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Post by crisgenjin on Oct 18, 2022 19:07:04 GMT
Herein is where I admit I do not understand the PC-FX in the least. Given when it was released to market, I cannot see it had any chance of success. The only thing it seems to offer that other systems of the time might have had any trouble at all matching is its comfortable handling of FMV. Everything else about the system seems thoroughly behind every other market contender. I can't fathom what NEC thought it was going to do to make this thing marketable. I just can't make sense of the system at all. I agree about the part of being severely behind, tech-wise. The decisions of the PC-FX has nothing to do with the Sony or Sega keeping their technology secret or such. There was no secret about how tech was evolving - especially those in the business of creating said technology. It was very clear where game system tech-design was heading at the time. Raster base system were reaching their limits, and blitter based systems were the solution to overcome a lot of problems at the time; the more affordable amount of ram and speed of ram made such blitter rendering possible and realizable - with obvious benefits. 3D or just 2D, the PCFX inclusion of two PCE video chips over using a simple blitter system makes zero sense for the time. I'm convinced this was a last minute 'bolt on' fix to something they had issue with... because I don't want to believe that someone thought this was actually a good idea hahah. And in relation to the PS, Saturn, 3DO, and even the Jag - the PCFX's 2D sprites prowess is basically just a 16bit system at best - all sprites are raster based and weak for the time - doesn't even match the sprite capability of arcade systems from 1987, let alone what was coming to the market in 1993-94. The only thing that really differentiates itself from say the Super famicom, is that it has more flexible BG equivalent (modes) and more of them. It's basically an extended Super Famicom with FMV, which is odd for something that's supposed to be 'next gen'. That is a VERY odd decision for 1993-1994. I'd say NEC completely miss-understood both the market and technology. The PCFX might have a 32bit processor, but I consider it as 16bit design. Not even a 'hybrid' generation system. And this isn't a, "Well.. it's a Japanese system for a Japanese audience". So was the Saturn and Play Station, Neo Geo, Sharp 68k, etc. I think the audio chip is probably the most egregiously insulting part, or the most telling - that they had given up and/or didn't know what they were doing. FM chips were cheap by then. Seriously, WTF NEC hahah. W..T..F... The whole argument "Its more about software than hardware..." falls completely on its face though; no amount of software is going to overcome this glaring deficiencies in hardware. I'm surprised they got any dev softs on it at all, all things considering. The only reason it even gets mentioned is the FMV. Or more preciously, the Saturn had poor FMV quality out of the gate making the PCFX FMV shine. But compared to the Play Station, the PCFX FMV is not that impressive. There really is no way to put a positive spin on the PCFX.. at all.. or justify the final hardware deficiencies. The only thing that could have potentially made sense, is if it was released as a budget system for like $200 (which was not going to happen). Don't get me wrong, I find the system fascinating and I'm glad it exists - and would love to write some stuff for it. But along the same lines of the 32x, nowadays I don't what care that it failed to succeeded. But back in the day, the PCFX design choices must has baffled a lot of game developers. Since you mentioned the PC-FX has two PC Engine VDPs...does that mean it's basically a Supergrafx with a CD add-on!?!?
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Post by elmer on Oct 18, 2022 19:29:56 GMT
Since you mentioned the PC-FX has two PC Engine VDPs...does that mean it's basically a Supergrafx with a CD add-on!?!? Well, since both of those VDP chips have 128KB of VRAM instead of the 64KB of VRAM on each chip in the SuperGrafx, and it also enables the use of VDP-pairing to get 256-color sprites and backgrounds (which they really should have done on the SuperGrafx) ... then you could call it a Super-SuperGrafx!
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Post by crisgenjin on Oct 18, 2022 19:40:41 GMT
Since you mentioned the PC-FX has two PC Engine VDPs...does that mean it's basically a Supergrafx with a CD add-on!?!? Well, since both of those VDP chips have 128KB of VRAM instead of the 64KB of VRAM on each chip in the SuperGrafx, and it also enables the use of VDP-pairing to get 256-color sprites and backgrounds (which they really should have done on the SuperGrafx) ... then you could call it a Super-SuperGrafx! Hypergrafx!! (Seriously though, about time we port Ghouls n Ghosts to it)
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Post by spenoza on Oct 18, 2022 20:00:36 GMT
HuperGrafx Too bad this system didn’t come out at a time it would have almost been relevant.
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Post by crisgenjin on Oct 18, 2022 20:07:30 GMT
HuperGrafx Too bad this system didn’t come out at a time it would have almost been relevant. Yeah, it would've been quite the powerful console by 1992 standards
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exodus
Punkic Cyborg
Posts: 160
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Post by exodus on Oct 19, 2022 19:30:49 GMT
Not particularly powerful by 1992 standards - even then it would still only have the video as a leg up over (for example) the mega cd, which was released in 1991, and had better sprite pushing power, hardware scaling and rotation, etc. And certainly not the direction that things were clearly going (the model 1 and system 22 both came out in 1992, 3D was on the horizon). Plus we often don't think about how the neo geo home console was out by 1990 - of course that was an arcade system at home, but it still demonstrated what was possible, and as components got cheaper that could've been a target as well. No matter how you slice it the PC-FX was ill-conceived in any era, other than perhaps the precise moment when the iron man board was devised. They barely even had a plan for the thing when they put it out. smacks of some weird bureocracy nonsense - a home consolized PC-98 would've been a smarter move, even.
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Post by crisgenjin on Oct 19, 2022 20:21:04 GMT
They barely even had a plan for the thing when they put it out. smacks of some weird bureocracy nonsense - a home consolized PC-98 would've been a smarter move, even. Ehh, the FM Towns Marty would've been the better console by a wide margin anyway
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Post by turboxray on Oct 19, 2022 21:52:14 GMT
Not particularly powerful by 1992 standards - even then it would still only have the video as a leg up over (for example) the mega cd, which was released in 1991, and had better sprite pushing power, hardware scaling and rotation, etc. Well.. let's not go that far haha because that's definitely not true. It does a lot of things better than the MegaCD, not just video, except for FM/multi-channel PCM 'chiptunes'. I'm not sure how that would work. PC-98 games are all high-res and they had 400/480 vertical res modes that weren't interlaced. It worked for the Amiga because 99% of its games were already low res and 240/288p.
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Post by crisgenjin on Oct 20, 2022 16:04:14 GMT
Not particularly powerful by 1992 standards - even then it would still only have the video as a leg up over (for example) the mega cd, which was released in 1991, and had better sprite pushing power, hardware scaling and rotation, etc. Well.. let's not go that far haha because that's definitely not true. It does a lot of things better than the MegaCD, not just video, except for FM/multi-channel PCM 'chiptunes'. The PC-FX's CPU absolutely blows that measly 12MHz 68000 out of the water (Even though we don't know its exact clockspeed, I'm pretty sure it's higher by a decent margin), the console can display way more colors than the Mega CD and it has more RAM. Maybe the disc reader is 2x speed?
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exodus
Punkic Cyborg
Posts: 160
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Post by exodus on Oct 20, 2022 19:20:05 GMT
Fair enough! I guess the PC-fx just wasn't used in a way that would show it off, aside from the colors and FMV. It's hard to imagine the PC-fx running Soulstar.
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Post by turboxray on Oct 20, 2022 21:27:03 GMT
Fair enough! I guess the PC-fx just wasn't used in a way that would show it off, aside from the colors and FMV. It's hard to imagine the PC-fx running Soulstar. But the PCFX has hardware scaling and rotation, as well transparency effects. The only thing it would have to scale would be individual objects in software.. I'm pretty sure it could at minimum manage SoulStars 15fps frame rate in that respect (and definitely more).
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Post by crisgenjin on Oct 20, 2022 22:35:42 GMT
Fair enough! I guess the PC-fx just wasn't used in a way that would show it off, aside from the colors and FMV. It's hard to imagine the PC-fx running Soulstar. But the PCFX has hardware scaling and rotation, as well transparency effects. The only thing it would have to scale would be individual objects in software.. I'm pretty sure it could at minimum manage SoulStars 15fps frame rate in that respect (and definitely more). It could even do 3D thanks to the PC-FXGA, but shhh. We must not reveal that secret to everyone!
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exodus
Punkic Cyborg
Posts: 160
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Post by exodus on Oct 21, 2022 18:55:51 GMT
Fair enough! I guess the PC-fx just wasn't used in a way that would show it off, aside from the colors and FMV. It's hard to imagine the PC-fx running Soulstar. But the PCFX has hardware scaling and rotation, as well transparency effects. The only thing it would have to scale would be individual objects in software.. I'm pretty sure it could at minimum manage SoulStars 15fps frame rate in that respect (and definitely more). thanks for clarifying - I wasn't actually certain of the hardware scaling/rotation since they didn't really use it in team innocent... and I was never clear whether there was true transparency or clever sprite replacement.
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Post by turboxray on Oct 21, 2022 21:08:54 GMT
But the PCFX has hardware scaling and rotation, as well transparency effects. The only thing it would have to scale would be individual objects in software.. I'm pretty sure it could at minimum manage SoulStars 15fps frame rate in that respect (and definitely more). thanks for clarifying - I wasn't actually certain of the hardware scaling/rotation since they didn't really use it in team innocent... and I was never clear whether there was true transparency or clever sprite replacement. Yeah, from a 16bit console standard - it's got a lot of power! From a 32bit standard though, the lack of a really fast blitter system like the Saturn and PSX, make it pretty lacking ('chip tunes' aside, but even PS1 mostly did streaming music rather than chip generated.. so I guess I shouldn't be TOO hard on it haha). With some recent activity for the PCFX, maybe we'll see some nice demos show off the lesser known capabilities
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Post by crisgenjin on Oct 22, 2022 20:24:54 GMT
thanks for clarifying - I wasn't actually certain of the hardware scaling/rotation since they didn't really use it in team innocent... and I was never clear whether there was true transparency or clever sprite replacement. Yeah, from a 16bit console standard - it's got a lot of power! From a 32bit standard though, the lack of a really fast blitter system like the Saturn and PSX, make it pretty lacking ('chip tunes' aside, but even PS1 mostly did streaming music rather than chip generated.. so I guess I shouldn't be TOO hard on it haha). With some recent activity for the PCFX, maybe we'll see some nice demos show off the lesser known capabilities Even if you were to only use the base PC Engine VDPs' capabilities, it would be pretty damn powerful. They can still switch resolution modes on the fly, right? Imagine ports of Neo Geo fighting games
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