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File: 291 KB, 915x460, CD.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4017264 No.4017264 [Reply] [Original]

Which was the better CD add-on?

I think I might lean over the PC-Engine CD since they mostly used the CD techonolgy to make regular games with instrumental soundtrack and animated cutscenes. The Sega CD had those too, but they mostly tried to push FMV games.

>> No.4017268

>>4017264
PCE CD by far. It came out first, has better games and also heavily complemented the regular PCE. Not to mention all those Falcom RPGs. Rondo of Blood is also generally seen as the best game on the console.

The SEGA CD just didn't have enough good games on it, especially in comparison with the Genesis. The graphics are definitely better though, and I fucking love Sonic CD

>> No.4017308
File: 15 KB, 639x462, ecco-pterodactyl.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4017308

>>4017268
>The graphics are definitely better though, and I fucking love Sonic CD
Is this really true? Sonic CD looks colorful, but wouldn't that have been possible with the base Genesis?
From what I understood, the CD unit added redbook audio and FMV capability, that's mostly what the Sega CD did.
I played both versions of Ecco the Dolphin, and at least from what I could perceive there was no difference between the two, in terms of graphics or gameplay (although I think it has some design differences, like CD version has checkpoints). But I didn't see any visual enhancement.
The Sonic CD bonus levels looked impressive and "3D" back in 1993, but it wasn't necessarily more impressive than the halfpipe stages on Sonic 2, only difference was that you could move anywhere by using a sort of mode7 effect, it was also very choppy on the original Sega CD version.
Blue Spheres is definitely more impressive, and smoother, and it didn't need the Sega CD hardware.
That said, I like the Sega CD, has some good games worth playing. I emulate it nowadays though. As an early CD unit is very clunky and slow. I have a broken one but I don't have time or any willing to fix it, maybe one day.
PCE CD was more successful (in Japan) and has more games.
It got many good deals with publishers like Konami. Not only Rondo of Blood but the original Tokimeki Memorial was on there (huge hit in Japan). I believe the Super Famicom also has a version of tokimemo? Not sure, but the Sega CD didn't. But Sega got the "cult hit" Snatcher (also on PCE) and, I dunno... what are the holy grails of the Sega CD? It has some good ones, Lunar 1 and 2, Popful Mail, Cotton, Shining Force CD, in Japan it got a couple good RPGs like Shin megami tensei (also on PCE).
Not a whole lot of exclusive on Sega CD though, but many interesting versions of games.

>> No.4017362

If the PCE had been powerful enough to render video in real time it probably would have had a bunch of FMV games too.

But I don't think you should hold the crappy games against a system; nobody's forcing you to play them, after all. Keeping that in mind, it's kind of a tossup for me. There are about an equal number of "games I really like" for each system.

Mega CD has stuff like Lunar 1 and 2, Keio, Yumimimix, Silpheed, Popful Mail. PCE-CD has Sapphire, Yuna, Macross 2036, Princess Minerva, Tekipaki Working Love...

I think overall the PCE benefited more from its CD add-on by greatly extending the life of the console, but I don't want to undersell how good some of the Mega CD's catalogue was.

>> No.4017461

>>4017264
Sega CD is more technically impressive but had next to no worthwhile games.

PCE CD had more games on it

>> No.4017480

>>4017308
Sega CD mainly allows the Genesis to read CDs, which obviously hold hundreds of times more data than a cart, but it also adds a faster processor and includes support for hardware sprite scaling like the SNES has. Not a lot of games used these extra features, but they existed.

>> No.4017491

>>4017308
>From what I understood, the CD unit added redbook audio and FMV capability, that's mostly what the Sega CD did.

The Sega CD added huge storage space, but limited your memory to RAM only, you couldn't stream data from ROM. To alleviate this it also came with 512k more memory and two 128k word rams which were used for communication only between the two 68ks.

Beyond that it added a PCM sound chip (higher quality than the SNES but without DSP effects), and a chip that pre-scaled graphics and wrote them out as VDP tiles into word ram.

The problem here was that for scaling, you need to update tiles to VRAM on the fly, but if you are uploading data there, the VDP will halt entirely. This means you were heavily limited in how much scaled sprites you could upload, so you got quarter screen worth of scaled graphics at 15fps. This was a total piece of shit and not really useful for good games.

So the actual useful stuff the Sega CD added was cd audio, pcm sound channels, and a shitload of space to work with. No wonder then that games were filled with ludicrous amount of crappy FMVs.

Yes, the sega cd also had a second 68k chip that ran faster, but that made no difference for the games because it was there exclusively to control the CD drive and handle data transfer to the main 68k. The expansion slot had no interrupt line, so the only way to read data from the CD unit was having both CPUs checking each other periodically if they had any data ready for each other.

>>4017461
>Sega CD is more technically impressive

The only impressive thing in the Sega CD was the fact that they could even get that awful design working. They should've scrapped the whole expansion idea and made a more powerful, but backwards compatible Genesis 2.

>> No.4017540

>>4017480
>>4017491
Right, it technically adds RAM etc etc but as you said, it was hard to implement, and in practice, you don't really see games that are visually more advanced than a Genesis game.
Some designers were clever enough and pulled some really impressive games on Sega CD though, I love Silpheed. Yeah it's obvious the backgrounds are FMVs but it works, it looks convincing. The game itself is fine too, a bit repetitive and sprites are very small, but it's one of the best shooters on the system.

>> No.4017557

>>4017362
>If the PCE had been successful in 'murrica it probably would have had a bunch of FMV games too.
FTFY. It was mostly Digital Pictures that tried to push the FMV game genre as the "future of interactive cinema". At any rate, both add-ons had ports of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective and both ports were shitty.

>> No.4017620

>>4017491
I've seen a few of these high-effort posts recently. They've all been in the same style and they've all been really good.
Please keep posting like this. It's great to have someone around here that can discuss the hardware this way.

>> No.4017705

>>4017264
>Which CD add-on had any games worth playing
FTFY

>> No.4017716
File: 16 KB, 245x251, 1392394143247.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4017716

>>4017620
>high quality post
>someone praises it
We might save this board yet!

>> No.4017741

>>4017716
/vr/ is pretty chill and high-quality compared to most retro game forums. Surprisingly, this is a case where 4chan tends to have less unironic shitposting than the competition.

I'll let you decide whether that means /vr/ is good or that other forums tend to be bad.

>> No.4017758

>>4017264
PC-CD by far, it has about the same number of good games as the regular hu-card PCE, if not more (including all-time greats like rondo).

>> No.4018026

>>4017264
The CD-ROM2.

The Sega CD was just kinda there and aside from a few gems like Snatcher it was a waste of money when the base unit had some many good games to choose from.

The CD-ROM2 massively enhanced the PC-Engine library with RPGs and such that the standard cartridges just couldn't take.

>> No.4018039

>>4017308
Play any game on the SCD that has scaling graphics, such as Batman or Soul Star, and you can immediately see that it is more powerful that the Genesis. Seeing as how the Genesis cannot do any scaling.

>> No.4018079
File: 25 KB, 620x406, 24.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4018079

PC-E CD.

>>4017491
>They should've scrapped the whole expansion idea and made a more powerful, but backwards compatible Genesis 2.
The Sega/Mega CD was just Sega trying to survive in a country where NEC and Nintendo were kings.

If i'm not mistaken, PC-E and Famicom had a good share of that market before Super Famicom's release. Sega had to something to stay alive there.

>> No.4018084

>>4017491
>They should've scrapped the whole expansion idea and made a more powerful, but backwards compatible Genesis 2.

That was the original idea behind the 32X....but Sega of Japan didn't like it, and there was a bit of a power struggle, and we all know how that ended up.

>> No.4018085
File: 57 KB, 320x224, Masked-Rider-3.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4018085

Most FMV game of SegaCD very bad because there made by West developer not japan.
Make FMV game take a lot of money,Japan developer not ready yet.

>> No.4018202
File: 165 KB, 400x401, 63891-Exile_[U][CD][WTG990101][Telenet_Japan][1992][PCE][thx-1138-darkwater]-1459138879.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4018202

No mentions of Exile!??
Or splash lake?

Also, the turbografx cd doubled as a portable cd player, and came with a massive hardshell carrying case for the whole thing. which was pretty dope.

>> No.4018218

PCengineCD can run FMV if you use with Arcade card.

>> No.4018246
File: 267 KB, 1415x1401, 1924-1322836640.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4018246

there are many more games that use the CD format, was released early in the PCE's life. cdda voice acting and music distinguish it from the synths and low fidelity samples of the famicom, mega drive, super famicom etc

>> No.4018376

>>4018202
There are hundreds of good/interesting games on PCE CD

>>4018246
>that late 80's/early 90's soundtracks

>> No.4018625

PC Engine CD without any doubt.

>> No.4019038

>>4017491
Are you a computer engineer or something? Either way, awesome post. We need more high quality shit on this board.

>> No.4019118

>>4017705
CD-ROM2 System if you're a weeb.
Sega CD if you're an EOP with enough money to burn.

>> No.4019130

>>4017620
>I've seen a few of these high-effort posts recently.

It's probably the same idiot from sega-16 posting all of them.

>> No.4019136

>>4018079
>The Sega/Mega CD was just Sega trying to survive in a country where NEC and Nintendo were kings.

What it was, was a knee-jerk reaction to the PCECD.

Practically everything that the leadership of SOJ made in the 90s was knee-jerk reactions.

PCE had a CD addon? shit, we need one two.
SNES can do scaling and PCM sound! so we better put that shit in the CD expansion.
Gameboy is popular! We gotta make our own handheld! We'll just take the Master System, give it a larger palette, and call it Game Gear.
Nintendo is putting 3d co-processors in their carts! We made one too, called SVP.
Entire Saturn design was SNES +1 in literally every way.
Playstation specs completely fuck up the Saturn! Better redesign its CPUs so it is "faster". Too bad they didn't redesign the VDP1, which was left 1/6th slower than the psx.
The Saturn was complex and difficult to use! Gotta make sure that our next console is stupidly simple, and the devkits are so simple that you can't even code the iron, only use are triangle calls, because this allows for faster performance.

>> No.4019235
File: 734 KB, 3264x2448, seganintendopads_5168.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4019235

>>4019136
Even the stuff they did in the 80s was a knee-jerk reaction to other companies

The SC-3000 was made as a response to the MSX and PC-8801 and the SG-1000 could be seen as a response to early pre-Famicom consoles like the Cassette Vision.

When the Famicom started taking off, they redesigned the SG-1000 to make it more Famicom-like (to the point that they replaced the original VCS-like joystick with joypads) and when that wasn't enough, they made a more powerful model called the Mark III.

And when Nintendo released the Famicom as the NES in the U.S., they followed suit by turning the Mark III into the Master System.

And of course, the Mega Drive mostly existed because the PC Engine started blowing the Famicom and Mark III out of the water. The only reason they got lucky with the Genesis was because NEC's U.S. subsidiary was so inept at marketing the TurboGrafx-16.

Even the games they made were made as responses to other companies' titles. Alex Kidd was Sega's answer to Super Mario, to the point that even the JP boxarts for both games look similar and Sega only picked up the rights to Double Dragon and R-Type for the SMS just so they could one-up the competing versions on NES and PCE respectively .

>> No.4019686

>>4019118
>Sega CD if you're a sanic fanboi poorfag
FTFYK

>> No.4019806

>>4019235
>>4019136
What about Dreamcast?

>> No.4019816

>>4019806
Segas answer to N64 and Playstation

>> No.4019852

>>4019816
They didn't even hide it in the CM.
>Sega kinda sucks!
>PlayStation is better!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPsXqSKcY70

>> No.4020282

>>4017264
Well what console better if you can't read Japan text.

>> No.4020291

>>4020282
If you're only going to play official English releases, and if you insist on buying real games, they're both terrible choices. Both consoles are extremely expensive and only have a few great games. The best way to play either one is by burning your own discs, often using fan hacks and translations. If you do that, they're both good.

>> No.4020303

>>4017308

More storage space means more unique assets. Limited cart space means lots of reused assets, it's why most 8 and 16 bit games are made of repeating tiles. With CD storage space you can have levels made out of larger non-repeating art elements.

>> No.4020305

>>4017540

Those aren't sprites. Look closer. The ships in silpheed are polygonal. No I don't mean the background fmv I mean your ship and the enemies.

>> No.4020314

I don't know how you could look at this and think that the Genesis is even close.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSUHHpTCNGQ

Sega CD is way more powerful than the Genesis or SNES. Just because it doesn't really have many games doesn't mean the you can't easily see its capabilities with what it does have.

>> No.4020315

>>4017264
Sega CD has extra hardware for better graphics (well, object scaling+rotation) and sound (PCM sound effects).
PCE CD is just more storage and redbook audio.

the PCE CD actually has a fantastic library though

>>4017491
There's a few ways to get around the the issue with vram transfer, but it's all tricky, fiddly shit that really isn't worth it given the install base.
Also, in PAL land, the longer vblank lets you transfer loads more. The chip itself is actually fairly fast, it's all just being bottlenecked hard because of vram transfer.

The design really is a right piece of shit, they threw hardware into it without really considering how it worked together at all.
>there's a PCM sample chip!
Yeah, who cares, redbook is doing most of the work (it really does help Silpheed though, which is using all the streaming bandwidth for video, so it has to play a sampled soundtrack).
>there's cool scaling hardware!
...but you can't fucking get the graphics on screen at any decent pace despite it being fairly okay hardware otherwise.
>we didn't address the Genesis's lack of colors, the one fucking thing everyone was asking for at the time!
Yeah, fuck off. One fucking job, etc.

in a more ideal world, the Sega CD would have basically been designed more like the 32X, with the video overlay for fast delivery of high color scaled graphics (would have ensured that FMV didn't look like ass, too)

>>4020305
I'm still surprised they didn't match the framerate of the main graphics to be closer to the video background.
Would have given a bit more time to draw larger objects. I'm continually disappointed at how small bosses were in Silpheed.
The game's super impressive looking, though.

>> No.4020348

>>4019235
They've always been the Pepsi of gaming

>> No.4020351

>>4020303
Still limited by ram tho

>> No.4020372

>>4018085
How did this came into existence!?

>> No.4020485

>>4020282
3rd world english
What country text you can read?

>> No.4020625

>>4020305
Wager dollars to donuts they're pre-rendered.

>> No.4020632

>>4018085
Most FMVs were trash regardless of their country of origin, they barely qualify as games.

Ironically, the few acceptable ones were from Japan, like Road Blaster FX and Time Gal.

>> No.4021919

>>4020282
It's still PCE CD

>> No.4021930

Turbo CD wins library wise because it had a better quality control than the Sega CD.
Sega CD wins hardware wise.

Can Sega Genesis Everdrives play CD games? I know there was a version that had a built in bios for 32X games.

>> No.4022058

>>4021930
You can't play iso files, but if you have the CD attachment you can play burned discs by pressing C to bring up the menu and then going down to run disc.

There are some rom hacks that use CD software. Like a 32x Port of Wolfenstein 3D with CD audio support. Or a Rock N Roll Racing Genesis hack that will load CD audio.

>> No.4022078

>>4022058
So the ED makes it more complicated the play CDs? Thanks krikzz.

>> No.4022082

>>4022078
Just one extra step. It also doubles as a ram cart though, which is nice if you don't want to spend $60 on one.

>> No.4022190

>>4020348
Underrated post

>> No.4022574

>>4019235
>no SG Commander

>> No.4022597
File: 41 KB, 695x390, SMS.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4022597

>>4019235
>Released after the Famicom
>Controller doesn't have a start button
Seriously, Sega?

>> No.4022627
File: 35 KB, 620x395, kids playing famicom.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4022627

>>4022597
Because in Japan they played like the pic.
That's why the famicom have a large cabe from the AC but the controller ones are very small.

>> No.4023049

>>4022627
Why would that make the Start button useless?

>> No.4023054

>>4023049
The pause button is on the console.

>> No.4024076

>>4022597
>Released after the Wright Flyer
>Controller doesn't have wings
Seriously, Sega?

>> No.4024215

>>4019235
SG-1000 was pure market testing, but it had the absolutely appalling luck of being designed and released the same time as the Famicom. If the Famicom didn't exist, the SG-1000 would have been considered a fairly respectable machine for the day, matching the specs of the most advanced home console on the market at that point, the ColecoVision.
From that point on, Sega was left playing catch-up at home, despite leading the way in arcades.

I'm still massively confused at why Sega didn't enter the MSX market with the announcement, the SC-3000's specs are so similar that someone wrote a loader to run SG-1000 and SC-3000 software on MSX (and kind-of vice versa -- there's loads of bootleg MSX ports for the Master System and SG-1000 that use a loader stub to emulate the MSX bios and hardware access, often with extra RAM on the cart because the SG-1000 has fucking 1kB of general purpose RAM).

also, the fact that the SG-1000 II doesn't add any hardware enhancement (and they could have -- switching to card format would have allowed a clean break) was kind of retarded, the Mark III came out way too late for its own good

>>4019136
>Nintendo is putting 3d co-processors in their carts! We made one too, called SVP.
unlike the SuperFX, the SVP doesn't suck at its job, keeping a ridiculously rock-solid framerate
unfortunately, it was also expensive as fuck, I'm pretty sure most of Virtua Racing's stock was sold heavily discounted, kind of like how stores got rid of 32Xs

>> No.4024225

>>4024215
>unlike the SuperFX, the SVP doesn't suck at its job, keeping a ridiculously rock-solid framerate
The SuperFX wasn't just used for polygonal graphics, was it?
Also, I'm sure the SVP was released years after the SuperFX.
Anyway, I love the Genesis port of Virtua Racing.

>> No.4024248

>>4024225
>The SuperFX wasn't just used for polygonal graphics, was it?
A few games don't -- Yoshi's Island does some really effects with it and that's really it, Doom uses it for the raycaster (technically not polygon graphics), and there was this skiing game that used it to draw vector graphics for the backgrounds -- it looked like real 3D graphics, but it wasn't, they were pre-calculated (technically polygonal).
All of the above were SuperFX2 games, all the SuperFX 1 games were just flat-shaded 3D games.

>Also, I'm sure the SVP was released years after the SuperFX.
The SVP was a little over a year after the SuperFX. Any later, and Sega's continued support for the Genesis would have dried up.

>Anyway, I love the Genesis port of Virtua Racing.
Oh yeah, it's ace. Really good port.
it's kind of awful that it's a better handling port than the PS2 3D Ages one or the Saturn one (and the 32X port is better than all of the other home versions, that's kind of really depressing)

>> No.4024372
File: 184 KB, 400x270, early 3d done right.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4024372

>>4020485
He's clearly Japanese. Show some respect, since this board and this site both exist thanks to his incomprehensible culture.

Also Sega CD FMVs are not crappy, but simple. There is a big difference that performance-hungry consumers never understood: you're more likely to get good games on simpler consoles, and creativity out of limitations. The Sega CD added enough storage and features to make Genesis games more rich audio-visually, but without significantly affecting actual game quality. When not misused to make crappy FMV movies the results were "Genesis++" games, which didn't upset the established industry, but allowed for a great library and access for both newcomers and veterans.

The Sega CD is what console industry should have been! A slow and steady increase in potential and quality without the extreme disruptions each console generation brought. 3D was 15 years too early and just lowered overall game quality massively, for instance.