Retro Video Gamer

I'd like to know WHY to this day,  the SNES hardware, in particular it's Mode 7 and sprite handling abilities, are still held in such high regard and no, this is'nt another anti-Nintendo angled thread, lol, but serious question.

Mega Drive via clever programming pulled off all manner of spectacular feats, which i've banged on about numerous times on this forum, plus previousily mention that coders behind things like Road Rash and the Strike Series had 'mixed' feelings about the hardware and having just stumbled across an Amiga programmer talking about it, i thought i'd bring it up again.

In C U Amiga:Graphic Feature, Martin Edmonson (among others) is interviewed, talks about Amiga Brian The Lion being written to emulate SNES Mode 7, talks of how the system he+team came up with compares to the SNES:

'....by the way of the Nintendo (SNES), you can rotate round in increments of 1 degree, so you can rotate through 360 positions.with our system you can rotate through 512 to 1024 (degrees), which looks smoother.It's also a much cleaner rotation than the SNES.If you randomly pick an angle, and do same on SNES, it'll look much cleaner on the Amiga-the ones on the Nintendo are broken apart and there are bits hanging off......Rotation takes any size block from 16X16 to full screen and rotates it through 1024 degrees, which is about 3X more than anything SNES can do'

So from my 'laymans' view point and that of Ex-SNES owner, i'm wondering really why (espically when SNES carts are further enhanced by extra processors in  many cases) the clever programming feats on a stock MD/Amiga do not get the 'coverage' that SNES games do, when it comes to pulling off flashy effects?.

[align=center:3aux1hfr](http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Features/2009/06/Gaming%20phrases/mode7--article_image.jpg)[/align:3aux1hfr]

I span this off into a thread of it's own rather than taking the other one off topic, I also feel this needs a thread of it's own. Feel free to change the title if you wish RT.

Quote from: "The Laird"I span this off into a thread of it's own rather than taking the other one off topic, I also feel this needs a thread of it's own. Feel free to change the title if you wish RT.

That's cool, where she goes is'nt an issue :-) was'nt 100% sure where best to put it, just thought it might make for a nice topic to get discussion going on.

What annoys me is that people still talk about Mode 7 as some kind of wonderful innovation when arcade games were already using similar effects and the 1989 Atari Lynx could actually pull off more superior effects:

Lynx "Mode 7" Demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVcbyWj3V5k (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVcbyWj3V5k)

And the effect used in an actual game, Beyond Games' Battle Wheels:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19J0xX6PEbI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19J0xX6PEbI)

good reply and examples there Laird.

re-reading mag scans from ACE this afternoon, where they talk about Atari's (then) new Lynx, they say it can out perform the MD, SNES and Amiga in specific areas, sprite handling being one of them, yet i never seem to hear the Lynx getting the credit the SNES does in the years since.

ACE seemed keen to get it noticed though, reviews of things like Warbirds made great note of the power of the Lynx.

Although a big fan of the 8 bit Nintendo era, I can't say the same for the 16 bit era. There are some really good games on the Super Nintendo. I never noticed the mode 7 very much. Playing Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island in the last few years, has really impressed me to what the Super Nintendo could have achieved.

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"good reply and examples there Laird.

re-reading mag scans from ACE this afternoon, where they talk about Atari's (then) new Lynx, they say it can out perform the MD, SNES and Amiga in specific areas, sprite handling being one of them, yet i never seem to hear the Lynx getting the credit the SNES does in the years since.

ACE seemed keen to get it noticed though, reviews of things like Warbirds made great note of the power of the Lynx.

Yes! I actually used to have that exact quote as my signature on Jaguar Sector 2 back in the day because i loved it so much!

Warbirds is another great example because, just like Mode 7, you are moving around a defined area with the landscape being scaled and rotated. Only it's more impressive because it also mixes in polygons and sprite scaling too, much more advanced than Mode 7:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H_MI84M18Y (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H_MI84M18Y)

There is also Cyber Virus, an FPS style game that uses the Battle Wheels engine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzto35yrEvg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzto35yrEvg)

It was in terms of consoles at that point. Yes the Lynx and Mega CD had similar abilities but this was the best version of its type IMHO.

Quote from: "zapiy"It was in terms of consoles at that point. Yes the Lynx and Mega CD had similar abilities but this was the best version of its type IMHO.

MCD had superior abilities to SNES, yes it was an expensive add-on, but as well as the sprite handling chipsets you were looking at extra CPU, another sound chip, motor driven optical drive, on board Ram etc.Plus lot of MODE 7 SNES games needed extra processor on board the cart as SNES CPU could'nt do everything by itself.

Also, re-reading old SNES reviews, often seems SNES games credited for MODE 7 effects when in fact they were'nt even using said hardware mode, reviewers just thought, ohh that looks cool, bet that's MODE 7 without really understanding just what Mode 7 was....

Quote from: "zapiy"It was in terms of consoles at that point. Yes the Lynx and Mega CD had similar abilities but this was the best version of its type IMHO.

Apart from the number of colours and resolution the Lynx's Suzy utterly spanks the SNES graphics chip. The SNES can only scale and rotate bitmaps, while the Lynx can do this AND scale and rotate sprites and much faster too.

Same goes for the Mega CD, there is no way the SNES could have done the likes of Thunderhawk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOJFcBSYHsA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOJFcBSYHsA)

I thought Mode 7 was a simple texture mapping graphics mode that allows a background layer to be rotated and scaled.

Sprites were a different thing altogether were they not?

Quote from: "zapiy"I thought Mode 7 was a simple texture mapping graphics mode that allows a background layer to be rotated and scaled.

Sprites were a different thing altogether were they not?

Think i posted the technical gubbins somewhere on here before, but the tilting of the landscape you get on MCD Thunderhawk, is impossible to do on SNES as it uses both the MD+MCD CPU's and MCD custom hardware, will have to see if i can dig out the details again.

Quote from: "zapiy"I thought Mode 7 was a simple texture mapping graphics mode that allows a background layer to be rotated and scaled.

Sprites were a different thing altogether were they not?

Basically yes, it's not texture mapping though. Mode 7 allows you rotate and scale bitmaps/images as playfield or background layer. The Lynx and Mega CD allow you to do this PLUS do the same with sprites as well as panning and distortion. The Lynx also has the added advantage of being able to display over a thousand sprites on screen!

Core coder, talking about terrain scaling used in both Thunderhawk and Battlecorps: '..is achived by simply writing 10 lines of code to the graphics sizing chip.It's effectively a huge sprite that scales and rotates beneath you'

Also, MCD scrolls in 2-axis for it's Mode 7 type effect, SNES Mode 7 only scrolls in single axis, that's why you could'nt get the helicopter banking effect of Thunderhawk on SNES.Knew i'd put that up on here before, ;-)

Then of course there are the Mega Drive games that use the brute power of the Mega Drive CPU to fake "mode 7".

For those that think "Blast Processing" was just something Sega made up you are wrong, it was actually based in some sort of fact as these two games show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZKsQ09qOk4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZKsQ09qOk4)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-6sjEqMXYY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-6sjEqMXYY)

Depending on which 'source' you use, 'Blast processing' on MD/Genesis is/was either a joke told by Mike Latham at SEGA America or...

It refers to to the MD hardwares ability to do very fast DMA transfers and thus 'blast' memory to the screen, a technique Sonic series used very well to ensure it's speed.

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Depending on which 'source' you use, 'Blast processing' on MD/Genesis is/was either a joke told by Mike Latham at SEGA America or...

It refers to to the MD hardwares ability to do very fast DMA transfers and thus 'blast' memory to the screen, a technique Sonic series used very well to ensure it's speed.

You posted this in the Lynx thread for some reason so I just moved it.

I heard the latter story, which is what I am referring to.

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Depending on which 'source' you use, 'Blast processing' on MD/Genesis is/was either a joke told by Mike Latham at SEGA America or...

It refers to to the MD hardwares ability to do very fast DMA transfers and thus 'blast' memory to the screen, a technique Sonic series used very well to ensure it's speed.

You posted this in the Lynx thread for some reason so I just moved it.

I heard the latter story, which is what I am referring to.

I think my multi-tasking is 2-Bit this evening, not sure why i posted that where i did, lol.Know the cat was wailing to be fed at the time, he can take the blame. :-)

This is another one that get brought up a lot as a Mega Drive game that gives SNES Mode 7 a run for its money, Batman & Robin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n_eHN-ArK8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n_eHN-ArK8)

My take on mode 7 is that it was more marketing hype than anything else. However, it was marketing hype that worked in many instances. Without it, some SNES games might not have been possible. Games like F-Zero, NCAA Basketball, and Super Mario Kart. Yes, Mega Drive could do similar or even better, but for Nintendo fans, this was cutting edge stuff for a while anyway.

I equate it to Atari VCS versus Intellivision and even Colecovision in the states. Even though those systems had superior technology in many ways, VCS still had minions of fans who swore by it, and won the overall sales battles. The best technology does not always win the marketing wars. Popular perception plays a big role in this.

I think mode 7, as basic as the effect was was just well utilized and often used. Many of the most popular titles used it, and while it was flat at least it was very smooth and offered a frequent 3D perspective rarely seen elsewhere in that quality.

I can honestly say that before F-Zero and Zelda III I had never seen such an effect.

Later on the Mega Drive manad some great scaling and rotation effects thanks to clever programming, but it was still rare compared to the SNES. The SNES had it built in in hardware, while on MD it had to be done in software.

I made a video once about the Mode 7 flying in Pier Solar. We got it done rather well, but it takes huge amounts of memory on the MD. This mode 7 scene takes lots of cart space; we had it even better before, with two layers (clouds scrolling seperatly over the landscape), but we did not have enough room on the 64 Mbit cart left so we had to reduce it to one layer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG4V_kLL0NI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG4V_kLL0NI)

For the SNES this is just standard fare, for the MD it took some real magic to make it look like that.

Wow that's very impressive programming guys!

It was mode number 6 (called mode 7 because the first mode was mode 0) and it was usually used to rotate backgrounds to simulate 3D.

F-Zero and Super Mario Kart are the obvious prime examples of its use but there are more interesting ones too...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vUpnJazVV8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vUpnJazVV8)


Super Aleste level 2 is an excellent example - watch the approach of the attack platform off in the distance and the detail coming in as it gets closer - with you eventually flying over the surface - this was amazing back in the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRZH24or-pw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRZH24or-pw)


At the end of the day - mode 7 is just another hardware trick - good games - that's what counts.

Another good example of scaling and rotation effects on the Mega Drive is Granada, this features giant bosses that rotate and scale as they move around the screen, not only an impressive effect but it's a great game too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei1yb_FpNV8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei1yb_FpNV8)

Found that old Thunderhawk MCD preview where details of it's Mode 7 effect are given.

SNES used single processor for Mode 7, quite slow hence so many games that use Mode 7 have extra DSP etc on-board cart to speed things up, MCD has twin processors, so graphics take no time to draw, way faster than SNES in this dept, plus it enables texture mapping.

SNES scrolls in 1 axis, MCD in 2...


Thunderhawk a great example of the MCD hardware being used to great effect, 2-Axis scrolling enables the chopper to bank+yaw and then the objects like buildings, towers etc are scaled sprites to match the angle the horizon is at when your tilting, plus the 3D chips handle the ground detail as well.

Just  a crying shame so few games came out that used it in such a manner.

Super Aleste on SNES has no DSP on-board and it blows the arse off anything the MD pushed out (that I'm aware if at any rate - may be wrong) - faster processor or not - when it comes to sheer 2D speed and things moving around the screen it has no peer.

Super Aleste is pure sprite city with no slowdown or flicker - it is an amazing technical achievement - I have no idea how they did it on the slower SNES. That is more about the dev's skills than the SNES of course...

I thought it was a mind blowing game until I discovered I was playing it on the default "normal" - easiest level -there's even hyper and wild modes that crank up the bullets even more - astounding,

Truly amazing.

What???? I threw down the gauntlet there and none has responded!!!!

Was hoping to be given names of shmups to try on the old MD..... I've played a few over the years (Gairies was the business if I remember right) but currently I only have Thunderforce IV, Subterrania and Space Invaders '91 - 3 excellent shmups but I'm looking to for more..

Probably because you are right lol. I personally think you pretty much hit the nail on the head with the sprites remark.

Quote from: "davyK"What???? I threw down the gauntlet there and none has responded!!!!

Was hoping to be given names of shmups to try on the old MD..... I've played a few over the years (Gairies was the business if I remember right) but currently I only have Thunderforce IV, Subterrania and Space Invaders '91 - 3 excellent shmups but I'm looking to for more..

Gynoug, Bio Hazard Battle, Granada, Arrow Flash and Red Zone are all very good and also impressive from a hardware point of view.

I would also recommend Empire Of Steel, Fire Shark, Air Buster, Verytex, Zero Wing and Xenon 2 among others.

cheers......lots to look out for there.

Just remembered I have Raiden Trad too - not a bad port.

Quote from: "davyK"What???? I threw down the gauntlet there and none has responded!!!!

Was hoping to be given names of shmups to try on the old MD..... I've played a few over the years (Gairies was the business if I remember right) but currently I only have Thunderforce IV, Subterrania and Space Invaders '91 - 3 excellent shmups but I'm looking to for more..

Never played Super Aleste, so could'nt really comment.

MD shootahs though? hmn,if looking for technical feats, try Red Zone, Panorama Cotton or 3D sections of Lawnmower Man would be my suggestions.

Quote from: "davyK"cheers......lots to look out for there.

Just remembered I have Raiden Trad too - not a bad port.

It's ok, I am just spoiled by the Jag version 

Quote from: "davyK"What???? I threw down the gauntlet there and none has responded!!!!

Was hoping to be given names of shmups to try on the old MD..... I've played a few over the years (Gairies was the business if I remember right) but currently I only have Thunderforce IV, Subterrania and Space Invaders '91 - 3 excellent shmups but I'm looking to for more..

I like Thunder Force IVs graphics better than Super Aleste's, but you already have that.^^

Super Aleste has some great mode 7 effects + lots of sprites though, I must admit.

Maybe you should try MUSHA Aleste? The MD Aleste is not as technically advanced (it's an earlier MD game), but I think shooter fans often prefer it from Super.

Anyone have an opinion on the Thundeforce compilation for Saturn? think it has at least one of the earlier Thunderforce MD games?

Quote from: "davyK"Anyone have an opinion on the Thundeforce compilation for Saturn? think it has at least one of the earlier Thunderforce MD games?

Know of the Thunder Force Gold packs.Vol 1 has Thunderforce 2 and Thunderforce 3.

Vol 2 has thunderforce IV+Arcade.

These what your after?

At Revival this weekend somebody was playing Val D'Isere on my Jaguar and remarked that "Atari were trying to copy Nintendo's mode 7 with this game it looks like"

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!

Quote from: "The Laird"At Revival this weekend somebody was playing Val D'Isere on my Jaguar and remarked that "Atari were trying to copy Nintendo's mode 7 with this game it looks like"

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!

:-) It was'nt a magazine editor by any chance was it?.

No, honestly.....at this bloody rate Nintendo will have invented everything that ever was in gaming, graphics, sound, controllers, electricity, those stupid little plastic slug things that are used in packaging, all had Nintendo's hand in it, just like the gaming equiv.of Rod Hull, bat the incident of falling off a roof trying to fix a TV aerial.

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"No, honestly.....at this bloody rate Nintendo will have invented everything that ever was in gaming, graphics, sound, controllers, electricity, those stupid little plastic slug things that are used in packaging

You mean they didn't!  :3:

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"No, honestly.....at this bloody rate Nintendo will have invented everything that ever was in gaming, graphics, sound, controllers, electricity, those stupid little plastic slug things that are used in packaging

You mean they didn't!  :3:

Think they are still ironing out just what role Nintendo had in:

Sliced Bread, The Wheel, Flight, Walking Upright, seems some chap has discovered some cavepaintings in his garage loft, crude scratches etc but if you squint and get the light just right, you can make out the words...ugghhhhh....'is me....oggga..Mario....and just the faint outline of a 'tache


Apparently Nintendo's flock say SEGA was just put on this Earth to 'test their' faith, for is it not written in the scrolls (now avaiable in tablet form-Android, iOs etc) that Lo, did Nintendo not go forth into the wilderness (UK), bearing fruit (years old arcade conversions and tat) and thus did the people not fall to their knees, wailing with joy and thus were saved from eternal damnation...?


Or was that just the NES collectors guide in RG?.

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"No, honestly.....at this bloody rate Nintendo will have invented everything that ever was in gaming, graphics, sound, controllers, electricity, those stupid little plastic slug things that are used in packaging

You mean they didn't!  :3:

Think they are still ironing out just what role Nintendo had in:

Sliced Bread, The Wheel, Flight, Walking Upright, seems some chap has discovered some cavepaintings in his garage loft, crude scratches etc but if you squint and get the light just right, you can make out the words...ugghhhhh....'is me....oggga..Mario....and just the faint outline of a 'tache


Apparently Nintendo's flock say SEGA was just put on this Earth to 'test their' faith, for is it not written in the scrolls (now avaiable in tablet form-Android, iOs etc) that Lo, did Nintendo not go forth into the wilderness (UK), bearing fruit (years old arcade conversions and tat) and thus did the people not fall to their knees, wailing with joy and thus were saved from eternal damnation...?


Or was that just the NES collectors guide in RG?.

The case of the Turin Shroud was a myth too, RT. The internets tells us so...

(http://gametyrant.co/storage/2011-post-images/Jesusonnes.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1317242550370)

 

Quote from: "DreamcastRIP"

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: Rogue TrooperNo, honestly.....at this bloody rate Nintendo will have invented everything that ever was in gaming, graphics, sound, controllers, electricity, those stupid little plastic slug things that are used in packaging

You mean they didn't!  :3:

Think they are still ironing out just what role Nintendo had in:

Sliced Bread, The Wheel, Flight, Walking Upright, seems some chap has discovered some cavepaintings in his garage loft, crude scratches etc but if you squint and get the light just right, you can make out the words...ugghhhhh....'is me....oggga..Mario....and just the faint outline of a 'tache


Apparently Nintendo's flock say SEGA was just put on this Earth to 'test their' faith, for is it not written in the scrolls (now avaiable in tablet form-Android, iOs etc) that Lo, did Nintendo not go forth into the wilderness (UK), bearing fruit (years old arcade conversions and tat) and thus did the people not fall to their knees, wailing with joy and thus were saved from eternal damnation...?


Or was that just the NES collectors guide in RG?.

The case of the Turin Shroud was a myth too, RT. The internets tells us so...

(http://gametyrant.co/storage/2011-post-images/Jesusonnes.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1317242550370)

 :24:   Thought Nintendo had strict policy regarding images from the Bible?

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"

Quote from: "davyK"Anyone have an opinion on the Thundeforce compilation for Saturn? think it has at least one of the earlier Thunderforce MD games?

Know of the Thunder Force Gold packs.Vol 1 has Thunderforce 2 and Thunderforce 3.

Vol 2 has thunderforce IV+Arcade.

These what your after?

That's it......are they any good?

Hellfire (MD) was highly regarded back in the day davyk. Don't hear so much of it nowadays, I remember being impressed with it.

My favourite use of SNES Mode 7 is probably the overhead sections from Contra 3:

Contra III - The Alien Wars - HQ Stage 5 (ZSNES 1.42) (//http)

Just came across this video:

mode 7 baby (//http)

What's really hilarious is that the Jaguar's blitter can emulate all of these effects of all the consoles released before it and do them in higher color and resolution not to mention the
superior and realistic smoothness of angle transitions. And that is just one of the
Jaguar's chips. Yet the retard Nintendull fan boys still can't get over it. That particular
Mode & effect put a real hurting on the systems bus BTW too. It was not like you could
do much more interesting AI and game logic while that particular piece of hardware
hammered the performance of the system. And Yes RT, other systems were doing the
same thing or similar with some clever coding IN SOFTWARE!

Oh no doubt, compare Super Mario Kart on the SNES with its on cart DSP to Atari Karts on the Jaguar and it's night and day:

[align=center:14d3sm4x]SNES Longplay [110] Super Mario Kart (//http)

Atari Karts (Jaguar) - Part 1 (//http)[/align:14d3sm4x]

How does the Wii compare to the Jaguar, Laird?  :71: :21:

Quote from: "onthinice"How does the Wii compare to the Jaguar, Laird?  :71: :21:

Harsh!, now a Gamecube with a Ram pack.......Now your talking Wii graphics.

:-)

Quote from: "The Laird"Oh no doubt, compare Super Mario Kart on the SNES with its on cart DSP to Atari Karts on the Jaguar and it's night and day:

[align=center:1cfdbg6g]SNES Longplay [110] Super Mario Kart (//http)

Atari Karts (Jaguar) - Part 1 (//http)[/align:1cfdbg6g]

C+VG certainly did at review as did many others judging by the Jaguar reviews thread....

:-)

Slight, well..major tangent, but what the hell.

Talking of Mario Kart:

Reminds me of the 'bitch-fight' that broke out after Shigeru Miyamoto  'dissed' people like David Jaffe putting guns on cars in games like Twisted Metal, Jaffe responded with: 'You know, honestly, i've been too busy recently trying to figure out why the fuck go-karts shoot banna peels'

:-)

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Slight, well..major tangent, but what the hell.

Talking of Mario Kart:

Reminds me of the 'bitch-fight' that broke out after Shigeru Miyamoto  'dissed' people like David Jaffe putting guns on cars in games like Twisted Metal, Jaffe responded with: 'You know, honestly, i've been too busy recently trying to figure out why the fuck go-karts shoot banana peels'

:-)

 

It always bugged me that there was so much hype over rotation and scaling, but it was only allowed to do 1 BG layer at a time, and it couldn't rotate or scale sprites.  I wonder if the SNES was originally planned to support more advanced rotation/scaling and it was ditched because of cost.

Quote from: "Aaendi"It always bugged me that there was so much hype over rotation and scaling, but it was only allowed to do 1 BG layer at a time, and it couldn't rotate or scale sprites.  I wonder if the SNES was originally planned to support more advanced rotation/scaling and it was ditched because of cost.

Really good question Aaendi! I hope you don't mind, but I merged your topic with another that covers some similar points as I feel this really adds to the discussion.

What I find most interesting about that point is that Sega had been using scaling in their arcade games for years and Atari/Tengen had started using it too with games like Pit-Fighter and Road Riot. Then when the Atari Lynx came out in 1989 that had full hardware scaling and rotation abilities built in, and it was a handheld!

I really can't find any logical reason why they didn't implement the feature fully, just as I can't find any reason for the 8-bit bus. It always seemed that for everything good Nintendo did with a console they always made a couple of strange choices that crippled the hardware in some way.

I found a few websites that state the SNES prototype had an advanced 3D graphics chip, that was scraped at the last minute, but added back into the Pilot Wings cart due to time constraints.  If that means the DSP-1 was the same as the "advanced 3D graphics chip," then it would've been extremely underwelming to begin with.  The DSP-1 was just a simple math coprocessor that just helped the CPU with 3d geometry.  There wasn't any graphics manipulation or pixel plotting.

It could be that the guy who wrote the article got it confused with another chip that was scraped, or it could be that the DSP-1 was originally an advance 3d graphics chip, but itself got stripped down before it was cut from the SNES entirely and became the DSP-1 chip in Pilot Wings.

Quote from: "The Laird"Oh no doubt, compare Super Mario Kart on the SNES with its on cart DSP to Atari Karts on the Jaguar and it's night and day:

[align=center:2bfbzacc]SNES Longplay [110] Super Mario Kart (//http)

Atari Karts (Jaguar) - Part 1 (//http)[/align:2bfbzacc]

While I totally agree that Mose 7 is overrtaed. Mariokart is still 10 times the game atari karts is, no matter what the games are doing technically.

Quote from: "Gorf"What's really hilarious is that the Jaguar's blitter can emulate all of these effects of all the consoles released before it and do them in higher color and resolution not to mention the
superior and realistic smoothness of angle transitions. And that is just one of the
Jaguar's chips. Yet the retard Nintendull fan boys still can't get over it. That particular
Mode & effect put a real hurting on the systems bus BTW too. It was not like you could
do much more interesting AI and game logic while that particular piece of hardware
hammered the performance of the system. And Yes RT, other systems were doing the
same thing or similar with some clever coding IN SOFTWARE!

Completely agree 100%, the Jag could do all of those things and it had potential, it is just a pity that despite all the amazing things it could do that no-one could use them to release a few more decent games for the system.

It does seem a bit silly to go on about how a 64bit system iis more technically better than a 16 bit system though.

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Found that old Thunderhawk MCD preview where details of it's Mode 7 effect are given.

SNES used single processor for Mode 7, quite slow hence so many games that use Mode 7 have extra DSP etc on-board cart to speed things up, MCD has twin processors, so graphics take no time to draw, way faster than SNES in this dept, plus it enables texture mapping.

SNES scrolls in 1 axis, MCD in 2...


Thunderhawk a great example of the MCD hardware being used to great effect, 2-Axis scrolling enables the chopper to bank+yaw and then the objects like buildings, towers etc are scaled sprites to match the angle the horizon is at when your tilting, plus the 3D chips handle the ground detail as well.

Just  a crying shame so few games came out that used it in such a manner.

I don't know where you got your information from, but that's not how Mode 7 works.  Mode 7 isn't slow, it's just limited.  It's fast enough to render a full screen rotating scaling background layer at 60fps, but that's all it is.  A rotating scaling background layer.  The DSP is just a stupid chip that helps the CPU calculate geometry.  It doesn't help the PPU generate pixels any faster.

The DSP was there to help the CPU, so it didn't have to process so much data, which did ultimately make it faster. But I get your point about it not really being much to do with graphics.

Here is a Gunstar Heroes SNES demo that actually does sprite rotation in software, with one soildier having a chain of rotating balls connected to him.

I came here because I was searching for that rumor that Amiga can do better mode 7 than SNES. I don't think that's the case, most examples of rotozoomers in games or demos are not highres enough, or with less colors (because of bitplanes format in Amiga) or not full framerate. I was looking at the game Brian the Lion, I really need to test it on emulator in normal A500 speed, because  in some videos some of the mode 7 tricks are slowing down the frame rate a lot, in some others it's better (but maybe it's the Amiga CD 32 version, the 68020 with some good programming could finally make good highres rotozoomer). But the comment of the programmer was about the accuracy in angle rotation and not speed or quality, which would make sense since the CPU is 32bit and it's coded (partially or not, I don't know, maybe they also use the blitter somehow) on the CPU, they can have more accuracy than custom chip which makes you stick with what the hardware gives. But that's just better accuracy, definitely not more highres, full color, fullscreen, 60fps rotozoomers. What I was seeing on the SNES at the time of it's release is nothing of speed and quality I have ever seen before.

So, I don't think it's correct to say that it was overrated and a marketing fad. It really was a unique chip producing mapping effects not seen before on other consoles (maybe with the exception of the lynx which I am not familiar with, but the resolution is very small), so well detailed background zooming and rotating so smoothly. Maybe after years, Mega Drive and others mimicked the effect, there are many nice examples, where they use different tricks depending on the game, for example racing roads where it curves but not rotates 360, you can blit very fast with DMA I believe horizontal bitmap lines of different scales. It's easier to do the single zoom, or a horizontally rotated cube, and such, since they can all be translated to blitting of different bitmap lines. But full highres rotate and zoom of big background, is another story.

Actually, I was wondering how the Mode 7 chip works and I've read somewhere that normally you have to send two vectors (and maybe some more) for transformation of bitmap per frame. This way you have simple 2d zoom rotate bitmap. But the tricks are resending new values every rasterline. And that's how floor/ceiling mapping, cylinder mapping and distortions and all other stuff are possible. I can understand this since I've coded rotozoomer and floor mapper on PC. It's only that the CPU has to calculate (unless it's precalculated in memory) which vectors to send per line to achieve different effects. Maybe that DSP-1 was helping into this, I don't know. But yes, I heard it too that more chips would be added to the SNES, but removed to reduce cost. I think Yoshi's island has additional chip in cartidge to also allow mode 7 on sprites. But yes, the original snes only had the plain background rotozoom chip. Which could also sometimes appear in the foreground as a fake big sprite, changing layers rendering priority I guess. And you could also add hardware blending, so you had highres bitmap rotating, mapping on floor ceiling, blending, and all just without extra chip on the hardware. People say most effects are because of extra chip on cartidge, but really the majority of the impressive stuff were done with a stock SNES.

Sorry for the rant, I just was a bit wondering why everyone says the Amiga500 can compete with snes mode7, and kinda furious most people thinking it's overrated.

p.s. I do admire though the whole tricks people invented on the Mega Drive could cheat some of these tricks. That Mode 7 flying video of that game, is the most impressive mode 7 floor on the machine I have seen.

Welcome please take the time to introduce yourself HERE (//http)

I would not say that was a rant more your opinion and we are all allowed them.. I agree that Mode 7 was a wonderful idea and still is, certainly many of my fav SNES titles used it.

Quote from: "Optimouse"I came here because I was searching for that rumor that Amiga can do better mode 7 than SNES. 

As a person who loves racing games the SNES was the biggest pile of rubbish going. There is not one single game on the SNES that is either as realistic looking with a sense of speed as Lotus Turbo Challenge II (including Colin McRae Rally style fog/rain/night racing effects).

So my question is why would you want to play a racing game that looks like a POV video of a baby pushing his matchbox cars on one of those playmats with roads drawn on it. The Megadrive can do it,  Lotus RECS II and Outrun clearly show that, but F-zero and Mario Kart look suitable only for players who still have a dummy in their mouths haha If you like motorcycles instead try Prime Mover by Psygnosis. Real roads have objects on the side of them and hills and valleys in the road

There is no way that any SNES racing game comes close to playing Lotus II on an NTSC Amiga, your reflexes and retinas will be given a full workout. The Amiga is better because it doesn't have to use Mode 7 sorry.

SNES = baby pushing his matchbox car on playmat POV racing games.