that. Don't do anything, just make the speed of the bullets big enough and the visual trick maybe magically appears all by itself. So if bullet is 16 pixels wide -> make it move around on the screen very fast, like 16 pixels per frame.

[touko]

A snes demo, without any add-on, just pure code .

[roondar]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

But it only really makes sense with sprite hardware, so whilst you could do it on the Amiga you probably wouldn't since you'd be using Bobs instead and there is no advantage there since once a bob is drawn it stays drawn.

To comment on this a bit, you could do something like this with Blitter objects as well. You could opt to draw half of them one frame and half the other. But yeah, that's not something you'd do for the same reason consoles use flickering bullets. That said, it still would halve the drawing/undrawing costs, while retaining the illusion of full frame rate updates (rather than going to full 25/30Hz updates as many Amiga games do, so it may be worth the effort).

[touko]

Originally Posted by lionagony View Post
Edit: As an aside does anyone know why when you pause a MD or SNES game of say a shmup with a lot of player bullets that you don't see all the bullets when you pause?

Just fast moving sprites and retinal persistence .Sprites blinking technique was not really used on these machines .

[touko]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

My overriding memory of Galactic by Stavros Fasoulos had a ridiculous amount of objects on screen during later levels.

I will say datastorm .
[ Show youtube player ]

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by touko

I will say datastorm .
[ Show youtube player ]

Yeah the little shrapnel pieces here or the body parts in Overkill are great ones, so much action on the screen.

[rothers]

Originally Posted by touko

I will say datastorm .
[ Show youtube player ]

OH MY GOD.


Never played this back in the day, that's some crazy blitting.

[touko]

Originally Posted by lionagony

That's the myth though. Can you name a Mega Drive or SNES game with more than Mega Typhoon's 112 objects at once at 50 fps with no slowdown or flicker?

Yes the snes version of Batman Returns, displaying up to 118 sprites at once .

https://twitter.com/turboxray/status...27312017391616

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by touko

Yes the snes version of Batman Returns, displaying up to 118 sprites at once .

https://twitter.com/turboxray/status...27312017391616

Well that again stretches the idea of "object". I was thinking in layman terms of what appear like individual entities. Looks like your example of Datastorm might be the clear winner though, I asked the coder in the comments of the Youtube video Soren Gronbech how many objects were on the screen at once and he replied "The normal flying enemies had a max of 128 on the level. Plus the big special ones. Plus explosions and shots. Plus the 'balls' to pickup. Plus the 'hangers'. Plus the tower."

[Retro1234]

Street Fighter 2 - 2 large sprite or Bobs etc