3D Polygon Games On 8/16-Bit Consoles

[DreamcastRIP]

Its funny how people forget that the Atari ST and Amiga were both polygon capable...

Indeed. Reading certain websites and forums one would be forgiven for thinking that polygon-based games started out on the Not-so-Super NES.

Cybermorph and Starfox were compared all too often back in the day which was wrong. Cybermorph and Vortex were much more alike in terms of gameplay and visuals.

Starfox was on fails are required extra chips on the cart and most of it was prerender, where as CyberMorph was true 3D freedom done in real time processing. Not to mention the 16 bit color of the Jaguar which the SNES could not do.

Just to let you know to not be expecting a reply as nakamura has been permanently banned from RVG! 

[Gorf]

Its funny how people forget that the Atari ST and Amiga were both polygon capable...

Indeed. Reading certain websites and forums one would be forgiven for thinking that polygon-based games started out on the Not-so-Super NES.

Cybermorph and Starfox were compared all too often back in the day which was wrong. Cybermorph and Vortex were much more alike in terms of gameplay and visuals.

Starfox was on fails are required extra chips on the cart and most of it was prerender, where as CyberMorph was true 3D freedom done in real time processing. Not to mention the 16 bit color of the Jaguar which the SNES could not do.

Just to let you know to not be expecting a reply as nakamura has been permanently banned from RVG! 

[Rogue Trooper]

In another thread we went a bit off-topic talking about this after my purchase of Steel Talons for the Mega Drive. Elsewhere on the forum we are also talking about the port of Star Fox to the Mega Drive. This got me thinking and I thought it would make a great thread.

To quote this post:

Cannot think where i read interview with coder behind F-22 on MD, but in those pre-SVP chip days, i'm sure he+team used not only the M68000 of the MD to generate the polygon visuals, but also the Z80 and anything else they could fool into giving a little more power to the maths needed.

Sounded like some really creative coding for sure.

From what i recal, as well as the 2 processors, the coders tapped into the part of the MD hardware which 'read' the cartridge, talk about pulling power from every last area of the hardware.

Looking back at what the most talented coders got from the stock MD hardware, still amazes me today:Polygons, FMV, sprite Scaling etc.

The hardware limitations seemed to be viewed more as a challenge than an obstacle and better still, as well as being technically superb, games always seemed to be bloody great as well (Gunstar Heroes, Red Zone, F-22 etc).

This was a great way of exploiting the hardware of the MD and utilising the Z80 co-processor that was usually reserved for playing Master System games and driving the sound chip.

What other great examples are there?

Its funny how people forget that the Atari ST and Amiga were both polygon capable and even without a blitter and a second processor so I see no surprise that the Sega Genny can pull off polygon games with the same 68000 and yet an additional z-80.

Going purely off memory, seem to recal (Amiga and) console based magazines saying reason likes of SNES and MD needed maths chips like the SFX and SVP were that they were designed in the usual Japanese way of things.

'Tile Based' or something? basically designed to produce games like Super Mario, Sonic, Streets Of Rage, Thunderforce etc etc.Parallax scrolling, 2d animation, silky smooth scrolling etc, where as ST/Amiga were more general purpose based hardware design.

Looking back at it, i did think it a little odd, as coming from a 520STFM and likes of Starglider 1+2, Midwinter 1+2, Hunter, Carrier Command etc etc that if a machine like the ST which to me seemed little more than a 'fast' CPU could do wireframe/filled in 3D with ease then it was odd the MD did'nt see more 3D games.

[Gorf]

I had a blitterless ST520FM and it played the filled 3D games rather well.

[TL]

Bumping an old topic here as I just discovered another one, Escape From The Mind Master on the ColecoVision:

[align=center:eh1kx6y7]Escape from the Mindmaster - Colecovision[/align:eh1kx6y7]

[TrekMD]

Escape from the Mindmaster was a very impressive game on the 2600, I have to imagine this version for the ColecoVision has to be even better (a larger game?).  It certainly has more color and better sprites for characters. 

[TL]

I actually just went back and re-read this thread to see what was posted and noticed that I posted the 5200 version of Battlezone. Well, recently I picked up the XE version of Battlezone, which I assumed would be the same as the original 5200/A8 version. But I was surprised to discover that it's actually a brand new version of the game that was programmed in 1987 and, rather than being a strange mix of 2D and 3D, is actually far more authentic to the original arcade game and 100% 3D.

It runs a bit slow but is certainly very impressive:

[align=center:c11kpthc]Battlezone for the Atari 8-bit family[/align:c11kpthc]

[TrekMD]

Yes that version looks truer to the arcade and I'd consider it better than the 5200 version for that reason.  I wonder what led to there being two different versions.

[TL]

Yes that version looks truer to the arcade and I'd consider it better than the 5200 version for that reason.  I wonder what led to there being two different versions.

I can only assume they wanted a more accurate version of the game. The XE version of Mario Bros. is also different to the A8 original.

[TrekMD]

As good a reason as any, I suppose. 

[TL]

[align=center:3s92ao47]No video, but 2 different versions of the arcade game Block Out for the XL and XE:


Tetris 3D - By ABBUC


Drop It - By Sonix Software[/align:3s92ao47]

[TL]

[align=center:3li6x429]Console Wars - SNES vs GEN - Who Has the best 3D gfx?[/align:3li6x429]

[TrekMD]

I'm not sure I like that comparison video.  The comparisons are not of the exact same game (except for Space Harrier) most of the time, so deciding what looks best is hard.  In some instances the SNES appears to have smoother graphics than the Genesis but the Genesis has more detailed graphics in others. 

[Aaendi]

The SNES has planar graphics and can't access VRAM during active display, but all this talk is encouraging me to make a polygon engine, even if my demo is just a big rotating triangle.

edit:  From doing tests, converting the whole frame to planar format takes way to much time for the cpu, so it would have to draw the graphics directly in planar format.  Thankfully, planar format allows me to draw up to 8 pixels at a time.

[TL]

I'm not sure I like that comparison video.  The comparisons are not of the exact same game (except for Space Harrier) most of the time, so deciding what looks best is hard.  In some instances the SNES appears to have smoother graphics than the Genesis but the Genesis has more detailed graphics in others.

The other thing to remember is that ALL of those SNES games are using enhancement chips, the only Mega Drive game that uses one is Virtua Racing, all the rest of them are running on stock hardware.

The Mega Drive is much better at 3D than the SNES due to the extra processing power, this is where blast processing means something