Nintendo's best console

[FM-77]

Aah, good to know. Guess I've only seen fake shrinkwrapped SNES games then, hehe. Not exactly uncommon. The bastards. Well, I'd never buy a shrinkwrapped game anyway...

[GUTS]

Yeah it's amazing how many people get scammed like that.  I saw one guy on ebay was selling "NEW sealed" cartridges only, it was hilarious.  Everything he had was listed "NEW SEALED!" but they were just shrinkwrapped cartridges and sometimes the manuals, like he'd bought a shrink wrapper at a garage sale and then went crazy.

[Keranu]

Remember that seller on these boards who was trying to sell a sealed copy of Snatcher for Sega CD but it had a huge ass hole on the front? He was trying to make a big deal how it was sealed and stuff, it was hilarious.

[Bonknuts]

US SNES games all had a vertical line on the shrinkwrap on the back that's basically next to impossible to replicate so it's pretty easy to tell real factory sealed ones.

]

 Nah, I used to easily reshrink wrap SNES games with the line in the back. I didn't have a machine - just a soldering iron, metal ruler, and a heat gun.

 Anyway, someone mentioned the SNES running at 3.58mhz. That's in fast ROM mode - early(and most) SNES roms used slower ROMs that set the CPU to 2.79mhz and some were combo fast/slow rom carts. SNES's PPU is pretty amazing though while it's CPU is slow and lacking any additional custom CPU opcodes. One thing the SNES did have was a fairly fast multiply/divide IC that the CPU accessed via ports - though still not as fast as a lookup table.

The SNES's sPPU had a mode to do 8bit tiles(256colors) which is why the 60fps mode 7 effects looked nice, while the SegaCD was limited to one 16 color palette for *all* the scaling/rotation and was limited to 30fps at best (small window) and much less FPS for full screen window(scaling/rotation). What a waste of cost.


But.. NES for the win. While the SNES graphics were beautiful, a lot of the games were just came off as generic feeling. NES had much more fun and memorable games.

[Joe Redifer]

the SegaCD was limited to one 16 color palette for *all* the scaling/rotation and was limited to 30fps at best (small window) and much less FPS for full screen window(scaling/rotation).

Explain Soul Star.  Looked like a lot more than 16 colors to me, and there was a lot of full screen scaling there.  Same with Batman Returns, a game with what I consider better-than-NeoGeo scaling.  Very few games did the scaling well, though.  Too bad the SNES could only scale a background.

[Black Tiger]

the SegaCD was limited to one 16 color palette for *all* the scaling/rotation and was limited to 30fps at best (small window) and much less FPS for full screen window(scaling/rotation).

Explain Soul Star.  Looked like a lot more than 16 colors to me, and there was a lot of full screen scaling there.  Same with Batman Returns, a game with what I consider better-than-NeoGeo scaling.  Very few games did the scaling well, though.  Too bad the SNES could only scale a background.

I haven't played Soul Star in a decade, but from what I remember it could've used 16 color pieces, even though it still looked nice and colorful.

Maybe those Sega-CD games did some of their scaling the ole fashioned way since the cpu's so friggin' fast.

[GUTS]

Sega CD games had amazing scaling that completely and utterly blew the SNES's scaling out of the water, compare ANY snes game's scaling to Soul Star, Battle Corps, or Batman Returns.  The Sega CD was a beast.

[Keranu]

In reality though, all of those scaling and rotation effects were cheesy. GUTS' fanboyism really shows by how he can make fun of mode 7 to no stop yet praise Sega CD's effects. Honestly, I can't really make a difference in the quality between them. It's not that I don't like the effects, because I like cheese  .

[Joe Redifer]

Keranu, what would you have in place of scaling effects?  Jumping sprites?  Things that never grow or shrink even of the game calls for it?  That's like saying the color green is cheesy.

[FM-77]

How exactly is mode 7 cheesy? I think it adds a lot to the game. Secret of Mana just wouldn't be the same without that nice map and the Flammie flight, for example. Other games like Super Mario Kart are also awesome.

[nodtveidt]

Scaling/rotation are pretty common features in 2D graphics libraries for PC games. Hard to find one that doesn't have such capabilities. As with anything, it's not the effect itself but how it's used. Overuse of anything cheapens the whole effect.

Joe, the SNES could scale both backgrounds and sprites. Even SMW shows off sprite scaling.

[Kitsunexus]

Scaling and rotation are not cheesy, I prefer them to some 3D effects we have today.

[Joe Redifer]

SNES could not scale sprites.  If it could, don't you think F-Zero and Pilotwings would scale them?  If in Super Mario World you are referring to Bowser, he is a background.

[Kitsunexus]

SNES could not scale sprites.  If it could, don't you think F-Zero and Pilotwings would scale them?  If in Super Mario World you are referring to Bowser, he is a background.

That may have been, but if you google "SNES sprite scaling", you get a bunch of pages that say it DOES scale sprites...also I'm pretty sure the Contra 3 missles were sprites.

[Black Tiger]

If you guys wanna see some real sprite scaling, just watch the opening cinema of Gate of Thunder(or finish a match of Bomberman '93).