SNES clock speed

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SNES clock speed Anonymous Thu Oct 15 05:12:42 2015 No.2739034 [Reply] [Original]

Why did Nintendo cheap out and not include an outdated CPU on the Super Nintendo? There were gaming systems that were just as fast 8 years before it came out. Would it have hurt to spend a few dollars more to give it a proper CPU so the games wouldn't be ridden with so much slowdown?

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 05:14:36 2015 No.2739036 Cost Cutting. They intended to have additional chips to increase performance since the start like they did on the NES and its mappers. Eg. Early titles Mario Kart and Pilotwings which both used the SDA-1.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 05:18:35 2015 No.2739038 SNES was always for the slow retarded kids that drooled on themselves.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 05:27:27 2015 No.2739042 >>2739038 >Console Wars >2015 All it takes is talking to a single Sonic fan to disprove this, anyway.

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 05:31:33 2015 No.2739045

>>2739034
Nintendo have often been conservative in determining the specifications of systems because the shortcomings didn't effect the type of games they made (in this case they weren't making fast 2d action games with lots of characters on the screen).

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 05:32:30 2015 No.2739046 Cost cutting indeed. They did this because they included an expensive sound chip already.

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 05:38:44 2015 No.2739051

>>2739034

Nintendo's design philosophy before the n64 was not cutting edge stuff, it was quality implementation of lesser advanced technology.

it also off-loaded all the sound processing, so it could get by with less processor clock speed than systems without a processor and only a general purpose sound chip.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 05:53:44 2015 No.2739064 >There were gaming systems that were just as fast 8 years before it came out. What system used a 3 MHz 65816 in 1982? Even the IIGS that was released in 86 only used a 2 MHz.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 05:56:13 2015 No.2739069 >>2739064 ZX Spectrum

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 05:58:10 2015 No.2739072 >>2739069 The Spectrum used a Z80. You can't even compare that to a 6502.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 06:08:55 2015 No.2739081 >>2739072 I thought processor speed was processor speed. Was the Genesis really much faster than the SNES then? What about the N64 vs the PS1? It was 100mhz vs 33mhz.

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 06:14:00 2015 No.2739084

>>2739081
Comparing clock speeds is very stupid. It only makes sense when you compare two CPU in the same product line, e.g. a 2 GHz Pentium 4 to a 2.5 GHz Pentium 4. Even in the same architecture you're going to have faster CPU with the same clock speed, e.g. a 2 GHz Core i3.

Comparing instructions per second is more useful but still faces problems from different word lengths.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 06:19:55 2015 No.2739092 >>2739084 yeah i get that now. i'm just wondering how the those systems i said compare then.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 06:21:09 2015 No.2739094 >>2739081 >I thought processor speed was processor speed. Was the Genesis really much faster than the SNES then? Megadrive CPU was more like multipurpose, SNES shared its work with external chips.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 06:27:32 2015 No.2739101 >>2739092 The MIPS R3000 on the PS1 has 176 million instructions per second The NEC VR4300 in the N64 126 MIPS, http://gaming.wikia.com/wiki/Instructions_per_second

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 06:35:28 2015 No.2739113

>>2739101

So even though the N64 was 3x as fast on paper the PS1 could do more IPS? How come the PS1 had such shitty graphics compared to the N64 then? I played both when they came out, oldfag I know, and I never got the impression once playing both that the PS1 was even close to being in the same league of power as the 64. Launch titles of the 64 blew away games at the end of the PS1. . .

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 06:38:28 2015 No.2739117 >>2739113 Because for instance the PS1 had no support for floating points and graphics aren't normally done by the CPU. The N64 also had the 64 bit length on paper but practically it didn't make a difference.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 06:39:28 2015 No.2739119 >>2739117 shit. interesting stuff. don't understand it all but i want to know more.

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 06:41:59 2015 No.2739123

>>2739117
>The N64 also had the 64 bit length on paper but practically it didn't make a difference.

so why was it 64 bit then? what was an advantage of that?

For me the one thing that made the 64 look more powerful than the PS1 was the anti-alaising to smooth out the jaggies and the dithered textures. PS1 was a pixilated mess and the textures had a tendency to go all trippy when viewed from different angles. Pretty much made me only stand to buy and play 2D games on it.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 07:16:18 2015 No.2739146 >>2739123 The texture thing is called perspective correction, or in this case, lack thereof

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 07:19:39 2015 No.2739148

>>2739123
It sounded better on paper and impressed people who didn't know more, same as the Atari Jaguar.
Additionally it's that the CPU they had picked happened to use 64 bit.
Up to a few years ago many people used 64 bit CPU with a 32 bit Windows because every CPU was 64 bit at that point.

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 07:28:29 2015 No.2739153

The Snes didn't need a powerful chip since most of the work was be done on customizable cartridges. Nintendo also wanted to backwards compatability. So that's why they went with 65c816 which isn't technically true 16bit but it didn't matter it was basically an over clocked nes chipset. You could also overclock the snes chipset for more speed a decent amount

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 07:31:20 2015 No.2739154 >>2739113 Are you really going to argue the power of psx over the n64 when the n64 couldn't handle anything logisticly for an rpg? Even the Saturn could handle more

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 07:42:26 2015 No.2739162 >>2739146 Affine texture mapping.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 07:44:27 2015 No.2739165 >>2739153 The PCE used a regular 8 bit 6502 derivative.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 08:04:08 2015 No.2739191 >>2739153 >Nintendo also wanted to backwards compatability But what happened so there's no backwards compatibility?

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 08:06:35 2015 No.2739194 >>2739153 >65c816 which isn't technically true 16bit It very much is, it's just backwards compatible.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 08:06:37 2015 No.2739195 File: 421 KB, 1600x1200, C__Data_Users_DefApps_AppData_INTERNETEXPLORER_Temp_Saved Images_1443586266306.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2739119

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 08:22:25 2015 No.2739218 >>2739094 You know, it hurts. There is no fullspeed portable SNES emulator.

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 12:30:03 2015 No.2739491

>>2739218
>it hurts
Probably the most entitled thing I've read all month. You have the entire SNES library at your fingertips for free and here you are whining about how the emulation isn't 100% perfect when you're on the go. Boo fucking hoo. Crybabies like yo umake me sick.

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 12:34:22 2015 No.2739501

>>2739491
Calm down autist. If that makes you sick to your stomach then you should kill yourself to put yourself out of the agony. I can only imagine how sick you must be on a daily basis about each and everything you dont like in this world.

fuck off bitchboi

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 12:40:44 2015 No.2739506

>>2739153
>The Snes didn't need a powerful chip since most of the work was be done on customizable cartridges

I've always found that idea fascinating from a design standpoint. Rather than incorporating a ton of expensive chips into the base system, let individual games expand the hardware to make use of different features. Did that end up having any impact on the price of the system/games, or was it more or less the same as the Mega Drive/Genesis?

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 12:57:16 2015 No.2739518
File: 36 KB, 827x550, plug shit in to yo console so you can plug shit in to yo console.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>2739506
It only really became an issue when the secondary market took off and you can't get repros of shit like Megaman X2 easily/at all.

But this was during the SNES era of the 90's. Games were priced 50-80$ at the time. It worked well for Nintendo because you COULD expand the hardware as needed, but didn't have the unholy mess that was the Genesis addons where you had to buy something that plugs in to your console so you could plug something in to your console.

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 14:13:33 2015 No.2739598

>>2739113
>So even though the N64 was 3x as fast on paper the PS1 could do more IPS? How come the PS1 had such shitty graphics compared to the N64 then?

Those are just the main processors that run the logic. It is the graphics hardware that dictates how well can a console do graphics.

Also the PS1 did not have 176 MIPS, I don't remember the exact values but it was significantly lower. Like 30MIPS or so. However it had a vector coprocessor for doing polygon transformation & lightning (I think the N64 had one too, being a SGI chipset, but I'm not that familiar with it).

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 18:19:28 2015 No.2739938 >>2739506 >Rather than incorporating a ton of expensive chips into the base system ...incorporate the GameCube component video DAC into the component cable itself. :^) /off-topic

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 18:21:06 2015 No.2739946 >>2739938 autism

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 18:25:59 2015 No.2739952 >>2739946 Why? I pointed out one example of how streamlining their base systems is a long-standing Nintendo tradition. It's quite smart of them.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 18:46:49 2015 No.2739990 >>2739952 Smart? Are you fucking kidding me? In Europe, the lack of RGB on the N64 was nothing but a dick move.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 20:03:39 2015 No.2740101 >>2739154 >when the n64 couldn't handle anything logisticly for an rpg sure it could, fam.

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 20:06:59 2015 No.2740105

>>2739990
>dick move
If you think businesses are motivated like this I don't know how to converse with you.

I'm simply saying that offloading the cost of the video DAC only to those who would use/need it is quite clever. Most people didn't buy component cables for the GameCube. Relatively speaking, almost none. Why make everyone pay for it?

Going back to the original topic of baseline SNES HW being augmented with on-cart co-processors, that's also quite practical. Make the system capable enough for a certain level of ability, and incorporate additional hardware as needed with specific titles.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 15 20:15:34 2015 No.2740118 >>2739501 Wow, you're an asshat and should probably go.

Anonymous Thu Oct 15 23:08:32 2015 No.2740376

I'm just going to clear up some misinformation in this thread.

>>2739101
>The MIPS R3000 on the PS1 has 176 million instructions per second
>The NEC VR4300 in the N64 126 MIPS,

That's because the PS1's CPU has three separate cores: a main core (MIPS R3000), a video/photo decoding core, and a polygon transform/lighting core, which altogether artificially increase this MIPS count. The N64 has its polygon transform/lighting core integrated into the GPU instead of the CPU instead.

If you compare just main cores, the N64's CPU the MIPS 4300i is 125 MIPS while the PS1's CPU the MIPS 3000A is 30 MIPS.

They are almost directly comparable being both MIPS cores, it's just as you might be able to tell from their model numbers that the N64's CPU is a MIPS series 4, while the PS1's CPU is a MIPS series 3.

>>2739123
The MIPS series 4 has essentially three improvements. It has better IPC, it includes an FPU and it has 64bit support.

N64 is only 64bit because the MIPS 4300i CPU just happens to have 64bit support, there's no other reason. It was hardly ever used for games. Being 64bit has nothing to do with filtering or anti-aliasing, or graphics. Those things are explained by the differences of the N64's GPU and the PS1's GPU, not CPUs.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 04:03:28 2015 No.2740748 Bump. This thread is interesting. All would go above my 10 year old head back when it actually mattered.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 05:53:56 2015 No.2740835 >>2739034 Cost and architecture. What better CPU was a few dollars more?

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 06:07:46 2015 No.2740842 >>2740118 Am I making you sick? ;)

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 06:10:44 2015 No.2740845 >>2739191 This, why wasn't it implemented if they were planning for it?

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 06:12:36 2015 No.2740848 >>2740835 good point. i guess OP would have a point if you could just spend a few bucks more for some Mhz.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 06:18:30 2015 No.2740859 >>2739034 > and not include Other than your fuck up there, the answer is easy. They didn't.

Anonymous Fri Oct 16 06:34:15 2015 No.2740871

>>2740845
I am not sure if they intended full game backwards compatibility, but the CPU being backward compatible with the nes CPU means that the snes CPU would understand code written for the nes (understand=/=run all of it, I suppose you'd still have to change memory adresses and such).
I read somewhere that one of the motivations for this decision was that miyamoto really liked sim city and there was a version in development for the mes, and he thought it would be a great game to show early the next-gen ness of the snes. I don't know how much of this is true but the dates align.

Anonymous Fri Oct 16 09:02:11 2015 No.2741021

>>2740871
CPUs don't "understand" anything champ. The CPU they used could go into 8 bit mode and "run" any code the NES CPU could. I don't know if that was someones pipe dream during development or if they just wanted to save a few bucks.
The rest of the gaming world at the time went 68k. Personally I found moving from 65xx to 68k pretty easy. Maybe Japanese sweatshops pumping out shovelware on a tigt deadline didn't have the luxury.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 10:35:49 2015 No.2741126 >>2741021 >The CPU they used could go into 8 bit mode and "run" any code the NES CPU could. That's exactly what I meant with understand

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 10:37:13 2015 No.2741132 >>2740842 I'm a different person, it just seems like you're incapable of adding to a discussion in any way.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 12:45:29 2015 No.2741378 >>2741126 >what I meant This is why the smurfs don't have much technology.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 12:49:31 2015 No.2741387 >>2741132 Is your tummy aching?

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 12:51:06 2015 No.2741392 >>2739195 This has a big error in it: > Cartridge space limits almost eliminates the possibility of FMV should be a giant + for the N64.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 14:08:59 2015 No.2741490 >>2741392 This pic isn't mine. Besides, what's wrong with FMVs?

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 15:05:47 2015 No.2741601 >>2741392 >chart some spergling posted on the internet is wrong OMG

Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:03:50 2015 No.2741780

>>2741490
They lack interactivity, kind of an important thing in a game.

FMVs destroy player agency. The characters in the cutscenes can do stuff the player will never be able to do. Very often in fact gameplay is getting away with stripped down functionality, because frequent cutscenes take over all action that matters.

They violate a core concept of good narrative, show don't tell. From Wikipedia:
>Show, don't tell is a technique often employed in various kinds of texts to enable the reader to experience the story through action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the author's exposition, summarization, and description
In the case of gaming it means show effects the player has on the game environment, while they're playing, by making said environment react. It's bad form and lazy narrative to tell what's happening, in a non-interactive scene.

Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:05:08 2015 No.2741784

Nintendo's always had a philosophy of using dated hardware. The idea is that they can get it for cheap and developers will have an easy time working with it since they'd likely have prior experience. This is the main reason behind pretty much all their major successes. It's why the entire Gameboy line was so huge. When they've tried using relatively recent hardware, they get punished for it. See N64 and Gamecube, Nintendo's least successful main systems.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:07:09 2015 No.2741786 >>2741784 >枯れた技術の水平思考

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:07:34 2015 No.2741789 >>2741786 Autism.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:09:43 2015 No.2741797 >>2741784 Why did they go with a 65xx instead of a Z80 for the Famicom? Nobody in Japan used a 65xx.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:11:36 2015 No.2741798 >>2739051 >Nintendo's design philosophy before the n64 was not cutting edge stuff nintendo's design philosophy was never cutting edge >wii >wii u >nintendo 3ds

Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:14:43 2015 No.2741803

>>2741798
anon made no statement about Nintendo's design philosophy after the N64, just that the N64 violated their design philosophy at that point. That said, the Wii and the DS actually fit the old thinking. The 3DS deviated from it again. And to nobody's surprise, the DS was a gamechanger, the 3DS just exists. The WiiU is just all around uninspired

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:15:38 2015 No.2741804 >>2741797 Pursuit of the larger American/European market, perhaps? Given the popularity of the Apple II, I'd bet Western devs had plenty of experience with the architecture.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:18:37 2015 No.2741812 In that age of computers, nobody gave more than two fucks about the CPU. The video capabilities (colors, amount of sprites etc) were what defined them.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:19:42 2015 No.2741814 >>2741812 why doesnt the snes entertainment system have a GPU?

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:30:23 2015 No.2741825 >>2741814 GPU was a non-existant thing back then. All they did was add a seperate video interface device. take the example of the VIC chip in C64

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:40:03 2015 No.2741831 >>2739051 N64 was designed by NOA, the Gamecube NOJ had never designed a "powerful" system.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:47:34 2015 No.2741840 >>2741831 What about the VB?

Anonymous Fri Oct 16 17:48:14 2015 No.2741842

>>2741812

I remember when i first played final fight on SNES. My first though was " this is gonna make arcades obsolete" It looked, sounded and played identical to the arcade for me at the time, i didnt even realise the limit of sprites on screen at once.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 20:48:33 2015 No.2742073 >>2741842 >my mommy never let me play an actual arcade game. But the ball pit was great amirite?

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 20:50:07 2015 No.2742078 >>2741842 Were you dropped on your head as a baby? Had you ever seen Final Fight at the arcade?

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 20:51:49 2015 No.2742079 >>2741842 Hahha dumb fuck SNES kids never got to experience SoR2.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 21:08:08 2015 No.2742104 File: 36 KB, 384x224, finalfight_arc-image6.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2741842 hahahaha holy fuck, you are joking right?

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 22:32:23 2015 No.2742225 >>2741842 I understand how it could have seemed that way, totally >>2742073 >>2742078 >>2742079 >>2742104 but I understand this faggot (these faggots?) too

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 22:38:46 2015 No.2742231 >>2742225 That's very understanding of you. But 5 of us are not retarded and one is. kek

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 22:40:19 2015 No.2742235 >>2742079 What? How old are you? This board had a level of maturity. Snes and genesis are excellent consoles with solid libraries.

Anonymous Fri Oct 16 22:41:30 2015 No.2742237

>>2741831
>N64 was designed by NOA, the Gamecube NOJ had never designed a "powerful" system.

The combination of parts may have been, but the chipset itself was by SGI for the N64, and for the Gamecube it was IBM for the cpu and ArtX for the GPU (ATI then bought up ArtX).

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 16 22:49:29 2015 No.2742253 >>2742237 Do you really consider these systems as being "designed by" the chipset manufacturers?

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 02:08:33 2015 No.2742582

>>2742253
Not that guy, but N64 was actually entirely designed by SGI. SGI owned MIPS the company that made the N64's CPU, the made the N64's GPU themselves, and they were the largest shareholder of RAMBUS the company that made the N64's RAM. One of the reasons the console doesn't have a sound chip is because SGI didn't have significant stocks in a company that made them.

The N64 was literally produced by Nintendo telling SGI "We want you to make us a console that costs $x dollars to manufacture, but don't forget all those features like anti-aliasing that you promised us, fam :^)". Of course $x was a very small amount of money (Nintendo at the time would sell consoles for profit from the launch day) which is why the N64 has incredible specs on paper (particularly for 1995 when it was originally set for release but delayed cause Mario 64 wasn't ready), but a shitty data/memory bus architecture that makes programming a headache. SGI had to cut costs somewhere, and it wasn't going to be their wonderchips but the pathways between those wonderchips.

Gamecube on the other hand actually had significant design oversight by NOJ, but the GPU was designed by ArtX. A piece of trivia that people don't know about is that ArtX were the same SGI engineers that made the N64's GPU that left to start their own company. Some programmers see Flipper as a "reaction" to some of the unpopular design elements of the N64's GPU. T&L is no longer microcode programmer, it's now a simpler fixed pipeline. Caches are now large and with low latency (but trading up with lower bandwidth, which made some programmers feel the Gamecube lacked the *raw power* that could potentially be squeezed out of the N64). But some things carried over from N64, like the GPU-that-also-processes-sound feature, and the 1-stage color combiner pixel shader on N64 became the enhanced 16-stage TEV pixel shader on Gamecube.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 07:39:39 2015 No.2742905

The real question is, why didn't Nintendo bump up the clock speed of the SNES CPU to 7.16MHz, or at least make it easier to use the CPU's 3.58MHz mode instead of being stuck at 2.68MHz in most cases? The SNES CPU was damn close to the Genesis CPU at 3.58MHz, and would have crushed it at 7.16.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 07:47:48 2015 No.2742918

>>2742905
>why didn't Nintendo bump up the clock speed of the SNES CPU to 7.16MHz
Same reason you don't bump your current desktop CPU to 6GHz or more. Physics.

>The SNES CPU was damn close to the Genesis CPU at 3.58MHz
Don't equate CPU clockspeed with visuals. The SNES has some hard limits on the graphics systems.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 10:39:57 2015 No.2743120

>>2742918
>Physics.
Um, there are accelerator cards for the Apple IIGS that run faster than 7MHz. The Apple IIGS essentially used the same CPU as the SNES.

>Don't equate CPU clockspeed with visuals. The SNES has some hard limits on the graphics systems.
So why didn't Nintendo lift those limits? It's as hypothetical an idea as raising the CPU clock speed. They should have taken one hard look at the Genesis and decided on creating a system to kill it.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 10:45:43 2015 No.2743126

>>2743120
>why didn't Nintendo lift those limits?
Occasionally they're an integral part of the hardware and can not be lifted short of redesigning the whole system

>decided on creating a system to kill it.
Only fanboys care about console wars. It's much smarter for a console manufacturer to aim at making a profitable system, than trying to "beat" any other system

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 10:51:14 2015 No.2743134 File: 35 KB, 546x316, transwarp.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2743120 According to the manual for the Apple IIGS Transwarp GS accelerator card, it says it replaces the stock CPU with a faster one, so Physics.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 10:51:35 2015 No.2743135

>>2742582
>which made some programmers feel the Gamecube lacked the *raw power* that could potentially be squeezed out of the N64
This is the one thing that doesn't sound right to me. Is this meant to be relative to their release years? Because no one in their right mind thinks the N64 is more powerful than the GameCube.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 10:56:03 2015 No.2743138

>>2743135
>Is this meant to be relative to their release years?
Relative. The PS2 was more like the N64 in the sense that there was a lot of power under the hood, but a real bitch to get it out. That is pretty much a general characteristic of high bandwidth / high latency designs.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 10:56:41 2015 No.2743139

>>2743135
>Is this meant to be relative to their release years?

That's what I got from it. I'm guessing writing a custom microcode for the 64 meant you could optimize your game to draw certain things faster or to do tricks that would help your game specifically.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 10:57:38 2015 No.2743140

>>2743134
It's still a 65816, so this proves nothing.

>>2743126
>Occasionally they're an integral part of the hardware and can not be lifted short of redesigning the whole system

I know, that's why I mentioned it's as hypothetical an idea as raising the CPU clockspeed.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 11:00:53 2015 No.2743143

>>2743140
in that case, they didn't design the system just to piss off devs or buyers. Designing a console is a balance act, between features you want, and features you can afford. Afford meaning that you, as a manufacturer, target a price point, and a profit margin, at which to sell the system. Nintendo figured the features the SNES offered worked in favor of the devs, while maintaining a price that works for the customers. They did not use more features or bigger numbers, because it messes with that balance, making a system too expensive, or too complicated. Again, they are not out to "kill" other systems. They, as a company, are working on a market, but primarily for their own profit. There's no sense in trying to "kill" another system, if your own company ends up as a casualty, because the feature set and price didn't work for the public, or your own budget.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 11:04:01 2015 No.2743151

>>2743139
>I'm guessing writing a custom microcode for the 64 meant you could optimize your game to draw certain things faster or to do tricks that would help your game specifically.
And yeah, this too. It also builds on the PS2 analogy since programming VU0/VU1 code for the PS2 was almost the same thing as programming microcode for the N64's RSP (which had its own vector unit inside).

On Gamecube's Flipper all of the work had already been done and fixed into the hardware which made things really easy, but you couldn't optimize it to make it go even faster.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 11:04:06 2015 No.2743152

>>2743143
I see. I just wish the SNES would have had the ability to pull off some of the shit the Genesis could. It certainly had a nice sound chip and color pallette, but the Genesis was much better at doing things like fast action, multi-sprite bosses, and pseudo 3D effects. Not to mention, FM synthesis sounds rad as hell when used correctly.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 11:30:38 2015 No.2743191

>>2743152
I once did some searches on the subject of the differences between the genesis and snes cpus. General consensus seemed to be that the snes CPU is more or less twice as fast for simple operations (like additions or substractions) at equal clockspeeds, but the genesis CPU could handle more complex stuff easier. That was in part because the genesis CPU had many more registers and could do some 32 bit operations.

The genesis also has a DMA that can copy stuff from RAM to VRAM with minimal CPU intervetion so that frees CPU time.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 11:37:26 2015 No.2743205

>>2743152
>Not to mention, FM synthesis sounds rad as hell when used correctly.

I have no idea why so many people have a boner for this chip. It's alright but the lack of voice differentiation severely restricts the kind of music that can be written for it without coming out sounding like a garbled mess.

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 11:40:47 2015 No.2743210 >>2743152 If you want a super gaming machine why don't you get a FM Towns?

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 11:44:49 2015 No.2743216

>>2743152
Alas, not many people got much out of the Yamaha FM chip on the Genesis. In house Sega developers like Yuzo Koshiro got some kick ass results, but a lot of 3rd party developers didn't get much out of the chip. The SNES chip didn't sound as clear, but did provide a fuller sound that could reproduce certain effects better, especially voices.

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 12:25:22 2015 No.2743270 >>2743205 >I have no idea why so many people have a boner for this chip. muh rock guitar SNES had muh strings & horns

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 12:35:55 2015 No.2743279
File: 7 KB, 501x504, it's okay when nintendo does it.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>2739036
That's such bullsh** though because it meant the games themselves were more expensive.

Basically Nintendo cutting their own costs, at the expense of the consumer. They did the same sh** with the N64 and its expansion pack.

>lol we're going to sell you half a console, then force you to buy the other half later if you want all these sick games

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 12:36:21 2015 No.2743280 >>2739195 tell me there's one for each gen

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 12:41:18 2015 No.2743285 >>2743279 The consoles weren't free, anon. Nintendo saving money on the console meant your mommy saved money on the console.

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 12:42:24 2015 No.2743287 >>2743279 RAM was easily one of the bigger priced items back in the day. The price of ram probably lower by the time the expansion came out.

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 12:44:44 2015 No.2743289 >>2743285 >your mom :DDD we gradeschool now?

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 12:48:51 2015 No.2743290 >>2743289 I don't actually care how old you were when your mommy bought your SNES for you tbh. Maybe you were getting your second doctorate, who cares.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 13:02:38 2015 No.2743309

>>2743287
>The price of ram probably lower by the time the expansion came out.
It actually did happen.

Early N64s require 2x2MB chips, because RDRAM could only be fabbed at 2MB per chip.

By the time the RAM pack came out RDRAM could be fabbed at 4MB per chip, so it has only 1 chip inside of it instead of 2.

Anonymous Sat Oct 17 13:08:31 2015 No.2743316

>>2743285
Actually, Nintendo consoles and games were ludicrously expensive for what they were. It wasn't until the 7th gen (Wii) that Nintendo became the poorfag's console company.

During the retro years, it got to the point where one of the Playstation's biggest selling points was how much cheaper the games were compared to Nintendo. RPG's like Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, and Earthbound were especially expensive back in the day. The average cost of a SNES game was about $120 if you adjust for inflation. No one in the 90's would call that "saving money."

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 13:13:12 2015 No.2743326 >>2743316 All well and good, now imagine if they crammed the SNES full of even more goodies that added upfront costs. Nintendo wouldn't battle Sony for another 4 years.

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 13:13:44 2015 No.2743327 >>2743316 You're looking at this from a collector's perspective. Putting the price into the games, instead of the consoles, meant more people would buy the hardware (a requirement) and could manage their budget through the number of games they buy.

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 13:15:07 2015 No.2743329 >>2743326 >battle Turning everything into a (console) war is so annoying

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 13:18:53 2015 No.2743334 >>2743329 I'm not the one who did it. Nintendo was top dog when they launched SFC and were rapid decline when they launched N64. They wouldn't go full blue ocean for another two decades.

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 13:24:20 2015 No.2743338 >>2743334 >top dog >rapid decline There you're still doing it. You can bet your rear, all they cared about is providing a profitable product. They have no interest in crushing competition or "winning a generation". That's all console wars phrasing.

>>	Anonymous Sat Oct 17 13:28:44 2015 No.2743342 >>2743338 Market share dictated developer support and still does. Remember, we are talking about '90s Nintendo here. I'll say it again, don't confuse them with blue ocean Wii Nintendo.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 19 01:54:04 2015 No.2746043 bump thread.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 20 18:04:18 2015 No.2749134 Bump

Anonymous Wed Oct 21 01:25:19 2015 No.2749907

>>2743338
Part of me wants to agree with you since this whole console wars thing is quite ridiculous. However >>2743342 anon is right that it is not only the profitability of the sold unit itself but the broader ecosystem that matters. Why else would some manufacturers be willing to sell their consoles for a loss?

Nintendo might be one of the few manufacturers with such a strong fanbase and unique exclusives that they can pull this off and even they have had to start getting with the times.

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 21 01:43:41 2015 No.2749935 >>2749907 >Why else would some manufacturers be willing to sell their consoles for a loss? And that's the key, iff you don't sell for a loss, your attach rate and dev support becomes a bonus, not a requirement

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 21 02:29:10 2015 No.2749972 >>2739036 I think you mean DSP-1 but your point still stands I also can't believe that no one else caught this before I did

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 21 12:28:36 2015 No.2750648 >>2741797 Maybe to hinder lazy ports and promote custom software. Nintendo was all about the quality over quantity philosophy back then.

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 21 14:00:12 2015 No.2750827 >>2750648 Now that you mention it, along with their exclusivity licencing clausule, maybe it was to have a bit stronger lock in on their devs

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 21 14:04:05 2015 No.2750835 >>2750648 Nintendo of Japan?

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 21 17:43:18 2015 No.2751285 >>2743280 I have only this chart from anon here around.

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 21 19:44:52 2015 No.2751508 Consoles are embedded systems. You develop an embedded system using the minimum hardware required to meet your design specs. No point in doubling the cost to increase performance when it's not required for your goals.

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 21 22:01:51 2015 No.2751784 >>2751508 >i've never developed an embedded system Thanks for sharing sport.

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 21 23:02:33 2015 No.2751909 >>2739113 >I played both when they came out >oldfag I know No, you're not an oldfag.

>>	Anonymous Wed Oct 21 23:15:34 2015 No.2751940 Why care about SNES specs when devs like Konami, Irem, Natsume and many others did wonders with it? It's not all about the system specs, it's about how good and skilled developers were with the limitations they got.

Anonymous Wed Oct 21 23:32:19 2015 No.2752006

>>2751940
not entirely though, sure, good devs can work magic with any system requirements, but you have to admit that systems limitations limit what is possible on the system, and so if a game's scope is not possible on one system, they have to move to another, like with final fantasy 7 for example. Could it have been fit onto an n64 cartridge? debatable, but staying true to the vision required better specs

Anonymous Wed Oct 21 23:38:54 2015 No.2752023

>>2752006

I think the best devs always are able to deliver good stuff even with a lot of limitations.

That was the philosophy of Capcom veterans like Fujiwara and his disciple, Mikami, for example.

A good dev would be able to adapt his vision as much as possible with the limitations in question.

All consoles are limited, and no console is perfect. Some are just easier to develop for, but that doesn't mean anything if the devs aren't good. A good dev will make a good game in any system.

Anonymous Wed Oct 21 23:41:19 2015 No.2752028

>>2752023
>A good dev would be able to adapt his vision as much as possible with the limitations in question.
>as much as possible
key phrase there, sometimes it's necessary to have higher specs in order to properly carry out the game implementation.
>A good dev will make a good game in any system.
true, but like I said, certain games will work better with certain specs. Also better specs can never hurt

Anonymous Wed Oct 21 23:53:59 2015 No.2752059

>>2752006
>final fantasy 7 for example. Could it have been fit onto an n64 cartridge?
It definitely could if FMV was removed. The game's audio is fairly primitive MIDI so I have no doubt that could easily fit. The biggest question mark are all of the backgrounds in the game. I don't know how much space they take up.

In any case, FFVII on N64 would have been a very expensive cartridge. You would get real-time recreations of the in-game events instead of FMV (maybe with the high-quality variants of character models). Whether this is better or worse is up to personal taste.

Anonymous Wed Oct 21 23:58:10 2015 No.2752073

>>2752028
>better specs can never hurt
Oh, but they have hurt. The high specs of modern systems force the devs to develop higher quality assets (a large share of a modern game dev team is artists, not coders), which increases the costs so badly, the games must be profitable or else. So developers use very simple "proven" gameplay mechanisms, and a lot of psychological reward mechanisms (pre-order bonuses, limited editions, multiple editions, sequels, down to mini-sequels in dlc form) in order to drive the revenue into a break-even level. While the games we see on older systems certainly are developed with an eye on the profit, they also contain an element of experimentation in their gameplay, because the risk is affordable, and they treat the player as more than a walking-talking wallet. High specs are one of the main aspects modern gaming is utter bullshit, and we're largely stuck with replaying games from the golden age.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:09:53 2015 No.2752105 >>2752073 Very well put. I would add that limitations can actually help with creativity by forcing you to come up with new ways to overcome problems. Not always, but sometimes.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:14:26 2015 No.2752115 >>2752059 The reason ff7 looks like shit is because it was developed for the n64. Compare it to ff9

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:15:20 2015 No.2752119

>>2752073
>The high specs of modern systems force the devs to develop higher quality assets
not necessarily, that's usually more or less because the games have to compete with other games and in that case graphics are often a selling point, this is especially true if the company is under pressure from a publisher to deliver sales.
>So developers use very simple "proven" gameplay mechanisms, and a lot of psychological reward mechanisms in order to drive the revenue into a break-even level
you said this yourself, this has to do with revenue, not specs.
>While the games we see on older systems certainly are developed with an eye on the profit, they also contain an element of experimentation in their gameplay
dude I don't see how this has to do with specs.
>and we're largely stuck with replaying games from the golden age.
most people don't feel that way, I believe a majority of people can have fun with mario in the same way they have fun with a game like GTA or DaS

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:15:36 2015 No.2752120

>>2752105
this is true

if you are playing civilization, and your civilization starts alone in a small island, it is easy to decide what is the best spot to found a city.

If you start in a big fertile continent, deciding the best spot becomes much harder.

It is easier to make something excellent with limitations than with no limitations.

Imagine all the games that could be released nowadays if games had ps2 graphics upscaled dolphin emulator style for modern pcs.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:16:20 2015 No.2752121 >>2752115 ? The reason FF9 looks better than FF7 is probably because 7 is a game from 1998 and 9 is a game from 2000. Neither was developed for N64. There was a Final Fantasy tech demo for N64, but it was nothing like FF7.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:19:07 2015 No.2752126

>>2752120
>if you are playing civilization, and your civilization starts alone in a small island, it is easy to decide what is the best spot to found a city. If you start in a big fertile continent, deciding the best spot becomes much harder.
but the less options means that you're forced to only take certain routes, and more options means you can search for a route that fits what you want to do.
>Imagine all the games that could be released nowadays if games had ps2 graphics upscaled dolphin emulator style for modern pcs.
how in the fuck does that even follow?

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:22:38 2015 No.2752131

>>2752126

It's not easy to find a middleground. It's true that being limitad will force you to leave some options behind, but having no limitation would also mean that you'd need to be very good at taking decisions at designing a game. It's true that nowdays, there's more job for CG modelers and artists than actual programmers. Lots of time and resources spent into modeling tree leaves, but not enough spent on actual game design.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:26:45 2015 No.2752137

>>2752131
>but having no limitation would also mean that you'd need to be very good at taking decisions at designing a game
yeah, but you'd have to be good at designing games anyways to make a good game on low specs. Why the fuck do you think there were so many platformers on the NES? In that case lower specs didn't help to make innovative gameplay for a large portion of the games at all.
>Lots of time and resources spent into modeling tree leaves, but not enough spent on actual game design
again, that's not anything to do with specs, that's do with what is a fad at the time and what studios feel will make them the most revenue, or in some cases that's just what they want to do. Take megaman 9 for example, it doesn't have advanced graphics and it runs on a fuckin xbox 360, in that case the design is really what made the game and the specs of the console didn't dictate at all what the game was going for.
I think you're confusing low specs for how publishers nowadays work

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:34:49 2015 No.2752148 >>2752131 Most trees are blue

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:34:58 2015 No.2752149

>>2752137
>yeah, but you'd have to be good at designing games anyways to make a good game on low specs.

Exactly, it's what I've been saying all along, a good dev should be able to adapt to any system, and deliver a good game, regardless of limitations.

>again, that's not anything to do with specs

Yes and no. Higher specs are almost always used mainly to deliver more detailer graphics. More resolution, better textures, more polycount, more effects, etc.
A game like Megaman 9, or indie games like undertale can be pretty popular nowdays even with simple graphics, but people won't buy a console or a gaming PC to play those games, people spend money on current hardware to get good graphics. And in this day and age, good graphics doesn't mean good art direction (at least, not only), it means wasting a LOT of time, money and resources with the details.

You can't separate hardware specs from the way the industry and publishers work, because they're part of the same thing.

FF7 being on PS1 and not N64 was likely more to do with a business decision rather than a hardware one. Sony themselves helped Square advertise FF7 in the west, kinda like how they're doing now with SFV for Capcom.
FF7 could have been on N64, Saturn or even 3DO. It just came out on PS1 because Square did good business with Sony.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:37:09 2015 No.2752152 >>2752115 >The reason ff7 looks like shit is because it was developed for the n64. FFVII could have been developed for the Sega CD 32X tbh fam. Seriously.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:39:03 2015 No.2752156 >>2752152 >>2752115 Neither of these sounds correct. Seriously? I'm being super cereal now.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:42:08 2015 No.2752162 >>2752156 I mean technically. Lego men polygons would have been no problem for 32X (see the Virtua Fighter port). The CD part has plenty of room for music, FMV, etc. It was technically possible.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:45:39 2015 No.2752168

>>2752149
>Exactly, it's what I've been saying all along, a good dev should be able to adapt to any system, and deliver a good game, regardless of limitations.
true, but what I've been saying is that certain games benefit from or would be impossible to make without higher specs. Yes, it would be possible to make a fun snes port of GTAV with some creative liberties, but it wouldn't be the same game, it wouldn't be the same vision
>Higher specs are almost always used mainly to deliver more detailer graphics
but what if the game requires those graphics? Would Super Mario 64 be the same game if it was on an early ibm pc?
>FF7 being on PS1 and not N64 was likely more to do with a business decision rather than a hardware one
kind of and sort of, again it goes back to the idea that it is POSSIBLE to make something on lower specs, but do you really want to? At that point it becomes an argument of whether or not it was for artistic or business reasons.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:45:56 2015 No.2752169

>>2752119
>graphics are often a selling point
By putting higher specs into the hardware, you basically turbo-boost the graphics race, increasing the value of assets over gameplay.

>this has to do with revenue
>dude I don't see how this has to do with specs.
By making the assets more important, and more expensive, you raise the risk (financial loss, down to bankrupcy) for the developer and publisher. In order to minimize the risk they will go towards proven and simple mechanics.

>the same way they have fun with a game like GTA or DaS
Considering the latter are vastly more complicated and complex and expensive to produce, that's a pretty damning statement. Looks like the ROI in terms of gaming fun is abysmal. That's by design. Fun is a side product of modern games. The publisher is much more interested in making you pay. That can be for an immediate game, that can be by establishing brands so the next pre-order will get you.

That said, whether you like it or not, the "fun" is different. With Mario the primary goal was to challenge the player, to provide some kind of dexterity puzzle. With GTA, especially the modern kind (III and onward) you're extremely heavily reward driven. You got unlocks, collectathons, stats, achievements, the whole deal. They're all reward mechanisms, with the primary goal to make you feel good about buying either more assets for this game, or the sequel.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:47:47 2015 No.2752175

>>2752126
>more options means you can search for a route that fits what you want to do.
Often the fun is not in doing what you want to do, but finding an unexpected solution together with the restricted environment. Total freedom is an excellent mechanism to kill a game, and many other arts.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:50:51 2015 No.2752182

>>2752137
>Why the fuck do you think there were so many platformers on the NES?
Because the platform was specifically designed for them. Especially its graphics system and controller.

>again, that's not anything to do with specs
It has everything to do with specs. High specs enable graphics races, and graphics races for devs to spend their limited budget more in assets than in gameplay, or increase the budget, which increases the risk of financial damage.

>what studios feel will make them the most revenue
Asset creation is kind of a loss leader. They contribute nothing to the game at all, and largely exist just to satisfy the spec race.

>Take megaman 9 for example
That was a fad, actually. Deliberately emulating an old system's look, instead of just tuning down the graphics

>I think you're confusing low specs for how publishers nowadays work
One is the consequence of the other

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:51:02 2015 No.2752183

>>2752169
>By putting higher specs into the hardware, you basically turbo-boost the graphics race, increasing the value of assets over gameplay.
not necessarily, as I have said with megaman 9, a commercially viable game with lower graphics. There have been other examples of this, especially in the indie market, with things like braid, super meat boy, etc... Even then you're acting like games with good graphics cannot possibly be considered their best iterations because they could have been done on lower requirement systems. In my opinion Crysis is a 9/10 game and it has great graphics to boot. Again, higher specs do not FORCE the publishers to pursue higher graphics.
>By making the assets more important, and more expensive, you raise the risk (financial loss, down to bankrupcy) for the developer and publisher. In order to minimize the risk they will go towards proven mechanics.
again, financial not hardware decisions.
also you act like you can't play GTA just to shoot people.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:53:54 2015 No.2752191

>>2752182
>Because the platform was specifically designed for them. Especially its graphics system and controller.
debatable.
>It has everything to do with specs. High specs enable graphics races, and graphics races for devs to spend their limited budget more in assets than in gameplay, or increase the budget, which increases the risk of financial damage.
alllready went over this, no, that is still strictly a financial decision.
>Asset creation is kind of a loss leader. They contribute nothing to the game at all, and largely exist just to satisfy the spec race.
that's literally just your opinion.
>That was a fad, actually. Deliberately emulating an old system's look, instead of just tuning down the graphics
and how in any way does that disprove my argument?
>One is the consequence of the other
no

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:55:41 2015 No.2752193

>>2752183
>you're acting like games with good graphics cannot possibly be considered their best iterations because they could have been done on lower requirement systems
That's a strawman

>you act like you can't play GTA just to shoot people.
I certainly don't need to spend millions in development costs for that, especially if it's 10,000 bucks gameplay wrapped in 100 million bucks graphics. The gameplay of modern GTA is simply quite weak. The graphics are its saving grace, and for a game, that's quite bad.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 00:58:59 2015 No.2752197

>>2752193
>That's a strawman
okay I might be exaggerating a bit, but that's what you said earlier,
>It is easier to make something excellent with limitations than with no limitations.
you're implying that lower specs generally give better games, which is false

>I certainly don't need to spend millions in development costs for that, especially if it's 10,000 bucks gameplay wrapped in 100 million bucks graphics. The gameplay of modern GTA is simply quite weak. The graphics are its saving grace, and for a game, that's quite bad.
now you're diving straight into opinion only territory. I love GTA V and there is no way that a game like that could have been made on the ps2 with that big of a world. You sound like you just really don't like modern games which is fine I guess but you're limiting your options.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:00:25 2015 No.2752198

>>2752191
>debatable.
scrollable background with transparent overlaid sprites, and a controller with directions and 2 actions.
This almost directly leads to games where the player controls one of the sprites, the background scrolls to enable a larger playfield, and they interact with the sprites. So you're almost instantly in the realm of platformers, top-down rpgs and shooters. In particular, anything that's using graphics that don't fall into the background + sprites category, will have a hard time. Be it Elite on the NES or Doom on the SNES. Also anything involving a pointer will have a hard time on these systems, like Civilization. And anything involving a larger save state will have a problem, like Sim City.

>strictly a financial decision
direct consequence of increased development costs

>and how in any way does that disprove my argument?
Fads work by having a gimmick to remove themselves from the competition. Also, MM9 was not an example of a game working with lower specs, it was visually emulating a different system. Big difference.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:02:35 2015 No.2752204

>>2752197
>that's what you said earlier
prove it

>you're implying that lower specs generally give better games, which is false
I'm implying that higher specs do not improve the quality of games, and tend to decrease the quality of games due to economical reasons. I do not imply, or argue, the inverse.

>that big of a world
It may look big, but it's ultimately static, empty and void. It's a backdrop for a physics engine, there's hardly a game in there.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:04:48 2015 No.2752208

>>2752197
>I love GTA V and there is no way that a game like that could have been made on the ps2 with that big of a world
Not that guy, but this isn't strictly true per se.

As long as you have a streamer, you could load chunks of the city into the RAM at a time. Of course, the city couldn't be as detailed or with as much draw distance, but it could be of a similar size.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:05:17 2015 No.2752209

>>2752198
>direct consequence of increased development costs
I hate to sound like a broken record but I REALLY don't see how better capabilities FORCE you to spend your budget on better graphics. I don't know how many times I can say this, that is a decision mainly up to the developer.

>Also, MM9 was not an example of a game working with lower specs, it was visually emulating a different system. Big difference.
that was my point though, that you could have a fun game that didn't have half of its budget on graphics on a higher spec system

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:07:06 2015 No.2752213

>>2752204
>prove it
it's literally right there in the same post
>I'm implying that higher specs do not improve the quality of games, and tend to decrease the quality of games due to economical reasons. I do not imply, or argue, the inverse.
fair enough but I'm arguing that it does NOT tend to decrease the quality.

>It may look big, but it's ultimately static, empty and void. It's a backdrop for a physics engine, there's hardly a game in there.
>it's a backdrop for a physics engine
that's basically gta in a nutshell, the atmosphere and core mechanics is what makes it, and the big world which seems static and void to you is very immersive to lots of people, which again, would not be possible on lower spec hardware

>>2752208
I see what you're saying but overall it would be a lot harder to develop and in the end wouldn't be as appealing.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:12:23 2015 No.2752220

>>2752073
I'm looking forward to the crash that results from console companies prioritizing short-term revenue boosts from
>lolgrafix
over the long-term ability to attract and retain customers by making games people actually want to play. Sooner or later, even the most jaded gamer gets bored of doing the same thing over and over and over again at a higher resolution each time, and sooner or later we're going to see the manufacturers top out and just not be able to do better
>lolgrafix
at any price. I think we're already starting to see that with the current generation, which by any estimation is past the peak of the price-performance curve and starting the long slide down into combined apathy and sticker shock.

Seriously, I'm looking forward to it, no lie. AAA games stopped innovating years ago. Once the whole unsustainable edifice of AAA development comes crashing down and the companies involved cease to be insulated from real competition, we'll see all this bullshit shake out pretty quick, and the survivors will be those who can make new and interesting games that people actually want to play.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:16:44 2015 No.2752230

>>2752126
>how in the fuck does that even follow?
It puts a hard cap on how detailed and complex the graphics can be, which in turn puts a hard cap on how much money and development effort has to be sunk into them just in order to achieve parity with the competition, much less outdo them. That means the graphics don't cannibalize budget and development time from stuff like gameplay and story.

Hell, for that matter, we'd see a lot less "lol day one patch because the fucking game doesn't work" bullshit happening, because there'd be enough resource to make sure the fucking game works before release, instead of the modern style where you release the game, then patch it so it works, then ship a multi-gigabyte "update" with all the shit you didn't have time to finish because the gold-plated pixels cost so much and take so long, and then dribble out the latter two-thirds of the story as paid DLC.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:19:12 2015 No.2752232 >>2752168 >GTAV But that's just the point. GTA 5 is GTA 3 with 100x better graphics and maybe 2x the actual gameplay appeal, and only that much because even GTA 3 needed a little longer in the oven.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:22:14 2015 No.2752238

>>2752183
>megaman 9, a commercially viable game with lower graphics
Only because of its nostalgia appeal. Modern AAA gameplay has so spoiled its customers that any game which doesn't hold their hand throughout, or presents anything resembling genuine difficulty, goes into the trash right away. Look at all the hilarity around the Super Metroid VC release and all the people who couldn't figure out how to get more than two minutes into it. The fashion is to blame those people for being lazy, but people will only be as lazy as they can get away with, and the modern AAA industry is perfectly satisfied to release games that basically play themselves while you watch.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:22:35 2015 No.2752240

>>2752209
>I REALLY don't see how better capabilities FORCE you to spend your budget on better graphics. I don't know how many times I can say this, that is a decision mainly up to the developer.
That developer is directly competing with other developers for the limited funds of players. The primary mechanism to introduce a player to a game is screenshots.

>that didn't have half of its budget on graphics on a higher spec system
MM9 is visually emulating a previous system, instead of being frugal on graphics. There's a direct appeal to nostalgia

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:24:40 2015 No.2752247 >>2752213 >core mechanics There are hardly any. It's just a physics engine. If you want core mechanics, look at GTA1 or 2.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:25:04 2015 No.2752248

>>2752197
>there is no way that a game like that could have been made on the ps2
Who said it could? All we're talking about here is PS2-level graphics, not PS2-level capabilities overall. That you should so completely confuse the two rather neatly demonstrates the point in hand: better graphics don't make a better game, even if the modern AAA industry and most of its customers think they do.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:26:41 2015 No.2752252

>>2752209
>I REALLY don't see how better capabilities FORCE you to spend your budget on better graphics
You can spend your budget on better graphics. Or you can look like shit next to everybody else, who are all spending their budgets on better graphics, and no one will buy your game, and then you don't have any budget at all to worry about because you've gone out of business and all your engineers have gone to work for companies which, for all their pursuit of mindless pretty over actual substance, are at least solvent enough to make payroll.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:27:07 2015 No.2752253

>>2752238
>modern AAA industry is perfectly satisfied to release games that basically play themselves while you watch.

Modern game development is about developers jerking off to the piece of beautiful CGI they created (or some 'deep' story they just wrote) instead of making an actual game that players have control over.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:31:11 2015 No.2752259

>>2752213
>I'm arguing that it does NOT tend to decrease the quality
No, you're basically just insisting on it. The argument being made is:
- first that, since development resources are finite, a greater fraction committed to graphics will leave less available for everything else;
- second, that modern graphics capabilities are so vastly overpowered that living up to them requires a disproportionately large fraction of the available development resource;
- and, third, that it would be quite possible to make enjoyable and market-viable games with graphics two generations behind the current gen, except that, since current-gen graphics exist, looking absolutely fucking amazing is the minimum bar to clear for anything to be viable in the market at all, unless (like Mega Man 9) it has nostalgia and low price going for it, or some other way to avoid being held to the current-gen visual standard.

You haven't argued against any of these points, you've basically just kept saying that the third one doesn't exist.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:35:57 2015 No.2752264

>>2752220
To me a major difference between then and now is respect. Devs and pubs used to respect the player as an able, thinking and curious being, and provided games that were genuinely entertaining. Players in turn respected devs for their craftsmanship. Not all devs, obviously. There are always bad apples.

Anyway, nowadays that mutual respect is gone. Devs and pubs alike use and abuse psychological aspects to milk what they perceive a dumb, unthinking, consuming walking wallet. At the same time they'll mistrust the player, adding DRM and related mechanisms, which damage the product for the honest user, while leaving the actual pirate unaffected, and they think it's a good idea. Players in turn openly hate pubs and devs, change support on a whim, and treat games as throwaway consumption items. Of course, it doesn't apply to all devs/pubs in the present either.

Thing is, making games is not a profitable business. You can make a living off it, but that's it. What's sold as games by the various big houses is computer drugs, more or less. They're not made with the best interest of the player in mind.

I don't see a big crash coming. EA, King and the likes got too many junkies supporting them, no matter the quality of their products. Instead I think of it as a clean split. The big houses provide their computer drugs, and independents create games they want to create, to share with curious players. The only problem I can see is these genuinely interested game devs being negatively affected by the stuff sold by the big houses, thinking their trash is a desirable end product.

Even then though, game dev, be it on modern or old platforms, is easier than ever. Anybody even remotely curious can pick up the requirements very cheaply, and get cracking. It leads to a lot of trash, but also some very nice gems here and there.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:37:00 2015 No.2752267

>>2752253
Exactly.

Today I saw a video review of Metroid Other M that said, you know, the story's shit, but the gameplay's not so bad. I was like, you know what, I never gave Other M's gameplay a chance, because the story was so fucking bad. So I was like, hey, why don't I give it a fair shot and see if maybe I'm missing out?

Oh my fucking God, y'all. If this by modern gameplay standards is not-bad-ranging-to-pretty-good, there's going to be a fucking crash, because Other M's gameplay is fucking miserable. One of two things is going to happen:

1. Somebody's going to beat the odds and come out with a fucking unbelievably good game that has actual legit replay value on a modern console, and nobody's going to be able to follow it up with anything that's even half as good, and people are going to stop being so willing to pay for visually sumptuous bullshit that barely manages to hold anyone's interest for even a single playthrough.

2. Nobody's going to be able to keep up with the graphics curve (this is already happening) and people are eventually going to figure out they're paying for the same experience over and over and stop doing it, now that it isn't getting any prettier.

That's why we're seeing all the AAA investment in consumer VR technology: the people who run companies like EA and Ubisoft aren't stupid. They can see what's coming, and they're more than willing to sink huge gobs of budget into stuff like the Oculus or whatever Sony's version is called. They don't so much mind the thought of a new graphical arms race, because that's a race where they have a chance to win, or at least break even. Without it, sooner or later they're fucking doomed, and good riddance to them.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:38:42 2015 No.2752269

>>2752253
I'd like to add, the people jerking off are the asset creators. The devs probably sit sobbing in the corner, because they're building yet another iteration of the same game. CGI + story with only token gameplay is "safe" as it's been tried and tested extensively, and closely relates to other forms of media that are better understood, like movies. They're basically an expression of a company being afraid of making an actual game, because the risk of failure is too high, and a failure could result in the whole shop going down, at current budgets.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:42:32 2015 No.2752273

>>2752267
>That's why we're seeing all the AAA investment in consumer VR technology

It's basically just jumping from one sinking ship to another sinking ship that's not so far into the water yet.

I personally think VR is going to fail to hit mainstream. It's one of the most anti-social technologies created yet.

VR being successful would fly in the face of every single gaming trend. Games that are more social are the ones that have had more success, not those that are less social.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:42:59 2015 No.2752275

>>2752267
Graphics are going to cap out.

I know realistically, it'll continue to improve and get better and things will look more and more detailed.

But honestly, late-ps3 and early ps4 era graphics are very good. MGS5 looks amazing, Sure, we've come a long way since early PS3 (I think Folklore is a great game, but the characters look quite bad by today's standards).

But budgets are getting so astronomically huge it would not surprise me if we kind of took a step back and went for less detail, and more on screen. More NPC's more environmental stuff, more instead of more detail.

But then, you have reviewers going "Looks like it could be on ps2" when your game isn't completely 100% groundbreaking.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:45:11 2015 No.2752278

>>2752264
You're ignoring the nature of addiction. People escalate over time, because over time they need a bigger and bigger hit to get high. What happens when they top out? What if either you can't get a console with better graphics than an Xbone or whatever, or you can but the hardware is so stupidly expensive that even at a loss it isn't cheap enough to generate an install base worth devs' effort to target? That's when shit starts to break down.

>>2752269
>other forms of media that are better understood, like movies
This shit right here pisses me off. I spent $50 on Alien Isolation because I'd heard it was a good game. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it wasn't a game at all, but a movie for which I was expected to play the lead role without the benefit of a script. After the tenth or twelfth time it punished me for trying to do what I wanted to instead of what it wanted me to do, I said "fuck you" and gave up on it. But, of course, Sega still had my money.

>>2752273
>[VR is] one of the most anti-social technologies created yet
Sure, but new consoles make it easier than ever to engage with people over the Internet, and that trend isn't going to reverse. Sure, VR is antisocial if you're talking about four people in the same room with big boxes strapped to their faces, but c'mon, man. In-person multiplayer has been dead for a long time.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:47:08 2015 No.2752282

Now I think about it, I suppose we might end up seeing a kind of synthesis, where indie devs come up with intrinsically appealing new mechanics, and AAA devs incorporate them into their games once they've been tested and proven in a smaller, less cutthroat market.

I don't know whether that'll actually happen, but it seems like it'd be the best of both worlds if it did.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:47:17 2015 No.2752283

>>2752275
>went for less detail, and more on screen. More NPC's more environmental stuff, more instead of more detail.

Problem with that is, we know extremely well how to produce graphical assets, and it's trivial for modellers to increase their model complexity. That's just "more of the same".

However, adding more NPCs, giving them life, having the environment react, you can't use existing editors and existing workforce for that. This is completely new territory, that needs to be coded and implemented. The big houses fear the unknown. They'll stay as far away from it as they can manage.

We'll see more motion capturing (filming is established technology), we'll see bigger sandboxes (that's an easy limit of current hardware, so there's a wow factor, and it's done completely in the modeller, established technology), we'll try to bridge the uncanny valley (tweaking the modelling and rendering), but it'll be a long time until, if ever, an RPG will have an interactive NPC you'll care for.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:49:37 2015 No.2752286

>>2752278
>Sure, VR is antisocial if you're talking about four people in the same room with big boxes strapped to their faces

I just want to add that I believe VR will be successful with the hardcore. It's like a nerd fantasy come true after all.

But ultimately I think it will die a slow death because normies will be adverse to putting big boxes on their faces (it's less convenient than regular screens, and normies don't care about immersion).

VR relies on high-budget detailed realistic graphics for the technology to work and be believable, but without the mainstream, the money won't be there to keep it up.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:49:52 2015 No.2752287

>>2752278
>What happens when they top out?
The "hits" are not graphical. The graphics are merely the attention grabbing to get you the first dose. The hits are achievements, pre-orders, unlockables, exclusives and social badges. Grab any modern free mobile social game and you'll see such an extreme density of all these things, paired with "click & wait" gameplay, to stoke impatience. That's high grade digital crack. No need to even improve that. Just iterate it.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:50:25 2015 No.2752289

>>2752283
>This is completely new territory, that needs to be coded and implemented. The big houses fear the unknown. They'll stay as far away from it as they can manage
Exactly. There's also the point that modern hardware is optimized for graphics throughput at the expense of practically everything else. If you come up with a new technique that makes it possible for NPCs to behave in a much more realistic way, but it's at all expensive in terms of CPU or memory resource, it's going to get cut because you can't do enough of it to matter without bringing the platform to its knees.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 01:52:00 2015 No.2752291

>>2752287
>modern free mobile social game
Sure. Does it work the same way for AAA, though? I mean, half the reason the mobile game ecosystem is what it is, is because you can barely get people to pay anything at all on the front end. AAA games still cost something like real money, though. Doesn't that change the way the incentives work?

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 02:02:20 2015 No.2752296

>>2752291
>Does it work the same way for AAA, though?
Looked at GTA online or Forza lately? Seen the Pre-Order bonuses and exclusive editions of the big games? GamerScore and Steam Achievements? Yes, it's the exact same.

>can barely get people to pay anything at all on the front end
That mindset is what's broken. See the lack of respect inherent in it? It's not about providing a good game, it's about making the people (walking wallets) pay. In fact, in the mobile ecosystem publishers prefer to give away the game for free. It's the initial fix, to get you hooked on the various upgrade and purchase mechanisms. In some mild cases you can even see it on non-mobile platforms. It's not altruism that you can get lots of moderately recent games for free on the PS4. It just helps to get you hooked into the social network, where there's peer pressure, and a desire to show off what you achieved. How do you achieve? Why, you buy AAA games of course, and "play" them, and their DLC, and their season passes, but I repeat myself.

The solution is quite simple. Build it and they'll come. Provide a good and interesting game, and word of mouth will spread like the smell of a fart in an elevator. You can think whatever you want of, for example, Minecraft, but it got THAT aspect right. The developer(s) built what they considered entertaining, made an offer for people to buy it, and they bought it.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 02:16:43 2015 No.2752313

>>2752286
Right now there are only a handful of games really capable on delivering a good VR experience. I think seeing what high end games like Star Citizen will/can accomplish in VR, and if it really brings something new to the table, will be the deciding factor.

Until we see how players react with that sort of technology and accompanying software, it's just speculation. Will it be isolating, or will it make a multiplayer game better? Will it be viewed as annoying, or will it add something fundamental to the medium the same way playing Super Mario 64 for the first time did?

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 02:23:20 2015 No.2752321

>>2752156
It's all frivolous what-if shit. Ignore it.

> Tfw you will never get to go back to the time you first played watershed games like FF7 for the first time

God damn it, I still remember how fucking insane people were going over it. The gaming magazines that had strategy guide segments at the end of each issue for months, the review scores where everyone was blown away... the stunning novelty of all the different little things tucked inside the game. The way everything just felt so much bigger and more realized. Games from that era were in completely unexplored territory, with only rough design conventions from earlier games to guide them.

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 07:20:04 2015 No.2752545

>>2752198
>anything involving a pointer will have a hard time on these systems

Why? A pointer is just another sprite and the background can scroll. Sim City was in development for the nes even through it came out on the snes (and many 8bit computers that had a worse time with it, like the zx spectrum (no sprites, all character based afaik)). Also, the amiga had a blitter and planar graphics instead of hardware sprites and scrolling chunky backgrounds and also had sim City (and the PC was more or less the same but less capable)

Anonymous Thu Oct 22 12:50:01 2015 No.2752883

>>2752545
The problem of the pointer is not graphical, it's an input problem.
A relative motion pointing device, like a mouse, has extremely varied movement speeds, allowing to move the pointer across the screen instantly, or very slowly pixel by pixel. An absolute pointing device, like tablet or a pen has instant movements, without any transition, while maintaining the precision. An analog acceleration or delta pointing device, like a joystick or thumbstick at least allows varied speeds, within a limited range. A d-pad only allows fixed speed, so you can't have precision and speed at the same time. You can work around it with modifier buttons to vary the speed, but buttons are highly limited on an old gamepad.
As a result of all this, pointers using sticks or pads must obey certain speed limits, which strongly impacts gameplay. That's why devs generally avoid pointer based games on such systems

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 22 15:55:21 2015 No.2753154 >>2752198 >Be it Elite on the NES or Doom on the SNES. Also anything involving a pointer will have a hard time on these systems, like Civilization The SNES had a mouse, so that's not actually true after a certain point.

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 22 16:03:00 2015 No.2753164 >>2753154 Hard time does not mean impossible It is a bad idea for a dev to assume optional peripherals to be existent The phrase "these systems" refers to gamepad driven consoles

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 22 20:04:16 2015 No.2753540 >>2741814 >snes entertainment system >Super Nintendo Entertainment System Entertainment System

>>	Anonymous Thu Oct 22 23:25:48 2015 No.2753824 >>2753540 Windows 2000: Based on New Technology Technology. inb4 aspie not retro.

Anonymous Fri Oct 23 02:11:56 2015 No.2754154

>>2742225
Final Fight on SNES is complete shit compared to the Arcade, even a kid with down syndrome could tell them apart immediately

the missing 2nd player was only the beginning of the issues that port had. wow.

it was fine if you had no friends, I guess, but the limited number of enemies on screen and the shit resolution made it offensive to any arcade gamer worth their salt in those days.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 23 02:34:36 2015 No.2754198 >>2753824 NT 5.0 is dated by 1999.

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 23 02:59:58 2015 No.2754231 >>2752198 >Be it Elite on the NES What is the issue?

>>	Anonymous Fri Oct 23 03:06:47 2015 No.2754237 >>2754154 epic condescension, the gaming world needs more of it sorely lacking on this board at least, thanks for the breath of fresh air

Anonymous Fri Oct 23 12:19:55 2015 No.2754734

>>2754231
Performance is abysmal, since the NES lacks dedicated per pixel access and the engine instead works around it by drawing into a set of tiles (which means you don't get a sequential memory to draw in, which makes routines like line drawing a real bitch, in terms of complexity, and performance).
Controls are sub-par, because the game was developed with a keyboard in mind. The menu control in the game is brilliant in its design, but it's ultimately a workaround to deal with the extremely low number of action buttons.

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/vr/ - Retro Games