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Tech and Homebrew => Turbo/PCE Game/Tool Development => Topic started by: soop on June 11, 2012, 03:39:28 AM
Title: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: soop on June 11, 2012, 03:39:28 AM
AFAIK, the Arcade cards don't add more sprite capability or more colours, it's just a bit more RAM - so what difference does the RAM make?
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: spenoza on June 11, 2012, 03:55:01 AM
A HUGE difference. RAM is one of the most important commodities to any system. Keep in mind that the PC Engine is actually a bit RAM starved. It has very little work RAM, and at least when running HuCards it primarily has access to Read Only Memory (the HuCard) for most of its data. With CD Rom titles not only does it use the system card RAM as a cache for data from the CD, it can also use that RAM as scratch RAM, since it is read/write. So SuperCD and ArcadeCD games have enough RAM available that the system has a decent sized cache of data from the CD and some space to do its own fiddling in. Regular CD-ROM games have a small enough RAM pool that in order to expand your working RAM space you have to lose a significant portion of your game data cache.
I'm sure Arkhan or Bonknuts or Old Man will correct me where I'm wrong. Hopefully politely ; )
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: soop on June 11, 2012, 03:59:09 AM
So the data gets read from the CD into RAM, which means less loading and/or more animations and background tiles?
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: Arkhan on June 11, 2012, 04:43:14 AM
Yeah, basically.
Sapphire is a good example. Look at all those 3D-pre-rendered sprites. Without enough room to stuff those in, you'd be hosed. Constant loading/dicking around.
A standalone HuCard, while starved for RAM, is not exactly limited. You can load from card faster than from CD.
There are tradeoffs to each type of media.
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: turbokon on June 11, 2012, 04:49:04 AM
But the games has to be coded to take adavantage of it, otherwise the extra ram doesn't do anything.
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: soop on June 11, 2012, 05:06:06 AM
No-one has ever made a Super CD Supergrafx game - let alone an Arcade Super Grafx game. SGX is awesome.
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: Black Tiger on June 11, 2012, 05:46:07 AM
Each System card/CD format is basically a cart size.
CD2 = 0.5 meg cart SCD = 2 meg cart ACD = 18 meg cart
Since only so much of a game can fit into the space each format supports, normally only a stage or a boss is used per load. The Arcade Card is so huge though, that entire Genesis or SNES cart games could fit into a single load. Instead, ACD games tend to pack in content proportionate to a Neo Geo sized cart into a single stage, match, etc.
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 11, 2012, 06:27:14 AM
So the data gets read from the CD into RAM, which means less loading and/or more animations and background tiles?
It usually means much MORE loading time since the speed of the CD, CPU, bus, etc don't change. If a garden hose can fill a gallon jug in 5 seconds, it will take 50 seconds to fill a 50 gallon barrel. Same thing here.
It does usually lead to WAY more animation though. The Arcade Card was preposterously big. Idiotically huge, frankly.
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: Arkhan on June 11, 2012, 06:37:41 AM
Awesomely huge, actually!
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: sunteam_paul on June 11, 2012, 07:19:04 AM
It's like having a second stomach. It might take longer to fill it, but you can eat so much more tasty cake.
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: Black Tiger on June 11, 2012, 07:36:34 AM
Games don't have to fill the entire Arcade Card space. If it had been supported longer, we would have seen all kinds of variations of load times, especially for ports of moderate sized games. It's just the ones that take full advantage of the space that take long to load.
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: Necromancer on June 11, 2012, 09:35:46 AM
Games don't have to fill the entire Arcade Card space. If it had been supported longer, we would have seen all kinds of variations of load times, especially for ports of moderate sized games. It's just the ones that take full advantage of the space that take long to load.
Like the bi-compatible games where the extra ram is used to hold the extra bits instead of reloading every time you enter/exit different areas.
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 11, 2012, 09:43:30 AM
Games don't have to fill the entire Arcade Card space. If it had been supported longer, we would have seen all kinds of variations of load times, especially for ports of moderate sized games. It's just the ones that take full advantage of the space that take long to load.
Like the bi-compatible games where the extra ram is used to hold the extra bits instead of reloading every time you enter/exit different areas.
Which games are these?
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: Necromancer on June 11, 2012, 10:54:43 AM
Brandish, Popful Mail, and likely every other SCD/ACD title that seemingly does nothing (unimproved cinemas).
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: Keith Courage on June 12, 2012, 08:28:34 AM
The ACD card adds the potential for a whole new library of bad ass games. Along with the disappointment that only like 8 were made. Half of which being games that were already on other consoles to begin with. ](*,)
I know the question was tech related.
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: Black Tiger on June 12, 2012, 08:34:03 AM
The ACD card adds the potential for a whole new library of bad ass games. Along with the disappointment that only like 8 were made. Half of which being games that were already on other consoles to begin with. ](*,)
I know the question was tech related.
Sapphire and Itouryoden are pretty epic as far as exclusives go.
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: nodtveidt on June 12, 2012, 03:14:37 PM
If I remember correctly, the ACD also has some additional math routines...
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: SamIAm on June 14, 2012, 03:43:33 AM
Just curious, but what is the viability of using the RAM in the ACD/SCD cards as work RAM instead of only storage? How is the read/write access time compared to the built-in RAM?
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: nodtveidt on June 14, 2012, 03:51:46 AM
IIRC, it's port-based rather than address-based, which would mean that it's going to be inconvenient to use for anything other than block copying.
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: SamIAm on June 14, 2012, 05:12:58 AM
Interesting. Thanks! :)
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: BigusSchmuck on June 14, 2012, 08:06:29 AM
I know certain games that don't even have a arcade card logo on it decreases the loading times between scenes and such. An example would be Wizardry 3 and 4. One game people often miss when they talk about scd/acd is 3x3 Eyes and this video does a good job explaining that: I wish there was a video comparing the supercd version of popful mail vs when using the arcade card...
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: Black Tiger on June 14, 2012, 09:32:07 AM
I know certain games that don't even have a arcade card logo on it decreases the loading times between scenes and such. An example would be Wizardry 3 and 4. One game people often miss when they talk about scd/acd is 3x3 Eyes and this video does a good job explaining that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st0jPktNc6Y I wish there was a video comparing the supercd version of popful mail vs when using the arcade card...
I've tried a couple times to ro a Popful Mail comparison, but the game keeps crashing in ACD mode. I might try again after I get my future main PCE unit back from being modded. I was able to narrow down that the Arcade Card doesn't enhance the cinemas or reduce load times or frequency for the cinemas. So it might simpky eliminate some of the minor in-game loading. But that doesn't even seem worth the bicompatible branding. So maybe the in-game content is sonehow enhanced?
Title: Re: What specifically does the Arcade card add?
Post by: SignOfZeta on June 14, 2012, 10:18:04 AM
Remember Flash Hiders? IIRC the AC adds one win pose vocal sample to one character. Nothing else whatsoever. It might be extremely hard to find some of these differences.