We've been called out

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HihiDanni
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Re: We've been called out

Post by HihiDanni »

TmEE wrote:It has been out for a while now :

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ST9 ... V8saY8/pub
This is not an explanation of individual effects, it's a list of hardware notes snarkily aimed at emulator devs (presumably to maintain the smoke and mirrors).

If this is the Sega community's idea of getting SNESers involved in the demoscene, you can count me out.
SNES NTSC 2/1/3 1CHIP | serial number UN318588627
93143
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Re: We've been called out

Post by 93143 »

I dunno; to me it just reads like a summary of research notes by someone who thinks it's fun to mess around with the Mega Drive. My understanding was that a specific explanation of all of the stunts they pulled in Overdrive 2 was not the intent of that document, and that something more along those lines would be forthcoming.

...I feel like if Titan is allowed to use debug transparency even though it fails on some units, we should at least be allowed to use DMA and HDMA at the same time without careful timing, and maybe subtractive delta luminance in a DMA direct colour video mode...
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HihiDanni
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Re: We've been called out

Post by HihiDanni »

93143 wrote:I dunno; to me it just reads like a summary of research notes by someone who thinks it's fun to mess around with the Mega Drive. My understanding was that a specific explanation of all of the stunts they pulled in Overdrive 2 was not the intent of that document, and that something more along those lines would be forthcoming.
The post kind of implied that this was that explanation doc. They could still be working on that writeup but I'm not really sure why it's taking so long.

Realtalk: Kinda already mentioned before but I don't really want to make a demo, in part because I want to be honest and upfront with the stuff that I do, and also because I don't want to engage in platform wars. I want to have meaningful conversations about retro hardware, not angry Internet Arguments(tm). Fuck that. The only way I could make a demo is if I could make it into a labor of love rather than something done out of spite but given the current vitriol I'd consider this to be nearly impossible. Others are welcome to try though.

I'm just gonna focus on homebrew instead. Most of the driving force behind my work there has been both designing things for other developers to use, and getting to talk about silly weird hardware quirks, even if that makes my preferred system look bad. This kind of thing should be fun, damnit!
SNES NTSC 2/1/3 1CHIP | serial number UN318588627
psycopathicteen
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Re: We've been called out

Post by psycopathicteen »

I do much better work when I am not just trying to compete (though I do kind've want to finish that little checkerboard parallax thing I started even if it's not my original idea). Something I've been thinking about trying is drawing software sprites on a Mode-7 layer, similar to how Galaxy Force arcade game draws graphics.
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Sumez
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Re: We've been called out

Post by Sumez »

Feel free to make a SNES demo as a labor of love. :) I see no reason for animosity between programmers based on different platform choices. There's a ton of awesome stuff you can do with the SNES - doesn't matter if the Mega Drive can do the same, just make something cool.
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tokumaru
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Re: We've been called out

Post by tokumaru »

No need to argue about which 16-bit console has the best hardware in 2017... They're all shit by today's standards!
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Sumez
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Re: We've been called out

Post by Sumez »

I love that way of putting it. DigitalFoundry would have hated the SNES.
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TOUKO
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Re: We've been called out

Post by TOUKO »

Sumez wrote:Feel free to make a SNES demo as a labor of love. :) I see no reason for animosity between programmers based on different platform choices. There's a ton of awesome stuff you can do with the SNES - doesn't matter if the Mega Drive can do the same, just make something cool.
i agree, and you should rather don't take the titan's words for a console war, take it as a mutual motivation between the both platforms, and nothing else .
Really, i don't see any animosity from the titan's guys .
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Sumez
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Re: We've been called out

Post by Sumez »

That was my assumption too, but then I saw the guy posting here... No reason to stoop to that level though :)
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: We've been called out

Post by FrankenGraphics »

One thing i'd like to see on the SNES today is a step away from the tech-demoiness of many of its games. I hope i don't tread on too many nostalgic toes by saying so. But one thing i reacted to as a kid was that NES games could often be more pretty, beautiful or distinct (subjective, i know) than snes counterparts because they were obsessed with maximising the use of colours in smudgy gradients. I don't think the console had a long enough cycle to see a rollback of that aesthetic. It's also a child of the early 90s, so there's that.
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tokumaru
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Re: We've been called out

Post by tokumaru »

FrankenGraphics wrote:But one thing i reacted to as a kid was that NES games could often be more pretty, beautiful or distinct (subjective, i know) than snes counterparts because they were obsessed with maximising the use of colours in smudgy gradients.
I agree. A lot of SNES artists were just using more colors because they could, without stopping to think whether they should.

I cringe every time I compare Return of the Joker on the NES against Revenge of the Joker on the SNES. It's incredible how the 8-bit version of the game is better than both 16-bit versions (I'm including the Genesis version here) in every possible way!
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Sumez
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Re: We've been called out

Post by Sumez »

I especially feel that the classic side scrolling action game took a hit on the SNES, due to the ability to display much bigger sprites with no penalty. Once again, developers did because they could, before stopping to consider whether they should. The only games on the SNES I can think of that come close to that same feeling of the NES classics are Hagane, Contra 3, and Majyuuou.
tepples
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Re: We've been called out

Post by tepples »

True. The downside of bigger sprites is bigger backgrounds, and bigger backgrounds mean less distance between the player and the edge of the visible portion of the map when measured in character heights. This in turn means either slower movement or less player reaction time. I had to explain this to the artist of Haunted: Halloween '85 early in development.
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: We've been called out

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Ironically, having more colours to choose from for a sprite can help give a smaller sprite/metasprite the definition it'd risk lacking on a NES or SMS. That's rarely how they thought at the time.

I think a parallel can be drawn between GB and SNES in the regard of platformers. But on the SNES it was by choice, whereas the only option to fit a larger portion of a level on the GB screen was pixel ants a la Super Mario Land.
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HihiDanni
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Re: We've been called out

Post by HihiDanni »

Am I the only one who feels like graphics on the NES were actually a bit too small? There just seems like a lot of empty underutilized space between objects. Reaction time is a concern with larger sprites, but it mostly comes down to what you're actually doing with your sprites. You can have small sprites that move really fast, and you end up with weird looking stuff like characters powerwalking at 80 miles an hour.

Having roughly 32x32-sized sprites seems like the sweet spot, IMO.
SNES NTSC 2/1/3 1CHIP | serial number UN318588627
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