Many people cuss and overlook the SegaCD hardware for being expensive, not offering many hardware improvements, and having infamous games full of FMV... But if you really do your research, the SegaCD had many great games, that were either amazing ports or cult classics. Had SEGA never released the 32X, had them continued with the SVP, and had them kept support for the SegaCD, then the Genesis would've been tied in sales with the SNES.
@tonmasboy AOF on the SNES wasn't scaling sprites. Mode 7 was used to do the screen zooming by drawing the entire portion of the screen underneath the black bar (where the HUD is) as a single background layer and scaling that toward and away from the screen. This was possible since the original Neo Geo game had flat backgrounds with no parallax and did no perspective correction with the fighter sprites during the scaling so this worked out nicely for the Mode 7 method.
If only they took advantage of the scaling and rotation hardware we could have had some great games, instead on the Sega/Mega CD it was FMV galore. Imagine a vehicle combat game with graphics like the Batman vehicle sections or imagine a mario kart clone or top gear 2 style racing game?
I think its cool to own a mega cd because its piece of tech that was something big back in the day, to see how it was back then, the system wasn't that bad either certainly the CDi and Jag where worse.
@Carlixyz Some SNES games had a DSP in the cartridge that enabled them to perform sprite scaling. And unlike the genesis the SNES actually had extra pins in the cartridge slot specifically for interfacing the hardware to extra chips in the cartridge. Using the scaling hardware in the Sega-CD was more difficult than it should have been (it required that you stop the CPU while accessing it) because the Genesis was never designed to use external graphics chips like the SNES was.
@Atomicskull , Genesis not need stop the cpu to acess the segacd ram, segacd have 512k program ram dedicated to sub cpu and 2 x 128k word ram dedicated genesis , if main cpu need acess the segacd program ram yes the sub cpu need stop. but using scaling and rotation segacd have a configuration to put word ram in 128k to main cpu and 128k to vdp in this mode the asic write direct to 128k for vdp without stop any cpu and genesis vdp get the scaled sprite using dma.
Awesome system and totally underrated. Those graphics don't look like much now, but back in the early-mid 90s, it was quite a ways ahead of its time. Those sequences from Batman and Robin have 3D polygon models...unheard of for all but a select few games of the time and almost none of them had texturing and effects that good. Thanks for posting...brings back lots of good memories. Luckily I still have mine and play it now and then. Batman Returns is definitely one of the best.
The Genesis can do 30º tilting (to simulate rotations, see the cat boss in batman and robin) and background scaling in software (there are demos available), I think pier solar simulates mode 7 in one of the mini games.
Software-based scaling and rotation would be possible but wouldn't be practical. You'd get a low frame-rate and the cpu wouldn't be able to do much else.
It depends on how you handle it, the 30º tilting doesn't take any noticeable cpu time. Background scaling can be super fast depending on the background (vertical scaling takes barely any CPU time), there's a demo by AnalYoGirl showing 60fps background scaling plus a simple shooter on top on her site. Rotation does kill the cpu but you can do something like the mode-7 airship travel in FF 4 & 6 (pier solar), or prerendered like Red Zone.
Really not sure what you mean by 30 degree tilting tbh. Can you explain?
Vertical scaling would be acheived by adjusting the position of a background/sprite during a H-Interrupt I assume, but horizontal scaling would need prerendering.
Does Pier Solar actually have Mode-7-style sections? I haven't been able to play my copy yet.
The VDP can do 16px column scrolling on the backgrounds. You can to a 30º tilt by mixing that with line scrolling.
You don't need prerendering for horizontal scaling, with fixed animation speed you can store which columns need doubling and update only those tiles, packed pixels make the operation rather efficient.
Yes pier solar has Mode-7-Style sections, and it's not that bullshit Axelay-style effect either. It's a full blown landscape effect, except the pixel size is doubled.
As a big fan of battlecorps this video actually has interested me in soul star. Its also from core and it seems to make the most of the system hardware.
SoulStar is one of the 2 games that make the most out of the system (The other being The Adventures of Batman and Robin).
Unlike that game however SoulStar can be a very fun game if one takes the time to learn the extremely complicated controls (HINT: Save the missiles for the free-roam sections).
I call it the ranger-x syndrome. An incredible game that just didn't get play tested/marketed enough.
Oh and get ranger-x. Best use of color on the genesis.
The Sega CD ASIC was a chip included in the sega cd that could rotate and scale an image and output the result in the genesis VDP format. The problem is the limitations that imposes. Each picture processed by the ASIC was limited to 16 colors, and the VDP bus was not designed to have such large updates at once. As such, a fullscreen update was limited to about 15 FPS. Games like soulstar avoided that limit by hiding parts of the screen with HUDs or by mirroring (like ceiling in the robot lvl).
A lot of posters here aren't quite aware of the differences between Mode 7 and the SegaCD ASIC. Mode 7 was a special mode on the snes graphics chip which was limited to a single background layer, but it could be rotated and scaled. The perspective effect was achieved by changing parameters per scanline. The snes could NOT scale sprites, every sprite that looks scaled is pre-rendered or actually is the background (like bowser in Super Mario). Mode 7 was mostly limited by the SNES shit processor.
i just have 3 games on my sega mega cd (sonic cd, batman returns, jaguar xj220), but i sure did miss out on other superb sprite scaling games.... some of the makes me think why didn't sega do a proper OutRun port, or afterburner II, or that chopper game thunderblade. those where arcade hits, and would have pushed sales from the mega cd much further. i would have bought all the spite scaler arcade games from whatever developer (cisco heat for instance).
@musicmaniac1965 Yeah, but all those Super Scalar arcade classics that couldn't be done correctly on the Genesis were old and kiddy stuff people played in suckier forms already (on the Genesis itself!). Sega needed hip, fresh ideas to show us, like assembling grainy videos of rap music, movies telling you to press buttons arbitrarily or DIE(!?), and re-releasing the same damn Genesis game from a year ago but now with CD music! And load times! And Sonic CD! /sarcasm off
@Tempora158 Hahahaha, i agree with you on that stupid moviegames telling you to press a button, or you DIE! Hahaha, exelent sarcasm there! But it's true none the less.
Sega could even now sell proper arcade sprite scaler games on Xbox live and PSN, but i'm afraid they recon those oldschool games won't sell enough... I would buy them....
@musicmaniac1965 Sega is still milking their Genesis emulator for all their arcade side scrollers at the moment while leaving all the arcade scaling stuff to 3D remakes (fine if they're like Virtua Racing Flat Out and not OutRun from PS2 Sega Ages) or 3D sequels (fine if they're like Afternurner Climax and not Golden Axe - Beast Rider).
Let's see... buy a SNES and get scaling and rotation out of the box, or buy the Genesis and have to pay $300 for a CD add-on. Way to take it to the next level sega.
@melvoin The SNES could NEVER pull off these games. The SNES coud only scale backgrounds, that's why games like F - Zero, Mario Kart etc are all flat. Did you ever see mode 7 in a driving game with scaling side graphics, hills & dips? Of course not, it could not do it. Look at games like Top Gear on the SNES. The road side graphics did not scale in hardware like Batman does because it could not scale sprites. Mega CD could scale and rotate, background, foreground & sprites simultaneously. :)
@xtremecoasters Wrong!The snes could scale characters also.Turtles in time,killer instinct,and Super Mario world proves this.The SNES can only scale or rotate 1 character or 1 background at a a time.It cannot scale and rotate at the same time.Starfox has scaling and rotation at the same time cause of the FX chip giving the SNES more power.
@barlog20 yeah, and the main difference between Sega-CD and the SNES is that the Super FX and Super FX2 chips could generate true 3D graphics(low poly, though). Like in Star Fox(where SFX was used). And it could also rotate sprites like the Genesis.(like in SMW2: Yoshi's island, where SFX2 was used)
@Dark0Lord7 Just to correct a few thing, the SNES's Mode 7 was hardware and so was the SCD's scaling & rotation, the Super FX chips used software because it was a relatively fast RISC processor.
Also the same ASIC used for this in the Sega CD can also do polygonal 3D on-par with all of the Super FX-2 games. This ability was never used although has been speculated about many, many times.
@Dant2142 Now I had time to look at the full video, and noticed Bloodshot, which is in 3D. But it lags more than Doom for SNES(Super FX 2).
And also, the Sega Genesis had a lower color pallete than the SNES, the SNES could display 256 out of 32.678 colors while the genesis could only display 64(183 in some games) out of 512 colors. It's noticeable that in Super Mario World, the graphics are much smoother than in Sonic the Hedgehog.
@Dark0Lord7 1. Bloodshot isn't POLYGONAL 3D, and neither is Doom for that matter. Also, Bloodshot doesn't use the ASIC, it does everything on the Genesis's 68K just like the Cartridge version.
2. The color issue is completely true and IMHO is rather unacceptable being that the PC Engine that came out earlier has a better color pallet and better sound.
3. The smoothness of SMW vs. Sonic seems to be a matter of opinion as I have played through both on real HW and they seem about the same.
@Dant2142 Interesting, do you think the sega CD version of Blood-Shot would have run smoother if it had taken advantage of the scaling properties of the system?
Ether way, even though Zero Tolerance was a better game, in my opinion, Blood Shot seemed to have a better rendering engine.
@Disthron Without a doubt, but you have to understand, Domark, the people who made Bloodshot/Battle Frenzy, were really more interested in developing a good ray-casting engine for the Genesis as opposed to making the Sega CD version look better and play smoother.
Kinda makes you wonder what the Sega CD was really capable of. Scaling and Rotation in Soulstar combines with the 256 colors of Eternal Champions would have looked pretty cool.
There were about 3 different ways the SNES could "scale" sprites, the most common was Mode 7 which was a function of the GPU, as seen in F-Zero. Next was Software which anything could do, then there were numerous Add-on processors on cartridges, that had a function of scaling
This video really makes the Saturn all that much more confusing. It would seem like Sega was ahead of the game with the Sega CD only to release the Saturn which was inferior to the PS1 graphically.
I guess when the Sega CD failed Sega saw that as gamers saying they only want 2D games. But they were wrong. If you think about it, if Sega had layed off the add ons and made the Saturn a powerful polygon pushing machine, they could have really put up a fight with Sony and Nintendo in the late 90s
The Saturn wasn't that much inferior to the Playstation, the problem was it's architecture it's dual processor made it a nightmare to program for, it had more raw power than the PSX but no programmer bother to exploit it cause the PSX was way easier to develop for and had a bigger install base which meant more profits, but yeah the Saturn was meant to be a 2-D beast but a second CPU was thrown in when Sega learned the Playstation specs and how much more advance it was for 3-D gaming.
those scale and rotating capability,s are even emulateble on the genesis itself but it requires horse power.manny genesis games squeezed & overcome the console to it,s absolute limmit.
I'm simply awed by seeing these games. I was such a hardcore gamer. I loved and respected Sega, bc they had THE MOST POWERFUL ARCADE DIVISION. No computer, at the time, could even come close to their processing power in the arcades (System 16, Y-Board, System 32).
That being said, I must agree that the problem with Sega was that they didn't support their hardware.
It was 2 bad that Nintendo had exclusive 3rd party support rule. If they didn't the SMS would of been a much better system.
Just purchased a Sega Gens model 1. The guy that sold me the system did not have the RF cable or power supply. Instead he gave me an NES RF cable and power supply. Could I use these to get my Gens 1 working?Thanks in advance.
What I would recommend is searching for the correct Sega power supply.
In the case of your model 1 Genesis, part no. 1602 or 1602-1 (the difference is that the 1602 provides 9 volts while the 1602-1 provides 10 volts, the 1 volt difference is not major and will not cause damage to your Genesis).
You can try to get an adapter from Radio Shack, but when using the adaptaplug, be sure to observe correct polarity (negative is center); reversed polarity will cause damage.
Well, I think both Nintendo and Sega are about even when it comes to the powerhouse peripherals. SNES couldn't scale without the use of the Super FX chip, but they embedded those within the individual games instead of requiring an entire peripheral to design the games for...which is perhaps why most people believe that Sega CD and 32X flopped compared to the gravy train of the SNES.
SEGA fanboyism is pointless. You are basically championing a system that was an add-on launched because SEGA was undercut by NIntendo's use of hardware trickery to bring 3d gameplay into reality before the tech was affordable. The SEGA CD was expensive and had few games, because ADD ONS ALWAYS FAIL if they cost a lot and run of a perfectly decent console anyway. Look at the FDS, NIntendo put everything and more behind that but it still failed. If people don't buy the addon few games are made
Well said. I think one of the key parts that led to segas ultimate failure was a lack of focus in standardisation of development. They had the mega drive, Cd and 32x out at the same time, each with its own library of games. If they stopped trying to leapfrog nintendo at the consumers expense, they might have had better long term success.
I dont want to make this into a mud slinging contest but to open a paragraph saying sega fanboyism is pointless with a sn like yours is... silly. Fanboyism (the way it usually manifests) is pointless but it will always exist. Sega's business model was flawed but the sega cd was a great system that would have done extremely well if it was standard and not an add on but alas the technology was not available at a fair price in 89. Aside from a still limited color pallet there were some great games.
Okay maybe I should have been more tactful. SEGA fanboys seem to defend the indefensible, such as the SEGA CD. SEGA would have been a much healthier company and would have extended its consumer base if it had focused on making good Megadrive games, but as I say the SNES undercut the Megadrive inducing SEGA to launch ill-conceived add ons, all of whose comparables after and before failed miserably. The SEGA CD is another reason for the decline of the Megadrive. Now go and play Super Tennis!
And to be honest, I think we agree that fanboyism in its strict definition is always pointless. That's what I meant: when people defend aspects of a gaming company for the sake of that company, and deliberately try and skew the facts to their favour. I therefore wouldn't consider myself a fanboy, but I would tell anyone that games like SMB1 and the LoZ1 are true masterpieces which make NIntendo deserve to prosper as the finest purveyors of interactive entertainment, at least in the 80s.
Certainly in the 80's w/o a doubt. I love my nes. See i dont think that its exactly indefensible. It all depends. I will defend that the strategy and support were not great but I will also defend that it wasnt a terrible system with no good games and I would sooner have both of those than my snes. However its all up to whos looking at it. Theres no denying that if there was a 16bit "loser" it would be sega. Its like someone trying to say the GC was better than ps2. In numbers it just isnt true.
Agreed, which is why it's so annoying when SEGA fanboys claim that the SNES's more graceful longevity counts for nothing. The essence of winning a console war is that longevity.
BTW have you ever considered that SEGA, a company smaller than Nintendo, itself not the biggest company, overspent in its huge anti-Nintendo marketing, and that caused insustainable business, overly expensive overheads and therefore lack of profit? They should have tried to slowly win the market, cautiously.
I didnt even see this lol. I mean i get what youre saying but it sounds like you have a chip against sega fanboys. They are FANBOYS, no different or less annoying that nintendo ones. Anyway.. its not something that I would consider per se. If there is anything people know about sega is that they were risk takers. It was their gift and their curse. I think the marketing campaign didnt exactly hurt them. They owned the market and then rushed two add-ons as scd wasnt all about snes but turboduo cd
"(Sega) overspent in its huge anti-Nintendo marketing..."
That's but one factor; failures are rarely attributable to one cause. In Sega's case, there were many problems as a result of inept management leading to idiotic strategy.
For instance: why did Sega release the 32X right before the Saturn was expected? This creates a problem because you have Sega trying to sustain two platforms that would ultimately be competing against each other while also competing against Nintendo and Sony.
Another Sega blunder was actually the Saturn release itself. Sega, in an effort to beat the competition by surprise, released the Saturn to the public months ahead of the published date.
Unfortunately, the Saturn's software side was also caught off-guard; many games slated to be launch titles could not be completed in time for the early launch while others were released before they could be perfected.
Basically, the Saturn was released before the games were ready.
Actually when the Sega CD addon was released the PC-Engine CD ROM (TG-16 to us) had been out in Japan for about a year and a half and had been a huge success. In fact during the second half of it's life most PC-Engine software was released on CD. Of course the difference was that Hudson and NEC made sure there was a lot of software released for it that took advantage of the added storage while Sega seemed only concerned with porting over cartridge games with redbook audio soundtracks.
And then Hudson and NEC totally screwed up the PC-Engine's US launch by only bringing over the cheapest software licenses they could lay their hands on. The Turbographix 16 *should* have been a huge success but instead turned into a textbook case on how not to launch a video game console.
Yes, that's a point, the TG 16 doesn't seem any worse than the Megadrive or SNES in terms of hardware so it should have been a competitor in the US and Europe.
But games like Bomberman and Bonk couldn't compare to SNES and Megadrive software.
If only Sega had releasd their 1980s collection of arcade games on the Sega CD (including the likes of Super Monaco GP, with it's amazing scaling scenery), they would have been onto a winner. Clearly the Sega CD was a power house.
I must comment that this is still missing some of the best games for Sega Mega CD like Surgical Strike and Sewer Shark, both of which had the best graphics for any home video game system available at that time (or at least as I remember it).
What do you mean the SNES couldn't scale sprites?! You mean the programmers were pathetic maybe. We did 12 bit color sprite rotation/enlargement on Amiga A500 (see video I just uploaded). Dammit we've done almost full screen (monochrome) scaling on a BBC Micro forgosake!!!
The Mega CD / Sega CD offered decent scaling & rotation capabilities, above & beyond what the SNES could do, but Sega CD's scaling was not as good as Sega's Super-Scaler arcade boards of the 1980s such as Space Harrier Hardware, OutRun Hardware, X-Board and Y-Board, which powered the arcade versions of Hang-On, Space Harrier, OutRun, AfterBurner, ThunderBlade, Super Monaco GP, GalaxyForce, G-LOC and many others.
Yes, Batman had pretty impressive scaling, for home console technology, but still not on par with arcade OutRun from 1986, or Super Monaco GP or Super Hang-On from the late 80s.
true thats why the genesis amazed me even more then the sega cd,the sega cd obviously could deliver good stuff but the colours still where pretty grainy.
True that... I think some of the graphics for Silpheed is part FMV and part polygon where the CD did the background stuff and the genesis itself animated the actual in game action.
Nice showcase, but as frigginjoe stated, Sega really didn't take advantage of the technological upgrades by offering more games from their library. An increased color palette would have really helped, too. As much as I loved the Sega CD version of, say, Final Fight, it would have been better than arcade perfect with more color.
More color yes, but that's not all, it would need higher resolution (384 x 256 instead of Genesis/SegaCD's 320x224), more sprites on-screen of a larger size. SegaCD Final Fight only had 4 enemies on-screen at once, arcade had 8. In addition to more color. SegaCD had the same 64 colors on-screen out of 512 as Genesis, the CPS board running arcade FF could do 2048 out of 65,536.
For the most part, Sega CD demonstrated some very lackluster effort on Sega's part.
3rd parties outidid Sega on the Sega CD.
Outrun, Space Harrier, Enduro Racer, Hang On, a version of AfterBurner that didn't suck, maybe even Galaxy Force, should been a given for it. Keep in mind they made all these for the Sega MASTER System.
Sega's arcade division were the kings of showing what hardware could do. Sega's best talent being a no-show for the Sega CD was a waste. (Sonic aside)
While I hear what you are saying, Soul Star was really one of the only games you have shown that managed to pull this off seamlessly. Never played the game, but damn, it looks ace! Gonna try that sucker out some day. Looks better the starfox IMO. Screw polygons!!! Sadly Bloodshot was actually done on the original sega. And it still sucked. Zero Tolerance was a lot better (also done on the sega).
Oh yeah I know. I've played the master system. I have yet to get my hands on an SG-1000 but have researched it. I probably said that because the Genesis was the first Sega system I've ever played.
You are absolutely correct, the Sega CD had great hardware scaling & rotation effects. Also I notice from your showcase above only one of the games was actually made and designed by Sega. If Sega would have focused on these effects and ported G-Loc, Galaxy Force, Power Drift, After Burner, Super Monaco GP, Thunder Blade, Space Harrier, Out Run, Turbo Out Run, Super Hang on etc. to the system it would have been unstoppable..
There is also the possibility of having one object rotate like I said in my last post and still actually have a background. This is used when fighting the koopa kids in Super Mario World. The koopa is the background.. The actual background you see is actually sprites in the foreground. So it's reversed.
Also, the Super FX (2) chip added the ability for FULL sprite rotation and scaling on multiple objects, not just backgrounds. As far as I know, it was only used in SMW2: Yoshi's Island
Here is the definitive answer as far as the SNES is concerned.
It could do sprite rotation as a Mode 7 effect. But only on 'backgrounds.' A good example of this is when you are fighting bowser in Super Mario World. Bowser rotates upside down and flies in and out of the screen. Notice how the background is black? Well its night time, yes, but it's also a clever trick. Bowser is actually the 'background'. Any time you saw real sprite rotation you will notice its only on one object and no bg.
To say it can do sprite scaling/rotation is misleading. It can only enlarge/shrink/rotate a bg layer. A sprite is a completely different object. They can make it look like a sprite is doing that stuff like in SMW, but it is still a BG layer. Just because something is small and animated doesn't make it is "sprite".
The cleverest use of Snes hardware rotation was in Axelay, where they used the rotating background layer as the head for a multijoined sprite boss, and used several sprites to fake in a background.
Wrong, it has a processor which converts images onto what you want, then, you do whatever you like to with it, you can use the result either as sprites or background ;)
and wel if it could would you pay 300 bucks more for a game if it used advanced scaling,I truly must say i loved my neo geo but im glad ive sold mine,it was a to expensive hobby and the games where to linair i only have a NGCD hate the loading and i think the graphics are a bit worser then aes dunno for sure but its cheaper.i prefer sega its older games to anything on neo.but true that the system was flashy for its time.
you do realise bloodshot was available for the megadrive and it was exactly the same it didnt even run any slower i know i have both good vid by the way!
I deleted your other two comments since they said the same thing. I am going to leave this one since it actually proves that you're the one that's "retarded"... especially since the Neo Geo can't do rotation! The SNES and Sega CD do have real hardware scaling built in. No redraws of a single object are required.
only it takes a good programmers mind to put more then 16 colours per tile in it? soulstar defnitly doesnt have 16 colours lying on the total floor section i bet more or sonic cd i barely can belive that there are only lying 16 colours on that floor.
The diffrence between snes ans sega cd is the sega cd is about 4 times as fast as a snes and mode 7 mostly just looks disgusting because it cant scale that much+ snes just has a pretty damn weak hart this is fr more impressive due sega cd its colour limitations still looks cool.
SegaCD doesn't scale Genesis sprites. It has a custom graphics chip that lets it perform scaled/rotated blits to/from its work RAM (to a framebuffer). Then it tells the Genesis CPU to DMA it to its tile maps so it can be displayed on the screen. There are two limitations here:
- Because of the tile format large blocky sections are only 16 colors, this is really apparent in some of the games shown (compared to 256 on SNES)
- It can only do it at like 15-20fps (compared to 60 on SNES)
ok, games aside for a second, lets talk tech. now how is the scaleing and rotation on the snes any diff from the sega cd, looks like sega copied the nintendo's mode 7 grid system, but with much more detail im guessin, am i far off?
so in mario kart the floor would be the one "BG" layer it can scale/rotate but the cars themselves aren't? So they must have sprites for multiple sizes/distances of all other objects?? Anyway just trying to understand Mode7. This video on the other hand is quite impressive. Nice to see what the SegaCD could REALLY do!!
no. the MD/GEN can't rotate sprites and tilemaps in hardware. the effect can be accomplished in software by the cpu in software(very slow) or(more likely) by faking it with several sprite techniques.
I know what effects in the game you mean(I have the game myself). but in this case everything is done with some very clever and skilled coding in software. the CPU does this all by itself, not the graphics hardware of the MD.
wow that Batman/Robin game is actually pretty darn impressive. I missed that one back in the day I mainly remember the FMV games on SCD. The thing had a little more potential then I remembered... just a little.
Man, what about Silpheed, Sewer Shark, Eternal Champions CD, Mortal Kombat CD, Final Fight CD ... that was a great system at the time (even though expensive & with less potential than Amiga/PC uprising systems)
more like obsolete, slow architecture for a release in 1993. too many bad ports of old amiga games. can't believe I bought the thing for full price back then.
mateuszpapis, do you know where i could read what the CD32 was really capable off?. You say it has a 3d accelerator, which i already knew, but i cant find what it was all about.
Seeing this these videos remind me of a Sega CD game I forgotten I own. Cliffhanger. There's a nice level where you snow boarding down a huge snow hill and dodging trees and logs down the way, it makes use of nice scaling.
sega cd is an expert doing scaling rotation and zoom ..can do this things at the same time and very fastly..batman returns is maybe the best game of all using this feautures...is just a master piece of art..thanks for your nice work of support to the world of sega cd!!
hey what a beautiful music you choose to present this video at the beggining.. it is taken from batman returns driving scene level 3 one of the most incredible background music ever made in a video game by genius spence nielsen!!
the seg cd has the power to even run a decent port of duke 3d man what a horse it can generate more colours in screen than genesis if it would and has some of the best scaling rotation i have ever seen on 16 bit,if this was a succes then even a snes should be affarid heck why not even a psx in its begining period.
Very impressive! The graphics are sometimes to the point where they almost look like an early PlayStation game. If the Super Nintendo could not scale sprites, then could it only do it for the environment?
What about the fact that it can easily handle large-scale sprites, or even do sprites that can grow and bend? Isn't that part of scaling, too, or is that more of the FX Chip 2? Think of the processing power it takes to do that scaling and rotating. The Sega CD's got muscle and power! Very cool music choice, and well done with the video clips.
The SNES could only scale/rotate a background layer. The FX chip could be added and it could appear to scale sprites that way. See my response to a similar question near the beginning of the comments section.
Soulstar is way underrated!! Kicks the shit of Starfox
MegaMechGod 2 weeks ago
I preferred the CD version of BC Racers over the 32x version.
EvilDogMedia 3 weeks ago
Many people cuss and overlook the SegaCD hardware for being expensive, not offering many hardware improvements, and having infamous games full of FMV... But if you really do your research, the SegaCD had many great games, that were either amazing ports or cult classics. Had SEGA never released the 32X, had them continued with the SVP, and had them kept support for the SegaCD, then the Genesis would've been tied in sales with the SNES.
JackBandicootsBunker 1 month ago 3
what is the first and last song called?
drunkensailor112 2 months ago
@jowrab it was also a cd player that would costs 300$ around that time too that neo geo and snes didn't have.
drunkensailor112 2 months ago
I think BloodShot was made by raycasting and not rotating or scalling (at least the walls)
unsurreal83 4 months ago
Nice video...mate. Thank you for sharing those memories we all grew up with!
Utoobyourself 5 months ago
if snes couldn't scale sprites, they made a great job on art of fighting that features zoom in real time!!
tonmasboy 6 months ago
@tonmasboy AOF on the SNES wasn't scaling sprites. Mode 7 was used to do the screen zooming by drawing the entire portion of the screen underneath the black bar (where the HUD is) as a single background layer and scaling that toward and away from the screen. This was possible since the original Neo Geo game had flat backgrounds with no parallax and did no perspective correction with the fighter sprites during the scaling so this worked out nicely for the Mode 7 method.
Tempora158 6 months ago
If only they took advantage of the scaling and rotation hardware we could have had some great games, instead on the Sega/Mega CD it was FMV galore. Imagine a vehicle combat game with graphics like the Batman vehicle sections or imagine a mario kart clone or top gear 2 style racing game?
I think its cool to own a mega cd because its piece of tech that was something big back in the day, to see how it was back then, the system wasn't that bad either certainly the CDi and Jag where worse.
KieranD212 7 months ago
SEGACD was a cool add on with a lot of crap games on it that seemed to have negate the really great games on it.
pickleflowr 9 months ago
Snes CAN SCALE THE BACKGROUND BUT NOT SPRITES ! That´s mode 7 all about!
In Castlevania 4 and Mario World´s final bosses THEY WERE ANIMATED backgrounds NOT SPRITE.
And by the way someone looked Michael Jackson´s Final boss !?
And Yoshi Island it´s like StarFox it´s use a special chip in the cartidrige similar as the used in Virtua Racing of Megadrive...
Carlixyz 11 months ago
@Carlixyz Some SNES games had a DSP in the cartridge that enabled them to perform sprite scaling. And unlike the genesis the SNES actually had extra pins in the cartridge slot specifically for interfacing the hardware to extra chips in the cartridge. Using the scaling hardware in the Sega-CD was more difficult than it should have been (it required that you stop the CPU while accessing it) because the Genesis was never designed to use external graphics chips like the SNES was.
Atomicskull 7 months ago
@Atomicskull , Genesis not need stop the cpu to acess the segacd ram, segacd have 512k program ram dedicated to sub cpu and 2 x 128k word ram dedicated genesis , if main cpu need acess the segacd program ram yes the sub cpu need stop. but using scaling and rotation segacd have a configuration to put word ram in 128k to main cpu and 128k to vdp in this mode the asic write direct to 128k for vdp without stop any cpu and genesis vdp get the scaled sprite using dma.
claudiorlz 7 months ago
Awesome system and totally underrated. Those graphics don't look like much now, but back in the early-mid 90s, it was quite a ways ahead of its time. Those sequences from Batman and Robin have 3D polygon models...unheard of for all but a select few games of the time and almost none of them had texturing and effects that good. Thanks for posting...brings back lots of good memories. Luckily I still have mine and play it now and then. Batman Returns is definitely one of the best.
GFVagent007 11 months ago
btw, what's the name of the third and final song in this vid?
oRecluse99o 1 year ago
Great video! I love this system. Too bad it didn't see more success than it did...
oRecluse99o 1 year ago
@jowrab
The Genesis can do 30º tilting (to simulate rotations, see the cat boss in batman and robin) and background scaling in software (there are demos available), I think pier solar simulates mode 7 in one of the mini games.
ShadeCS 1 year ago
@ShadeCS
Software-based scaling and rotation would be possible but wouldn't be practical. You'd get a low frame-rate and the cpu wouldn't be able to do much else.
Pirochiro 6 months ago
@Pirochiro
It depends on how you handle it, the 30º tilting doesn't take any noticeable cpu time. Background scaling can be super fast depending on the background (vertical scaling takes barely any CPU time), there's a demo by AnalYoGirl showing 60fps background scaling plus a simple shooter on top on her site. Rotation does kill the cpu but you can do something like the mode-7 airship travel in FF 4 & 6 (pier solar), or prerendered like Red Zone.
ShadeCS 6 months ago
@ShadeCS
Really not sure what you mean by 30 degree tilting tbh. Can you explain?
Vertical scaling would be acheived by adjusting the position of a background/sprite during a H-Interrupt I assume, but horizontal scaling would need prerendering.
Does Pier Solar actually have Mode-7-style sections? I haven't been able to play my copy yet.
Pirochiro 6 months ago
@Pirochiro
The VDP can do 16px column scrolling on the backgrounds. You can to a 30º tilt by mixing that with line scrolling.
You don't need prerendering for horizontal scaling, with fixed animation speed you can store which columns need doubling and update only those tiles, packed pixels make the operation rather efficient.
Yes pier solar has Mode-7-Style sections, and it's not that bullshit Axelay-style effect either. It's a full blown landscape effect, except the pixel size is doubled.
ShadeCS 6 months ago
SNES couldn't scale sprites? It definitely could, just not nearly as well as the Sega CD could.
See: Yoshi's Island final boss.
Nintendavin 1 year ago
@Nintendavin Yoshi´s Island used a SuperFX2 chip!
pablopares 1 year ago
@pablopares I am aware of that.
Nintendavin 1 year ago
@Nintendavin I thought that was a background later used as bowser?
123doomdoom 11 months ago
the first song os great!
Thomasgraversen 1 year ago
Great Job! I love Sega CD.
mp4podcastDOTcom 1 year ago
A CD add-on. Something the Snes didnt need. Dont count me as a troll (tho i can be one), i like all consoles (except the Konix multi system).
bazfanv2 1 year ago
Blood shot actually came out for the Genesis / MD and ran on a stock system
2007clarkeg 1 year ago
As a big fan of battlecorps this video actually has interested me in soul star. Its also from core and it seems to make the most of the system hardware.
So much color.
popculturehero 1 year ago
@popculturehero
SoulStar is one of the 2 games that make the most out of the system (The other being The Adventures of Batman and Robin).
Unlike that game however SoulStar can be a very fun game if one takes the time to learn the extremely complicated controls (HINT: Save the missiles for the free-roam sections).
I call it the ranger-x syndrome. An incredible game that just didn't get play tested/marketed enough.
Oh and get ranger-x. Best use of color on the genesis.
ShadeCS 1 year ago
The Sega CD ASIC was a chip included in the sega cd that could rotate and scale an image and output the result in the genesis VDP format. The problem is the limitations that imposes. Each picture processed by the ASIC was limited to 16 colors, and the VDP bus was not designed to have such large updates at once. As such, a fullscreen update was limited to about 15 FPS. Games like soulstar avoided that limit by hiding parts of the screen with HUDs or by mirroring (like ceiling in the robot lvl).
ShadeCS 1 year ago
A lot of posters here aren't quite aware of the differences between Mode 7 and the SegaCD ASIC. Mode 7 was a special mode on the snes graphics chip which was limited to a single background layer, but it could be rotated and scaled. The perspective effect was achieved by changing parameters per scanline. The snes could NOT scale sprites, every sprite that looks scaled is pre-rendered or actually is the background (like bowser in Super Mario). Mode 7 was mostly limited by the SNES shit processor.
ShadeCS 1 year ago
thank you for our happy childhood))
Sega! Get back on the consoles bisnes! T_T
AAArrrtvvv 1 year ago 2
Comment removed
AAArrrtvvv 1 year ago
Good stufff man!!
Utoobyourself 1 year ago
i just have 3 games on my sega mega cd (sonic cd, batman returns, jaguar xj220), but i sure did miss out on other superb sprite scaling games.... some of the makes me think why didn't sega do a proper OutRun port, or afterburner II, or that chopper game thunderblade. those where arcade hits, and would have pushed sales from the mega cd much further. i would have bought all the spite scaler arcade games from whatever developer (cisco heat for instance).
musicmaniac1965 1 year ago 2
@musicmaniac1965 Yeah, but all those Super Scalar arcade classics that couldn't be done correctly on the Genesis were old and kiddy stuff people played in suckier forms already (on the Genesis itself!). Sega needed hip, fresh ideas to show us, like assembling grainy videos of rap music, movies telling you to press buttons arbitrarily or DIE(!?), and re-releasing the same damn Genesis game from a year ago but now with CD music! And load times! And Sonic CD! /sarcasm off
Tempora158 6 months ago
@Tempora158 Hahahaha, i agree with you on that stupid moviegames telling you to press a button, or you DIE! Hahaha, exelent sarcasm there! But it's true none the less.
Sega could even now sell proper arcade sprite scaler games on Xbox live and PSN, but i'm afraid they recon those oldschool games won't sell enough... I would buy them....
musicmaniac1965 6 months ago 2
@musicmaniac1965 Sega is still milking their Genesis emulator for all their arcade side scrollers at the moment while leaving all the arcade scaling stuff to 3D remakes (fine if they're like Virtua Racing Flat Out and not OutRun from PS2 Sega Ages) or 3D sequels (fine if they're like Afternurner Climax and not Golden Axe - Beast Rider).
Tempora158 6 months ago
Soul Star, the best
kanfor 1 year ago
5:42
YEAH! Groovy Havok!
M4R14NO94 1 year ago
i love the song at 3:20 whats it called? :)
cptultor 1 year ago
Let's see... buy a SNES and get scaling and rotation out of the box, or buy the Genesis and have to pay $300 for a CD add-on. Way to take it to the next level sega.
melvoin 1 year ago
@melvoin The SNES could NEVER pull off these games. The SNES coud only scale backgrounds, that's why games like F - Zero, Mario Kart etc are all flat. Did you ever see mode 7 in a driving game with scaling side graphics, hills & dips? Of course not, it could not do it. Look at games like Top Gear on the SNES. The road side graphics did not scale in hardware like Batman does because it could not scale sprites. Mega CD could scale and rotate, background, foreground & sprites simultaneously. :)
xtremecoasters 1 year ago
@xtremecoasters Wrong!The snes could scale characters also.Turtles in time,killer instinct,and Super Mario world proves this.The SNES can only scale or rotate 1 character or 1 background at a a time.It cannot scale and rotate at the same time.Starfox has scaling and rotation at the same time cause of the FX chip giving the SNES more power.
barlog20 1 year ago
@xtremecoasters Wrong!The snes could scale characters also.Turtles in time,killer instinct,and Super Mario world proves this.
The SNES can only scale or rotate 1 character or 1 background at a a time.It cannot scale and rotate at the same time.
Starfox has scaling and rotation at the same time cause of the FX chip giving the SNES more power.
barlog20 1 year ago
@barlog20 yeah, and the main difference between Sega-CD and the SNES is that the Super FX and Super FX2 chips could generate true 3D graphics(low poly, though). Like in Star Fox(where SFX was used). And it could also rotate sprites like the Genesis.(like in SMW2: Yoshi's island, where SFX2 was used)
Dark0Lord7 1 year ago
@Dark0Lord7 Just to correct a few thing, the SNES's Mode 7 was hardware and so was the SCD's scaling & rotation, the Super FX chips used software because it was a relatively fast RISC processor.
Also the same ASIC used for this in the Sega CD can also do polygonal 3D on-par with all of the Super FX-2 games. This ability was never used although has been speculated about many, many times.
Dant2142 1 year ago
@Dant2142 There was Racing Aces, which was polygonal.
JasemanTheHedgehog 1 year ago
@Dant2142 Now I had time to look at the full video, and noticed Bloodshot, which is in 3D. But it lags more than Doom for SNES(Super FX 2).
And also, the Sega Genesis had a lower color pallete than the SNES, the SNES could display 256 out of 32.678 colors while the genesis could only display 64(183 in some games) out of 512 colors. It's noticeable that in Super Mario World, the graphics are much smoother than in Sonic the Hedgehog.
Dark0Lord7 1 year ago
@Dark0Lord7 1. Bloodshot isn't POLYGONAL 3D, and neither is Doom for that matter. Also, Bloodshot doesn't use the ASIC, it does everything on the Genesis's 68K just like the Cartridge version.
2. The color issue is completely true and IMHO is rather unacceptable being that the PC Engine that came out earlier has a better color pallet and better sound.
3. The smoothness of SMW vs. Sonic seems to be a matter of opinion as I have played through both on real HW and they seem about the same.
Dant2142 1 year ago
@Dant2142 Interesting, do you think the sega CD version of Blood-Shot would have run smoother if it had taken advantage of the scaling properties of the system?
Ether way, even though Zero Tolerance was a better game, in my opinion, Blood Shot seemed to have a better rendering engine.
Disthron 1 year ago
@Disthron Without a doubt, but you have to understand, Domark, the people who made Bloodshot/Battle Frenzy, were really more interested in developing a good ray-casting engine for the Genesis as opposed to making the Sega CD version look better and play smoother.
Dant2142 1 year ago
@Dant2142 Well, I think they succeeded, Just think if this game had come out in 1989 when the system was released it would have made a big smash.
Anyway, I still think Zero Tolerance is a better game overall. A lot more variety and things to do.
Disthron 1 year ago
I love the Jaguar soundtrack :)
Kieran84ire 1 year ago
They made the system a 2d powerhouse, but used it for wrong purpose (FMV crap).
They shoud have ported OutRun, Galaxy Force & Wolfstein 3d to the System as system sellers launch titles.
Then, forget about the 32x add on and add Sega CD compatibility to the Sega Saturn :)
sandrorossi1982 1 year ago
@sandrorossi1982 There are both a port of Wolf3D and a re-port of Doom in the works for the CD 32X.
Dant2142 1 year ago
They made the system a 2d powerhouse, but used it for wrong purpose (FMV crap).
They shoud have ported OutRun, Galaxy Force & Wolfstein 3d to the System as system sellers launch titles.
Then, forget about the 32x add on and add Sega CD compatibility to the Sega Saturn :)
sandrorossi1982 1 year ago
I used to have a sega Cd back in 1993/1994
By that time, I didn't even knew about those games (except Sonic CD, which was the game that made me bought the system).
The games that received media advertisement were "Night Trap", "Road Avenger, "Tom Cat Alley" and other shitty FMV titles.
sandrorossi1982 1 year ago
Kinda makes you wonder what the Sega CD was really capable of. Scaling and Rotation in Soulstar combines with the 256 colors of Eternal Champions would have looked pretty cool.
Deokishisu 1 year ago
@Deokishisu No such thing as 256 colors....the programmers just used software tricks to give that illusion.
123doomdoom 1 year ago
Awesome God Theme I Support This Video 100 %
carlitoparadise 1 year ago
There were about 3 different ways the SNES could "scale" sprites, the most common was Mode 7 which was a function of the GPU, as seen in F-Zero. Next was Software which anything could do, then there were numerous Add-on processors on cartridges, that had a function of scaling
Dant2142 1 year ago
The SNES could scale sprites. Download Wing Commander ROM and see it. When you're in the space, if you go very near of an ship it is scaled.
SNESIvan 1 year ago
Everyone knows the SNES was capable of scaling and rotation, it was the main feature when it was announced way back before it was released.
leydeplomo 1 year ago
where is that music taken from @ 07:18 ?
OpticalHaze 2 years ago
This video really makes the Saturn all that much more confusing. It would seem like Sega was ahead of the game with the Sega CD only to release the Saturn which was inferior to the PS1 graphically.
I guess when the Sega CD failed Sega saw that as gamers saying they only want 2D games. But they were wrong. If you think about it, if Sega had layed off the add ons and made the Saturn a powerful polygon pushing machine, they could have really put up a fight with Sony and Nintendo in the late 90s
33Dannyb 2 years ago
@33Dannyb It's more complicated than that. Nintendo 64 was more powerful than Playstation, but that didn't help it.
Also, the Sega CD was much weaker spec-wise than the Saturn.
mynovembernight 2 years ago
Comment removed
leydeplomo 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
The Saturn wasn't that much inferior to the Playstation, the problem was it's architecture it's dual processor made it a nightmare to program for, it had more raw power than the PSX but no programmer bother to exploit it cause the PSX was way easier to develop for and had a bigger install base which meant more profits, but yeah the Saturn was meant to be a 2-D beast but a second CPU was thrown in when Sega learned the Playstation specs and how much more advance it was for 3-D gaming.
leydeplomo 1 year ago
those scale and rotating capability,s are even emulateble on the genesis itself but it requires horse power.manny genesis games squeezed & overcome the console to it,s absolute limmit.
johneymute 2 years ago
I'm simply awed by seeing these games. I was such a hardcore gamer. I loved and respected Sega, bc they had THE MOST POWERFUL ARCADE DIVISION. No computer, at the time, could even come close to their processing power in the arcades (System 16, Y-Board, System 32).
That being said, I must agree that the problem with Sega was that they didn't support their hardware.
It was 2 bad that Nintendo had exclusive 3rd party support rule. If they didn't the SMS would of been a much better system.
1czelaya 2 years ago 5
Too bad there's the load times of the Sega CD. :(
RocMegamanX 2 years ago
Not really, there was only a few that were bad for loading times.
Segadude3000 2 years ago 2
This comment has received too many negative votes show
And the price, and the extra cables, and the shitty quality of games, and the fact that the graphics weren't always this pretty....
Give it up, people, your old system sucked
i8246i 2 years ago
CD MUSIC AND FMV RULE!!!!!
ClassicalChipTunez 2 years ago
Wow, Soul Star and Batman look amazing!
Rubycon99 2 years ago 11
Just purchased a Sega Gens model 1. The guy that sold me the system did not have the RF cable or power supply. Instead he gave me an NES RF cable and power supply. Could I use these to get my Gens 1 working?Thanks in advance.
PearlJammer07 2 years ago
one word.....
retard
trublu45458 2 years ago
Go fuck yourself asshole.
PearlJammer07 2 years ago
What I would recommend is searching for the correct Sega power supply.
In the case of your model 1 Genesis, part no. 1602 or 1602-1 (the difference is that the 1602 provides 9 volts while the 1602-1 provides 10 volts, the 1 volt difference is not major and will not cause damage to your Genesis).
You can try to get an adapter from Radio Shack, but when using the adaptaplug, be sure to observe correct polarity (negative is center); reversed polarity will cause damage.
Watcher3223 2 years ago
The NES RF cable will work, but NEVER use an NES power supply with your Genesis.
Your model 1 Genesis requires a power supply with a 1.2 amp capacity, delivering 9 volts D.C., negative polarity.
The NES power supply only downsteps 120 vols A.C. into 9 volts A.C.; the A.C. to D.C. conversion was done in the NES.
In essence, you'd be feeding 9 volts A.C. into your Genesis, which will damage it.
Watcher3223 2 years ago
I bought a 3-1 power supply. It was easier to find than a official Sega Genesis power supply. I am happy with it. Thank you for the info.
PearlJammer07 2 years ago
@PearlJammer07
You're welcome.
Watcher3223 2 years ago
Well, I think both Nintendo and Sega are about even when it comes to the powerhouse peripherals. SNES couldn't scale without the use of the Super FX chip, but they embedded those within the individual games instead of requiring an entire peripheral to design the games for...which is perhaps why most people believe that Sega CD and 32X flopped compared to the gravy train of the SNES.
AnotherIdiot 2 years ago
SEGA fanboyism is pointless. You are basically championing a system that was an add-on launched because SEGA was undercut by NIntendo's use of hardware trickery to bring 3d gameplay into reality before the tech was affordable. The SEGA CD was expensive and had few games, because ADD ONS ALWAYS FAIL if they cost a lot and run of a perfectly decent console anyway. Look at the FDS, NIntendo put everything and more behind that but it still failed. If people don't buy the addon few games are made
Nintendomanwill 2 years ago
Well said. I think one of the key parts that led to segas ultimate failure was a lack of focus in standardisation of development. They had the mega drive, Cd and 32x out at the same time, each with its own library of games. If they stopped trying to leapfrog nintendo at the consumers expense, they might have had better long term success.
Superfreaxx 2 years ago
I dont want to make this into a mud slinging contest but to open a paragraph saying sega fanboyism is pointless with a sn like yours is... silly. Fanboyism (the way it usually manifests) is pointless but it will always exist. Sega's business model was flawed but the sega cd was a great system that would have done extremely well if it was standard and not an add on but alas the technology was not available at a fair price in 89. Aside from a still limited color pallet there were some great games.
Lordnicon999 2 years ago
Okay maybe I should have been more tactful. SEGA fanboys seem to defend the indefensible, such as the SEGA CD. SEGA would have been a much healthier company and would have extended its consumer base if it had focused on making good Megadrive games, but as I say the SNES undercut the Megadrive inducing SEGA to launch ill-conceived add ons, all of whose comparables after and before failed miserably. The SEGA CD is another reason for the decline of the Megadrive. Now go and play Super Tennis!
Nintendomanwill 2 years ago
And to be honest, I think we agree that fanboyism in its strict definition is always pointless. That's what I meant: when people defend aspects of a gaming company for the sake of that company, and deliberately try and skew the facts to their favour. I therefore wouldn't consider myself a fanboy, but I would tell anyone that games like SMB1 and the LoZ1 are true masterpieces which make NIntendo deserve to prosper as the finest purveyors of interactive entertainment, at least in the 80s.
Nintendomanwill 2 years ago
Certainly in the 80's w/o a doubt. I love my nes. See i dont think that its exactly indefensible. It all depends. I will defend that the strategy and support were not great but I will also defend that it wasnt a terrible system with no good games and I would sooner have both of those than my snes. However its all up to whos looking at it. Theres no denying that if there was a 16bit "loser" it would be sega. Its like someone trying to say the GC was better than ps2. In numbers it just isnt true.
Lordnicon999 2 years ago
Agreed, which is why it's so annoying when SEGA fanboys claim that the SNES's more graceful longevity counts for nothing. The essence of winning a console war is that longevity.
BTW have you ever considered that SEGA, a company smaller than Nintendo, itself not the biggest company, overspent in its huge anti-Nintendo marketing, and that caused insustainable business, overly expensive overheads and therefore lack of profit? They should have tried to slowly win the market, cautiously.
Nintendomanwill 2 years ago
I didnt even see this lol. I mean i get what youre saying but it sounds like you have a chip against sega fanboys. They are FANBOYS, no different or less annoying that nintendo ones. Anyway.. its not something that I would consider per se. If there is anything people know about sega is that they were risk takers. It was their gift and their curse. I think the marketing campaign didnt exactly hurt them. They owned the market and then rushed two add-ons as scd wasnt all about snes but turboduo cd
Lordnicon999 2 years ago
"(Sega) overspent in its huge anti-Nintendo marketing..."
That's but one factor; failures are rarely attributable to one cause. In Sega's case, there were many problems as a result of inept management leading to idiotic strategy.
For instance: why did Sega release the 32X right before the Saturn was expected? This creates a problem because you have Sega trying to sustain two platforms that would ultimately be competing against each other while also competing against Nintendo and Sony.
Watcher3223 2 years ago
Another Sega blunder was actually the Saturn release itself. Sega, in an effort to beat the competition by surprise, released the Saturn to the public months ahead of the published date.
Unfortunately, the Saturn's software side was also caught off-guard; many games slated to be launch titles could not be completed in time for the early launch while others were released before they could be perfected.
Basically, the Saturn was released before the games were ready.
Watcher3223 2 years ago
Actually when the Sega CD addon was released the PC-Engine CD ROM (TG-16 to us) had been out in Japan for about a year and a half and had been a huge success. In fact during the second half of it's life most PC-Engine software was released on CD. Of course the difference was that Hudson and NEC made sure there was a lot of software released for it that took advantage of the added storage while Sega seemed only concerned with porting over cartridge games with redbook audio soundtracks.
Atomicskull 1 year ago
And then Hudson and NEC totally screwed up the PC-Engine's US launch by only bringing over the cheapest software licenses they could lay their hands on. The Turbographix 16 *should* have been a huge success but instead turned into a textbook case on how not to launch a video game console.
Atomicskull 1 year ago
Yes, that's a point, the TG 16 doesn't seem any worse than the Megadrive or SNES in terms of hardware so it should have been a competitor in the US and Europe.
But games like Bomberman and Bonk couldn't compare to SNES and Megadrive software.
Nintendomanwill 1 year ago
,m jammouse,i wish nintendo contineud their snes cd rom project.
so annyway the sega cd is a must have addon.
johneymute 2 years ago
If only Sega had releasd their 1980s collection of arcade games on the Sega CD (including the likes of Super Monaco GP, with it's amazing scaling scenery), they would have been onto a winner. Clearly the Sega CD was a power house.
welshfinn1 2 years ago
I must comment that this is still missing some of the best games for Sega Mega CD like Surgical Strike and Sewer Shark, both of which had the best graphics for any home video game system available at that time (or at least as I remember it).
KainTheDragoon 2 years ago
But those games did not feature hardware scaling. This isn't a Sega CD game tribute, it is a Sega CD hardware scaling and rotation tribute.
redifermusic 2 years ago
Oh sorry then, I guess I missed that, still, you do have to admit that those games are awesome! :D
KainTheDragoon 2 years ago
What do you mean the SNES couldn't scale sprites?! You mean the programmers were pathetic maybe. We did 12 bit color sprite rotation/enlargement on Amiga A500 (see video I just uploaded). Dammit we've done almost full screen (monochrome) scaling on a BBC Micro forgosake!!!
ortega24024 2 years ago
beautiful music!!
drunkensailor112 2 years ago
The Mega CD / Sega CD offered decent scaling & rotation capabilities, above & beyond what the SNES could do, but Sega CD's scaling was not as good as Sega's Super-Scaler arcade boards of the 1980s such as Space Harrier Hardware, OutRun Hardware, X-Board and Y-Board, which powered the arcade versions of Hang-On, Space Harrier, OutRun, AfterBurner, ThunderBlade, Super Monaco GP, GalaxyForce, G-LOC and many others.
turbografx 2 years ago
Yes, Batman had pretty impressive scaling, for home console technology, but still not on par with arcade OutRun from 1986, or Super Monaco GP or Super Hang-On from the late 80s.
turbografx 2 years ago
true thats why the genesis amazed me even more then the sega cd,the sega cd obviously could deliver good stuff but the colours still where pretty grainy.
aryinc 2 years ago
The Sega CD is Such a PowerFull Machine I WIll Never Forget
It Gave Me so Many Years of Joy and Happiness i Still Love It !
This is a Master Compilation *****
Thank You so Much
carlitoparadise 2 years ago 9
@carlitoparadise There was Racing Aces, which was polygonal.
JasemanTheHedgehog 1 year ago
@carlitoparadise
110% agree. Brings back soooo much memories!
Utoobyourself 1 year ago
Wow ,i had no idea the sega cd was capable of such beautiful graphics.
barlog20 2 years ago 3
Awesome Job (!) *****
I Think Silpheed is Missing
But I Love it Anyway
Congratulations :D
carlitoparadise 2 years ago 2
Soulstar is fricking amazing
BTW I think Silpheed used real 3D polygons not scaling sprites :)
tehkao 2 years ago
Silpheed used 16-color FMV actually. They just took the low color count and made up the FMV's with flat shaded polygons so it didn't *look* like FMV.
Atomicskull 1 year ago
Silpheed was meerly pre-rendered FMV.
hakemon 2 years ago
True that... I think some of the graphics for Silpheed is part FMV and part polygon where the CD did the background stuff and the genesis itself animated the actual in game action.
philiptwood 2 years ago
Nice showcase, but as frigginjoe stated, Sega really didn't take advantage of the technological upgrades by offering more games from their library. An increased color palette would have really helped, too. As much as I loved the Sega CD version of, say, Final Fight, it would have been better than arcade perfect with more color.
sidearmsalpha 2 years ago
More color yes, but that's not all, it would need higher resolution (384 x 256 instead of Genesis/SegaCD's 320x224), more sprites on-screen of a larger size. SegaCD Final Fight only had 4 enemies on-screen at once, arcade had 8. In addition to more color. SegaCD had the same 64 colors on-screen out of 512 as Genesis, the CPS board running arcade FF could do 2048 out of 65,536.
turbografx 2 years ago
good vid but eh sega cd
ranpo677 2 years ago
For the most part, Sega CD demonstrated some very lackluster effort on Sega's part.
3rd parties outidid Sega on the Sega CD.
Outrun, Space Harrier, Enduro Racer, Hang On, a version of AfterBurner that didn't suck, maybe even Galaxy Force, should been a given for it. Keep in mind they made all these for the Sega MASTER System.
Sega's arcade division were the kings of showing what hardware could do. Sega's best talent being a no-show for the Sega CD was a waste. (Sonic aside)
frigginjoe 2 years ago 2
noob Q... What is a sprite?
shreddingjoris 2 years ago
2d objects.
ZombieToaster 2 years ago
While I hear what you are saying, Soul Star was really one of the only games you have shown that managed to pull this off seamlessly. Never played the game, but damn, it looks ace! Gonna try that sucker out some day. Looks better the starfox IMO. Screw polygons!!! Sadly Bloodshot was actually done on the original sega. And it still sucked. Zero Tolerance was a lot better (also done on the sega).
R1N6MAN 2 years ago
It's weird that you call the Mega Drive (aka Genesis) "the original Sega". They had other consoles before: the SG-1000 and the Master System.
And, HELL YES, Zero Tolerance was awesome.
nightsdreamparadox 2 years ago
Oh yeah I know. I've played the master system. I have yet to get my hands on an SG-1000 but have researched it. I probably said that because the Genesis was the first Sega system I've ever played.
R1N6MAN 2 years ago
You are absolutely correct, the Sega CD had great hardware scaling & rotation effects. Also I notice from your showcase above only one of the games was actually made and designed by Sega. If Sega would have focused on these effects and ported G-Loc, Galaxy Force, Power Drift, After Burner, Super Monaco GP, Thunder Blade, Space Harrier, Out Run, Turbo Out Run, Super Hang on etc. to the system it would have been unstoppable..
hatesac1 2 years ago 3
i had scottie pippin game & dragon slayer.both sucked ass.
akvalues 2 years ago
what are all the fps games for sega cd?
10Gr1fterbang 2 years ago
at the time the big sellers were still platform/ fighting games which still looked the same on the cd
steviegbcool 2 years ago
There is also the possibility of having one object rotate like I said in my last post and still actually have a background. This is used when fighting the koopa kids in Super Mario World. The koopa is the background.. The actual background you see is actually sprites in the foreground. So it's reversed.
Also, the Super FX (2) chip added the ability for FULL sprite rotation and scaling on multiple objects, not just backgrounds. As far as I know, it was only used in SMW2: Yoshi's Island
LanIost 3 years ago
Here is the definitive answer as far as the SNES is concerned.
It could do sprite rotation as a Mode 7 effect. But only on 'backgrounds.' A good example of this is when you are fighting bowser in Super Mario World. Bowser rotates upside down and flies in and out of the screen. Notice how the background is black? Well its night time, yes, but it's also a clever trick. Bowser is actually the 'background'. Any time you saw real sprite rotation you will notice its only on one object and no bg.
LanIost 3 years ago
To say it can do sprite scaling/rotation is misleading. It can only enlarge/shrink/rotate a bg layer. A sprite is a completely different object. They can make it look like a sprite is doing that stuff like in SMW, but it is still a BG layer. Just because something is small and animated doesn't make it is "sprite".
Redifer 3 years ago
The cleverest use of Snes hardware rotation was in Axelay, where they used the rotating background layer as the head for a multijoined sprite boss, and used several sprites to fake in a background.
clownhorse 3 years ago
Wrong, it has a processor which converts images onto what you want, then, you do whatever you like to with it, you can use the result either as sprites or background ;)
RamiroR 2 years ago
Fantastic video, that sewer level of Batman looked quite impressive.
InfernalMonkey 3 years ago 2
wheres the music from joe? im cruious it sounds good.
aryinc 3 years ago
and wel if it could would you pay 300 bucks more for a game if it used advanced scaling,I truly must say i loved my neo geo but im glad ive sold mine,it was a to expensive hobby and the games where to linair i only have a NGCD hate the loading and i think the graphics are a bit worser then aes dunno for sure but its cheaper.i prefer sega its older games to anything on neo.but true that the system was flashy for its time.
aryinc 3 years ago
you do realise bloodshot was available for the megadrive and it was exactly the same it didnt even run any slower i know i have both good vid by the way!
mjdoomreviews 3 years ago
Yes, this has been pointed out many times I think.
Joeredother 3 years ago
cool vid, sega4life
DreamcastGuy 3 years ago
Can't remember Sly ever surfing in the film Cliff Hanger?
A nice piece of history is the Mega CD and home to some genuinely fine FMV games
Adropacrich2 3 years ago
I deleted your other two comments since they said the same thing. I am going to leave this one since it actually proves that you're the one that's "retarded"... especially since the Neo Geo can't do rotation! The SNES and Sega CD do have real hardware scaling built in. No redraws of a single object are required.
Joeredother 3 years ago
only it takes a good programmers mind to put more then 16 colours per tile in it? soulstar defnitly doesnt have 16 colours lying on the total floor section i bet more or sonic cd i barely can belive that there are only lying 16 colours on that floor.
aryinc 3 years ago
No is not 16 colours. Are 64 colours per screen.
Ristar only have 64 colours per screen, but appear to be 256 because the combinations.
danyboychicken 3 years ago
?,i know thegenesis may have a max of 64 colours in screen but they use lots of colours per level.
aryinc 3 years ago
The diffrence between snes ans sega cd is the sega cd is about 4 times as fast as a snes and mode 7 mostly just looks disgusting because it cant scale that much+ snes just has a pretty damn weak hart this is fr more impressive due sega cd its colour limitations still looks cool.
aryinc 3 years ago
Coool!!!
SEGA CD, great machine!
kanfor 3 years ago
Blood Shot AKA Battle Frenzy originally came out on the Genesis. The only thing differed in the Sega CD "upgrade" was the CD quality soundtrack.
Sataniac 3 years ago
Yes, I think another comment pointed that out.
Redifer 3 years ago
SegaCD doesn't scale Genesis sprites. It has a custom graphics chip that lets it perform scaled/rotated blits to/from its work RAM (to a framebuffer). Then it tells the Genesis CPU to DMA it to its tile maps so it can be displayed on the screen. There are two limitations here:
- Because of the tile format large blocky sections are only 16 colors, this is really apparent in some of the games shown (compared to 256 on SNES)
- It can only do it at like 15-20fps (compared to 60 on SNES)
Exophase 3 years ago
ok, games aside for a second, lets talk tech. now how is the scaleing and rotation on the snes any diff from the sega cd, looks like sega copied the nintendo's mode 7 grid system, but with much more detail im guessin, am i far off?
everyonelovesbutters 4 years ago
Like the description says, the SNES can only scale background images without extra chips. Sega CD can scale multiple objects simultaneously.
Joeredother 4 years ago
so in mario kart the floor would be the one "BG" layer it can scale/rotate but the cars themselves aren't? So they must have sprites for multiple sizes/distances of all other objects?? Anyway just trying to understand Mode7. This video on the other hand is quite impressive. Nice to see what the SegaCD could REALLY do!!
MN12BIRD 3 years ago
Man, I heard that Batman Returns had some good scaling, but that is damned impressive. On-par with a lot of the arcade games of the era.
And how did I miss out on Soul Star? That game looks awesome!
FluffyBunnyFeet 4 years ago
no. the MD/GEN can't rotate sprites and tilemaps in hardware. the effect can be accomplished in software by the cpu in software(very slow) or(more likely) by faking it with several sprite techniques.
realcatgirllover 4 years ago
even go look at some videos of it. its not in all the levels though
faceheadman 4 years ago
I know what effects in the game you mean(I have the game myself). but in this case everything is done with some very clever and skilled coding in software. the CPU does this all by itself, not the graphics hardware of the MD.
realcatgirllover 4 years ago
wow that Batman/Robin game is actually pretty darn impressive. I missed that one back in the day I mainly remember the FMV games on SCD. The thing had a little more potential then I remembered... just a little.
MN12BIRD 4 years ago
Man, what about Silpheed, Sewer Shark, Eternal Champions CD, Mortal Kombat CD, Final Fight CD ... that was a great system at the time (even though expensive & with less potential than Amiga/PC uprising systems)
vbrotherit 4 years ago
... If only Commodore CD32 Amigas were more popular... it would have better games like those ones too :(
It has more powerful processor than Sega CD and has 3D accelerator. Destroyed potential. Destroyed legend :(
mateuszpapis 4 years ago
more like obsolete, slow architecture for a release in 1993. too many bad ports of old amiga games. can't believe I bought the thing for full price back then.
realcatgirllover 4 years ago
True... :(
mateuszpapis 4 years ago
mateuszpapis, do you know where i could read what the CD32 was really capable off?. You say it has a 3d accelerator, which i already knew, but i cant find what it was all about.
saturndual32 2 years ago
Seeing this these videos remind me of a Sega CD game I forgotten I own. Cliffhanger. There's a nice level where you snow boarding down a huge snow hill and dodging trees and logs down the way, it makes use of nice scaling.
p2ptube 4 years ago
sega cd is an expert doing scaling rotation and zoom ..can do this things at the same time and very fastly..batman returns is maybe the best game of all using this feautures...is just a master piece of art..thanks for your nice work of support to the world of sega cd!!
carlitoparadise 4 years ago
hey what a beautiful music you choose to present this video at the beggining.. it is taken from batman returns driving scene level 3 one of the most incredible background music ever made in a video game by genius spence nielsen!!
carlitoparadise 4 years ago
SoulStar looks like one of the best games I've never played. I always wanted to try it.
VonRichter 4 years ago
the seg cd has the power to even run a decent port of duke 3d man what a horse it can generate more colours in screen than genesis if it would and has some of the best scaling rotation i have ever seen on 16 bit,if this was a succes then even a snes should be affarid heck why not even a psx in its begining period.
aryinc 4 years ago
Very impressive! The graphics are sometimes to the point where they almost look like an early PlayStation game. If the Super Nintendo could not scale sprites, then could it only do it for the environment?
OceanBlueKirby 4 years ago
What about the fact that it can easily handle large-scale sprites, or even do sprites that can grow and bend? Isn't that part of scaling, too, or is that more of the FX Chip 2? Think of the processing power it takes to do that scaling and rotating. The Sega CD's got muscle and power! Very cool music choice, and well done with the video clips.
OceanBlueKirby 4 years ago
The SNES could only scale/rotate a background layer. The FX chip could be added and it could appear to scale sprites that way. See my response to a similar question near the beginning of the comments section.
Joeredother 4 years ago