/vr/ - Retro Games

are you retarded? the SNES wasn't even full screen and had 2D spirtes (that is, if you looked at them from the side, they were fucking flat)

fuck outta here.

real question is why was the saturn version shit.

Why was the music so shit? Has anyone ever found a concrete reason for that?
>>2523220
Pretty sure they're 2D on 32X as well.
>>2523230
It was super rushed. The Japanese version is a little better but not much.

>>2523220
All versions of doom have 2d sprites. I dont really know what you mean.

>>2523132
Why was the 32X even a thing?

>>2523220
What they >>2523240 >>2523257 said. Also, you can't look at them from the side that's the whole point with sprites, you tit.

>>2523132
This version is a magnet for Saturn version's deserved hate. N64 version is overrated and too dark as well

>>2523220
I think he meant the sprites always faced, you couldn't look their backs in the SNES version.

>>2523132
The reason it's terrible is the same reason many other games are terrible: it was rushed out the door to make it market by Christmas.

>Issues also plagued titles developed in-house due to the time crunch to release the 32X. According to Bayless, "games in the queue were effectively jammed into a box as fast as possible, which meant massive cutting of corners in every conceivable way. Even from the outset, designs of those games were deliberately conservative because of the time crunch. By the time they shipped they were even more conservative; they did nothing to show off what the hardware was capable of."[4]

It doesn't matter how good you are at something: if you're given a brutal deadline, you'll end up with a rushed product. E.T. would probably be considered a landmark in the history of video games if Atari gave HSW more than five weeks to make the thing, for example.

>>2523258
Sega of America was retarded, that's why.

>>2523296
Sega of Japan*

hurr let's release 32x AFTER we release the Saturn

Have you actually played it? It's FAR better than the SNES port in every area except music.

It actually doesn't play bad, it's just incomplete and has music that seems like a placeholder instead of actual finished tracks.

>>2523132
It isn't. Doom on 3DO and Doom on Saturn (both more powerful than the 32X) have something to say to you.
Doom on SNES also runs at a hilariously low resolution and doesn't even render flats (the surface textures).

Doom 32X's biggest problems are
>no episode 3 levels at all
>lighting is massively simplified
>the music ranges from merely a lazy port of the DOS music to "who the fuck even let this happen"

and it shared a couple problems with pretty much all of the cartridge based ports like
>severely cut textures
>only 2/3rds of the game is there
>enemies can only face the player (major change that really affects the game a lot but saves a lot of space)

Really, Doom 32X is a completely average port for the time, especially considering the other Doom ports from around then.

>>2523240
>Why was the music so shit?
Rush job. Pic related for just how rushed.

>>2523352
the whole thing was a massive pile of miscommunication that Sega of Japan greenlit for some reason instead of saying no like they usually would

>>2523260
No, YOU twit. Anyone who is not familiar with monster infighting is in no place to be acting opinionated on anything doom related!

I might have been tolerable with the mac version of wolf3d and derivatives thereof, but doom engine games were different.

>>2523296
Damn straight! Fucking 'muricans! They wanted to make a device out of some shitty itty bitty "virtual processor" chip-let. They got their ass saved from being a total joke by getting the hitachi CPUs parachuted in to back their contraption up! At least the 32x is SO powerful that it makes genesis games look better!

>>2524204
>people will never attempt at making an actual 32X conversion of Doom based on the prototype

https://tcrf.net/Proto:Doom_(32X)/September_6,_1994_Prototype

With enough time and optimization I'd think it might be possibile, even if I'd have to play it around 15fps.

>>2523261
The N64 version is a totally different game.

>>2524243
N64 was designed by "fucking 'muricans", then ruined by "fucking elevens". YOU MAD?

Because the 32X was worse than most other machines

>>2524671
Take this meme away from /vr/.

Because it was on the 32X.

>>2523296
iirc Sega of America was really against it but Sega of Japan forced them to.

>>2524787
It was made in response to the launch of the Atari Jaguar if I recall correctly, which they saw more of a threat than the PlayStation.

>>2524787
some of this is wrong, maybe very wrong
Sega of America designed the 32X idea originally, in response to the SVP making games cost so much -- someone had the idea of making you spend $150 once and then you would get normal $60-70 games for the 32X instead of spending $100+ a game and having no way for the game to increase the color or anything like that.
Sega also liked the idea of expansions at the time.

It got greenlit and commandeered by Sega of Japan, had some tech from the Saturn project thrown in (namely, the brand new SH-2 CPUs Hitachi was making -- this is probably the worst technical decision Sega made regarding the 32X, if only because it ensured supply issues due to the incoming release of the Saturn), and became the hot mushroom (it gets rather warm) we know and love today.
IIRC, late in development when it became clear how soon the Saturn was going to be released (the Americans were REALLY out of the loop), the Americans wanted to can it. That didn't happen.

in the end, the 32X kind of broke even (more or less) financially but severely damaged Sega's reputation (people actually wanted the things at first, Sega couldn't make enough because Saturn production was happening, the games didn't come, and by the time the supply issues cleared up, customers didn't give a shit and it ended up getting sold in bargain bins)

>>2524983
Supply issues however would be contingent on if the SH-2s were getting *binned* or if they weren't.

And I doubt the 32x would still be $150 without the SH-2s.

>>2525617
I don't suppose any of you anons have the copypasta about humanity reaching a singularity through Sega add-ons, eh?

>>2524983
Why couldn't they have compromised and used two SH-1s or something? Still could be Saturnish, but less extravagant.

Who says the neptune was a bad concept? Sega was a screwed up company and lucked out with the genesis, so a lighter neptune would have been damn cool to see!

Fuck the petty, demanding programmers getting butthurt about the super-h architecture. They're not in charge, they're supposed to do what they're told, so if they're told to work with SH, that's what they'll do. Sega needed to put their foot down on them. Whining for one superpowerful super-H to rule them on is fucking bullshit! After all, Dreamcast fucking TANKED too!!! So they should have gone the other way, given them just two SH-1 cpus! That woulda showed them!

>>2526792
>Why couldn't they have compromised and used two SH-1s or something?
Sega has never done things the easy way. :(

>>2526980
Hah, you know, that didn't make sense before, but now that you've explained it, now we have some profound insight as to what sega needed to have done...

A 32x with _THREE_ SH-1's!

>>2523240
>Why was the music so shit? Has anyone ever found a concrete reason for that?

They pulled the game midis directly into the Megadrive sound driver with the default instrument patches. They put literally zero effort in it. Did it play back the music? Yes? Then the job is done. That's how they ported the music.

Even if they would have spent half a day tweaking the instrument patches, they could've gotten something 4x better. Comix Zone uses the exact same sound driver (GEMS), and yet it is by far one of the best sounding games on the Megadrive - all because the sound guy spent time creating custom instruments (admitted in an interview as well).

>>2526792
>two SH-1s
Wouldn't have made a difference other than making the 32X worse.

and you run into the same supply issues, Saturn uses the SH-1 for CD processing
the Super H line was brand new, and Sega had been working with Hitachi on it, it was kind of sort of specifically made for Sega
>One Sega official said Hitachi's chip was attractively priced and would be designed with Sega's needs in mind, although the chip would not be exclusively for Sega's use
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/22/business/company-news-sega-to-use-hitachi-chip-in-video-game-machine.html

Wasn't an awful processing decision, either. The way they were linked together (ensuring almost constant fighting between the CPUs for resources, so games ended up using mostly one CPU for things, it was REALLY hard to parallelize code) was pretty bad though. It could have been done so much better with a different RAM configuration so doing things like having game code on one SH-2 and graphics drawn by the other would be simple and easy.

Most of the limitations with the 32X is that it literally doesn't have graphics acceleration and all drawing is done by the CPU, the 32X VDP is ONLY for blitting data to the screen, no polygon drawing or sprites or anything -- but that's what the SVP and SuperFX did as well, they were only plain processors, and that's what the 32X was designed to be, a better SVP
and since parallelization is so fucking stupid on it, you end up with one CPU doing game logic and drawing and the other maybe being called to do things sometimes but not really depending on the game instead of the ideal I mentioned earlier.

had more, char limit

>>2525565
It's two processors and 512k of RAM, half of which was fast enough to use as a framebuffer in 1994. And sound hardware (4 PWM DACs). Everything adds up, and then Sega adds markup. $150 sounds about right for that in '94 money, and people were totally willing to pay -- 32X actually did have hype behind it, thing had a million preorders.

>>2527583
>$150 sounds about right for that in '94 money, and people were totally willing to pay

Who knows if it would have even been possible to use two samsung ssp1601 chips?

>>2527583
They could've used 1 SH2 and 1 Saturn VDP1 in the 32x.

It would've been way the hell more powerful, and would have been an even better introduction to Saturn ports.

But in reality they should've just scrapped the 32x.

>>2527583
Who knows how much less of a pain sh-1s would have been? Do we know what kind of foundries they required? Do we know the die size of them?

Um, wait, AFAIK the sh-1 was ready earlier. So that way they could have released the 32x earlier.

>>2527583
>and you run into the same supply issues, Saturn uses the SH-1 for CD processing
Then maybe they could have said fuck that? Using a more normal chip for controlling the CD drive? But that sounds like less of a waste than the second sh-2 in the saturn.

>>2527665
>>2527670
>>2527683
>>2527703
you could have put this in one post

either way
1: Sega had gotten Hitachi to make the Super-H series, and you were still a decent bit into 1994 for it to have been released. Period. Sega had certainly made the deal ages ago, before the 32X was even considered, when the Saturn was in pre-production.
2: 32X likely got the cheapest components of the Saturn's design that would benefit it. Sega also had (too much) confidence in the dual-CPU design, otherwise they'd have removed it from the Saturn.
3: Sega considered other chips for the 32X (such as the SSP1601) and decided on the SH-2 because reasons. They likely didn't think of the yield issues Hitachi would have, and Sega probably was getting a very good deal on the Hitachi chips with their partnership.

oh and
>Then maybe they could have said fuck that? Using a more normal chip for controlling the CD drive? But that sounds like less of a waste than the second sh-2 in the saturn.
4: Saturn was a more important project by far, they weren't going to gimp it for the 32X.

Hell, let's continue.
5: Sega of Japan's upper management was fucking retarded and didn't know shit about shit. There isn't a single good managerial decision from 1989 to 1993 from SoJ that affected the West that was good. I'm half certain that many decisions were made solely to spite the western arms of Sega. I'm not going to trust every word out of Kalinske's mouth, but it's becoming clearer and clearer that SoJ was actively against SoA's influence for some reason.

which still doesn't even explain why they greenlit the 32X, a SoA project, in the first place, maybe the managed to appeal to the Japanese management in some way

the kicker
6: everything about the 32X including its design was rushed as fuck -- hardware, games, absolutely everything

32X had potential as it was, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OB1a7FJF8A

>>2523132
Because its a rushed, shitty port for a flop peripheral. It isn't like bad ports of Doom are uncommon. The SNES one, while not rushed or shitty in terms of getting the most out of the system, is incredibly unpleasant, to say the least because the hardware isn't strong enough.

>>2527748
>you could have put this in one post
Oh, we could have?

>4: Saturn was a more important project by far, they weren't going to gimp it for the 32X.
No, that was assuming that they included the sh-1 in the saturn because it was something they custom commissioned.

>>2527775
>getting the most out of the system
It used an FX-2 chip, if it technically qualifies for getting the most out of the system, we can't say it does because there aren't a decent number of games with such expensive add on chips to compare it to.

>>2527825
I'm pretty sure no amount of addon chips is going to get the SNES on the level of a 486 processor. What it did was pretty damn impressive, but it sure isn't fun to play these days.

>>2527837
Well, if you're putting it in the present tense, if you had a superFX or SA1 enhancement chip, manufactured on a modern process, with the kinds of clockrates you'd expect from that, then I wouldn't be surprised if it did manage that kind of result.

>>2527748
>I'm half certain that many decisions were made solely to spite the western arms of Sega.

Well then, that casts doubt on this:

>32X likely got the cheapest components of the Saturn's design that would benefit it.

So it seems kind of like the 32x was made to pay homage to the saturn just because. What I've always been hearing is that SoA was for an SVP add on cart (though I've also heard they wanted a Neptune right off the bat)

But that does make sense, so that makes it clear that it's not even particularly relevant if programming or bus-architecturing SH-1s works just like SH-2s, or whether an SVP could have worked in a pair, either with another SVP or more wildly in a slave configuration with an SH-1.

But certain misconceptions about this would be pretty easy to clear up. It would just require someone with a badly broken saturn to expose the dies of the SH-2, SH-1 and YMF-292 chips, so show how big they are.

Though there is a consensus of sorts about what sega's problem was, that they just expected their customers to pay too much, ie. way too often.

>>2525672

Anyone?

>>2527990
Was the YMF-292 backwards compatible with the OPL3?

>>2528376
Don't know, but why wouldn't you be more suspicious of OPN2 compatibility?

There was also an OPL4 and the YM7** series with OPL3 compatibility.

Every console version had a different glaring flaw. It is actually interesting to compare them. As I see it, the missing levels in the 32x version is not a huge deal compared to most other ports.

32x version was the first version I played. Nothing seemed wrong to me.

>>2529959
I just wanted to know if it was. One day, someone could port ScummVM to the Saturn.

>>2523132
It really wasn't. The music was shit but the game itself played fine especially compared to the 3DO and Saturn ports. If it wasn't rushed for the holiday season it would have been a lot better but otherwise it was a mediocre port.

32X had the worst music, 3D0 had the best.

>>2530294
I'm surprised it took until the Xbox version of Doom 3 for a console port that was equal to the PC version.

>>2530815
Oh. I could see why every bit of processing power would count, so even if you could use the wavetable functions of the SCSP, which would be especially tempting for Roland/MPU/mide card emulation, but then it would still be overly costly compared direct mapping of sound channels.

But even with a compatible chip, I doubt the saturn would have enough processing power.

Maybe if someone made a new saturn, with like 90+ mhz sh-2s, it would be okay for running emulators.

Who cares?

The only console ports of Doom that are worth shit are the N64 and PS1. All the rest were garbage.

>>2527583
>32X actually did have hype behind it, thing had a million preorders.

You know, the 32x could have actually been a stunning success ... if somehow, something horrible had happened to the saturn and stopped it from being released.

just sprite my shit up

>>2531781
Hey hold the fuck up, I never talked about wavetables, didn't the saturn have a poor sound cache?

I just wanted to know if one could map the OPL2/3 calls to Saturn's chip without too much hassle and get it to sound dead on to the DOS games.

I don't think processing power or memory would be a problem, since I would make multiple executable files (DS style) for any major engine except for any game that would suck too much resources (I wouldn't care porting anything past LucasArts for starters though).

>>2532185
Well, the SCSP apparently does have the ability to use alternative waveforms, at least saw (similar to #4 and/or #8) and triangle, so it would likely sound very ... special!

>>2532185
HEY, the SCSP is apparently midi compatible, so that would probably be the easiest way for it to play DOS game audio, and remember still, adventure games are probably more likely to be optimized for midi than action games are.

>>2532363
The SCSP lets you use arbitrary samples as FM operators, so every waveform in that picture is fine. IIRC, most of those are actually OPL3 waveforms (I think the entire right side of the picture is OPL3 only).
You can probably do a decent OPL2 with the SCSP. Maybe not dead-on, but you could certainly make a solid attempt.

the biggest issue with using the SCSP's FM ability instead of just using it as a sampler is that each FM operator uses a whole channel
you need 18 SCSP channels for the 9 two-operator OPL2 channels

you need all 32 SCSP channels to get 16 2-op OPL3 channels (and you can have 8 4-op channels)
the OPL3 has 18 2-op channels, and can pair 12 of them together to get 6 4-op channels and have 6 2-op channels remaining

>>2523260
he meant that if you would walk to a different side of the monster you would see the same sprite from the front, instead of seeing the side of it.
faggot

>>2523260
Sprite rotations.

>>2532609
Number 2 or 3 is an OPLL waveform as well(SMS and lagrange point), the other one and #4 are OPL2 and up.

>>2532185
>>2532609
I know I've seen a new product with a yamaha FM synth chip somewhere, so if you wanted to experiment with mapping sound channels to one chip instead of another, that would probably be an easy way to start, though I can't dig that up at the moment...

>>2523132
Because it only used a dinky little cartridge. What they needed to do to do justice to 32x-doom is pull a sonic and knuckles and make an expansion pack that would use the cartridge to load the basic data quickly, and load the other stuff off a CD. Like Doom 2 and 6 more episodes.

>>2523132
snes one runs at such god awful framerate i cant imagine anything being worse

>>2530294
>>2531021
>>2524204
The console porting of doom is such a horror story, it would be neat for some sort of lineup as to just how bad they were ... like comparing them to see which ones actually ran as good as, let's say a 40mhz-cyrix-486dlc.

Why do people even bother pointing out how awful the SNES version was? Especially against the 32x version, it's not even worth comparing. The SNES was just not a viable platform to even try porting something like doom to.

Now, with the 3do version, you can wonder if it was just ported badly. Hexen port bashing makes sense too. But SNES doom was a joke from the getgo.

>>2537206
because a lot of people make it seem like the 32x port is worse

We know better here, but it's fashionable elsewhere on the internet to hate on Doom 32x.

>>2535176
Well aside from the SNES port, all of the pre-6th gen console ports stemmed from the Jaguar version which was started by ID themselves (32X came out first though).

Jaguar ran decently but had absolutely no music, 32X slowed down considerably in big rooms and had the same always facing enemies as the SNES port, and playstation used colored lighting to give it some unique flavor. Dunno much about the GBA port though. N64 i'm keeping out since it was a unique game on its own, just using doom gameplay and made as a sequel.

Oddly enough, it seems the saturn port was not allowed to use the hardware to render by Carmack himself. Which is what makes the Saturn port so bad.

>>2537360
The GBA port is the Jaguar port with these changes:
>faster Cacos (for some reason)
>all enemies are deaf
>no Nightmare mode
>the framerate is uncapped, meaning it slows down most of the time but actually runs too fast when nothing's happening
>you can switch on fullbright to speed up the framerate
>Deathmatch mode added for the GBA link cable but you'd better be ready for a trip to slowdown central
>censored blood to green and removed it completely from Doomguy's face
>censored content generally (no crucifixions, Satanic symbols etc.)

>>2537441
Oh, and
>enemies and items aren't affected by lighting, so they're always fullbright and glow in the dark
>no muzzle flash

>>2537360
Yeah, but there's all these assessments of how wrecked the ports are, and they are so markedly subjective ... compare that to how the PC version was a straightforward question of processing power:

http://cpu-museum.de/?m=AMD&f=Am486&pass=true
http://cpu-museum.de/?m=Cyrix&f=Cx486&pass=true
http://cpu-museum.de/?m=Intel&f=80486DX&pass=true

However, the cyrix 386<~>486 bastard chips don't have those benchmarks there. Well, for everyone that ran doom on a cyrix SLC(glorified 386, really), they've got an experience in the same league as one of the thoroughly reviled doom console ports.

But what's rather awkward here is that the a few of the console versions had similarly reduced screen sizes, which are not quite the minimum size. But with a bit of messing around with the screen size, they could be matched up to a PC equivalent pretty evenly, though the SNES version would also call for use of the low detail setting.

And N64 doesn't entirely have to feel left out, it had the opportunity to straightforwardly mangle Hexen.

>>2537449
I meant the N64 version should be seperate as it wasnt a simple port, but an entirely new level set with redesigned enemies and a brand new final boss and completely new textures. It's made specifically for the N64, so it doesnt have the usual errors that the Jaguar based ports had.

>>2537441
Thanks, had no idea the framerate was uncapped in it.

>>2537463
Of course I'm perfectly clear about Doom64 being a different game, *I'm just saying*. in spite of that, the opportunity for the N64 to mangle the idtech1 engine was not missed. Because: Hexen"64". The Saturn also doubled up it's Doom-butchery with a bad Hexen port. And the Playstation got to "make up" for it's fancy doom port with a horrific Hexen port. AND, those two also for some reason managed to repeat the SNES and 32Xes weakness of only letting you see the monsters from the front!! I have no idea if those reused any code from Doom ports, but that would obviously be very interesting ... for some people.

>>2532657
That's still 2D you retard.

>>2532185
>>2533503
Ahh, here it is. It has a yamaha OPM chip. Maybe not the most impressive one, but it seems relevant to the question of whether you can use one Yamaha FM synth chip instead of another.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8NI2O85wEU

>>2537621
PS1 Hexen was by Probe Entertainment. Must have had some crappy devs given that Williams Entertainment got PSX Doom running pretty well overall and with everything but the archvile.

My personal favorite console port has to be the Playstation version, that one was pretty nice with the lighting effects added and stuff.

I don't suppose there's a console version of doom that can be dehax0red to give you dat classic single barrelled streetsweeper, is there?

>>2541285
You mean the vanilla shotgun? Only the N64 version redrew every sprite and texture in the game. The other ports used vanilla assets.

>>2541315
Naw! I mean the *special* shotgun that the cool thing back in the day, if you get my drift, hehehe.

For example, there was one set of special weapons, or rather two sets, that is, there were two versions of each ... the rusty homemade gattling gun, mini kaput cannon, low heat torture fart flames, and the forearm muscle workout shotgun, ... that's one the one hand, and then on the other ... the gatling gun, mini howitzer cannon, flamethrower, and the weapon in question - the contrasting counterpart to the forearm muscle workout shotgun.

A bit strangely, the flamethrower needed to coopt the sprites of the baron of hell's projectiles, leading to barons ending up shooting fire. Kind of like how if you were shooting the energizer bunny, if you splattered one with a rocket, the sound would go "stillllll-going!", but because it's one sound of that for all monsters, if you vaporized anything to a pool of blood, it would make the "stillll-going!" sound, whether it was a shotgun bunny, pistol-zombie or imp.

>>2537621
What's wrong with Hexen 64? It is a great port.

Ha, I still have this game with the box haven played it in years. Lol N64 doom is god tier though

Can we all agree that this is the king of all Doom ports? PS1 Final Doom was kinda sucky, though.

>>2531021
>no proper shadow

>>2541454
Considering Doom is on modern platforms now, I can't agree with that. It's the best of the 90s Doom ports though.

>>2541454
Agree? WTF? Just because it's impressive? No.

Is it better than the RISC OS version?

AND, see: >>2541348
there's the question of which doom can use all thems wild normal doom goodies that have been out there all these years.

>>2541454
That one will always be my go-to console version. Also I don't think many people realize that Doom 64 owes a lot to this version, aesthetically and sound-wise. Hell, they even have the same composer.

>PS1 Final Doom was kinda sucky, though.
It's a shame that they included only a handful of TNT and Plutonia levels and tried to pass it off as Final Doom.

>>2541454
One of the programmers of the Saturn version took to YouTube to post some replies to people discussing the game.

Said apparently Romero was like "fuck you, no hardware rendering".

>>2541631
Wow, John Romero made the Saturn his bitch!

Traditional rendering mode - suck it down.