32X Mega Memory

[hadjiquest]

How Much memory could a 32X cassette hold up to?

[Elusive]

Pretty much the same as a Mega Drive cart could, which is infinite. Yes, you can in theory have 1GB+ ROMs, the problem is the machine can only see a small amount at a time. For example, you can't read a book all at once, you have to read individual pages. The size of the book doesn't matter.

[ary incorparated]

thats sick,does it have something to do with sega genesis being isometric?.

[Joe Redifer]

Huh? Any computer could literally handle an infinite amount of information, just not all at once like Elusive said. I don't think it's "sick" or perverse in any kind of way.

[Mendicant]

...so... technically you could watch entire movies on the genesis platform. I know, I know, given the hardware limitation, there wouldn't be much of a point.

Still, it'd be damn interesting to invite some unsuspecting friends over, set up the genesis, plug in a cart and start a movie... :D

[atm55]

...so... technically you could watch entire movies on the genesis platform. I know, I know, given the hardware limitation, there wouldn't be much of a point.

Still, it'd be damn interesting to invite some unsuspecting friends over, set up the genesis, plug in a cart and start a movie... :D

Well, they won't look very good, but I suppose you might be able to. Somewhere on this website there are some clips from Ice age and the Matrix running on stock Genesis hardware...

[ary incorparated]

yeah cool.but not that good graphics due to its color limitation.i really like to see it.Joe its like reading a book i know,but doesnt the hardware have limitations,well if the games have no limitation at all then a panzer dragoon saga would fit in the cartridge easely,Please explain a bit.games have limitation dont they.

[Joe Redifer]

There is no limitation, but the more memory chips you use, the more it costs to make the game. There was nothing stopping them from making, say, a 14GB 32X cartridge. The only problem would be that back in the day when the 32X was available, the cartridge casing would have been the size of a house and probably cost just as much!

[ary incorparated]

its like neo geo aes right,having huge rom cartridges.Ok that is obvious,aldo they could have done that and did it with some games,But like if you compare the rom size from sonic 3d to vectorman ther could be a big ????? whydoes veccie has a much smaller rom size while there is a lot more going on in veccie,well thats because vectorman has a isometric perspective,it something with a chanels and thats what they did with vectorman was everything in different maps,like the backgrounds and the animations etc,tht could make the romsize smaller,thats something with those a channels,maybe you know.

[ary incorparated]

it would be fun if some people know how to make software for genesis,then maybe they could make something like S.O.R 4 just for hobby or something.if still people work with that it would be awesome,if they can license it and bring those game,like super fighter team still bringing conversions.The only thing that i ever done with that was re making axel with paint,giving him more detail etc like that his jeans look like real etc that he lookes realer,but still with limited colors like i used about 17 colors in axle then i made a flash movie from that and then i had no backups from that and it was gone when i had a virus.it was nothing really special just having fun with that.

[Joe Redifer]

I don't know which is bigger of those two games you mentioned, but it depends on WHAT they put in the game. Lots of digitized sounds or digitized graphics will take up more memory. Sonic 3D Blast has sprites that are ALL digitized graphics, like Donkey Kong Country starring Reggie Fils Aime (he was the model for Donkey Kong's overall appearance and attitude). Sonic 3D Blast also has a full motion video intro which undoubtedly takes up a large amount of memory. Vectorman is just a bunch of ugly green sprites shaped like balls.

[ary incorparated]

WTF vectorman has all independed sprites that animate all at the same time,you arent going to tell me that vectorman is nothing,BTW never mind you wouldn gett it.Damn ugly green sprites shaped like balls,BTW if you didn notice that are animated ballz.its a effort that they put in vectorman,BTW veccie is scrolling with over 125 colors inc animations and sprites per screen ,and has like over 500 colors per level,vectorman has transparency all over the place plus luminating effects that mirror on veccie a awesome job.What are you talking about vectorman beeing ugly,sonic 3d is indeed more like dk country but if you think that dk is graphically better than vectorman youre way wrong.DK just uses sprites and fmv,s to let everything look great while not much is animated,vectorman lets everything look great with very much animations even al the shots that veccie fires are all transparant,then tell me what is transparantic animated in dk al over the level and not beeing fmv.With isometric perspective i mean every thing is made way smaller to let it fit in the cartridge not all games use that.like vectorman maybe could be 32 meg but thanx to bitmapping every single detail and background etc is mapped which makes it smaller.I also understand what youre saying with sonic 3d having big isometrical levels which makes the game bigger,but btw sonic 3d has like 50 collors per screen ,if you are going to count collours on the screen youre totally handling wrong,but since the snes has more colors then md it could show more colour only not animated at all,more collors offers a lack of animations which the snes already had.so dk uses fmv,movie animations,the same animation all the time in a sprite or the background is just a foto layer ,there are also foreground layers,sprite that arent animated at al and scrol paralax(like final fantasy 7).Btw did you mension that dk country is actually only 2d with some 3d animations,and vectorman is 3d with 3d animations some times.Like the rail level in veccie and the fully 3d animated bosses,Plus even some sprite scaled levels,luminations and son burst effect,transparancie all over the place(fiering afterimages)anyways vectorman is worth to be compared to dk,vectorman has many rare features that genesis often uses,like veccie beeing totally animated and the game uses HAM technologie and sprite scaling,transpantics.It shows that genesis can do what snes can,Many games that look great on snes. have a obvious reason why,For instance compare mario world 2 with gunstar.Gunstar wins,thats why genesis dont have much lack at all it has power and certianly for its time.BTW vectorman hasnt got dull sprites it just lookes great i respect it if you just dont like the character.Sonic 3d didnt have a isometric perspetive it all was just put on cart without making it smaller and the movie also asks much memorie(i liked the game)vectorman is just made smaller.if it wasnt made that way it could be like a 2 mb or more cart.Thanx for your help.If youre counting colours then you can do that with dk there arent much animations exept for DK which Reggie Weggie was the animation model Dk was made of a whire frame,and then was animated.Veccie is just simple like hes is only made of ballz but al those ballz animate every time which is difficult to proces on a genesis,If you count background collours in DK couintry youle amazinly counting like 90 colors without animation,if you count veccie youlle count 75,but since DK uses fmv,s the total lever collor pallet will end up with like 200,300 collors and veccie which everything is animated its very hard to count em" it has al the collore availeble 525 per level,The 64 colors in screen max is bullshit,genesis can go over that.max genesis can do over 1000 colours in raster mode.i as shocked of the graphics the genesis could make after seeing veccie,gunstar and sonic 3d amazed me to,genesis is simple but that makes it awesome.Sega does what nintendidnt. :D

[Joe Redifer]

Vectorman didn't look extremely colorful to me (more than 64 anyway). Regardless, it's not the memory that enables that, it's the program. The programmers just wrote simple code to say "move things fast". It's pretty simple. It's the sources like bitmapped graphics and digitized sounds that eat up the memory.

[GeckoYamori]

Please, please use paragraphs or your posts will be very tough reading when that long.

[ary incorparated]

Btw oke maybe vectorman doesnt look that colourfull but it doesn look ugly at al,discuss this with others on this forum,i think theyle prove youre definetly wrong.vectorman is the counter for DK country defnitly if sega made 3 games of veccie then they maybe won from DK country,if you want full colourd games on genesis,no problem genesis has allot more of those then snes,snes games are a bit unsharper,bleacher then md games,Look at Ristar And batman and robin beeing graphically very good also,Genesis proves that it can do allot with animation in a small cartridge,Look at the two face bos in batman and robin,and the mad hatter level,the music is Damn good also in btaman and robin,also fully digitized but also had a isometric perspective.i think sonic 3d is bigger becuase it has much symphony and orchestral,nice digitalized music,some of the biggest music files to let everything sound very clear and big isometric levels plus the intro movie etc.one thing genesis didnt need was uge memory to prove they could sett the best graphics vectorman shows that it can do much with the genesis pallete,also does ristar etc but i also think that they dont need that big memorie becuase they dont have save options and dont need that,Dk country has.but just for fun compare the awesome Gunstar heroes to mario world,i bett that gunstar would win in the graphic department and in animations for sure,contra hard corps also wins that encounter defnitly compared to contra 3,contra hc has ways more animations.BTW how can i post pictures. :D

[Joe Redifer]

I remember purchasing Vectorman and taking it right back. It just didn't do much for me. I think it may have actually made me ill. And it had awful music which was very typical of American games back then.

[GeckoYamori]

I think Vectorman was solid at best, the levels felt desolate, stretched out and repetive with nothing really interesting ever happening. The music probably sounded the way it did because it was made using GEMS.

Donkey Kong Country was so vastly overrated it makes me cry. To think such a mediocre game made Nintendo beat Sega in the states is very sad and proves what a bunch of graphic whores we all were. Both Vectorman and DKC were hyped by their graphics, but didn't actually have that much substance to back it up. It's Bluesky's best game though, they actually managed to make a mildly interesting platform concept unlike all those Disney games.

[Joe Redifer]

I hate digitized graphics like DKC.

Curious... what is GEMS?

[GeckoYamori]

DKC was solely responsible for a huge surge of terrible clay-looking pre-rendered graphics, Doom Troopers being one of the worst examples... The technique had an unwelcome revival on the GBA. After all, who wants to spend time with careful hand-drawn sprites when you could just get some cheap modeler to create some false pretense of '3D graphics'?

GEMS was a MIDI-friendly sequencer thing developed by John Baker, which was intergrated into Sega's official development kit. I have spoken to some people who used it, like Frank Klepacki. It was basicly a big chip you put in the console which was connected to a computer which allowed for sound programming. According to Jesper Kyd it was pretty limiting and probably the main cause for people boasting about the SPC chip's 'supremacy'. You can hear in a lot western titles they don't make use of the 4 extra PSG channels and the FM instrumentation sounds pretty bland and lifeless.

[ary incorparated]

hmmm Joe i get what you mean ,i sead it wrong,Sonic is isomerical therefor the games costs more memorie,Sonic has to be animated four times plus hes digitized etc.But vectorman is smaller because its bitmapped ever single part of level is mapped,Vectorman and DK country are both very nice looking titles but just play DK country and you wil notice the lack of animation,I was wowing that game also but when i noticed that amost every background had no or not much animations.Thanx to genesis his a chanels genesis could produse transparatics also,even whole transpantic layers and sprite.Vectorman uses trasparantic sprites and mirror effects plus very much is animated even the flags in the backgrount,those alpha channels can divide every single effect from eachoter like it can show transparatic effects blur,afterimages and shadow effect,light effects.In vectorman you can see when to sprites come togheter they form a animation like the background with veccies bullets form a transparatic animation,like enemie with bullet forming a shadow plus lighten effect.Or when vectorman is in the licht or a dark places you can see veccie fade from licht to dark,or when vectorman is under a licht you can see the reflection of the licht on him,awesome stuff very realistic esspecially those light burst effects at the end.BTW vectorman hasnt got annoyiong music maybe it just doesn fit you Joe.The music forms itself with the theme,all levels look peacfull and nature like the snow level etc,everything is teccy like the trance music fits in very well.you got some wilder levels that have more of a good techno beat and some calmer levels that have calm synth music.Its not about how the music feels to you but its about how the music fits in .If you have like hard metal you maybe wouldnt like the game anymore,because the levels wouldnt fit that.The game itself is busy enough with all the things happening in screen.i liked very much,Dk is damn good also becuase it looks very good,oke thats really a obvious point but much of the colors where fitted into fmv,s what nobody noticed,like there arent no diffrent animations in the see its all the same ,or its just a foto that isnt animated at all.DK has snes kind of graphics and veccie shows the genesis limit ,sore we never got see a goo d sequal of vectorman.i like em both,but since i am a sega fan i go with vectrorman it is a very busy animated game really eye candy for its time.also was DK country at least i tought much things whre just foto,s.or fmv,s. ;),veccie had really good music i tought.,BTW the transforming in a veccie cycle was very fun to.Geckoyamori is right,dk lookes a bit more like clay,but since almost the only things that are animated are the enemys and dk there is not much going on in DK,besides Reggie the Wedgie beeing ape model,dk looks nice animated but thats about it in the animation.Hey reggie werent you a ape model,Not my problem,360 not my problem,i am a ape,my problem.

[ary incorparated]

Btw isnt gems standing for Genesis emulateion music station or something,BTW i tought vectorman was the only game for the genesis dismanteling the standart of 64 colors max in screen to 125 colors mx in screen.Snes didnt do 125 colors max on screen inc animation maybe just with photos in the background.Ill bet if you set Gunstar heroes in a demo unit and you have a DK country demo unit then i think people go for animation instead of beening Graphic fans and play a interactive photo game,i think even the HC nintendo fans sneak to the Gunstar unit the play a part.Animation rules just graphics and that was what made genesis great,Contra HC Gunstar Yu Yu hakusho,veccie etc.BTW saw the screens of the ice age and matirx movie,Far not impressed,because it looks like GB camera upgrade,i couldnt see the movie,BTW that kind of stuff is downloadable.Like 6 colors simultainiesly in screen Al the way green.

[Obviously]

Rumor has it that Ranger-X was the game to have more than 64 colors on the screen at the same time and it is a lot more colorful than Vectorman. Vectorman looks nice but it's not really all that full of color in my opinion.

I never felt that Vectorman pushed the Genesis as much as other people say it did though I'll be the first to admit I'm a Vectorman fan so I'm not trying to diss it.

As for DKC I never really understood why people love the graphics so much. I really hate the effect of pre-rendered 2D graphics. It just looks fuzzy to me.

[Joe Redifer]

Speaking of colors I hear Eternal Champions on the Sega CD uses a whole messload of colors simultaneously. My quetions is where? The graphics in that game border on mediocre.

[Mendicant]

Speaking of colors I hear Eternal Champions on the Sega CD uses a whole messload of colors simultaneously. My quetions is where? The graphics in that game border on mediocre.
A friend of mine suggested I set the "sharpness" option of my TV to minimum before playing EC CD. You know... it worked. The graphics improved. :twisted:
Modern day digitized pre-rendered graphics are a bit of a paradox to me. Is the amount of resources required to model/texture/rig/animate a 3D model really all that different from the drawing, scanning & coloring traditional 2D sprite animation for a 2D game??

[ary incorparated]

Eternal champions cd,never played it,BTW hate the md version,beeing to stiff and difficult,I think the mdcd version is very good having much blood and gore,BTW they say it scrols up to like 256 colors inscreen,never saw them appear simultainiesly in screen you can count per picture but oke that would be the whole wrong way since animations count as colors to,But vectorman is impressive if you ask me,Those sun burst effects transpancie atleast enough to rip of that mask of the DK country games(beeing all fake graphic show) Btw killer instinct also looked impressive but was a bit slow if you ask me and yup animation less.If you come to the later levels with vectorman it looks very clean and the music is fine to,like there are lots of colors,one thing that game is a bit to short.Ranger x could be i like that game but what youre trying to say that it has that great graphics?,by setting the game on pauze and that i can make a print screen and count over 125 colors.Ranger x is Damn fine,Btw it is possible to push the md pallete if im right even to like 256 colors per screen and like 1000 colors per level(in raster modus)veccie uses al 512 colors per level and is not doing under to DK country it does better. :DBTW vectorman may not have that much color but count the animation in screen they are weird and awesome Transpantic bullits etc Transpantic bullets licht reflecting on veccie without using just the speed to make it to make it flicker and let it look like Transparancie(gunstar heroes).Love ranger x i didnt buy it because i tought it was shit(stupid toughts),but damn it plays heavenly and has some great sharp visuals,But why can it show better graphics,Hmm the rom size is like 575kb and vectorman 1,04 mb,Explain please.

[ary incorparated]

I believe it,dunno how they did it but its ntable,even transpantics in fire fly or something,this was really wowing me,Huh i had the download looking at the romzise 575 kb that couldnt be a good graphical game well it is,the colors on screen are awesome and the music is pretty nice,this looks like later futuristic titles like radiant silvergun ikaruga,it carries the same feeling and very solid for its time defnitly,genesis didnt do the same as the snes much but when it wanted top compete it succeed in graphics and colors on screen,BTW keep reminding so much colors in screen inc Tons of animations where genesis was familiar for(a option that snes had in negative compared to MD) DK country is a color slideshow not animation while Gunstar or vectorman boosts animations,genesis is older but not limited compared to snes,it just had to come out its shell when boosting graphics.In the end its al about the genres of games both consoles bring technically they dont hurt eachother much.

[Joe Redifer]

Ary do you like Vectorman? I'm just curious. You don't talk about Vectorman very much and I was wondering if there was a slim chance that perhaps you liked it maybe.

[ary incorparated]

Hmmm youre right not really,Nooh ofcourse i love it,But i dont think Ranger x beats it in graphics BTW Ranger x is impressive but doesnt show over 64 i think,More like 40 per screen,vectorman goes over 70 like if you just make a screen shot you can count 70 diffrent colors,I only have ranger x on emulator its hard to play with keybord,hell of a good game,Oke joe name a game on genesis that is graphically better then vectorman inc showing more colors animations,Just curious about youre uppinion.Youre a bit right i think the first levels in veccie dont impress much like they have much colors but look a bit boring the last levels look colourfull and detailed the animations and colours are there but the first and second level looks boring. the last levels like Thunder in the background and snow whit sun etc pretty nice. :D

[Joe Redifer]

Post a screenshot of Vectorman with more than 64 colors simulataneously.

[ary incorparated]

sorry joe how can i post,i set the counted colors onderneath the pictuer,Sorry for not knowing how to post pictures. ;) [/img]

[Joe Redifer]

You can upload it to www.imageshack.com and link to it from there. Or e-mail me at joerediferATfilm-tech.com (replace the AT with @) and I wll post it.

[lordofduct]

Speaking of colors I hear Eternal Champions on the Sega CD uses a whole messload of colors simultaneously. My quetions is where? The graphics in that game border on mediocre.
A friend of mine suggested I set the "sharpness" option of my TV to minimum before playing EC CD. You know... it worked. The graphics improved. :twisted:
Modern day digitized pre-rendered graphics are a bit of a paradox to me. Is the amount of resources required to model/texture/rig/animate a 3D model really all that different from the drawing, scanning & coloring traditional 2D sprite animation for a 2D game??

it's not really the drawing and coloring part. (Though at the time coloring was an issue a bit on say the genny with its limited palette).

The problem comes in on animating.

2D sprites have to be redrawn frame by frame.
A 3D model can be moved about (with some limitations, nothing too major though)rather freely and a 2D sprite can be exported already drawn and colored.

When you have multiple frames of animation this becomes a lot easier. Also, it 'looks' cooler to a lot of people. That comes down to personal taste.

NOW before people start screaming that the amount of frames in ratio to work was so close back in the day of Genny and SNES I agree. At the time it was 'looks' they were going for, it made the system look like it was pushing more power when in actuality it really wasn't. But at the same time it was laying grounds out for practice grounds in getting ready for the coming generations of video games as well.

Some people still opted for sprites back then too, it had a fresher look and also gave more control to the artist as palettes could be easily swapped on a classic drawn sprite much more asthetically then on a prerendered sprite.

But the kid said in modern times. Today yes, if you used all 3D objects prerendered or not is much easier.

My friend does 3D art design AND 2D sprite design, he is rather well trained in both fields and prefers the 3D side all for the animation part. Once the model is built from there it's all easy going, the model was difficult to make, but now that is over.

The 2D sprite is hard every redraw (and boring).

Look at this attatched pic I have in this link (http://ssn.sonicstadium.org/Sprites/sheets/3KnuxSonicFoxOmega.gif). Every picture of Sonic had to be hand drawn. and thats not even ALL the sprites for Sonic alone (there are some Super Sonic ones missing from what I can tell.)

Today it would be even more work because with the more power a console has more frames of animation are expected.

[lordofduct]

Also I don't remember Vectorman using more then 64 colors... the genny just plain ol' can't do it.

maybe possibly give the illusion of it by palette swapping and shadowing sprites over other sprites... but still even then you are limited to grey shading a color.

And I still don't even think that it is possible, I'm not well knowledged in the field.

it's the math, you have a chip at the end of the line that allows a passthrough of a bandwidth of 64 colors... you try to shove 70 through it gets bottlenecked.

It's like shoving 150MBytes down the PCI bus on your computer simultaneousily... it just doesn't happen... you are allowed only 133MB NO MORE.

[Joe Redifer]

Actually I think the Genesis is limited to 61 actual colors because 3 of those "colors" are transparent. One on one background page, one on the other, and one for the sprite page. That's 3 transparent colors.

[ary incorparated]

Sorry joe,cant figure it out,BTW i see that Melf and other people can post pics,why can they why are they smart enough to do that,Joe you showed me some to just on this board,like from decap attack,how thats al i need to know. :D

[ary incorparated]

joe it says that i cant sent to you,The email adress is wrong my pc says,Hmmm???.Do you have hotmail,like thats a way easier,like maybe i can search youre hotmail addres,But thats up to you. :D

[Joe Redifer]

joeredifer@film-tech.com

[j_factor]

Genesis can display more than 64 colors with a simple trick. Say you have a blue object and a red object on screen at the same time. You can make another object purple by giving it the red and the blue -- thus you have three colors but you're only "using" two colors.

[Joe Redifer]

I don't think you can mix colors. You can flash red and blue back and forth 60 times a second for a "fake purple". This technique is called HAM, or Hold and Modify. The TurboGrafx-16 loves this technique. I hate it because I can see the flicker. Regardless, that's still not simultaneous colors as only the red or blue are onscreen at any one time in that example.

[lordofduct]

Genesis can display more than 64 colors with a simple trick. Say you have a blue object and a red object on screen at the same time. You can make another object purple by giving it the red and the blue -- thus you have three colors but you're only "using" two colors.

Ummm... no

That is called HAM and it was developed for the Amiga system. It was through hardware and the Genny can't do it (also the genny is where the VDP is located even when the SegaCD is connected... so no gain from this hardware as well.)

As for Eternal Champions there are some tricks used.

I don't know which ones EC on SegaCD uses, but there ARE tricks like hilight/shadow mode (available on genny too), but this limites you to variants of the same color.

Another trick is between scanlines (as in interlaced mode half the screen is drawn then the other half to make one entire frame). One scanline trace uses one palette and the other uses another palette... again you are limited to 64 colors per horizontal scanline.

Using combinations of these you can get lots of colors (a dev'r I read about got a palette drawn of almost 1500 colors... but it slows downt he processor a lot).

No HAM though.



Oh and the turboG didn't use HAM either... it is called raster effect.

HAM uses a pixel depth of some sort that I don't really understand.

[Obviously]

I heard the SVP chip in Virtua Racing made the Genesis display more than 64 colors though I don't know how true that is either.

[Joe Redifer]

Explain this "raster effect". All I know is that it is very annoying and I think the NES did it as well.

The only Genesis game (or 32X or Sega CD) to run in interlaced mode was Sonic 2's two player. Every other game runs in 240p. There is a RIOT logo on some Mega CDs that do interlaced 480i, but it snaps back to 240p for the title screen.

[j_factor]

Genesis can display more than 64 colors with a simple trick. Say you have a blue object and a red object on screen at the same time. You can make another object purple by giving it the red and the blue -- thus you have three colors but you're only "using" two colors.

Ummm... no

That is called HAM and it was developed for the Amiga system. It was through hardware and the Genny can't do it (also the genny is where the VDP is located even when the SegaCD is connected... so no gain from this hardware as well.)

That's not HAM. HAM is when you hold a pixel and alter one of its color components (red blue or green). It's what allows an Amiga with 6-bit color to display up to 4096 colors, although it can cause some really bad artifacting if you're not careful with it. IIRC, HAM requires RGB to work properly, so of course Genny doesn't do it.

Although, I have heard from a couple places that Genny is capable of some sort of HAM-esque thing that involves holding the hue and changing the luminance, and that a few 3D (scaling sprites) games do that. I'm not positive about that though.


Oh and the turboG didn't use HAM either... it is called raster effect.

Genesis does raster effects too.

[Joe Redifer]

I've never seen static images on the Genesis flicker like they do on the TG-16. I'm sure the Genesis could do it if they wanted, but I never saw it do it. Ever notice how the Turbo and NES both shimmered like crazy when the screen scrolled (on a real TV, not an emulator), but never on a Sega system? Sega kicks ass.

[lordofduct]

Genesis can display more than 64 colors with a simple trick. Say you have a blue object and a red object on screen at the same time. You can make another object purple by giving it the red and the blue -- thus you have three colors but you're only "using" two colors.

Ummm... no

That is called HAM and it was developed for the Amiga system. It was through hardware and the Genny can't do it (also the genny is where the VDP is located even when the SegaCD is connected... so no gain from this hardware as well.)

That's not HAM. HAM is when you hold a pixel and alter one of its color components (red blue or green). It's what allows an Amiga with 6-bit color to display up to 4096 colors, although it can cause some really bad artifacting if you're not careful with it. IIRC, HAM requires RGB to work properly, so of course Genny doesn't do it.

Although, I have heard from a couple places that Genny is capable of some sort of HAM-esque thing that involves holding the hue and changing the luminance, and that a few 3D (scaling sprites) games do that. I'm not positive about that though.


Oh and the turboG didn't use HAM either... it is called raster effect.

Genesis does raster effects too.
First I never said that Genny didn't do raster effects. I know it does.

Second, in less technical terms HAM is displaying a color, and then displaying another color (altering the color, the color can only be offset by another color... through hue... may that be tint, color, shade) with it to create yet another color... which is basically what you said in a more convoluted manner.

Oh and the genny DOES do RGB... that's all it does. At the end of the entire line of chips just before it is output to your TV it converts the RGB to YUV (and also has a pass through of RGB for high end monitors.) The chip is called a composite encoder chip. The genny does not do YUV in it's VDP.

Raster effects is what I was talking about with EC and the scanlines.


Another trick is between scanlines (as in interlaced mode half the screen is drawn then the other half to make one entire frame). One scanline trace uses one palette and the other uses another palette... again you are limited to 64 colors per horizontal scanline.


oh yeah! see J_factor... I said the freaking thing used raster effects, just without actually saying it, but using it in an example.

*cough*

[lordofduct]

I've never seen static images on the Genesis flicker like they do on the TG-16. I'm sure the Genesis could do it if they wanted, but I never saw it do it. Ever notice how the Turbo and NES both shimmered like crazy when the screen scrolled (on a real TV, not an emulator), but never on a Sega system? Sega kicks ass.

Well the NES had flicker of objects for several reasons, not just color.

I'm not technically inclined in the NES though. But there are some things, like number of sprites, and it's slower clock speeds and the sort. I know the NES though had some strange technology in it for its time.

As for the PC Engine (trbo); it could be for many reasons as well... depending the coding tricks the programmer used.

What if they used raster effects by telling one of the two video processors to handle half the colors and the other one to handle the other half and displaying every other scanline, or top half bottom half... also they are slower 8bit processors as apposed to the Genesis's dedicated 16bit VDP. (they called the PCE 16bit do to the dual processors).

I was using interlaced mode as an example of different ways to pull off the raster effect... other things can be done where the top of the screen uses different colors from the bottom half (which is actually what I believe EC actually does.)

[Joe Redifer]

Oh and the genny DOES do RGB... that's all it does. At the end of the entire line of chips just before it is output to your TV it converts the RGB to YUV. Actually it just smashes it down into simple composite. I wish the Genesis output YUV component video.

Oh, and when I meant "flicker" I didn't mean sprite flicker. Still images with no sprites would "shimmer". It is hard to describe but the best way would be to say that it is flickering back and forth between two different fields, like interlacing, but only on a 240p plane.

[lordofduct]

Oh and the genny DOES do RGB... that's all it does. At the end of the entire line of chips just before it is output to your TV it converts the RGB to YUV. Actually it just smashes it down into simple composite. I wish the Genesis output YUV component video.

Oh, and when I meant "flicker" I didn't mean sprite flicker. Still images with no sprites would "shimmer". It is hard to describe but the best way would be to say that it is flickering back and forth between two different fields, like interlacing, but only on a 240p plane.

YUV is the acronym for composite video as your television excepts only a luminance/chrominance signal.

Svideo received the nickname YUV because it has the chrominance and luminance on two seperat lines. But regular RCA composite is also a YUV signal as well.

It is like when you are in Adobe Photoshop or MSPaint and you can choose your color palette to be in YUV mode or RGB mode.

Do this, go into MSPaint and click on 'colors' -> 'edit colors'
in the new window click 'Define Custom Color'

Now you see where you can place in integers for either Red/Green/Blue (RGB) or Hue/Sat/Lum (YUV). Those are color modes.

Well the same goes with composite cables. It sends a signal down the cable that has information about the chrominance and luminance and hue. They can be split up a mariad of ways...

Coaxial/RF - audio and YUV all in one cable
RCA - all together on one line seperated from audio
S-Vid - Chrominance and Luminance (hue is technically embedded in the chrominance... really hue is the combination of both parts in chrominance.)
Component - is weird, its not considered YUV... but it is YUV, but the TV or monitor can figure out the RGB from it easily as it is Chrominance broken into two parts (Pb and Pr) and then the luminance is carried on the green cable. When both the Pb and Pr signals are subtracted from the Y signal then you will know what the Green signal is.

Actually it should be said the other way around... all YUV signals are YPbPr or YCbCr (one is analog the other is digital respectively) as it is Chroma broken into it's parts.

[ary incorparated]

BTW you cant just count colors eyh,like Dk country may have 90 colors in screen but since the rest of the level is the same,It doesnt make a bigger total,like its about the amaunt of colors per level,BTW Colors are Colors ricgh and i can count over 64 colors in vectorman,and not nearly,But like most of the time,even vectorman,s in screen collours can go surpast 80 even if youre doing wild stuf and making a screenshot of it you maybe even can count over 100.BTW like You cant see all the animations at the same time,Vectorman isnt cheating in collors like have flikkering sprites to make transparency,ransparancie is a option so,Any ways the bullets and shadows arent really Transparancies but Heu effectes Lighten Darken effects not really that much of a probe normal,the lichtning reflections and Transparant effect come From the Alpha Channels,If vectorman is cheating with having over the 80 colors per screen way is DK country cheating then(sinse it uses FMV,s)the colors you can count are the colors you see constant.so MD can do over the 64. :D

[ary incorparated]

Joe did you recieve anything from me. :D,BTW rumor has it Ranger x has over the 64 colors in screen,If thats true someone show me a picture then please.I counted them and came at 45 or something,include transparacies,I know im al the way wrong counting colors.

[ary incorparated]

Ahh HAM mode,Color cycling.j factors right Hold and modify,hold it and mod it,And thats why color cycling stands for,like 1Dot is getting stored and van be displayed in multiple moving scanlines,like Ham can load pixels to move left to right hrizontal and vertical,even both tough then you would have fully 3d.Ham mode also could do 3d,like Batman returns CD and panorama cotton,alternate for Mode 7.But BTW wat J says is the same like a tv multiple its coloars,like you got Only 3 basic colors green Red and bleu,electronic canons project them on the screen and like there can be made tons of colours like bleu,gellow is green like putting red over makes it brown or somrthing etc etc,Every base of color is projected on a lumifore and all the colors shine trough a shadow mask and the colors get prjected on the Lumifore and the final electrons get converted to one piont and ,with old tv,s it was difficult so later they did it in the MOD technic.Ham stears much things,like it can hold Transpantic colors that are made by the Alpa chanels what J factor says like colors Lapping eachoters makes Transpancie,The Ham Modulator uploads it from the Alpha channels.Also ham mode can make Sprite scaling,Look at Yu yu hakusho Makyo toitishen battle Hrizontal and vertalical lines moving Paralax to eachother.In vectorman there are also levels which feature that. :D genesis can do Raster effects ofcourse,In raster modus it can display max over 1000 colors.

[Joe Redifer]

I didn't get anything in my e-mail, no. I even checked the spam flder on the server.

[ary incorparated]

Shitty pc of mine.Sorry ill try it aggain. :Dsorry cant satisfy you,My pc sucks hard and now im going to kick it to pieces. :D :evil:

[j_factor]

(they called the PCE 16bit do to the dual processors)

Actually I believe the PCE was considered 16-bit because of its 16-bit GPU...

As for the NES flicker, I've heard from a couple people that the problem is actually in the display output, not the processors or colors or anything like that. Supposedly, some Famiclones advertise a reduced (or eliminated) flicker effect.

[Joe Redifer]

That's possible. The flicker on the TG-16 seems to be very intentonal, though. I really need to record it and make an animated GIF. the Ys title screen is perfect.

[Joe Redifer]

OK here is what I am talking about with the TurboGrafx-16 (recorded from my system):

http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/ys.gif

Look at the blue "hair" and you'll see it is like it is alternating between 2 different images. Of course in real life the flickering is much faster. They are doing this on a standard 240p screen, and Ys is probably the worst offender that I know of on the system. Is this some sort of "raster" effect? It is annoying! I've seen the NES do this but NEVER a Sega system... ever.

[lordofduct]

(they called the PCE 16bit do to the dual processors)

Actually I believe the PCE was considered 16-bit because of its 16-bit GPU...

As for the NES flicker, I've heard from a couple people that the problem is actually in the display output, not the processors or colors or anything like that. Supposedly, some Famiclones advertise a reduced (or eliminated) flicker effect.

Oh yes your right... the 2 GPUs are 16 bit, but the main processor is 8 bit.

I knew it was something fishy about it and why the Genny was considered the first 'true' 16-bit console.

[Elusive]

The main processor - the brain behind the machine - is 8-bit. Hence, the machine itself can only be considered an eight-bit machine.

The Super NES is a 16-bit machine, but put on a crappy 8-bit bus, a remnant from early production when it WAS intended to be NES-compatible. Like putting an insanely powerful engine into a rusty old junkyard car. Hence, technically, the machine is 8-bit.

The Atari Lynx apparently has '32-bit sound', which comes from adding up the four 8-bit sound channels XD

[ary incorparated]

Atari lynx is crap.So what youre saying is that the main Snes processor is 8,Could be possible,maybe thats why its so freaking slow.But if Turbo Graphix is 8 bit why does it shows Spriggen with over 50 colors simultaineously.Oke its the main but do to its graphics and overal showing its more 16 then 8 i purpose.Oke it has a dual 16 bit GPU drive and the main is 8,but i think it shows of 16 bit in music,graphics instead of eight.Like even some games look even better then snes. :D

[ary incorparated]

BTW the genesis does Statical flicker some thimes,like streets of rage 2,when much enemys come in youre character flickers awful.If thats what the meaning is about?.But genesis can also flicker an image to make like a fake transparant image,its just flickering so fast that it look transparant,like gunstar,Maybe thats why they build some images In hotizontal line,since the Frequencie is scrolling from up to down it can shatter animations.sins the genny can proces like 7,5 hz.BTW Nec turbographx does over 64 easely,but then the background isnt animated,just a photo or something,Same as DK country.

[Joe Redifer]

Again, I'm not talking about sprite flicker.

[ary incorparated]

im talking about it,What are you talking about then,Ahh never mind,my english wouldnt understand it i Think,Thanx for the advice. :D

[ary incorparated]

Oks aggain we where talking about the 32x mega memory,Hey and thats wises to the piont that bits dont matter,only that it can read lesser at the time,Look pc engine has 2X16 GPU but 1 X 8 bit cpu mian so it can do 16 bit only not so good as snes or megadrive,maybe in screen but then maybe nothing is animated,Or the music does suck,or games with much slowdown,while sprites and animations are uploading etc,Like A boat with :roll: sissy steering man.BTW you that about the flickering between two colors ,it aint treu in vectorman,You can see the diffrence,thtas not Ham tough.Say if you make a Print screen with the emulator,count for yourself transpancie,Alpha channels yes.BTW i didnt like turbographix,Only Strip fighter2 and Street fighter 2 are the ones i really like.K.O.f 2000 etc also uses that flicker between colors to make thing seem like a Afterimage whil not. :D

[ary incorparated]

Joe i sent the picture to you. check youre mail. :D

[Joe Redifer]

Yeah I got it. I didn't count but it looks like less than 32 colors on the screen to me.

http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/vectorman.png

[ary incorparated]

32,thats not true,more like 40 with the afterimages.But i didnt play the entire game to make screenshots,the later levels look nicer,ill try to make some shots,en BTW count the Transparancie on the screen,that increases collours unnoticed.What you see is not what you get,and since you can shot youre transparantic bullets in every direction vectorman can go over 125.Like J Factor sead,two colour that make a transparancie.Count em"and youlle know im right,i edited a pallette bar ,didnt i :D Give me a better example,since genesis can do over 64 colours,i prove that Right,hehehe.Ristar looked great 2 but didnt had over 64 colours,cause it didnt used Transparancie.Expect some more screens from me Joe i try to sent you better ones when im not getting bored of it. :D :D

[Obviously]

I'm not sure what we're trying to prove anymore. I don't think the stock Genesis ever goes beyond 64 colors because it's just something it can't do. I'd love to see a screenshot that would prove it wrong though.

[ary incorparated]

Prove it right,Copy it and count the colours,It defnitly proves right.Therefore i try to make more screens. :D

[ary incorparated]

I got a few more for you Joe,Maybe youre happy with it dont know,Thanx for Placing my picture,apreciate it. :D,I send em" to you,hope its not a bother for posting screens to you.Grey scaled Transpantics,etc etc is not relevant.wats relevant is that genesis is pushing the limit of 64 colours to over 70,count for yourselfs,but its hard to count the total even impossibel,then you have to count every Frame,every animation,every single colour possible at that moment,They say if Vectorman is fully functioning per screen,like all the Transpantics and al the sprites,animation at the smae tme it could reach over 125 colours.The diffrence between this and DK country is,vectorman doesnt use fotos as background,foreground layer to make it look good.Look like we know,snes has a lack of Animation compared to megadrive,and the processor is way to slow to handle that much on screen.Vectorman puts its colours in animations,Animating Frames.DK looks nice and has over 70 colours per screen but hey not much is animated exept the enemie Frames and the things like Bananas etc,No special effect just DK enemys,Projects.Vectorman does like Gunstar,only not that explosive,But it puts all the animation and colours in forming sprites,Like bullets Enemies,and Gunshots,Background light,an the background animates.DK Has stiff background and no SE,plus the background isnt moving most of the time,its just a photo,Digitized. :D

[ary incorparated]

Obviously,Obviously you didnt count the colours yet,count em and youlle count over 60,copy it and you can count in paint.

[Melf]

Are those true colors or just shades though? I thought that the only Genesis-related game to do more than 64 true colors onscreen at once was Eternal Champions on Sega CD.

[ary incorparated]

hey melf,that should be treu but,then aggain didnt count over 70 colors in eternal champions at all,But you know where doing actually wrong,you cant just count colors o screen because we always forget sprites or possible animations like Gunstar looks nice but doesnt show over 60 colors,Maybe when all the possible explosions are seen on screen,DK country does over 90 colors on screen,But that because it are Photo images,and you see and count 90+ colors but the level doesnt vary taht mcuh you can see the same Jungle repeating all over the level,Like maybe in vectorman you van count 70 inc Transparancie but the whole level isnt the same.Thats why the total level colours possibly can go over 512,Whcih is the main pallette,But genesis can do even over 512 in pallette it can go upp to 2000 i read,In raster modus.These are treu colors that you can see,Transparancie i see em as treu colors and the fact is it shows over 64 colors on screen.These colors are lighten darken,Color cycling.But if you say that they arent real,there are real colors that show over 60 then,Like a yellow lamp,veccie stands under it plus level colours,You dont have shade but just Transparancie(alpha Channels).Wich are treu so stil veciie can go bear or over 64 true colors,I possibly think that gensis could do it often,with transparancie included.Rumor has it Ranger x shows over 64 colours,thats Bull.

[Melf]

I don't know about the cart games, but Eternal Champions on CD does display 256. It's the only game to do so. I wonder why no one else was ever able to get that kind of performance out of the Sega CD. Games like Batman Returns and the FMV titles sure could have used it.

[lordofduct]

well things like FMV wouldn't of been able to use it because it takes programming techniques to pull off... you don't get a lot of programming access to the encoding of the video.

And it was done more often... maybe not as offen in the 256 range, but several games surpassed the 64 color limit. And no Eternal Champions didn't do 256 TRUE colours... the VDP just plain ol' can't handle that many simultaneous true colours. It takes techniques to pull off variants of an already apparent palette... and the more you do it, the processing power it takes and the less power reserves you have left to put towards other things.

[j_factor]

I've heard Snatcher does 128.

[ary incorparated]

I know thats Bull,didnt count over 35 colours in that game,even FMV,s on the mega cd came nearly 60.Eternal champions dont have 256 colours simultaineously in screen,then we know it would look more like a neo geo AES fighting game.Snatcher is nice but not that colourfull that it shows over 128 even not since its a fmv game,its a Port game and also appeared on pc engine cd,Turbo duo.So why would that one be a exeption on the mega cd and show over 128 colours,Anybodyb who thinks that vectorman isnt the only game that show over 65 colors,show the pictures or screenshots,Like post one form eternal champions that shows over 128,hehe,Be pleased to do that.maybe vectorman has(so called)fals graphics, it is just the only game on genesis that shows over 64.Snes does easely over 100 colors on screen,but then a lot of animations mis and sprites are limited(axellay)like Axellay lloks impressive mode 7 stuff but then comes the crap,enemys scroll away with the background,they arte pasted on the background,WTF sprites that are a pattern of the background,looks ugly as hell.same as that game used diffrent sprites to animate,like the fire youre ship shoots is a simple not moving sprite and i also think youre ship is just a plain ol sprite or Photo.while snes shows over 100 colours,genesis animates lott more with lesser colors,the explosion gunstar does,snes games dont and thats the diffrence in Graphix.

[ary incorparated]

But i have i question just a outta place one,Why does vectorman Pall sounds damn slow on a Megadriev and faster on a genesis Nomad,And why do Japanese games sound to slow when they are converted to pal.actually are there converters who can convert genesis games to Pal.?

[David J.]

PAL is 50hz, while NTSC is 60hz, meaning it's faster.

[FishySaysSpoon]

Eternal champions does somesorta trick and does display 256 colors. I heard however its only during the title screen and not the actual game itself.

[Mendicant]

PAL is 50hz, while NTSC is 60hz, meaning it's faster.
Or... if you prefer a complicated explanation...

The PAL video format runs at 25 frames per second. NTSC runs at 29.97 frames per second. The video format used in Japan is NTSC. When a game is developed in Japan (or the US), it is created to run at roughly 30 FPS.

2D Videogames in general do not keep track of time, they keep track of frames.

Let's say you are a game developer in Japan. You are creating an animation for a character that is 2.5 seconds in duration. You create 75 frames and that's that. At 30 FPS, you get a 2.5 second animation. You instruct the game to show frames 1 through 75. The NTSC console automatically shows 1 frame for every 1/30th of a second that passes. The sound department sends you a 2.5 second audio clip, perfectly synchronized with the 2.5 second animation which you have created.

Now, lets say you have to convert the game to run on a PAL console. You have two options.

You can either re-calculate EVERYTHING. 2.5 seconds of animation at 25 FPS requires either 62 or 63 frames. At 62 frames, it's a little less than 2.5 seconds. At 63 frames, it's a little more than 2.5 seconds. The animation needs to be edited. The art department has to figure out which frames to keep and which frames to throw out. Any part of the game that shows the 2.5 second animation needs to be re-coded, so that it shows frames 1 through 62 (or 63). And the audio might need to be re-edited. A change in frame rate will alter the overall "balance" of the game.

Or... you can just slow down the sound. 75 frames at 25 FPS is exactly 3 seconds in duration. The overall speed of the game is slower. But all you had to do was slow down the sound to match the video.

That concludes my complicated explanation. :)

[ary incorparated]

Thanx mendicant,But strange even vectorman Pal sounds slow on a Pal megadrive,so it has to do with the convertion of 50 and 60HZ thanx.But if vectorman just shows fake colours,Transparation and heu up down,Lighten darken,Shadow effects,What does it make 50% of the snes Yup Fake Screen,DK uses FMV to look nice or just a standart photo,much snes games have Transparacies,Contra 3,Oooh hey Transparancies make a game fake(Graphically)look if i mean true colours i mean true,Its not only about the Lighten darken,Shadow effects,Its also about the A channel effect,Transparancies.If you stand under a Lamp in one of the later levels in vectorman you directly can add much colours which make the total over 60.The rest Is Bull Further more there arent more genny or MDCD games that use over 60 colours simultainiously,That Rumor has it story about Ranger x is Bull,So is the story behind Eternal champions CD,Yeah right over 256 colours wouldnt it look like K.O.F 2000 then.

[j_factor]

But 2d games usually run at 60 fps. Even on Genesis. That's not to say that they actually have that many frames of animation, but the "screen rate" is 60 fps.

[Mendicant]

But 2d games usually run at 60 fps. Even on Genesis. That's not to say that they actually have that many frames of animation, but the "screen rate" is 60 fps.

A console might calculate things at 60 fps, but the "screen rate" can't be more than 30 FPS. NTSC Televisions cannot show more than 30 frames per second. It wouldn't make sense to program a game that drew 60 frames per second, because half of the frames can not be shown.

[Joe Redifer]

Oh man. I hate getting into this but I must! I can't resist!

Yes, NTSC runs at 29.97 "frames" per second. Each frame has 2 fields on an interlaced display. Each field can be two different images, or two different moments in time, if you will. Therefore you can have 60 different screen updates each second. If you were to videotape something on a camcorder at "60fps" as most every camcorder does, it would look like, well, camcorder footage. If you were to videotape something with a camcorder that can record at 30fps or 24fps, it will look much different since both fields are from the same moment in time. It would look closer to a movie as far as the motion is concerned and you would be able to detect that it is more "strobey" than cheap-o camcorders that only to "60fps". So 60"fps" may not be a technically accurate term, but it is definitely acceptable.

Now here is where things get even more confusing and fun. The Genesis does not run on an interlaced system. It runs in progressive scan on regular NTSC and/or PAL TVs. Each "field" is drawn on the same set of lines. The entire Genesis "frame" is drawn all in one pass. Since you are looking at progressive scan (240p) when playing on a normal analog TV, the Genesis is updating the screen either with scrolling, sprite movement/placement, or new animation frames 60 different times per second. Except in games like X-Men, where the screen only updates one or twice every few seconds. God DAMN that game was choppy! A good example is Wonder Boy III on the Sega Master System. The game scrolls at 30fps. It looks choppy. But Dragon's Curse on the TurboGrafx-16 (the same game) scrolls at 60fps and it is much smoother as a result. So yes, it does run at 60fps and that term is accurate for those older game systems. Note that you can't play the Genesis in its native progressive scan on an HDTV since no HDTV supports 240p as 240p and instead "upscales" it and treats it as typical 480i. That makes it look blockier. Sonic 2's two player mode is the ONLY 16-bit game to run in interlaced mode. If there is another on any other system, I'd like to know about it.

[ary incorparated]

isnt sonic 3?

[Joe Redifer]

Isn't Sonic 3 what?

[Drixxel]

A game that runs in interlaced mode, perhaps?
I pretty sure the answer to that, though, is "no."

[Joe Redifer]

Nah, Sonic runs in 240p. It may have more horizontal resolution since some games have 256 pixels across and some have 320... at least I'm pretty sure.

[j_factor]

Sonic 2's two-player mode runs in interlaced but Sonic 3's doesn't? Why didn't they interlace again?

[Joe Redifer]

Probably because people bitched about the "squashed" look of Sonic 2's two player mode. All they really did for Sonic 2 is take two different screens and compress them to half-height but without losing any resolution. It really is a testament to the Genesis' power running what basically amounts to two Sonic 2 games running at once on the same system. That's why there's fewer enemies and more slowdown, etc.

[ary incorparated]

Is it me or are sonic 3 and knukles slowwer then Sonic 2

[Obviously]

The gameplay is at a slower pace because you can do a lot more exploring in Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

[ary incorparated]

Okay thanx ,obviously i didnt notice.But yeah the gensis stock goes rarely over 64 but thanx to much animations everything lookes nicer on genny,genny cd then on snes like uge explosions etc,Snes just uses the same sprites like 4 or 5 times while not animating it,or the graphics look blend or the character lookes dull.there arent even genesis games that run near 60 or 60,Only vectorman goes over 60 in some kind o way screenshot prove that.Eternal champions no way and BTW that game is boring a bit.Batman and robin nope and defnitly not ranger x but still nice games,Only veccie goes over it because of the lightning and Transpantic effects.If veccie is false in counting colours then DK country is 10 times falser.

[Vorty]

Snatcher!

===========D

[ary incorparated]

Neh vorty i,post a screenshot with over the 60 colours,Its a port and its on the nec to so would be impressive,neeh i dont think it has its just a specullation.And eternal champions no way and that game isnt that great either.Ranger x nope,Vectorman Yes.

[ary incorparated]

Maybe Flink,and a mate of my sead Pugsy(that game just sucks.)

[ary incorparated]

Please reply,show me a pic of a game with over 60 colours,simultaineously.

[ary incorparated]

Maybe snatcher,FMV on mega cd obviously could do it,Tru video,256 colors and Ham mode 128.Why is the so called snes on screen pallete four times bigger MD 64 and snes 256,if that was so,then snes would look like psx,we know that snes uses Frames and stuf for that but the diffrence between coulours is almost absurd high.Like megadrive games always have tons more animations and backgrouds moving,Aladin beeing good example but MD mostly show not more then 50 colours in screen,maybe MDCD made the trick of ham and showed over 128(maybe thats why they say that MDcd can do better then snes?)

[Joe Redifer]

According to programmer David Perry you could put all 512 colors onscreen simultaneously, but at a great cost of processing speed.

[ary incorparated]

Cool,lets try it out,heheheh lets make streets of rage 4 for the genesis Full color and some proccessing candy inside the cartrideg,overclocking md to do the trick etc.and the full sound,Yamaha 6888+TI67800(dunno for shure)no i cant do that,just kidding.Maybe in some weird way that some people are still trying that trick of 512.

[ary incorparated]

its possible indeed,only worth to be shown,mickey mania goes over 256 in some scenes,only the md,mdcd,psx.the snes version is missing textures on doors etc.maybe its stil worth making games for the system,cause retro stil rules eyh.

[ary incorparated]

hmm yes snatcher could have doen it best version on mdcd,Etrenal champions graphics in game,nooooh hell noooh its obviously good looking but the background are somthimes yuck like the african stage,if it has to be done i can post a screenshot.

[ary incorparated]

According to programmer David Perry you could put all 512 colors onscreen simultaneously, but at a great cost of processing speed.

If hes according to that is it been doen then,extra proceesing is been doen Vracing and f22 intercpter z80 for some extra makes the total of 13,5 hz and genesis is overklockable to 13 ,5 mhz.Gensis may have some software upgrades while doing that no probe snes did that all the time while gensis somethimes not often,so why not ,Vracing did it and a few others.vectorman uses 512 colors per level so it is possible showing like a stage in one screen fitted,like the whole stage its colors 512 compacted to just one screen with 512,and that needs processing yess hell much of that ,and asking processing would ask to offer things like animations i think.some games like vectorman are using the pallete all the time 512 full colours intact in the stage so theyre all putted in work.possuble yes but dunno what does the trick im still curious same like you guys,mickey mania does 256 ive been told ooh yeah where?it looks great but where 256 and the sega one has the extra textures and all idem for psx version.

[ary incorparated]

Are those true colors or just shades though? I thought that the only Genesis-related game to do more than 64 true colors onscreen at once was Eternal Champions on Sega CD.

Huh what where.I like the music gore and fatalitys in the game,but i think even the cart game looks nicer in some pqaces like the theatre has lesser colours in EC CD where are the 256 colors ive never seen em count like 32 or something please oh please show youre angle of the 256 colours in this game via a screenshot.But i think everybody thinks some genesis games have more colors cause they just play it with an RF cabel that makes it bit interpolated which looks nice,run Eternal champions trough emulator it isnt much better then its genesis counterpart seriously runing on gens it hurts youre eyes very badd so less colors and such good music HUH?.

[ary incorparated]

When the F..ck will i stop posting too much messenges i a row?LOL.

[j_factor]

According to programmer David Perry you could put all 512 colors onscreen simultaneously, but at a great cost of processing speed.

I was just thinking... couldn't you just split the screen 4 ways, each 1/4 having a different set of 64 colors?

[ary incorparated]

Like comix zone?,but that one doesnt? TG16 could do it with ways weaker stuff build in it so why shouldnt a genesis can do it,tough never seen it.the only game i saw running over 64 was vectorman but that game use higlight and shadow technik and we know if genesis uses that it can go up to 1024 colors in screen.But in comparisment,genesis games can held their own aggainst snes Only the colors are 4 times as small in screen.

[Joe Redifer]

The Turbo could put up over 400 colors simultaneously without any tricks.

[ary incorparated]

How its pallet is 500 and i never seen those 400 in screen and never something close to that a 8 machine.Hows that more memory or something?.oh yeah and how about the animations and stuff it is a 8 but machine offically,i bet i has many many weaknesses compared to genesis.and i only do like 5games for the machine.

[ary incorparated]

I was just thinking... couldn't you just split the screen 4 ways, each 1/4 having a different set of 64 colors?

Genesis can and does use 512 colkors in screen per level over the entire level that why Joe says it takes more processing speed cause genesis can only load a part of the 512 1/8 part of the pallet @max running at 7,56 herts and even without occasional slowdown,for instance batman and robin,that one goes fast and stuff,i think yes the genesis would be slower then and it shurely need the bypass of 13,4 hz to handle all 512,The 512 colors are there in most game the levels are varyating as you can notice,the only sort of games i think taht can use that are fighting games one screen and its animations @ the time adventure games could go over 64 offcourse using shadings,and even with programming techniques genesis can do 1024 raster effect or layer for transparantic effetc same as used in RKA and in Ranger x the red transparacies when youd get hit,and in vectorman,if they like can use transparantic effect for fireballs special moves in those games then it would be awesome.

[evildragon]

Probably because people bitched about the "squashed" look of Sonic 2's two player mode. All they really did for Sonic 2 is take two different screens and compress them to half-height but without losing any resolution. It really is a testament to the Genesis' power running what basically amounts to two Sonic 2 games running at once on the same system. That's why there's fewer enemies and more slowdown, etc.
If I may add to this, the Genesis supports TWO official interlaced modes.. Rare, but they do exist.

(i don't know specifically what the modes are called)
Mode 1: Double Playfield (used in Sonic 2)
Mode 2: 320x448/480 (NTSC/PAL) OR 640x448/480

Only ONE emulator can support the high resolution mode, and that is KEGA Fusion..

http://blackevilweredragon.spymac.com/genhighres.PNG

-------------------------------------------

Oh, and btw, to your animated GIF earlier, about the flickering.. That looks like NTSC dot-crawl.. See, some consoles use 240p differently.. Genesis uses all even fields, and no odd. (because of this, i found that some TV tuner cards don't like the Genesis at all).. While some consoles, including NES and SNES, internally do 480i, but combine the fields into one.. Since dot crawl moves upward at 30fps, when combined into a single field, it causes flickering... And your screenshot looks very much like that.. To confirm, load the same game in an emulator..

I know about the two above facts because I have messed with Sega Genesis programming, and I deal with a lot of NTSC/PAL/SECAM hardware..

[Joe Redifer]

I agree that it is dot crawl seen in 240p mode, but I dunno about the SNES/NES/Turbo etc rendering in 480i. I haven't seen any dot crawl on the SNES. I play the Turbo in component video and the flickering/dot crawl is completely gone, so it is the result of the NTSC composite encoder chip.

I have yet to meet a TV that can't handle the Genesis video. Also what game uses the 640x448 mode? I don't think any do.

[evildragon]

Well, the SNES and NES don't render in 480i per say, but the encoder internally handles full spec NTSC (480i), then just combines the fields.. But the consoles in the PPU are doing 240p... It's their wacky encoder..

A TV to Computer Monitor adapter won't handle the Genesis video, it just freezes up.. Like, if I leave in Sonic 2, you can hear it, but can't see it, but as soon as the interlaced 480i split screen demo starts, THEN you see a picture...

There was a racing game for the Genesis that used the 640x448 mode, I can't remember which though.. Google yields no help, because not allot of people even know what the difference between 480i and 240p is...

The Genesis takes advantage to make more colors, and fake transparency, with it's weak video output... Proof is easy...

The Genesis really is outputting what it renders.. So it's only output 320 pixels visible width, and because the nature of Composite video, two pixels next to each other get mashed into each other.. So with dithering, it can make a new color.. Also with vertically striped sprites, like those in Sonic 2's Trees leaves on level one, it can appear as transparency on composite video.. (only NTSC.. PAL is better, and it really shows the stripes)..

Here:
From Genesis RGB: http://blackevilweredragon.spymac.com/lines.jpg
From Genesis Composite Video: http://blackevilweredragon.spymac.com/realgenesis.jpg
Also notice the waterfall appears transparent on this Composite monitor, but if you run the level with an emulator, it's vertical solid stripes: http://www.spymac.com/upload/gallery/2006/03/08/g462975_segamonitor1.jpg

So, that same technique can be used to simulate more colors, than there really is...

[Joe Redifer]

That's been discussed a lot here, actually. Those photos are a bit deceiving. I used to run my Genesis in RF and composite for a long time, and I could always tell where they used dithering or mesh. When I rented Eternal Champions it looked like a grainy mess to me (both the regular and Sega CD versions). So I guess they are depending on people to have really bad displays (and mine were even cheap). With RGB now it is so much better and I could never go back.

There was a racing game for the Genesis that used the 640x448 mode, I can't remember which though.
I'm sorry, but you are going to have to remember, as I will need to purchase that game immediately. Does the whole game run in that mode?

[evildragon]

It totally depends on the Genesis used, and the encoding mechanism (PAL or NTSC).. PAL you can see the dithering.. NTSC, not so easily.. Some games in NTSC you can see the dithering, it all depends on the combination of colors.. Also, some Genesis's contain an encoder from one company, while another encoder from another.. One of the encoders are weaker.. (if you have a 32X, this changes.. The encoder in the 32X is stronger... and the 32X takes the RGB from the Genesis, overlays it's layer of graphics, and outputs RGB and Composite)..

The racing game, I believe, ran totally in the high-res mode.. I seriously don't remember the name of the game.. Steve Snake, creater of KEGA Fusion, told me about the game.. I don't think I remember, because he didn't remember, thus I don't know...

As for my screenshots, in order:
Screenshot 1: RGB to an old IBM monitor
Screenshot 2: Composite to an 27" HDTV
Screenshot 3: Composite to RGB converter, using same IBM monitor as screenshot 1.

^ those that were Composite were NTSC, and using a model II genesis..

[Joe Redifer]

Be sure to check out my article (http://www.sega-16.com/Seeing%20is%20Believing-%20Video%20Connections.php) I wrote a while back. I now have a much better TV and camera.

[evildragon]

i've seen that actually, good article..

[Joe Redifer]

If the creator of the only emulator that can support the 640x448 game doesn't know what it is called, then how does he even know that it exists? He would have to have a ROM of the game in order to verify compatibility. I call shenanigans. Until you can tell me the name of the game so I can see for myself, I must assume that such a game does not exist.

[evildragon]

If the creator of the only emulator that can support the 640x448 game doesn't know what it is called, then how does he even know that it exists? He would have to have a ROM of the game in order to verify compatibility. I call shenanigans. Until you can tell me the name of the game so I can see for myself, I must assume that such a game does not exist.
He reversed engineered it, and had been hired by SEGA to do the PC version of the Smash Pack..

You did see my screenshot above, right? That was a high-res demo (that particular one was 320x448)..
---------------------------------------
This was when I was still learning about the Genesis hardware, and getting REALLY in deep with it..

This is from Steve Snake, the creator of KEGA: "There are only 3 games that use it as far as I am aware. Sonic 2 is one of them, the other two are racing games... I don't remember the names of them off hand, I'm sure somebody will... "

Here is the forum thread and page: http://gens.consolemul.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=6;t=275;st=120

[j_factor]

Is Street Racer one of them? I vaguely remember hearing that it ran in a higher resolution than normal.

[evildragon]

Is Street Racer one of them? I vaguely remember hearing that it ran in a higher resolution than normal.
Just tried it, it's not.. BUT, that game is interesting, it is pulling off some Mode 7 like graphics, AND REAL translucency..

How could it possibly do that, with NO supporting chips?

[evildragon]

I would like to state a possible correction.. the genesis may only be able to render 320 pixels in width, but it does have a max of 320x448/480 (and it does NOT have to be a split-screen, it can be a full-screen image)..

And someone programmed the Genesis VDP to output 1,536 colors at once... http://cgfm2.emuviews.com/old2001.php

[Joe Redifer]

I know a few Japanese Mega CD games from RIOT have the 320x448 mode for the RIOT logo at the beginning before it switches to 240p. Unfortunately it isn't real high resolution, it is just line doubled up from 240p.

Not sure why you needed an amp for your 32X RGB. Quite odd. My 32X works via RGB and looks pretty much next to no different than direct RGB out of the Genesis (without first going through the 32X).

Also I only count 1409 colors on that guy's 1536 color demo (really, I am not joking). I would like to see this on real hardware.

[evildragon]

I know a few Japanese Mega CD games from RIOT have the 320x448 mode for the RIOT logo at the beginning before it switches to 240p. Unfortunately it isn't real high resolution, it is just line doubled up from 240p.

Not sure why you needed an amp for your 32X RGB. Quite odd. My 32X works via RGB and looks pretty much next to no different than direct RGB out of the Genesis (without first going through the 32X).

Also I only count 1409 colors on that guy's 1536 color demo (really, I am not joking). I would like to see this on real hardware.
the 320x448 mode i am talking about shows real 480 discrete lines, not line doubling...

my 32X had to be amped, because the IBM monitor I was using was very old, and was not totally designed for a 15KHz sync...

his demo has source code in it.. it appears it just uses highlight and shadow trickery to achieve more colors...

[ary incorparated]

hmm that as first and to see this come true once in agame we have seen a 256 colors in screen demo and now this now let the 256 colors in screen magic once happen to a genesis game.

[j_factor]

Just tried it, it's not.. BUT, that game is interesting, it is pulling off some Mode 7 like graphics, AND REAL translucency..

How could it possibly do that, with NO supporting chips?

It's actually not totally pulling off a Mode 7 effect. It gives that illusion, but it's not true playfield rotation like Mode 7 has. But it does look just as good. It also helps that the graphics in general are sharp and detailed.

Basically, Street Racer gives the illusion of playfield rotation just with simple scrolling. One scrolling layer is used for the road you're on, and besides scrolling forward, it actually scrolls with the turns unlike most Genesis racers. The other scrolling layer is used for the background, which scrolls sideways when you turn. Thus it gives the illusion of a Mode 7 effect.

There's actually an SNES version too, which fully uses Mode 7, and it looks better, but not that much.

[Black_Tiger]

Also I don't remember Vectorman using more then 64 colors... the genny just plain ol' can't do it.

maybe possibly give the illusion of it by palette swapping and shadowing sprites over other sprites... but still even then you are limited to grey shading a color.

And I still don't even think that it is possible, I'm not well knowledged in the field.

it's the math, you have a chip at the end of the line that allows a passthrough of a bandwidth of 64 colors... you try to shove 70 through it gets bottlenecked.

It's like shoving 150MBytes down the PCI bus on your computer simultaneousily... it just doesn't happen... you are allowed only 133MB NO MORE.

Vectorman has more tha 75 colors onscreen at a time, or at least that's what gets spit out of an emulator. It looks like a below average Genesis game color-wise, but it's supposed to all be there onscreen.

Snatcher reportedly used a programming trick to allow up to 106 or so colors onscreen at a time, but both the PCE and Sega-CD versions look like they don't use more than 40 or 50. Back when someone from Konami told EGM about this, they mentioned how the PCE system or it's version of Snatcher was '256 colors', so take that into consideration.

There are other games that supposedly allow more than a system's colors on screen limit, but I don't know how true it is. When a developer mentions it, they might be counting dithering as like, half the colors or something.

Killer Instinct was supposed to use 512 colors at a time, but the screenshots I've taken only had around 140. Final Fantasy III SNES was supposed to have 256 colors in fights, but it looks like it only uses a number that the Genesis could do.

Of course, if you consider "true transparencies" as part of onscreen color numbers, then SNES games get into the thousands.

[evildragon]

i could use photoshop to tell me the ammount of colors used in a game, if i had too... i know exactly how to pull that off, and it's an exact ammount of on-screen colors...

[Black_Tiger]

How its pallet is 500 and i never seen those 400 in screen and never something close to that a 8 machine.Hows that more memory or something?.oh yeah and how about the animations and stuff it is a 8 but machine offically,i bet i has many many weaknesses compared to genesis.and i only do like 5games for the machine.

It's because on screen color limits don't mean anything, even for the Genesis, which comes closest to it's mox the most.

All the bottlenecks like per sprite color limits and sprite vs bg palletes(which restricts the SNES' 32000 total pallete) are what dictate the number of onscreen colors in a game. Most of the most colorful Turbo games use between 70 - 90 colors at a time.

From what I understand, the SNES can use one bg image with a lot of color, but the sprites and tiles and such are still bottlenecked like the Genesis, so they're not really that much more colorful. Which is why a SNES game technically displaying 140 colors doesn't look that much more colorful than a Turbo game technically displaying 70 colors and a Genesis game technically displaying 40 colors still doesn't look too far off either.

[evildragon]

hmm, streetracer, in the second title-screen demo (the dark and erie one), counts 65 colors in photoshop...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v395/Evilweredragon/gencolor2.png

and this one, is 91 colors on screen...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v395/Evilweredragon/gencolor1.png

[Joe Redifer]

I confirm your color counts, but next time try to post a 1:1 sized pic because I don't trust scaling. Some methods like bicubic will add thousands of colors just trying to anti-alias the new blocky edges. Anyway those transparencies are just the Genesis' highlight and shadow mode. The system can do this naturally. Why more developers didn't use this is beyond me. Maybe most developers are retarded?

[evildragon]

I confirm your color counts, but next time try to post a 1:1 sized pic because I don't trust scaling. Some methods like bicubic will add thousands of colors just trying to anti-alias the new blocky edges. Anyway those transparencies are just the Genesis' highlight and shadow mode. The system can do this naturally. Why more developers didn't use this is beyond me. Maybe most developers are retarded?
that's why i only scale with nearest neighbor, it just's pixel doubling, no filtering (which, like you said, interpolates between color transitions)

[Black_Tiger]

I confirm your color counts, but next time try to post a 1:1 sized pic because I don't trust scaling. Some methods like bicubic will add thousands of colors just trying to anti-alias the new blocky edges. Anyway those transparencies are just the Genesis' highlight and shadow mode. The system can do this naturally. Why more developers didn't use this is beyond me. Maybe most developers are retarded?

That would explain a lot. :)

[Joe Redifer]

evildragon please download every Japanese racing game for the Mega Drive and test out the resolution. We must find these extra two high-res games that BLOW EVERYTHING ELSE AWAY!

I know the SNES had an interlace mode. I don't think any games ever used it at any time, did they? Could the Turbo/PC Engine do interlace? Sega Master System? Atari 2600?

[Black_Tiger]

Oh man. I hate getting into this but I must! I can't resist!

Yes, NTSC runs at 29.97 "frames" per second. Each frame has 2 fields on an interlaced display. Each field can be two different images, or two different moments in time, if you will. Therefore you can have 60 different screen updates each second. If you were to videotape something on a camcorder at "60fps" as most every camcorder does, it would look like, well, camcorder footage. If you were to videotape something with a camcorder that can record at 30fps or 24fps, it will look much different since both fields are from the same moment in time. It would look closer to a movie as far as the motion is concerned and you would be able to detect that it is more "strobey" than cheap-o camcorders that only to "60fps". So 60"fps" may not be a technically accurate term, but it is definitely acceptable.

Now here is where things get even more confusing and fun. The Genesis does not run on an interlaced system. It runs in progressive scan on regular NTSC and/or PAL TVs. Each "field" is drawn on the same set of lines. The entire Genesis "frame" is drawn all in one pass. Since you are looking at progressive scan (240p) when playing on a normal analog TV, the Genesis is updating the screen either with scrolling, sprite movement/placement, or new animation frames 60 different times per second. Except in games like X-Men, where the screen only updates one or twice every few seconds. God DAMN that game was choppy! A good example is Wonder Boy III on the Sega Master System. The game scrolls at 30fps. It looks choppy. But Dragon's Curse on the TurboGrafx-16 (the same game) scrolls at 60fps and it is much smoother as a result. So yes, it does run at 60fps and that term is accurate for those older game systems. Note that you can't play the Genesis in its native progressive scan on an HDTV since no HDTV supports 240p as 240p and instead "upscales" it and treats it as typical 480i. That makes it look blockier. Sonic 2's two player mode is the ONLY 16-bit game to run in interlaced mode. If there is another on any other system, I'd like to know about it.

Are you sure about WBIII running at 30fps? I thought that it was more like 20fps tops.

[evildragon]

k, i started my download of massive ZIP files full of games.. i also got my EEPROM programmer ready too..

[Joe Redifer]

Awesome. Can't wait to see the results. These games should be pretty cheap (hopefully) on the 'Bay as well.

Are you sure about WBIII running at 30fps? I thought that it was more like 20fps tops.
Dude. Now you will make me drag my SMS up to my computer to record it and count the framerate!

[evildragon]

Woah, most TV tuners only capture 30fps.. Some 3rd party utilities like DScaler can show live content at max of 60fps from interlaced content (it interpolates frames VERY well, and it's hard to tell from a 480p from a 480i source on it)

That's the problem with capture cards, they never get the frame rate correctly...

If I can get the ROM of the game, I will tell you what the frame rate is.. call me a freak of nature, but I can count fps in my head watching it live...

[Joe Redifer]

I can capture at 60fps. Check out the videos below for proof. The video(s) have no sound since 60fps Quicktimes can be quite large.

Anyway, Wonder Boy 3 runs at 30fps. Check out this 60fps Quicktime file (http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/wonderboy3.mov) (7.5 MB). Notice it only updates every other frame (ie: it runs at 30fps). If somebody needs proof that I can capture 60fps, then check out Rastan (http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/Rastan60.mov) (11.33 MB). Watch the scrolling. Notice it updates every "frame". You can see this easiest when Rastan is falling downward near the beginning. Even though this clip is shorter, the file size is larger since Rastan updates more foten than Wonder Boy 3.

[evildragon]

just saw the clip.. bought time i see a capture card do things right, by default... ;)

[Black_Tiger]

I can capture at 60fps. Check out the videos below for proof. The video(s) have no sound since 60fps Quicktimes can be quite large.

Anyway, Wonder Boy 3 runs at 30fps. Check out this 60fps Quicktime file (http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/wonderboy3.mov) (7.5 MB). Notice it only updates every other frame (ie: it runs at 30fps). If somebody needs proof that I can capture 60fps, then check out Rastan (http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/Rastan60.mov) (11.33 MB). Watch the scrolling. Notice it updates every "frame". You can see this easiest when Rastan is falling downward near the beginning. Even though this clip is shorter, the file size is larger since Rastan updates more foten than Wonder Boy 3.

Then I think that it was animated to scroll at a different pace than the frame rate, because it shouldn't look the way it does.

[ary incorparated]

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/9914/gencolor1rl5.png (http://imageshack.us)

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/1852/gencolor2ja5.png (http://imageshack.us)

The colour counts are high cause of the cheap use of shadow highlight technics it actually changes nothing abiut the crap looking grass and the mediocore look of the game,the could use it in a better way to fill up colours or blend colours to make things look fuller or better.

[ary incorparated]

Vectorman has more tha 75 colors onscreen at a time, or at least that's what gets spit out of an emulator. It looks like a below average Genesis game color-wise, but it's supposed to all be there onscreen.

Snatcher reportedly used a programming trick to allow up to 106 or so colors onscreen at a time, but both the PCE and Sega-CD versions look like they don't use more than 40 or 50. Back when someone from Konami told EGM about this, they mentioned how the PCE system or it's version of Snatcher was '256 colors', so take that into consideration.

There are other games that supposedly allow more than a system's colors on screen limit, but I don't know how true it is. When a developer mentions it, they might be counting dithering as like, half the colors or something.

Killer Instinct was supposed to use 512 colors at a time, but the screenshots I've taken only had around 140. Final Fantasy III SNES was supposed to have 256 colors in fights, but it looks like it only uses a number that the Genesis could do.

Of course, if you consider "true transparencies" as part of onscreen color numbers, then SNES games get into the thousands.

Yeah offcourse and have we ever seen a snes game that beats a neo geo game graphic wise nope,thats a bit totally offcourse and neo geo game dont even use 512 in screen colours and cant do Transparancies Neo geo AES has a hared time rendering transparancies if it could then Snk vs Capcom would be like Capcom vs snk Motm..BTW i never knew AES couldnt do transparancies.

[ary incorparated]

ohh yeah the games like KI have a high colour count but to be fait that even makes the game look worser,the game looks wors anyway it fales with many MD/genesis games even Fire shark etc,KI just looks just disgusting.

[Black_Tiger]

The game looks nice to me and a generational leap over Mario Kart.

I don't know where the rest of the shadow/highlight trickery is being used, but these two screen shots still have 52 and 78 colors-

http://www.superpcenginegrafx.com/img/streetracer1.gif

http://www.superpcenginegrafx.com/img/streetracer2.gif

[Joe Redifer]

Then I think that it was animated to scroll at a different pace than the frame rate, because it shouldn't look the way it does.
It's scrolling at half the speed of normal games. That's 50% less motion information. If any other games scroll at 30fps (of which I'm sure they exist) they will appear to look the same. I can take an image in Final Cut Pro and scroll it at a constant speed in one direction or another at 30fps (not 60i) and the effect is the same. Scroll it at 60i at the same speed, and it appears MUCH smoother.

[Black_Tiger]

It's scrolling at half the speed of normal games. That's 50% less motion information. If any other games scroll at 30fps (of which I'm sure they exist) they will appear to look the same. I can take an image in Final Cut Pro and scroll it at a constant speed in one direction or another at 30fps (not 60i) and the effect is the same. Scroll it at 60i at the same speed, and it appears MUCH smoother.

I remember years ago having a list of games that didn't scroll smoothly, but none looked like WBIII. I'll try to recall some of the actual titles if I can.

[Joe Redifer]

Please do. I'd like to see it and look at the games.

[evildragon]

after a bunch of EEPROM programming, I can't find any racing interlaced games... though, picking the racing games out of a load of ROMs, is hard..

some of them wouldn't even load, even after selecting regions with my region switch mod..

[Joe Redifer]

Are you trying on real hardware? Real hardware will never run the games as accurately as emulators. :p You must try on that Kega Fusion nonsense since it has compatibility.

[evildragon]

Are you trying on real hardware? Real hardware will never run the games as accurately as emulators. :p You must try on that Kega Fusion nonsense since it has compatibility.
Woah, real hardware better than emulators? :O That's totally new to me! LOL

I was using real hardware, using an eeprom programmer to put them on the real Genesis... I don't think the emulators are as good as the real hardware yet ;) (fusion can't even do that high-color demo from earlier)

[Joe Redifer]

Yeah I remember asking if real hardware can do that, but I never received a response. Keep looking for these nonexistant interlaced games. I assume you know about romnation dot net slash srv slash roms?

[evildragon]

Yeah I remember asking if real hardware can do that, but I never received a response. Keep looking for these nonexistant interlaced games. I assume you know about romnation dot net slash srv slash roms?
i haven't gone there before, but i do know about it.. i went to coolrom dot com

[ary incorparated]

http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/640/streetracer2ha4.gif (http://imageshack.us)

yeah but still doesnt look nice,it misses something but its a fun game.i prefer the snes version graphic wise,but lacks animation and speed.

http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/7223/streetracersnes03zr3.png (http://imageshack.us)

[Joe Redifer]

Shadow mode in tree
OooooK. I don't think so. If anything they are doing shadow and highlight on the sky.

[evildragon]

the SNES screenshot is using 229 colors..

[ary incorparated]

could be,and wrong aggain joe take a closer look copy and paste in paint youlle see a little bit of shadow highlight mode,i count the colors by hand m8 so i can know.

[ary incorparated]

okay Push the right mouse key and do save picture,load it in paint zoom near the tree hey what do we have there shadow effect :b (l)

[evildragon]

the fool proof to count colors, is photoshop, it literally will tell you how many discrete colors are being used in a single bitmap image...

and in your pointing to the tree, photoshop says there is 77 colors on that image..

[Joe Redifer]

Even if the tree does use shadow,
WHO CARES?

[Black_Tiger]

the fool proof to count colors, is photoshop, it literally will tell you how many discrete colors are being used in a single bitmap image...

and in your pointing to the tree, photoshop says there is 77 colors on that image..

How do you get a color count in Photoshop?

[evildragon]

How do you get a color count in Photoshop?
this route is limited to 256 colors max...

Go to File, Save for Web, Select Gif, and under the pallette, it will show you how many it's actually using for that image... If it says 256, assume it's 256 or MORE.. If it says 255, it IS 255..

[Black_Tiger]

this route is limited to 256 colors max...

Go to File, Save for Web, Select Gif, and under the pallette, it will show you how many it's actually using for that image... If it says 256, assume it's 256 or MORE.. If it says 255, it IS 255..

That's how I've been doing it. I was hoping that there was an easier way and one that would allow counts above 255. :(

[evildragon]

That's how I've been doing it. I was hoping that there was an easier way and one that would allow counts above 255. :(
sadly, in photoshop, the only formats with a customizable palette, are GIF and PNG8, and they are both 8-bit formats...

[Joe Redifer]

There is a way... download THIS (http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/CountColours.zip), unzip it and put it in your plug-ins folder. It is now available under FILTERS at the bottom as "Telegraphics". Note: You must make sure the image format is in RGB for it to work. Easy enough, though.

[Black_Tiger]

There is a way... download THIS (http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/CountColours.zip), unzip it and put it in your plug-ins folder. It is now available under FILTERS at the bottom as "Telegraphics". Note: You must make sure the image format is in RGB for it to work. Easy enough, though.

Awesome, thanks a lot man. :D

I couldn't get it to work with my 5.0, so I googled it and downloaded another version.

[Joe Redifer]

5.0? Man you should upgrade to 7. That's my fave. CS is good but it has a few quirks that bug me... damned if I can remember what they were, though. But needless to say I stayed with PS 7.

[Black_Tiger]

5.0? Man you should upgrade to 7. That's my fave. CS is good but it has a few quirks that bug me... damned if I can remember what they were, though. But needless to say I stayed with PS 7.

I have 7, but there are a few things that I don't like abou it, so I usually stick to 5. I also prefer the clone tool from an old Adobe "Photodeluxe" program that came with my first scanner. So I transfer anything need to be touched up over to my girlfriends PC running ME to use it, since it's not compatible with XP.

Just like with gaming, I'm stuborn this way.

[Joe Redifer]

Ha ha I remember PhotoDeluxe and how it walked you through doing stuff. It was actually really cool.

[evildragon]

My PCs got CS2, but my Mac only has CS...

I decided to let my PCs get the upgrade because my laptop is a PC, and I go mobile alot..

[Joe Redifer]

Well did the plug-in work for you?

[evildragon]

Well did the plug-in work for you?
i wasn't able to use it on my Mac, and my PC laptop is at a different house right now...

[ary incorparated]

the fool proof to count colors, is photoshop, it literally will tell you how many discrete colors are being used in a single bitmap image...

and in your pointing to the tree, photoshop says there is 77 colors on that image..


Hmm maybe i miss count but heck WHO CARESS, could be eh did i proof you wrong?. but the colour count is higher cause of the shadow in that tree(its that simple there’s shadow being used)it doesn’t look that great but ill bet its a great game, BTW why where actually discussing this nes had 24 colours max in screen preying for more and searching etc etc wont get us any further if there are 77 then our genesis still cant beat the snes colour count but same it wouldn’t say that the snes version looks better animations speed etc,I still like these discussions but yeah they can be more useful then discussing a damn tree.