http://nintendoage.com/forum/ -Sqooner http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=86985 2012-11-18T13:50:45 -05.00 Aaendi 25 Originally posted by: 3GenGames

I don't see how the extra bytes don't help, because then you can upload 4 animation frames without modifying current VRAM, or some tiles just for the background/text layer, etc.


If you mean "extra bytes" as in the 32 bytes of hi-oam, I never said that they don't help.  My point was if you need more than 4 bytes per sprite entry, you might as well use 8 bytes per sprite entry and reimplement features that were cut. ]]> http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=86985 2012-10-19T03:32:56 -05.00 Aaendi 25
Graphics. In 1990 there was Yamaha V9958 - nothing comparable to SNES PPU. In 1992 there was V9990 - close to Genesis, but still far away from SNES capabilities.

Sound. SPC700 MCU itself is an off-the-shelf part, that is custom is the S-DSP. There were few ADPCM chips at the time (OKI, Yamaha), so they could probably make the whole sound system from standart parts, but with inferior capabilities. As far as I know, ADPCM chips of the time didn't have volume envelope support, not even reverb or stereo panning.


SNES hardware in general has few quirks, but overall the design is pretty powerful and nice, especially considering it was designed before 1990. ]]> http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=86985 2012-10-18T20:46:33 -05.00 Aaendi 25 Originally posted by: 3GenGames

Damn it psychopathic! Didn't know that was you, I thought you were another person trying to act like they knew how to program and SNES. Oh well, this still makes sense to me hardware wise. Maybe just mess and try to do more tricks with it, I'm sure it's not that bad considering the games that were created on the system.
Makes sense now. It's too bad he wasn't around to help Nintendo design the SNES. Clearly they needed his help after only selling 49 million+ consoles.

Why do you complain about these old consoles and what you can or can't do on them? Is SNES not enough for you? Make your game for Playstation. Still not enough? Try DreamCast, PS2, PSP, the PC.

The SNES was clearly quite capable as it was. Tons of great games, business wise it did very well. It has a great legacy. We can discuss the hardware all day long, suggesting what they should and shouldn't have done, speculate on the impact changes might have had. But it's pretty apparent that the SNES design proved to work out ok. I have always thought it would have been nice if the processor was faster but that opens a can of worms. Faster CPU would need faster ROM or RAM. Faster ROM means more expensive game carts. Faster RAM in the system means more expensive system. And while there certainly is slowdown in various games, plenty of them don't really have that issue in any negatve way. In Gradius III the slowdown actually makes the game possible for human players to complete.

]]> http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=86985 2012-10-18T17:40:40 -05.00 Aaendi 25
Damn it psychopathic! Didn't know that was you, I thought you were another person trying to act like they knew how to program and SNES. Oh well, this still makes sense to me hardware wise. Maybe just mess and try to do more tricks with it, I'm sure it's not that bad considering the games that were created on the system. ]]> http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=86985 2012-10-18T16:24:38 -05.00 Aaendi 25
"They need that 64KB of video memory for sprites and smaller sprites and bigger sprites both help programming and using them effectively."

This is why using only 4 bytes per oam sprite entry is not enough.  In order to have 64KB you need to have 11 CHR-selection bits.  The SNES only has 9 CHR-selection bits, so your forced into 16kB.



"What does the OAM have to do with the nametable? It's separate, even if you're talking about the graphics tables."

Because "nametable" is another word for CHR-selection bits, and the number of "nametable" bits effect the size of the sprite pattern table, since you can only access 512 sprite patterns with 9 bit "nametables." ]]> http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=86985 2012-10-18T14:31:54 -05.00 Aaendi 25
What does the OAM have to do with the nametable? It's separate, even if you're talking about the graphics tables.

You should take to luigimaster, you and him will get along great telling programmers/hardware guys how to make a better games/systems. ]]> http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=86985 2012-10-18T13:46:09 -05.00 Aaendi 25 Originally posted by: 3GenGames

But when you have half the sprites to gain nothing but a nice and round OAM, it's not worth it. Plus, then you have less tiles to make characters out of then and have to make them bigger and waste graphics.
When you have the entire 64kB of vram to hold sprite patterns instead of only 16kB, (because Nintendo had to cut off 2 bits from the name table just to fit in the clusterphobic OAM) it is alright if sprites take up a couple extra tiles. ]]> http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=86985 2012-10-18T08:35:56 -05.00 Aaendi 25 http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=86985 2012-10-18T01:13:28 -05.00 Aaendi 25 http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=86985 2012-10-18T00:06:20 -05.00 Aaendi 25
It's one of those things they could have done it that way and most people wouldn't care and it may be a tad easier to program, but then people who know hardware would just ask who designed such a piece of shit. Plus, no way in the world making it a tad easier to sort out is worth halving the ammount of sprites you have. No way. ]]>