Metal Slug: Possible on 32X?

[KnightWarrior]

Would the 32X handle it..

[j_factor]

The 32x could easily handle anything on the Neo Geo. The only possible difficulty would be cartridge size. Metal Slug was 193 megs on Neo Geo; most 32x games were 32 megs. It would not have been financially feasible to release a $400 (or whatever the price was) game on 32x. Some concessions would have to be made. However, it is possible that the majority of data in Metal Slug is the music, stored as giant samples; in which case a ton of space would be saved by converting to chip tunes.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

Im no expert, but I just don't think it could for some reason. Maybe a mutated version of it

[17daysolderthannes]

Im no expert, but I just don't think it could for some reason. Maybe a mutated version of it

I don't see why not, it really isn't THAT amazing. If I had seen it at the arcade a few years ago, I would've figured there was an SNES port of it somewhere. If you've seen games like After Burner on 32X, I think you can see that Metal Slug could run on it. Now, whether or not it could be run doesn't mean much because its highly doubtful anyone would bother to do it since you can buy the Metal Slug collection (1-6+X) on PS2 and Wii and that's the best you're going to get outside of playing it on a Neo Geo (which will set you back $1000 AES style).

[Aarzak]

The Saturn and PS1 had quite a bit of trouble handling even the original "Metal Slug" without enhancements or cutting enough corners that it negatively affected the conversions.

So, how the heck would a lowly 32X, which is still very dependant on the Genesis hardware, be able to handle any MS faithfully? As far as the 16-Bit consoles go, any Neo titles past late 1993-early 1994 (Samurai Shodown, Fatal Fury Special, Art of Fighting 2) were beyond the limits of their technology, which is why SNK/Takara wisely ceased porting Neo titles past that time period.

[17daysolderthannes]

The Saturn and PS1 had quite a bit of trouble handling even the original "Metal Slug"

Couldn't it also have been because, perhaps, they were lazily ported instead of doing the job right? I haven't played either version, I'm just speculating.

[playgen]

I think your underestimating Metal Slug, and overestimating the 32x

[Strider]

I totaly agree here. And in no way could the 32X handle the most basic Neo Geo game as well as the Neo Geo can.



I think your underestimating Metal Slug, and overestimating the 32x

[Black_Tiger]

The 32X could've done a very nice port of Metal Slug. It wouldn't have been completely perfect, but so what?

The Genesis could also do a good version of Metal Slug, but obviously the visuals would take a hit (mostly color count and unique tiles).

The Genesis has lots of games that move around stuff comparable to Metal Slug. Just swap in Metal Slug sprites and tiles and its not much of a stretch.

[j_factor]

The Saturn and PS1 had quite a bit of trouble handling even the original "Metal Slug"

The move to CD-ROM was a difficult one. Data isn't accessed fast enough, and RAM becomes more of an issue. The Neo Geo CD port suffers too. The 32x would be free of some of the problems these ports had -- but it would have its own problem of space, and possibly some sort of bottlenecking issue with the Genesis.

But come on, it's not like the Neo Geo is more powerful than the 32x.

[dragonboy]

-the Genesis's 68000 should handle the game logic
-the Genesis's Z80 should handle the sound
-the 32X's first SH-1 should handle the graphics (it's a software gpu)
-the 32X's second SH-1 should handle decompressing data

[Joe Redifer]

The Saturn Metal Slug suffered (though only very slightly) because of RAM limitations. The PS1 Metal Slug suffered extreme amounts due to only being able to use the stock RAM. A 32X Metal Slug would suffer from a limited cartridge size. If they made the game 200 MEGA POWER or so (and a decent developer), it would have been more than fine, sound included. They squeezed After Burner down to 16 MEGA POWER pretty well.

[TmEE]

32X is a pain in the ass as it does not have a VDP, only 2 CPUs that you use to emulate a VDP.

You can have Metal Slug on 32X, but I don't think you'll get over 30fps unless you don't use MD VDP a lot. I think havinh 32X to do the backgrunds and MD do the sprites is a good method. And you can save a lot of space by chip-tuning the music.

The cart size can be a big issue still... 32MBit is what MD does with no extra HW, you can have even a 1Gbit ROM if you want, but then you need to figure out some bank switcher (and its not really difficult IMO).

Its not impossible to make the game on 32x, but it will be quite a bit inferior to original :/

[Tanegashima]

Yeah, I have the AES version of Metal Slug 3, the Neo CD version of Metal Slug 2 and the Sega Saturn version of Metal Slug 1. I have to say the Saturn handles Metal Slug 1 quite, quite well. It's an excellent port, it really isn't crappy. Much is preserved.

Nothing, however, beats MS III AES...

[tomaitheous]

TmEE pointed out the exact problem with the 32x - no real VDP. Both Hitachi's would be wasted on trying to handle that in software. Some sacrifices would have to be made. With that aside, I think it would have been a great port to see.

[A Black Falcon]

The 32x could easily handle anything on the Neo Geo. The only possible difficulty would be cartridge size. Metal Slug was 193 megs on Neo Geo; most 32x games were 32 megs. It would not have been financially feasible to release a $400 (or whatever the price was) game on 32x. Some concessions would have to be made. However, it is possible that the majority of data in Metal Slug is the music, stored as giant samples; in which case a ton of space would be saved by converting to chip tunes.

No, I'm pretty sure that that space in Neo-Geo games is mostly art. Neo-Geo games just have so much more animation than other cart system games... even PSX and Saturn versions of Neo-Geo games dropped frames compared to the originals, because of hardware limitations. The 32X would have been limited just like the SNES and Genesis in having to dramatically cut back on size of Neo-Geo games... they managed in the early days when Neo-Geo games were smaller, but later on? It'd have looked horrible. They'd have had to cut so much animation... or had such a huge cart that no one would have bought it...

I only have a couple of 16-bit Neo-Geo ports -- King of the Monsters 2, World Heroes 2, and Fatal Fury 2 for SNES and Samurai Shodown for Genesis -- but they are decent, mostly. Fatal Fury 2 on SNES isn't so great, but the other three are okay... King of the Monsters 2 probably looks best of them, compared to the original versions. Samurai Shodown on Genesis is pretty fun, but it obviously can't compare to the Neo-Geo. A 32X version might have been able to do the scaling in and out that the original does, maybe, and it'd have had more colors of course, but... Metal Slug? That's several generations of Neo-Geo games beyond Samurai Shodown. It'd have to have been butchered to fit on 16-bit consoles, or 32X. There just isn't enough cart size, even ignoring the numerous technical problems that all ports of Neo-Geo games before the 6th generation (DC/PS2/Xbox/GC) show.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

That being said, if it did come out on 32x I would be first in line to get it, and would play the hell out of it even if it was a mutant version. What about a tower-o-power port using 68000 heart on fire power mixed with a little 32x/mega-cd boost?

[Joe Redifer]

The Saturn could do any Neo Geo game 100% perfectly if it came on a large cartridge instead of a CD.

[dragonboy]

One thing that pisses me off is that the standard meg size kept raising up from 1985-1994 and then 32-meg games came out and they froze at 32-megs from 1994-1997. I believe the CD market had something to do with the plateau of the ROM market.

That said, we could've had a ton of 64-meg carts out in 1995, if the Playstation and the Saturn used carts instead of CDs.

[Fonzie]

Well, 32meg is the maximum cartridge size for megadrive and 32x without adding special hardware/programming techniques.

[Zebbe]

Shouldn't there be sound issues with a potential 32X-port as well? The 32X only has two PWM channels, while the Neo-Geo has seven PCM ones I think.

[TmEE]

There's room for software mixing... which will have a hit on GFX or game play, depends what CPU you're gonna use (68K or one of the SH2)... you can have FM SFX, you don't have to keep everything as samples... you can have wild sounds with some 60 bytes of data...

[dragonboy]

Anybody know of a good 32x programming tutorial? I found one a few months ago but now I can't find it.

What I'm curious in knowing is how both cpus work together without messing eachother up.
Do they take turns using the bus?
Do they have their own seperate bus's?
Can the 68000 peak into the 32x cartridge?
What is 68000 code run off of?
Are the cartridge ROMs split in half with one SH2 reading from one half, and the other SH2 reading from the other half?

[KnightWarrior]

or just put the 32X Metal Slug on the Sega CD

[dragonboy]

Anybody know of a good 32x programming tutorial? I found one a few months ago but now I can't find it.

What I'm curious in knowing is how both cpus work together without messing eachother up.
Do they take turns using the bus?
Do they have their own seperate bus's?
Can the 68000 peak into the 32x cartridge?
What is 68000 code run off of?
Are the cartridge ROMs split in half with one SH2 reading from one half, and the other SH2 reading from the other half?

I found this website:
http://devster.monkeeh.com/segapage.html
and appearantly the 68000 runs off the game cart, and the two HS-2s run off their own RAM, and their RAMs are loaded through a DMA controled by the 68000, and the two HS-2s are turned on by 68000.

[Joe Redifer]

Zebbe, listen to After Burner on the 32X. Nearly every single sound made in that game is made by the 32X PWM chips. It is a very sound-heavy game with explosions, music and voices all being done on the fly, and look at what it's throwing around onscreen at the same time!

Also, bank switching (for increased memory) would not be a problem. I bet the Neo Geo Metal Slug cartridge has at at least 2 banks, if not more..

[dragonboy]

mixing channels is pretty easy. All it takes is some addition.

BTW, everywhere I look, it says that PWM is made by taking a square/pulse wave and changing it's cycle duty over time. If PWM could make all of those sounds, then the "science of sound/music" doesn't make any sense anymore. I'm surprized everything is reconizable for such an unusual sound format.

[tomaitheous]

There's another document package floating around (I have it somewhere on my hd) - but here's this http://pagesperso-orange.fr/olivier.brosseron/sega/32x_hardware_manual.pdf .

PWM averages into an audible wave form if done fast enough. Though it usually is accompanied by a low pass filter. Even some CD audio players outputted in PWM. The some Amiga demos/coders used the principle to interleaved to sound channels every other sample to "mix" them - doubling the sound channels.

On the 32x the hitachi's can access the cart rom as well. The access is interleaved with the 68k. The master SH2 has priority over the other SH2 if they both access the same address at the same time.

[TmEE]

If you're gonna try to mess with 32X and or MCD, you will need to master MD first.

And Metal Slug on 32X+CD would probably not have worked out so well, as in cart, you can access nearly all the data instantly and will not have to hold it in RAM, on CD you have like half a MByte of RAM to hold data, and you also need to have game code running somewhere, and I somehow think that you will run short on that half a MByte very quickly...

Best way would be an über 128 or 256 or more Mbit cart sitting on 32X, and MCD is not touched at all.

[Joe Redifer]

I agree. Even the Saturn version had to cut a few frames here and there and that game used a total of 32 megabits of RAM whereas the Sega CD only has 6 megabits.

[Aarzak]

To this day, the Neo-Geo has been one of the systems whose games have been the hardest to accurately port to other consoles due to the large-ass ROM sizes. As of the last console generation (Dreamcast/PS2) its become a lot better however.

I remember the first Neo port that I owned on CD, "The King of Fighters '95" for the original Playstation. I so thought it was the "bees knees" at the time (late '90's), but after playing through the original its constant load times have become unbearable, though the arranged soundtrack is still one of my most favorite fighting game soundtracks EVER. KOF '99 on the PS1, despite its extra features, was 10X worse.

[17daysolderthannes]

for those of you that love metal slug, you also might want to check out its "prequel": In the Hunt for Saturn and PSX (originally arcade). It was created by the team that later left IREM to form NAZCA, the people that made Metal Slug. You can definitely see the resemblance in animation style and gameplay, though the sprites are drawn a little more realistically than the Metal Slug series. I recommend the PSX version because it has an AWESOME arrangement (though the arcade tracks are included as well). The level one playstation arrange rox my sox. Another game very similar in gameplay and feel made by IREM is Metal Storm on the NES. It has the same 4 way directional shooting, but the real special feature is the ability to flip gravity to walk on the ceiling. While the animation style isn't quite as distinctive as Metal Slug, you can see definite creativity in level and boss design that shows a resemblance to Metal Slug. At any rate, its one of the best games for the NES and any Metal Slug fan should check it out.

[Iron Lizard]

Yes they did that one. Gun Force 2 is the one people usually point out. Some weirdos even call it Metal Slug 0.

[j_factor]

Maybe it could've been a 32x CD game with both a cart and a disc. You know, like the Saturn version of King of Fighters 95. I don't recall anyone complaining about the quality of that port. I think SSM gave it a 95 or something?

[17daysolderthannes]

Maybe it could've been a 32x CD game with both a cart and a disc. You know, like the Saturn version of King of Fighters 95. I don't recall anyone complaining about the quality of that port. I think SSM gave it a 95 or something?

that would've driven cost through the roof though, I mean, that would've easily been more than $100. Granted, its still cheaper than the Neo Geo version, but not by much.

[Joe Redifer]

If it were $100 it would have been cheaper by over half.

[Iron Lizard]

People were convinced to buy Virtua Racing for that much. Anything is possible.

[dragonboy]

32X is a pain in the ass as it does not have a VDP, only 2 CPUs that you use to emulate a VDP.

You can have Metal Slug on 32X, but I don't think you'll get over 30fps unless you don't use MD VDP a lot. I think havinh 32X to do the backgrunds and MD do the sprites is a good method. And you can save a lot of space by chip-tuning the music.

In games like Metal Slug, what exsactly is a background? Whenever I play a game like Metal Slug or any game made by the same team, there's always many parts where I'm like "WTF, I thought that was part of the background?!!!" but it's the surprise that always makes those games fun for me.

[TmEE]

if shooting the thing has some effect, its not a part of background I meant...

[Joe Redifer]

The Neo Geo version of Metal Slug doesn't have ANY backgrounds. The game is 100% sprites.

[dragonboy]

That will ruin the surprise because the sprites wouldn't blend into the background as well if they used a different color pallette, just like in old cartoons like Scooby Doo where you knew something was going to move because the colors were off.

[17daysolderthannes]

That will ruin the surprise because the sprites wouldn't blend into the background as well if they used a different color pallette, just like in old cartoons like Scooby Doo where you knew something was going to move because the colors were off.

I think if you were gonna make such a gargantuan compromise to get it working on the 32X, you could deal with the background and foreground being different.

[Joe Redifer]

No need to compromise, just make the cart phuggin' huge!

[TmEE]

The Neo Geo version of Metal Slug doesn't have ANY backgrounds. The game is 100% sprites.

A big part of the sprites act as backgrounds though...

I guess there's some legal issues waiting when someone really thinks of making a 32X version of the game....

[dragonboy]

I found out that if you compress a sprite in RLE, and then recompress the compressed sprite with LSZZ, it will be almost a third of its original size.

Just look at my avatar, or anyother sprite you can find, the colors are always appearing in the same order (black, lighter black, even lighter black, ect) but the amount of pixels for each color changes all the time throughout the sprite.

[tomaitheous]

Oh :) What LZSS compressor did you use? Normally LZ compression gives you free RLE (doesn't require a control code) if the compressor/app knows how to set it up ;) Though later LZSS variant have all sorts of cool variable length control codes - check out Pucrunch compression scheme. Damn nice compressor. Needs a port to 68k

[dragonboy]

This kind:

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4753

[KnightWarrior]

The 32X CD with Cart would be like $99..

[Iron Lizard]

I would to just see Metal Slug on Genesis. It would be butchered but interesting . At least with the character sprites all in the same spots. Just use a background instead of sprites for everything.

[playgen]

I'd rather see an improved port of the Neo Geo Pocket Metal Slug than a totally watered down version of the AES/MVS game.

[j_factor]

There are lots of things I'd rather see than a port of Metal Slug to 32x. Too many to name.

[dragonboy]

One thing I hate about ports is that they're so dang obvious. There are always noticeable gaps in animation. The music always sounds like it's trying to make sounds that it can't. On ports where they shrink the sprites, the sprites have that "electronically scaled" look. And never forget that obviously rushed redrawn background look, where they redrawn the entire background to fit the tiles better, but they didn't have enough time to artistically perfect them.

[17daysolderthannes]

One thing I hate about ports is that they're so dang obvious. There are always noticeable gaps in animation. The music always sounds like it's trying to make sounds that it can't. On ports where they shrink the sprites, the sprites have that "electronically scaled" look. And never forget that obviously rushed redrawn background look, where they redrawn the entire background to fit the tiles better, but they didn't have enough time to artistically perfect them.

you're confusing "port" with "sloppy port". Compare Roadblasters in the arcade to Roadblasters on the Genesis, its almost identical, some might even say its better on the Genesis, I personally think it sounds a little better. For convenience, here are some youtube videos of what I'm talking about:

Arcade

Z4VIIzYeD-8

Genesis

UX23lvsvYXA

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

That game was handled very well

[Zebbe]

The controls LOOK awful. The car moves awkwardly for only turning the front wheels.

[dragonboy]

On the homeports Takara made, it was blarringly obvious that you were not playing the original version of a game, even if you didn't even know there was an arcade version in the first place. Background elements were unporpotional and there was that mishmash of two distinctly different art styles, that made you know that the version your playing just wasn't the original.

[17daysolderthannes]

The controls LOOK awful. The car moves awkwardly for only turning the front wheels.

it takes some finesse, but its really not bad at all. I rarely have much trouble with the controls, its usually more a matter of me just making a dumb move that gets me in trouble.

[TheEdge]

I don't believe it would unless they hacked the visuals to pieces. Just like J Factor said, NeoGeo used 193 Megs - Sega just used 32 Megs. Thats a big divide if I ever seen one.

[Joe Redifer]

The question was if it would be possible, and the answer is yes. It is possible to do 193 megs on a 32X game.

[dragonboy]

The question was if it would be possible, and the answer is yes. It is possible to do 193 megs on a 32X game.

and 64-meg carts could've been out mainsteam in 1995 if it weren't for CDs.

not to mention 128-meg carts in 1996
and 192-meg carts in 1997

[Joe Redifer]

I'm pretty sure they could get it well below 193 megs via compression without losing a single thing. Neo Geo programmers were actually encouraged NOT to compress ever in order to bloat the cartridge sizes.

[dragonboy]

I'm pretty sure they could get it well below 193 megs via compression without losing a single thing. Neo Geo programmers were actually encouraged NOT to compress ever in order to bloat the cartridge sizes.

I hear that a lot.


Does anybody here, want to start making the port?
If so, I want to be a part of the development team.

[TheEdge]

The question was if it would be possible, and the answer is yes. It is possible to do 193 megs on a 32X game.

Would it be possible?

I dont believe it would be possible but if your the experts I believe ya.

[Zebbe]

The MD requires bankswitching for games over 32 MEGA POWER, maybe something similar is required for 32X games. Switches between 6 banks.

[17daysolderthannes]

not to totally ruin everyone's day here, but where is this discussion going?

OK, say this is possible via using backgrounds, fewer animation frames, bank switching, or whatever other techniques, is anyone REALLY interested in making this, even in ROM form? Even if you were, do you honestly think NAZCA would allow it? I'm just trying to see what the point of this discussion is. Is it just an argument to benchmark the 32X against the Neo Geo on paper or is someone really thinking of making a game for a system thats almost 15 years out of production in spite of the obvious legal hassles? Don't get me wrong, I think Metal Slug would've been awesome and would've really kept the 32X alive (even though the 32X was DOA at the beginning of 96 and that's when Metal Slug was released).

[Joe Redifer]

No, we're just having fun theorizing.

Neo Geo games used bank switching even on sub-330 MEGA POWER games. I don't think any one stage would take up 32 MEGA POWER on its own.

[Iron Lizard]

not to totally ruin everyone's day here, but where is this discussion going?

OK, say this is possible via using backgrounds, fewer animation frames, bank switching, or whatever other techniques, is anyone REALLY interested in making this, even in ROM form? Even if you were, do you honestly think NAZCA would allow it? I'm just trying to see what the point of this discussion is. Is it just an argument to benchmark the 32X against the Neo Geo on paper or is someone really thinking of making a game for a system thats almost 15 years out of production in spite of the obvious legal hassles? Don't get me wrong, I think Metal Slug would've been awesome and would've really kept the 32X alive (even though the 32X was DOA at the beginning of 96 and that's when Metal Slug was released).

Wht else are going to talk about. Don't ruin our fun. As far as legal issues go I tihnk they already have their hands full with all of the roms of Metal Slug floating around.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

There probably wouldn't be any legal troubles unless they try to market and sell the product, but a fan made rom for people to put onto flash carts or whatever would be awesome.

[TmEE]

I'm not gonna work on any other project until I'm done with my current one... if someone starts making a Metal slug for 32X, and Nasca would notl ike it, we can always reuse the work done (all code and such) for a different game...
Don't be afraid of bank switching, its nothing to worry about. I'd go for 4x 8MBit pages, 1 for code, 2 for GFX and 1 for Z80 (audio). Only thing that's gonna be an issue is finding a BIG Flashchip that operates on 5V and is NOR not NAND flash...

[Joe Redifer]

Screw that. Have 32mbit banks. Sure, there would need to be some redundant data as a result (mostly character sprites and the sound library), but it'd be worth it. If anyone were to ever make such a game (have fun with those Hitachi CPUs that you'll never be able to figure out), a 32Mbit game is unacceptable.

I don't think Nazca exists any more. It's not like they ever owned the rights to Metal Slug anyway.

[Tanegashima]

when I become a billionaire, I'm going to have a team buy up all the rights to 32X games and release everything that should have been released. THEN I will make sure Metal Slug gets a release on the 32X. It will have a cart the size of a game genie or something with lock on technology (ala sonic & knuckles) and a special RAM cart will come with it and plugged in.

It will be a tall Mfer, but it will be glorious.

[dragonboy]

32x is a lot harder to program than the Neo Geo. It has a more complicated CPU architecture, and the Neo Geo has a more powerful graphics chip. The actual graphics will be about the same quality, but Neo Geo's graphics chip is more powerful because it does most of the graphic processing itself, instead of just being fed pictures by the CPU and displaying them.

[Joe Redifer]

"More powerful" is kind of ambiguous, especially the way you describe it. It also means it is irrelevant to the theoretical 32X Metal Slug. It would definitely be harder to make on the 32X than the Neo Geo, that's for sure.

[Tanegashima]

My question is, regardless of actually supporting the graphics, could the 32X handle all the action without agonizing slowdown? I mean, Metal Slug 2 had enough problems on the Neo Geo itself (granted, this may have just been the game...) but all the stuff the quick action and what not that makes metal slug great...wouldn't it just be a slow motion mess regardless of how many chips you put in the cartridge? Granted, I know nothing. But could the Genesis/32X really do much? I mean, isn't it like having a computer with a great graphics card with no RAM?

[dragonboy]

"More powerful" is kind of ambiguous, especially the way you describe it.

I meant that the Neo Geo GPU does sprites and tiles by itself. 32X VDP is just a frame buffer. You are required to use one of the Hitachi CPUs to do all the sprite rendering work.

Software is always going to by harder than hardware.


It would definitely be harder to make on the 32X than the Neo Geo, that's for sure.

Even if the 32x is as powerful as the Neo Geo (which might very well be true) and your making the exact same game for both systems, the Neo Geo version will always be easier to make because the 32x is naturally more complicated.

[Joe Redifer]

When it comes down to what can realistically be displayed onscreen in motion etc etc etc the 32X clearly beats the Neo Geo hands down. But due to the fact that it is a bitch to get it to do anything to begin with, you're going to have trouble realizing its true potential, especially with a low-memory cartridge. Yes, software effects will always be more difficult than hardware effects (you have to tell the 32X how to scale in addition to telling it to move from point A to point B, begin at size X and end at size Y were you'd just tell the Neo Geo to move from here to there and grow or shrink, etc) but software allows for far more versatility that hardware effects (which are set in stone) could ever be. However I see the point you are making and understand what you are trying to convey.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

Where's Tomathius? He could probably do this on his lunch break

[tomaitheous]

Where's Tomathius? He could probably do this on his lunch break

Yeah, funny.

I was looking at a Metal Slug port a while back (pic (http://pcedev.net/pics/ms_fin.png)), but that was for the SGX+CD+Arcade Card.

[Zebbe]

What's a SGX?

[playgen]

Supergrafx

http://www.obsolete-tears.com/photos/nec-supergrafx.jpg

[Zebbe]

Ahh, that one. What's an arcade card then?

[tomaitheous]

The Arcade Card was a big RAM upgrade for the PCE/SGX systems. It boosted the CDRAM from 2megabits to 20megabits and added some additional hardware for registers and incrementors allowing for faster access without CPU registers.

[Zebbe]

Wow, cool! The Mega CD could have used that perhaps. Were a lot of games compatible with it?

[Joe Redifer]

Only a few towards the end, mostly Neo Geo fighting game ports (which were usually the best ports out there by a substantial amount) and one very rare shooter, Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire or something like that. It also had a really shitty port of Strider that plays really bad and looks super-dark and drab. I should do a Dare to Compare between Striders for this site.

[Black_Tiger]

Wow, cool! The Mega CD could have used that perhaps. Were a lot of games compatible with it?

The Mega-CD already had a huge amount of ram compared to the PC Engine Super-CD format, which itself did just fine.



It also had a really shitty port of Strider that plays really bad and looks super-dark and drab. I should do a Dare to Compare between Striders for this site.

I'm surprised that there isn't already one. But maybe the ACD port's rep is so bad that people thought that there was no point? ;)



Where's Tomathius? He could probably do this on his lunch break

He actually recently "fixed" Altered Beast PCE during a lunch break recently. :p

[dragonboy]

earlier today I was writing a collision detection code in SH2 asm, but thanks to my extremely short attention span, I got bored and thought "Who cares?" and just deleted it. I already have like a billion unfinished assembly code things I didn't finished saved on my computer that I never work on, why should I make a new one? Why did God give me such a small attention span?

[Aarzak]

Only a few towards the end, mostly Neo Geo fighting game ports (which were usually the best ports out there by a substantial amount) and one very rare shooter, Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire or something like that. It also had a really shitty port of Strider that plays really bad and looks super-dark and drab. I should do a Dare to Compare between Striders for this site.

Game Pilgrimage. (http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/Strider.htm) :p

[Joe Redifer]

I don't think Strider does anything that couldn't be done on the standard 2megabit Super System Card. There is no way that it has 16 megabits worth of information per level. I'd be surprised if it even had 1. ACD Strider also freezes and loads a lot during the levels, usually when you are in the middle of a jump. Quite annoying. Everyone loves the Genesis version much more except for one person.

[tomaitheous]

That ACD Strider is a god aweful port. I blame NEC personally. Had Hudson taken on the port, then I'm sure it would have been at a minimum cleaner looking. WTF is up with the colors in that port? And the yellow explosions? It would have been better if it hadn't even come out imo.

[GameUser-16-32-128]

If you guys are so worried about the copyright and naming rights issues for Metal Slug, then why not make a similar looking, playing new game instead? That would be a nice challenge. I'd gladly offer my graphic design services for this project if it ever came to be.

[dragonboy]

If you guys are so worried about the copyright and naming rights issues for Metal Slug, then why not make a similar looking, playing new game instead? That would be a nice challenge. I'd gladly offer my graphic design services for this project if it ever came to be.


I want to see some of your graphics art.:)

[17daysolderthannes]

If you guys are so worried about the copyright and naming rights issues for Metal Slug, then why not make a similar looking, playing new game instead?

Iron Snail

done.

[Iron Lizard]

No one cared when that flash game was released.

[dragonboy]

Iron Lizard

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

Yeah, funny.

I was looking at a Metal Slug port a while back (pic (http://pcedev.net/pics/ms_fin.png)), but that was for the SGX+CD+Arcade Card.

JJ of coarse. Was that Metal slug port released or is it a project that someone is working on?

[Joe Redifer]

That is just a picture that Black Tiger probably did of a Neo Geo-generated Metal Slug screen using ONLY PC Engine-legal colors and color counts, just to show what it could possibly look like. The one on the left is the Neo Geo, the one on the right is the same exact pic run through a photo editor with the reduced PC Engine colors.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

Looks pretty nice.

[tomaitheous]

Actually I did that one. Both are the in PCE colors. The one on the left I was doing the touch up/dithering by hand. I started on the tail/rutter of the plane. That's the only part that I worked on. The one on the right is just a straight color reduction with no dither.

[Black_Tiger]

That ACD Strider is a god aweful port. I blame NEC personally. Had Hudson taken on the port, then I'm sure it would have been at a minimum cleaner looking. WTF is up with the colors in that port? And the yellow explosions? It would have been better if it hadn't even come out imo.

I blame the particular development team. NEC did a ton of great arcade ports, including CPS1 based games. If the Forgotten Worlds team had done it, at the very least it'd be a near perfect looking port with flat bgs.

[tomaitheous]

I blame the particular development team. NEC did a ton of great arcade ports, including CPS1 based games. If the Forgotten Worlds team had done it, at the very least it'd be a near perfect looking port with flat bgs.

Forgotten Worlds was the only port I remember liking from NEC. Which other games did they port? I still think Hudson has a better track record (SF2 comes to mind).

[Joe Redifer]

NEC Avenue did quite a few ports. Of the few that I can remember off of the top of my head:

Strider
Forgotten Worlds
Space Harrier
Fantasy Zone

Yeah... that's all I can remember right now. But I agree with Black Tiger, the machine could have done so much more with that game. If it had the right team and they truly took advantage of the Arcade Card it would have been amazing. It's even missing the amazon woman voices from level four, except for the screams. On the Genesis version they are permitted to say "Han cummo dummo!" as well as the classic "Who cat be creet!"

[j_factor]

I don't even get why Strider wasn't put on Super CD instead of Arcade CD. I'm sure the Super CD system could have easily handled it very nicely, if not even CD-ROM2.

Naxat Soft would have done well with it, I think.

[Joe Redifer]

I don't think CD-ROM 2 could have handled it very well, but they did not take advantage of the Arcade CD's memory at all, it seems.

[Black_Tiger]

Forgotten Worlds was the only port I remember liking from NEC. Which other games did they port? I still think Hudson has a better track record (SF2 comes to mind).

Forgotten Worlds -good
Sidearms -perfect/better than the arcade except for 2 player loss
Super Darius -an amazing port + hardware defying layered bgs
Super Darius 2 -unbelievable. Some of the very best 16-bit graphics around.
Afterburner II -good job all round
Chiki Chiki Boys -visuals look great. Too bad its lower res.
Daimakaimura -I don't consider it a great port, most people think its special.
Dragon Knight I - III -top notch visuals. Really took advantage of the PCE's color strengths.
Fantasy Zone -good solid port
Hellfire S -looks perfectish visually. Only lacking layered bgs afai.
Horror Story -looks like a very good port
Might & Magic -looks like the best version of a game that I'm not familiar with.
Monster Maker -looks good compared to the original. Good RPG on its own.
Operation Wolf -supposed to be really good. Looks fine by me.
Puyo Puyo 1 & 2 -great all round. The best versions of each?
Rainbow Islands -people say its basically arcade perfect
Space Invaders -shockingly arcade-like
Tenchi O Kurau -another great CPS1 port

These look like good ports. I don't know the games well-

Bonanza Brothers
Daisenpu
Gain Ground SX

nothing too special, but not garbage either-

Altered Beast
Space Harrier
Out Run

Thunderblade -meh
Strider -what a waste


Looks like NEC only had a couple misses with a ton of great ports. But for some reason they get a bum rap within the PC Engine community. :? Maybe its the crappy non-japanese TG-16 games that have NEC slapped on them that throw people off.

SFIICE -if it really was done by NEC, it was made using Capcom's SFC SFII assets, including those of the unreleased 'Turbo port. So either way in the end its more of a Capcom port than an NEC one. Judging from NEC's track record with ports to PCE, a straight arcade to PCE port by NEC would've trounced all the console SFII ports. Your own tinkerings with bgs surpasses Capcom's work. ;)

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

I just got super darius 2 for pc engine today, and I was just used to the genesis version, and it really impressed me. I not an expert on the arcade version but the pc engine version seems like it must be pretty close but maybe different music. Either way it kicks ass. The genesis version has a certain charm to it with smaller sprites and I love the music, and fast awesome gameplay, but seems less arcade like. I got super darius 1 for pc engine a few days ago and its pretty fun. I don't know who did star parodier but its a freakin masterpeice

[Black_Tiger]

I just got super darius 2 for pc engine today, and I was just used to the genesis version, and it really impressed me. I not an expert on the arcade version but the pc engine version seems like it must be pretty close but maybe different music. Either way it kicks ass. The genesis version has a certain charm to it with smaller sprites and I love the music, and fast awesome gameplay, but seems less arcade like. I got super darius 1 for pc engine a few days ago and its pretty fun. I don't know who did star parodier but its a freakin masterpeice

I haven't played much of the arcade/Saturn Darius 2, but the PC Engine version is supposed to be kinda different, more like a remix. The soundtrack is supposed to be pretty much all new.

The SMS version also kicks ass.

[Joe Redifer]

I need the SMS version.

[dragonboy]

What if somebody made a port of Metal Slug on the NES without any flickering nor slowdowns. Now THAT is what I call impressive programming.

[Joe Redifer]

You could do it all in background tiles, but the game would be really slow and choppy. No flickering ever. That's how Golden Axe on the SMS worked. No sprites at all.

[playgen]

Except the SMS (and I expect the Nes too) doesn't have enough memory to fill the whole screen with totally unqiue tiles, some tiles need to be repeated so you couldn't match the level of detail in the original game. And like you say scrolling is choppy that way - 8 pixels at a time if I remember correctly, really wouldn't suit a game like Metal Slug.

The Neo Geo Pocket Metal Slug would be good for a conversion though. Obviously its very much simpler and different than the MVS/AES game, but its a great game in its own right:

p3ngsvL451s

[dragonboy]

You could do it all in background tiles, but the game would be really slow and choppy. No flickering ever. That's how Golden Axe on the SMS worked. No sprites at all.

Last night I couldn't resist trying to figure that out. So last night I was sitting in my bedroom with a peice of paper trying to come up with a graphics engine that the Golden Axe game could've used. After I figured it out, I thought it was pretty cool how it worked.

the engine:

it does the graphics scanline by scanline. Let's say it has a maximum of 16 sprites onscreen. Every sprite has these registers:

-active sprite bit: bit set when y-coordinate reaches 0, render a line of sprite if set.

-retired sprite bit: bit set when y-size reaches 0, don't render a line of sprite if set regardless if active bit is set.

-y coordinate: top line of sprite in pixels, decreases every line, sets active sprite bit when reaches 0.

-y size: how tall sprite is in pixels, decreases every line when active sprite bit is set, sets retired sprite bit when reaches 0.

-x coordinate: the left most double pixel (everything scrolls by double pixels horizontally to improve performance) in sprite, right most double pixel if x-flip is set.

-current buffer position: copied from x coordinate every line of sprite, increases by 2 every quadpixel is rendered

-x size: how big it is in quadruple pixels, (originally double pixels, but I changed my mind because it's faster to render sprites using 16 bits than 8 bits)

-quadpixels leftover: this gets copied from the x size every scanline of a sprite and is decreased after every quadpixel is rendered, stops rendering sprite when it reaches 0.

-x flip: flips sprite horizontally

- hi & lo address of sprite data: this points to the location of where the current sprite pixel is located in the game ROM, it is increased by 2 every time a quadpixel is rendered, address of sprite mask (makes transparencies easier to deal with) is made from this value plus a constant.

I don't want to sound repetetive so I would let you figure out how it works by looking at what all the registers do. When it is rendering forward (x-flip bit is not set) it masks the current quadpixel underneath the sprite to get rid of blocked pixels and then it renders the sprite's quadpixel over it, then every thing gets increased and it does it again till the last quadpixel on the line is rendered. When it is rendering backwards (x-flip is set) it does the same except the words for the quadpixels of the mask and sprite use the 8-bit register swap opcode, and then the nibble swap opcode, to get each pixel to be rendered in the right order, and it renders the quadpixels to the left instead of to the right.

It might sound comfusing, but that is because I'm not that good at explaning things.

[TmEE]

There's no reason to make things as complex... the simpler things are, the less code there is, and the less code, the less time it takes for CPU to work and the faster the rendering will be. And doing things scanline by scanline is probably not very effective on 32X as it would require pretty complex code since you will have to do backgrounds too.

[Iron Lizard]

Damn it I am tired of all the talk. Someone should so this or at least a Genesis version.

[TmEE]

If I'd add Metal Slug MD on my list, nothing will get done !!! I have tooooo many ideas and tooooo little time and I'm far toooooo lazy.

[Iron Lizard]

It should be the top of your list. I demand Genesis Metal Slug! :)

[TmEE]

Helping Pier Solar is on top of my list, 2nd is one secret thingy which I'll reveal sometime, and 3rd is CA the Meowian (I need serious 68K practice before starting working intensively on my master piece).

[Joe Redifer]

Let's say it has a maximum of 16 sprites onscreen.

Since we're talking about SMS Golden Axe, there are no sprites and therefore no sprite limits. No sprites at all zero. None. Zip.

[dragonboy]

There's no reason to make things as complex... the simpler things are, the less code there is, and the less code, the less time it takes for CPU to work and the faster the rendering will be. And doing things scanline by scanline is probably not very effective on 32X as it would require pretty complex code since you will have to do backgrounds too.


It's not really as complicated as it looks. I just suck at explaning stuff using little amount of words. BTW looking at my stuff, it looks like x-flipped sprites may take a little too much, I think instead I'll get rid of that part and rely on pre-flipped sprites instead of doing that in real time. Other than getting rid of the x-flips I really don't see any more optimization. Everything looks to me as if they are as easy as possible, except maybe for the way I explained them. If you can come up with a better engine, can you show me yours?

And I wasn't making a graphics engine for Metal Slug. I was just predicting what kind of graphics engine was used in Golden Axe for the Master System since it has been known for not using real sprites to prevent flickering (according to Joe). Allthough I could make a similar engine for the 32x to use.

I have a reason why I chose a line-buffer instead of a frame-buffer. Sega Master System RAM was slightly too small to fit an entire frame into, so I decided to do a line buffer-instead. Yes there is a bottleneck of rendering the sprites fast enough, but I have a solution to that problem. First I thought that if the framerate is lower than 60fps, than you can have more time with each line, but wait, that would require a frame buffer. Then I thought, I can fit parts of the frame buffer in the ram but not the whole thing, but what about the rest of the picture. I can do part of the picture in real time every frame, dispite doing the exact frame 2, 3 or 4 times in a row, while store the rest in memory until you need to update the screen with a new frame. 32X has enough memory so you don't need to fiddle with scanlines.

I created the doublepixel and quadpixel stuff so it can process two or four pixels at one, because I wouldn't need to seperate the two 4-bit pixels in each byte, it processes them together.

[dragonboy]

I just written my "how I think Golden Axe on the SMS" engine in assembly and beleive me, it's not very long. The Z80 had less 16-bit loading instructions than I thought it so, I'm not going to use quadpixels like I said I will.



xxx0: 000000ar
r: retired sprite
a: active sprite
xxx1: Y-Coordinate
xxx2: Y-Size
xxx3: X-Coordinate
xxx4: X-Size
xxx5: sprite pattern hi
xxx6: sprite pattern lo


CPU register H already has the bank number of line buffer stored.


LD A,(xxx0)
RLA
JP C,THEEND
RLA
JP NC,BUFFERSPRITE
LD A,(xxx1)
DEC A
LD (xxx1),A
JP NZ,THEEND
LD A,02
LD (xxx0),A
JP THEEND
SPRITE
LD IX,(xxx5)
LD A,(xxx3)
LD L,A
LD A,(xxx4)
LD B,A
PIXELS
LD C,(HL)
LD A,(IX+40)
AND C
LD C,(IX+00)
OR C
LD (HL),A
INC IX
INC HL
LD A,01
BIT 0,A
DEC B
JP NZ,PIXELS
THEEND

Okay, that's over. Now I'm going to make a 32X SH2 version of it.

[tomaitheous]

There's no linear bitmap display on the SMS. It's all tile based. Even if there was, you still wouldn't have the CPU resource to do a line buffer system via software in realtime. The z80 is painfully slow,i.e. 3.58mhz is about 1mhz in actuality.

The SMS can have 16 colors per tile, so the game does a software overlay of a group of tiles using a mask, then uploads the tiles. The game runs at 12fps when no enemies are on screen, but slows down as more overlaying is needed. It also helps that the tile format is 4bit linear and that the overlaying is done per 8x8 pixels (tile aligned) - nothing in between. All movement is 8x8 including the scrolling. Even though the SMS cpu is pretty slow, it only needs to overly onto tiles of the characters, everything else is untouched. Clearing the used tiles for the next frame, if the char moves or a piece of the char occupies a different location onscreen, is easily done by having the original untouched and just update the tilemap to point back to the original tiles.

This done the same on other systems like the MSX. This would *not* work very well on the NES since the tiles 4 colors only. 4 colors for the BG and the sprites wouldn't cut it unless you were trying to simulate some original gameboy graphics.

[Black_Tiger]

tomaitheous, are you basically saying that the bg scrolls normally like in a regular game (only restricted to the rate of the animating tiles) and that only the tiles that the "sprites" move across are animating?

[tomaitheous]

Well, the BG doesn't actually use the scroll registers - so no. It rebuilds the tilemap for each frame of the scrolling part. They could have used the hardware scrolling and used increments of 8 pixels, but they didn't and that wouldn't have added much.The main reason is that they couldn't use smooth scrolling is because of the sprite movement grid of 8x8 pixels. The sprites would appear to "pop" into place if the screen scrolled smoothly. And when the screen stops scrolling, then only the tiles where the sprites are, are modified in software.

I also think a Genesis only version of Metal Slug 1 would be cool. I'm sure something nice could be done with 40meg image.

[Joe Redifer]

So why are we still using the term "sprites" when the game does not use sprites? How 'bout them sprites in Soul Calibur? I like Taki's sprite in SC2 on the Xbox in 720p! I don't like Solid Snake's sprite in Metal Gear Solid 4, though. Too old looking.

[Black_Tiger]

Well, the BG doesn't actually use the scroll registers - so no. It rebuilds the tilemap for each frame of the scrolling part. They could have used the hardware scrolling and used increments of 8 pixels, but they didn't and that wouldn't have added much.The main reason is that they couldn't use smooth scrolling is because of the sprite movement grid of 8x8 pixels. The sprites would appear to "pop" into place if the screen scrolled smoothly. And when the screen stops scrolling, then only the tiles where the sprites are, are modified in software.

I also think a Genesis only version of Metal Slug 1 would be cool. I'm sure something nice could be done with 40meg image.

So hardware scrolling increments can't be modified then (without some kind of trickery)?




So why are we still using the term "sprites" when the game does not use sprites? How 'bout them sprites in Soul Calibur? I like Taki's sprite in SC2 on the Xbox in 720p! I don't like Solid Snake's sprite in Metal Gear Solid 4, though. Too old looking.

"Sprites" as opposed to sprites is simpler to say than "any object that may or may not have been considered part of the bg layer in a regular conversion". ;) It also seems fairly applicable since we're talking about a method designed around a sprite-based issue, which in the end simulates sprite display.

[tomaitheous]

Joe: They are sprites regardless. In golden axe they are software sprites.

B_T: Correct. It would take a lot of code change to modify the scrolling engine. Not only that, but the software sprite engine doesn't support anything less than 8x8 pixel increments for the objects. Think of Ninja Gaiden second BG layer on the PCE. That's what the sprites would do on a smooth scrolling BG. The reason why the SMS does the object overlaying on an 8x8 increment system is it perfectly aligns with the BG tiles and makes overlaying less complicated. Not only that but the CPU doesn't have the resource to overlay anything less than 8 pixel increments in the time frame needed. Non aligned objects to tiles mean you have an extra column of tiles to overlay on and it would a lot of binary shifting. The CPU also spends a chuck of time uploading the new overlayed tiles since the SMS doesn't have a DMA like the Genesis or bank swapping like the NES.

[dragonboy]

Helping Pier Solar is on top of my list, 2nd is one secret thingy which I'll reveal sometime, and 3rd is CA the Meowian (I need serious 68K practice before starting working intensively on my master piece).

I don't know why, but Z80 assembly is a little fun for me, but 68000 assembly feels really boring.

[Tanegashima]

Why are we still on this subject, does it matter? I mean this question is like "Man, could Hitler have won WWII??" unless someone goes out and does it, is this debate ever going to end?

Someone, just go port yourself a version and see what happens. Either it works or it doesn't.

Those of us with lives, will go buy the Saturn/Playstation/Xbox versions, save ourselves hundreds of hours, probably hundreds of dollars, actually enjoy ourselves, and still be able to claim we have somewhat of a life.

Besides, why would anyone want to butcher such an amazing game on such a POS console?

I only have the 32X because I feel like it completes my Sega collection (more so because I got it for free :) ) I mean, if you have a Saturn and realize how much Knuckles Chaotix blows and aren't neurotic about having a complete collection like me, why bother?? Metal Slug is awesome, the 32X in all fairness sucks more balls than Courtney Love. Why would you want to put the two together?

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

Helping Pier Solar is on top of my list, 2nd is one secret thingy which I'll reveal sometime, and 3rd is CA the Meowian (I need serious 68K practice before starting working intensively on my master piece).

Are you planning on doing CA the Meowian on megadrive or cd or 32x? Its supposed to be a run n gun right? Is there a thread on here that you talk a little more about the ideas for that game so I don't side track this one

[TmEE]

The game is strictly MD only, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to mess with CD and/or 32X. And the game is on hold until other things are done. I will be doing a total rewrite and redraw of the game anyway... my current implementations are a bit ineffective... and I don't want to mess with 68K as long as I mess with Z80... operands backwards :P

[dragonboy]

I'm currently writing an arcade graphics sprite engine for the 32x that will use one of the SH2s for sprite rendering and rotating and scaling sprites. The other one SH2 is going to be entirely for decompressing sprites, and will use 2 different algorithms: one of them is faster, but the other has a higher compression ratio.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

I have a very silly question. Could someone make a megadrive game that uses both a cartridge and a cd for just the one game? Could the cd have game info and the cart maybe has the level building instructions and they work together in tandem? Just a silly idea I had.

[TmEE]

Problem is that its not that easy to manage... the setup was never meant to run from the cart and CD at the same time... and the booting process would be a pain too... you will have to boot from cart, and then somehow boot the MCD too.

[Black_Tiger]

Why are we still on this subject, does it matter? I mean this question is like "Man, could Hitler have won WWII??" unless someone goes out and does it, is this debate ever going to end?

Those of us who have an interest in this topic are "still on the subject" for obvious reasons. Why are you posting?



Those of us with lives, will go buy the Saturn/Playstation/Xbox versions, save ourselves hundreds of hours, probably hundreds of dollars, actually enjoy ourselves, and still be able to claim we have somewhat of a life.

And if we really wanted to establish "lives", we would stop wasting our time playing or discussing non-current consoles in general, especially something as primitive as the Genesis.



Besides, why would anyone want to butcher such an amazing game on such a POS console?

I only have the 32X because I feel like it completes my Sega collection (more so because I got it for free :) ) I mean, if you have a Saturn and realize how much Knuckles Chaotix blows and aren't neurotic about having a complete collection like me, why bother?? Metal Slug is awesome, the 32X in all fairness sucks more balls than Courtney Love. Why would you want to put the two together?

If you only collect games to satisfy neurosis and you hate the 32X, why did you enter the 32X Power! section in the first place? Plus you should realize how the Saturn sucks balls compared to the Dreamcast, which sucks even more balls compared to the PS3/360, which also have Sega games.




Problem is that its not that easy to manage... the setup was never meant to run from the cart and CD at the same time... and the booting process would be a pain too... you will have to boot from cart, and then somehow boot the MCD too.

Could the Sega-CD combo use a ram cart like the Saturn?

[TmEE]

Could the Sega-CD combo use a ram cart like the Saturn?

I have no idea... a pair of MCDs (along with other stuff) have not arrived yet... and it would be quite some time before I even think of making something for the MCD... I've not yet fully mastered MD, and that has to be done before starting to mess with MCD.

[Black_Tiger]

I have no idea... a pair of MCDs (along with other stuff) have not arrived yet... and it would be quite some time before I even think of making something for the MCD... I've not yet fully mastered MD, and that has to be done before starting to mess with MCD.

If the PC Engine Duo & Super CD-ROM could accept the Arcade Card and the Saturn can use all kinds of Ram carts, then it shouldn't have been too far fetched that the Sega-CD could've as well.

It would've been very cool to see some arcade ports running with at least as much ram as the Arcade Card.

[17daysolderthannes]

OMG this has gone on for 9 pages!? when will it end!? http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s190/specv4life/crazyr.gif :horse: :end:

[Joe Redifer]

Why do you care? Just ignore the thread and then it will end immediately for you.

[TmEE]

If the PC Engine Duo & Super CD-ROM could accept the Arcade Card and the Saturn can use all kinds of Ram carts, then it shouldn't have been too far fetched that the Sega-CD could've as well.

It would've been very cool to see some arcade ports running with at least as much ram as the Arcade Card.

I know very little about MCD+MD combo and how it works... you should be able to access some part of the cart... the RAM cart must work somehow... and then you have a 32M RAM cart sitting in MD, and with the nice 1x drive you wait a minute or more until the cart is nicely filled with data... BTW, MCD and MD communication works through small 256KB (or 512KB) hole which has access restrictions.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

"Oh Bob Saget!!!!"

[tomaitheous]

BTW, MCD and MD communication works through small 256KB (or 512KB) hole which has access restrictions.

If you look at the whole setup for the MCD, doesn't it appear that the original genesis CPU should be acting as a general I/O controller and not the main processor? If you treat the base system's CPU as such, then the small amount of ram on the Genesis side makes perfect sense. Run all game logic and such from the CD unit on the faster processor, where most the ram sits, and has direct access to the asic and pcm unit, etc.

[Joe Redifer]

...but not the display. Lack of access to the display would slow things down.

[17daysolderthannes]

Why do you care?

I'm just flabbergasted as to why a thread about a hypothetical game that will never be made has been discussed for 9, excuse me, TEN pages.

[Joe Redifer]

Same reason people make science fiction movies, I guess. We like to imagine just what could be possible.

[tomaitheous]

...but not the display. Lack of access to the display would slow things down.

Nah, access is done during vblank 99% of the time for the VDP. Plus, you code your own driver to handle VDP changes; i.e. tilemap update, animation update, hsync pal updates, etc. Things like hsync and column effects are handled via a special block of memory in the VDP itself instead of 'interrupts' - making things so much easier to deal with.

The Genesis processor ram could be treated as secondary cache of graphic data(256k+64K or 128+64k depending on the memory mode 1M/1M or 2M/2M). Since you're coding your own driver for the Genesis cpu, you can do a special display list style driver or whatever. And you could swap out the driver whenever needed since it's ram.

[TmEE]

this gives me ideas... I don't think I will be doing any MCD stuff though... CD is not so easy to deal with as a (flash)cart is, and CDs aren't reusable (CD-RWs are, but I don't think MCD likes these).

[17daysolderthannes]

Same reason people make science fiction movies, I guess. We like to imagine just what could be possible.

but you aren't making even a youtube mockup of what could be possible, this is more like discussing what kind of private contractors could have been hired to work on the death star, completely moot. Why not spend all this energy throwing around ideas to make a better flash cart that works with USB and can simply have roms dropped onto it like a flash drive. Someone could actually take those ideas and do something with it, unlike Metal Slug which is a copyrighted franchise and the 32X which is a very limited production add on that (as far as I know) can't even have repros made for it.

[tomaitheous]

but you aren't making even a youtube mockup of what could be possible, this is more like discussing what kind of private contractors could have been hired to work on the death star, completely moot. Why not spend all this energy throwing around ideas to make a better flash cart that works with USB and can simply have roms dropped onto it like a flash drive. Someone could actually take those ideas and do something with it, unlike Metal Slug which is a copyrighted franchise and the 32X which is a very limited production add on that (as far as I know) can't even have repros made for it.

If you don't understand the concept of discussion in the form of hypotheticals, then that's fine. Why continue reading the thread? Why continue posting on it other to say what a waste the thread is? Not trying to be an ass, just saying...

[17daysolderthannes]

If you don't understand the concept of discussion in the form of hypotheticals, then that's fine. Why continue reading the thread? Why continue posting on it other to say what a waste the thread is? Not trying to be an ass, just saying...

because I would rather people go to a productive area of discussion like a USB RAM cart rather than a wasteful discussion and then maybe something cool could actually come from it other than just nerding out. And, for the record, I stopped reading it along time ago because its such a waste, I just felt the need to comment that it is getting out of hand for something that's never going to happen.

[tomaitheous]

because I would rather people go to a productive area of discussion like a USB RAM cart rather than a wasteful discussion and then maybe something cool could actually come from it other than just nerding out. And, for the record, I stopped reading it along time ago because its such a waste, I just felt the need to comment that it is getting out of hand for something that's never going to happen.

But who are you to tell us 'nerds' to do something else? Ever thought that maybe other people have different opinions and likes/dislikes from you? Or that people are their own person? Unless we're just mindless herd of nerds that needs to be directed to the correct threads. "getting out of hand for something that's never going to happen". I'm glad you felt the need to comment on it ;)

[17daysolderthannes]

But who are you to tell us 'nerds' to do something else?

I'm not telling, I'm suggesting, trying to act as a reality check to everyone that this ultimately is going nowhere. Do you type pages and pages of excel spreadsheets and then delete them? that's about as productive as this thread.

[Iron Lizard]

Really who cares? There are plenty of threads here that many of us have no interest in. Despite this we don't feel the need to tell the people posting on these threads that they are wasting their time. We just ignore them. Learn to do the same.

[Joe Redifer]

17days, please do not post in this thread again.

[dragonboy]

I have a very silly question. Could someone make a megadrive game that uses both a cartridge and a cd for just the one game? Could the cd have game info and the cart maybe has the level building instructions and they work together in tandem? Just a silly idea I had.

Probably, but it will be hard to program and if you lost either of the two parts you can't play the game and you'd need to find both parts to play it. However I have a solution to that problem but I'm not going to tell you until I patent my idea.

I just have to say, SNK programmers must've really had it easy on them. No worrying about compression schemes, no worrying about loading graphics or sounds. No wonder Neo Geo had so many well polished fun games to play, they were able to focus on the actual game more and just breeze through the programming.

Wait a minute?, why don't I start practicing programming on the Neo Geo, I think is so easy? Tomarrow I'll start.

[Joe Redifer]

They didn't worry about compression, etc because of the system itself, but more because they literally wanted a higher MEG count. Cartridge price wasn't an object, but with the Genesis it sure was. Sure, the Neo Geo could bite off more at a time than the Genesis could so it is a bit less worrisome, also the palette makes it less of a headache I'd think as well.

[Tanegashima]

Probably, but it will be hard to program and if you lost either of the two parts you can't play the game and you'd need to find both parts to play it. However I have a solution to that problem but I'm not going to tell you until I patent my idea.

I just have to say, SNK programmers must've really had it easy on them. No worrying about compression schemes, no worrying about loading graphics or sounds. No wonder Neo Geo had so many well polished fun games to play, they were able to focus on the actual game more and just breeze through the programming.

Wait a minute?, why don't I start practicing programming on the Neo Geo, I think is so easy? Tomarrow I'll start.

But if this were say a 32X CD game with a cartridge how you get the CD to boot?

Oh, well I guess the same way it does when the memory/backup RAM cart is inserted huh...

But I don't even understand the reason for having both a cart and CD unless the cart is providing RAM, why do both? Doesn't a CD have enough space to basically hold anything that the system could potentially handle?

Couldn't you just stack a ton of ram with different graphics chips (ala Starfox SNES) in the 32X and run a metal slug of a 32X CD? It would have been expensive but it could have been done.

But the very first Metal Slug game came out in what, 1995/1996? Was the 32X even supported at this point? Now I realize this is for pretend but its just made me realize that 32X really needn't ever have existed...

[Joe Redifer]

There could (hypothetically) be two ways to get the CD and cart to boot. One is for the disc to specifically look for the cartridge. Another might be for the cartridge to specifically look for the CD hardware and refuse to run if not present. I've always wondered if a cartridge-only game could exist that makes use of the Sega CD PCM sound chips and maybe even the ASIC chip, but without any CD at all... just a cart using the CD hardware.

[TmEE]

The cart needs to have access to CD part, and initialize CD part itself (you've got no BIOS to do it), and I don't think there's enough info on MCD to actually initialize it manually... also, Fonzie, has told that MCD is very prone to errors caused by not so well designed hardware so its another bucket load of headache... the best would be to have a RAM cart, with some ROM in it which hold character animations for example.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

There could (hypothetically) be two ways to get the CD and cart to boot. One is for the disc to specifically look for the cartridge. Another might be for the cartridge to specifically look for the CD hardware and refuse to run if not present. I've always wondered if a cartridge-only game could exist that makes use of the Sega CD PCM sound chips and maybe even the ASIC chip, but without any CD at all... just a cart using the CD hardware.

That would be usefull to get rid of those load times