When did other consoles first surpass the Neo-Geo?

[josekortez]

I've been playing fighting game ports all afternoon my Japanese PS2, and after trying out the ports of Garou: Mark of the Wolves and Last Blade 1&2, I started to wonder when consoles began to meet or match the specs of the cartridge Neo-Geo. Obviously, these days, it's not hard for the PS2 to run authentic versions.

I know there were some Neo-Geo ports on the Saturn with the 4 meg memory card and the Dreamcast that were considered arcade perfect, and even the PS1 had a few ports, but when did the games begin to get arcade perfect?

Was it Samurai Showdown on the 3DO or sometime later?

I don't own an MVS or an AES, so I'm just wondering...

[Poofta!]

depends on teh game really... id say the ps1 came really close with and the Dreamcast mastered it.

[Bojay1997]

I think a lot of the folks over at neo-geo.com would take issue with any of these characterizations, but I think the PS2 and Dreamcast were the first systems to really have both the processing power and the memory to deal with Neo Geo games without crazy loading times, removing some of the animation or noticeable unintentional slowdown. Still, I don't think there is a better option than just buying an MVS system and the carts since I have yet to play an arcade or AES perfect port, even on the current consoles.

[Poofta!]

I think a lot of the folks over at neo-geo.com would take issue with any of these characterizations, but I think the PS2 and Dreamcast were the first systems to really have both the processing power and the memory to deal with Neo Geo games without crazy loading times, removing some of the animation or noticeable unintentional slowdown. Still, I don't think there is a better option than just buying an MVS system and the carts since I have yet to play an arcade or AES perfect port, even on the current consoles.

this is ridiculous... nothing better than the actual MVS/AES board? at this day and age? are you absolutely serious?!

[josekortez]

this is ridiculous... nothing better than the actual MVS/AES board? at this day and age? are you absolutely serious?!

See, I knew what would happen if I asked this question. Let the fanboyism commence!!!

No seriously, I've never owned an MVS or AES system, so I'm just glad that the PS2 ports are plentiful both Stateside and in Japan, so I can finally see what all the fuss is about.

I mean, those Neo-Geo The Best printings are cheap!

[Jorpho]

FWIW, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neorage_X) suggests the earliest attempts at Neo-Geo emulation date back to 1998, some time after the Saturn and PSX were released.

[dcescott]

Just to chime in, I owned a MVS at one time, and I gave it up when my family was expanding by another kid and I needed to consider pushing my freelance more (poor excuse). Nothing beats it, but I'd say the dreamcast and saturn got it right. I've owned Sam Showdown 1-4, and bought the xbox version of the 5th installment. It wasn't the same at all. Because of the great experience with the Neo Geo titles, I don't hesitate when I see snk titles on the NES, SNES and so on. They make good quality games on any port, even the world heroes on the snes. It's not the same, but it's good for what the console can do.

[bangtango]

I think it would be impossible to compare disc-based systems which were designed to feature 3D graphics to a cartridge system built on arcade-style 2D games. It isn't the same to me.

[otaku]

you cant beat playing neo geo games on an actual cab! You just can't. I'd say the saturn was the first system to do a good job of neo geo (and 2d in general) and dreamcast furthered that.

[Tron 2.0]

When it was bad ports.
SNES>Genesis

When the ports got good.
Saturn>Dreamcast>PS2

That's how i look at it even though i am a mvs owner.

In general i see ports as a good cheaper aliterative still it doesn't all ways beat the real deal.

I use to be happy with ports untile i got a,NeoGeo and then i found out what i was missing from the start.

[swlovinist]

I own an AES system and once owned a Supergun, but had to sell when my wife had a "cancer scare" and hospital bills in the 1000s. This topic does not have a real difinative answer, as many systems in the mid to late 90s probably were able to do ports of Neo Geo stuff right. Here is what I think:

Top Systems: Dreamcast and Saturn. Both made excellent ports and could handle the sprites. Import and enjoy!

Notable: Playstation. Some imports were ok, but the Saturn was much better at most ports.

The 3DO version of Sam Showdown was ok for the time, but I have to say that I own the original and nothing beats it. I also am a fan of the Genesis version, which had crappy everything except fast gameplay. I am a sucker for it. Also to note: The Game Gear of fatal fury special is actually quite fun.

Current Winner: The PS2 for all these crazy compliations that are coming. Awsome!

[Poofta!]

the xbox and pc are arcade perfect, MAME 4tw. + arcade stick.

argument over.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I think a lot of the folks over at neo-geo.com would take issue with any of these characterizations, but I think the PS2 and Dreamcast were the first systems to really have both the processing power and the memory to deal with Neo Geo games without crazy loading times, removing some of the animation or noticeable unintentional slowdown. Still, I don't think there is a better option than just buying an MVS system and the carts since I have yet to play an arcade or AES perfect port, even on the current consoles.

The Dreamcast had a piss-poor Garou port. Graphically perfect, but the audio lag on ALL sounds and the constant streaming from disc killed the experience for me.

There's a team of coders that basically built a NeoGeo emulator for the PS2 for all those NeoGeo collections. They run the games I've tested almost perfectly, save for a few glitches. The fact that they don't have to load the entire game into memory since they can just stream the music from the disc really helped out. I was playing Art of Fighting 3 with NO LOAD TIMES a few minutes ago, I'm amazed at what they managed to do. They're the best thing you can get on a console without sticking an AES cart into the PS2's drive.

[Ed Oscuro]

Still, I don't think there is a better option than just buying an MVS system and the carts since I have yet to play an arcade or AES perfect port, even on the current consoles.
I don't see why MAME and a good arcade stick wouldn't do just as well (and it'd be more flexible as well).

In response to OP's reponse to this post, at this time the main thing limiting Neo Geo ports is the current crop of controllers. Your regular Xbox or PlayStation pad isn't going to work very well for Neo Geo games because many of those games play best with an 8-way digital joystick where the difference between the eight directions are obvious. With an analog joystick, the stick can gently slide between many different angles without you noticing it. That's intentional in this day and age, but doesn't work so well with many of those games.

[josekortez]

Yeah, I tried out the above games with the Nuby Street Fighter controller (yes, I know it's not as good as a joystick or even the Ascii FT pads, but my joystick is in a storage unit right now due to lack of space) and it wasn't too bad.

I have to say, for those of us who have never played the original versions on SNK hardware, the PS2 conversions continue to amaze.

[gdement]

If we're talking about emulation, then you need dramatically more power than the original system just to emulate it. But my reading of the question is simply when did game consoles begin to surpass the power of the Neo Geo?

I'd say the Saturn and N64 were more powerful than the Neo Geo. They might not surpass it enough to emulate it well, but a natively programmed game shouldn't be any problem. It's no contest on CPU power - the Neo Geo is only a 68000 @ 12MHz plus a Z-80. It's not much more than the Genesis had. The biggest difference between the NG and the mainstream 16-bit machines was the support chips and the size of the cartridges. And I'd be surprised if the support chips on the subsequent mainstream systems didn't leapfrog the NG.

The big problem you'd have making a good cartridge port of Neo Geo games is that they're huge. The people who owned Saturns/N64's wouldn't want to pay for the size of ROMs that SNK used on the Neo Geo games. So anything that got ported to a mainstream system would need to be cut down to a smaller size, or else converted to a CD-ROM format (where applicable). The lack of huge cartridges doesn't reflect an incapable console, just different marketing. Mainstream buyers won't pay $150 for a game so you have to shrink it.

[Ed Oscuro]

The biggest difference between the NG and the mainstream 16-bit machines was the support chips and the size of the cartridges.
If by "support chips" you mean the CPUs, yes (as far as I know the NG didn't use support chips in the sense that we usually think of them - as CPUs external to the system). Big difference between the NG and even the Genesis going by specifications and abilities; in other words, most everything. I imagine the bus on the NG between cartridges and the system also transfers data faster than the home consoles, but that's just speculation on my and others' parts.


The people who owned Saturns/N64's wouldn't want to pay for the size of ROMs that SNK used on the Neo Geo games.
Ah, the bit/byte monster strikes again.

According to Wikipedia (lol), the maximum ROM size of a Neo Geo cart is "330 meg," and that's increased to 716 with later bank-switching "Giga" Power carts (I don't know what it was a giga of to be honest - maybe they padded out those missing bits with marketing fluff). So you get roughly 40 and 90 megaBYTES for your maximum size Neo Geo ROMs.

The N64's ROMs also got megabit counts, but I've forgotten those, so back to Wikipedia:
32 and 64 MB are common sizes, apparently.

I went and looked at my two newest Neo Geo games (I didn't have to; just find an image gallery of Neo Geo game covers): Samurai Shodown 4 (378 megaBITs) and Real Bout Fatal Fury Special (394 megaBITs). Those are both bigger than the original Neo Geo cart size limit, and bigger than the small 32 MB N64 cartridge - but both will fit comfortably on a N64 cartridge. Both are from the later half of the 90s (SS4 being 1996, and RBFFS is from '97).

So the question becomes - which games are we porting to the N64? Early games could be ported to the N64 in compilation packages, while many games released during the life of the N64 might have fit if the 64 megabyte size was available (which I'm not at all sure of), but even if it wasn't they were still pretty close.

An argument could be made that it depends to a degree where in the lifespan of each console you choose games from (and try to port them to the N64). Looking at this, it seems that depending on when that 64 Megabyte cartridge arrived for the N64, it could've handled many of the current production games - so you possibly could've had ports to the N64 as SNK released them. Fascinating, really.


The lack of huge cartridges doesn't reflect an incapable console, just different marketing. Mainstream buyers won't pay $150 for a game so you have to shrink it.
The lack of understanding by many gamers about the difference in bytes/bits reflects mainly the deviousness of SNK's strategy of taking advance of ignorance. I seem to remember that N64 cartridge sizes were given in megabits in Nintendo Power, at least in 1997, but it wasn't given the marquee front-of-the-box advertisement that the Neo Geo's cart sizes were (and in any case, the megabit promotion was a thing of the 80s and was a thoroughly obsolete vanity by the release of the CD consoles).

[Bojay1997]

the xbox and pc are arcade perfect, MAME 4tw. + arcade stick.

argument over.

Except for the fact that they're not. If you owned a MAME cabinet and an MVS 4 slot cab like some of us, you'd understand.

[Kid Fenris]

The Dreamcast had a piss-poor Garou port. Graphically perfect, but the audio lag on ALL sounds and the constant streaming from disc killed the experience for me.

Yeah, that three-tenths-of-a-second sound delay really ruined the entire game.

[gdement]

If by "support chips" you mean the CPUs, yes (as far as I know the NG didn't use support chips in the sense that we usually think of them - as CPUs external to the system). Big difference between the NG and even the Genesis going by specifications and abilities; in other words, most everything.

By "support chips" I mean the graphics and sound, etc chips - the stuff that the CPU is driving. I would imagine the graphics chip on a Neo Geo is the main thing that makes it more powerful than a Genesis. It's not really the CPU's - those are the same (68000 + Z80), just at a faster clock rate. A Saturn/N64 would clearly have much more CPU power than the Neo Geo, and I think it's reasonable to assume they also have more powerful graphics/sound chips in them. Which leaves only the cartridge size issue.


I imagine the bus on the NG between cartridges and the system also transfers data faster than the home consoles, but that's just speculation on my and others' parts.
I don't think there'd be any fundamental difference in how it works, but maybe SNK used lower latency ROM chips. They'd need them to keep pace with the higher clock rate.



According to Wikipedia (lol), the maximum ROM size of a Neo Geo cart is "330 meg," and that's increased to 716 with later bank-switching "Giga" Power carts (I don't know what it was a giga of to be honest - maybe they padded out those missing bits with marketing fluff). So you get roughly 40 and 90 megaBYTES for your maximum size Neo Geo ROMs.

Those advertised figures don't make sense to me. How exactly do they have an addressable range of 41.25MB? I'm not an expert on the 68000, but I think it's range is something like 16MB - and that would need to be subdivided to get access to internal RAM and such. They must already be using bankswitching to reach "330 mega". My guess is they just made up that number for the original advertising, then made up a new one when they wanted to go bigger. Actual address space is probably something much smaller.
The advertised game sizes never seem to follow any rational increment. Where exactly does a "378 megabit" ROM come from? I should look up some internal cartridge photos sometime, I'm curious what's actually in those things. I guess they could have it jammed full of different sized ROMs, adding up to 378. That would be pretty expensive.



The N64's ROMs also got megabit counts, but I've forgotten those, so back to Wikipedia:
32 and 64 MB are common sizes, apparently.

I tried googling that, and it appears 32MB was somewhat common, and 64MB is pretty rare. But yeah, there's some overlap with Neo Geo territory. One disadvantage which the N64 might have is that it doesn't actually run live from the cartridge - it has to decompress graphics (not sure about code) into the console's 2-4MB RAM. So it works more like a fast CDROM console than a traditional cartridge console. But that wouldn't necessarily preclude a good Neo Geo port, depending how much data those games use at once.
Unfortunately, even if there was some precedent for 32-64MB ROMs on the N64, they'd be unlikely to use one if they thought they could make a "good enough" port with something cheaper.

The Saturn seems like it probably eclipsed the NG, simply dependent on Sega making huge cartridges for it. I don't think they ever did that, but I could be mistaken, don't know much about the Saturn.


The lack of understanding by many gamers about the difference in bytes/bits reflects mainly the deviousness of SNK's strategy of taking advance of ignorance. I seem to remember that N64 cartridge sizes were given in megabits in Nintendo Power, at least in 1997, but it wasn't given the marquee front-of-the-box advertisement that the Neo Geo's cart sizes were (and in any case, the megabit promotion was a thing of the 80s and was a thoroughly obsolete vanity by the release of the CD consoles).
It has always been common convention that ROM chips are measured in bits, not bytes. When magazines and game publishers started advertising sizes, they were using "megabits" well before the Neo Geo came along. SNK did make a bigger deal out of it though, because they needed an easy way for marketing to distinguish their system from the mainstream. It was fair enough - Sega was using the same metric.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Yeah, that three-tenths-of-a-second sound delay really ruined the entire game.

I had delays of up to a second every time the battle got intense and a lot of grunting happened.

I own the game and won't play it because I'm afraid it'll kill the laser.

Edit:


The Saturn seems like it probably eclipsed the NG, simply dependent on Sega making huge cartridges for it. I don't think they ever did that, but I could be mistaken, don't know much about the Saturn.

I think SNK released a cart which had graphic data on it with a King of Fighters game (was it 95?) to speed up load times; also, both Capcom and SNK released their own expansion RAM carts to help with loading times and extra frames of animation.

[Ed Oscuro]

Except for the fact that they're not. If you owned a MAME cabinet and an MVS 4 slot cab like some of us, you'd understand.
Oh boy, "intangibles." You didn't bother to explain why they're different, but I won't take the liberty of assuming you're just pissed that somebody would dare cut the Neo hardware down to size.

When was the last time you used MAME with a good stick for Neo Geo?

For the record, I've got an unmodded AES, and I remember quite well what a real MVS looks like. Much rather would play on a large PC monitor with a good joystick. There may be errors in some games, but I haven't seen them. The flexibility of a PC and the sharpness of current monitors kicks the living poo out of MVS cabinets (especially ones pushing fifteen to twenty years old, now). The only things counting against it are arguments like "it doesn't take coins" and "the sticks are different" (huh) and (my favorite argument) "the graphics don't have the intended scanline edges anymore." I can't think of any other reasons to go with the MVS, other than a nostalgic love of the big red cabinet. I wouldn't mind having one myself, but space is always at a premium.


It has always been common convention that ROM chips are measured in bits, not bytes.
I'm aware, but your statement that Neo Geo ROMs were bigger than N64 ROMs warranted further looking into; either you didn't know the difference between Mb/MB or you didn't do your homework into when different cartridge sizes appeared (because you would've had better information to back up your argument). This has been an interesting thing to look into from my perspective, so thanks for bringing up the idea. Anyhow, I found more information:

It appears the first 512 Mb/megabit (64 MB) cartridge for the '64 is Resident Evil 2 from 1999. I'm not aware of RE2 being priced significantly higher than other games on the market; the later release of this size cartridge was well into the 64's lifetime, when it was clear the PlayStation was the winner.

I think a few points are worth mentioning:

1.) The Neo Geo cartridge does not use significantly more advanced technology (doesn't need to, anyway) than an N64 cartridge; the larger Neo cartridge can always hold more chips.

Thus, it appears that the smaller N64 cartridge should be more technologically advanced (and indeed Neo Geo cartridges are usually just a PCB and ROMs, with saving done on an external memory card - no battery-backed memory here).

Considering that the Neo Geo was being sold as an expensive hobbyist system, Nintendo did quite well to have nearly the same size games in a smaller, more affordable package. If the N64 had kept being supported, the size of its games would have soon matched those of the Neo Geo (I explain why a bit below).

2.) "People," using the word as you did earlier - same as I would - to mean "the average person on the street," did not buy Neo Geo games.

I don't think any of that directly contradicts your main point, of course.

The rest of your post has some misunderstandings, and to address some of them:

1.) You mention "addressable size" and pull up one of the specific ~40 MB figures I mentioned. That's not addressable size; that's the actual size of the game. Obviously, there's no reason to worry about theoretical limits when you're porting Neo Geo games - we're concerned with real-world examples here.

The reason that we get odd figures for specific Neo games is the idiosyncratic cartridge system they used - it appears they have a PCB inside and put on as many different sizes of ROM as they need to fit all their data; the different data sizes from cartridge to cartridge implies that instead of making a very large cartridge in a standard size (which would make sense if they were sticking to games of the same sizes, and also if they had large economies of scale and turned out hundreds of thousands of games, neither of which are true).

You could argue that the Neo Geo always can leapfrog the current N64 cartridge size because they can take what's "affordable" on the N64, make it slightly bigger, and add slightly more data than the state-of-the-art N64 cartridge can hold, and suddenly it won't port. I'm not sure if it'd be overreaching to say this is symptomatic of the kind of thinking that killed SNK; their system was outdated, after all. They may well have had a great deal on ROM chips, but assembly couldn't have been as cheap as that of the N64 cartridge because of the different ROM sizes. Shipping per unit is also more expensive for SNK cartridges - they're bigger, so you can't fit as many in a box, shipping crate, or cargo container.

2.) Back to "support chips:" The Neo Geo's hardware is significantly more capable than the Genesis: more colors, psuedo-3D effects used during gameplay (this can be done on the Genesis as well, i.e. Batman & Robin, but compare that game's tileset to that of the average Neo game - no comparison), more graphics in RAM (important), digitized sound clips, scaling effects...the Neo is a clear winner here. The SNES, of course, is fairly capable due to its video chip, and probably was pretty economical for the performance it delivered (especially when the 68000 was more expensive; might as well get a custom chip that did specific tasks more capably).

No, I doubt the Neo Geo needed to use "lower latency ROM" chips. You're right in assuming that the major source of lag from the cartridge is in a fetch, but a lot of the reason that takes time lies on the bus needed to move data from one part to another. I can have a 64-bit CPU and absolutely cripple it (like in the Macintosh Performa 6290cd, burn in hell, oh Road Apple) by making it interface with other parts of the system with a bus that's smaller than 64 bits in size. The major idea here is that a bigger bus generally = more data moved at once, resulting in the CPU needing to ask for (fetch) data and instructions less often, leading to more time for the CPU to do other things. The Neo could do something approximating FMV at a pretty high level of colors, seen in the intro to one of the late Real Bout FF games (the Genesis again also can do some FMV, which I've seen in a PD ROM, but at a lower color count and resolution), which tells us something about how capable the system was.

Back to the Saturn - it probably has a optical drive no faster than 4X. A while back I saw a website claiming that even today the Neo Geo system can pull data in faster than a current console. Even at the time of the Xbox (about the time that was written), this was nonsense, but for many years optical drives couldn't compete with a cartridge. Cartridges were simply more expensive than optical drives, and so the tradeoff was a calculated one. The tradeoff between the N64 and the PlayStation was roughly this: You can grab data from the N64 more quickly, although not instantly, so textures should theoretically be bigger than those on the PlayStation, which has to seek on the disc (a lengthy, and audible, process). Of course, yet more N64system architecture issues (the tiny amount of texture RAM) meant that this usually wasn't the case. All that said, from the issue of pure ROM speed, and not size, the N64 should've been more than equally matched with the Neo Geo, and the Saturn had to use a RAM or ROM cartridge to attempt to keep pace. If the Saturn's architecture hadn't been so strange, the cartridge port would've been a clear advantage over the PlayStation, but that ended up being a marginalized feature (economies of scale playing a role, again).

Alright, that's enough for now...if there's anything I missed, or got wrong, leave me a note and I'll take a look at it :)

[Ed Oscuro]

I think SNK released a cart which had graphic data on it with a King of Fighters game (was it 95?) to speed up load times; also, both Capcom and SNK released their own expansion RAM carts to help with loading times and extra frames of animation.
No, but close. An Ultraman game got a ROM cartridge, and I think some other games did, but I can't name

The RAM cartridge is something different; it doesn't hold an unchanging set of frequently-accessed data, but is instead a cache for holding more frequently-accessed data - in essence, it's putting more RAM in your Saturn, same as the expansion pack for the N64.

Games that needed RAM cartridges include King of Fighters '95 (might have sold only with the RAM cart, not as a lone jewel case) through '97, Samurai Shodown III (sold as both jewel and with a RAM cart; I had that one a while back but sold it since I have the AES cartridge), and Dungeons & Dragons (pretty sure this one also sold with and without the required 4MB RAM cartridge). Metal Slug required a 1MB RAM cart (again, sold with and without). There were more; Wiki lists a 1MB cartridge for KoF '96 and a 4MB for X-Men vs. Street Fighter.

If you're just looking for a list of which game needs what, you can look here:
http://www.satakore.com/cartridge.php

As you can see, this led to arcade (and especially SNK) devotees suddenly acquiring masses of RAM cartridges they didn't need if they couldn't find the standalone versions of games. Also, somebody buying Metal Slug early on and then Samurai Shodown III would find that Metal Slug's 1MB cartridge wasn't big enough for Samurai Shodown III, so they'd better have bought the SSIII with included RAM cartridge or they'd have to buy one separately. Thankfully, the madness ended at 4M.

[gdement]

I'm aware, but your statement that Neo Geo ROMs were bigger than N64 ROMs warranted further looking into; either you didn't know the difference between Mb/MB or you didn't do your homework into when different cartridge sizes appeared (because you would've had better information to back up your argument). This has been an interesting thing to look into from my perspective, so thanks for bringing up the idea. Anyhow, I found more information:

It appears the first 512 Mb/megabit (64 MB) cartridge for the '64 is Resident Evil 2 from 1999. I'm not aware of RE2 being priced significantly higher than other games on the market; the later release of this size cartridge was well into the 64's lifetime, when it was clear the PlayStation was the winner.

That was one of the about 3 games I saw mentioned which came in that size. It apparently wasn't common for N64 games to be that big. So while they did exist, apparently it wasn't especially economical or it would have been more common. Pricing is largely dictated by what consumers will pay, and if they weren't willing to pay more then that would explain why there weren't more 64MB games. 32MB looks like it was fairly common though, and that's still in NG territory.
..
I'm aware of what a bit and a byte are. But you're right, I didn't do a detailed study of the N64 before suggesting that it probably had smaller ROM sizes. I see forum discussions as a casual conversation, not a graduate thesis. :)


The Neo Geo cartridge does not use significantly more advanced technology (doesn't need to, anyway) than an N64 cartridge; the larger Neo cartridge can always hold more chips.
Not more sophisticated, but advantageous for it's simplicity. The Neo Geo doesn't need to copy much into console RAM, it can just use the data live from the cartridge. But the N64 has to copy graphics (not sure about code) into the console's limited Rambus memory before it can be used. This is because of the much faster access times it requires, which wouldn't be economical to support from the cartridge directly.



1.) You mention "addressable size" and pull up one of the specific ~40 MB figures I mentioned. That's not addressable size; that's the actual size of the game.
I was responding to this:

According to Wikipedia (lol), the maximum ROM size of a Neo Geo cart is "330 meg," and that's increased to 716 with later bank-switching "Giga" Power carts
which I read to imply that 330megabit was the spec limit before bankswitching. This makes little sense in light of the 68000's addressing limits, so I called bullshit on it. If "330 mega" takes bankswitching into account, then it's just a made up number - bankswitching could take you to 5 gigabytes if you wanted. It just wouldn't be very practical.

I don't know if it's accurate, but I found this on google:


68k Addresses
$000000 $0fffff Rom bank 1
$100000 $10ffff Ram bank 1
$200000 $2fffff Rom bank 2
$2ffff0 $2fffff Neo Bankswitch Write
$400000 $401fff Neogeo Palette Ram Read
$800000 $800fff NeoGeo Memcard Read
..

This suggests that the banks are only 1MB each, but you can select 3 of them independently. So you get 3MB of cartridge address space in a pretty flexible arrangement.
Hmm... This also implies that the bankswitching is handled in the console. So maybe "330 megabits" was a limit with the internal bankswitcher, and they added cartridge bankswitching to go beyond that. 2 separate bankswitching mechanisms... that could explain what I was missing above.


2.) Back to "support chips:" The Neo Geo's hardware is significantly more capable than the Genesis: more colors, psuedo-3D effects used during gameplay (this can be done on the Genesis as well, i.e. Batman & Robin, but compare that game's tileset to that of the average Neo game - no comparison), more graphics in RAM (important), digitized sound clips, scaling effects...the Neo is a clear winner here.
I agree. My point is that the main advantage of the Neo Geo vs mainstream 16-bit consoles came from the graphics chip (and more ram as you pointed out). I believe that the Saturn should have leapfrogged the Neo Geo's graphics chip, and would be far more ahead when it comes to the CPU. Assuming that the Saturn can support large cartridge-based games (and I don't see why it couldn't), then the Saturn is probably the first system that was decisively superior to the Neo Geo.

I'm getting curious to read more about the Neo Geo in detail, I'll have to look up a programming doc sometime.

[fishsandwich]

No, but close. An Ultraman game got a ROM cartridge, and I think some other games did, but I can't name

The RAM cartridge is something different; it doesn't hold an unchanging set of frequently-accessed data, but is instead a cache for holding more frequently-accessed data - in essence, it's putting more RAM in your Saturn, same as the expansion pack for the N64.

Games that needed RAM cartridges include King of Fighters '95 (might have sold only with the RAM cart, not as a lone jewel case) through '97, Samurai Shodown III (sold as both jewel and with a RAM cart; I had that one a while back but sold it since I have the AES cartridge), and Dungeons & Dragons (pretty sure this one also sold with and without the required 4MB RAM cartridge). Metal Slug required a 1MB RAM cart (again, sold with and without). There were more; Wiki lists a 1MB cartridge for KoF '96 and a 4MB for X-Men vs. Street Fighter.

Not quite... KOF '95 was a rare exception and was one of very few Saturn games to have its own specific ROM cart (along with Ultraman, as you mentioned). As I understand it, the ROM cart that comes with King Of Fighters '95 contains a lot of data (backgrounds or fighter animations, I can't remember) which the Saturn can get from the cart whenever they are required. The cartridge that comes with King Of Fighters '95 can't be used with any other game nor will the CD game work without the cartridge. I tried my copy with a standard RAM cart and got nothing. I put in the specific KOF95 cart in my modded system and bam... there it was.

[Bojay1997]

Oh boy, "intangibles." You didn't bother to explain why they're different, but I won't take the liberty of assuming you're just pissed that somebody would dare cut the Neo hardware down to size.

When was the last time you used MAME with a good stick for Neo Geo?

For the record, I've got an unmodded AES, and I remember quite well what a real MVS looks like. Much rather would play on a large PC monitor with a good joystick. There may be errors in some games, but I haven't seen them. The flexibility of a PC and the sharpness of current monitors kicks the living poo out of MVS cabinets (especially ones pushing fifteen to twenty years old, now). The only things counting against it are arguments like "it doesn't take coins" and "the sticks are different" (huh) and (my favorite argument) "the graphics don't have the intended scanline edges anymore." I can't think of any other reasons to go with the MVS, other than a nostalgic love of the big red cabinet. I wouldn't mind having one myself, but space is always at a premium.


First of all, I'm not some Neo Geo fanboy. Although I will admit to having near complete US collections of AES carts and MVS kits, as well as a minty four slot cab with a near new monitor, I was never a huge fan of most of the games for the system. Having said that, I also have a fairly new (like 2 year old) MAME cab with a really nice monitor and a very high end PC inside. The reality is that the Motorola 68K processes code in a very different way than an Intel or AMD based emulator. The Neo Geo also had a graphics co-processor and not terribly well compressed or efficient code (hence the large size of some of the roms for MAME when compared to very similar games). All of that creates something that is very hard to emulate when compared to simpler arcade hardware of a similar era. Is MAME good enough for most people who don't remember playing the arcade game or don't care too much about playing games the way they were programmed to play? Absolutely. However, if you want to play the games with the exact same timing (i.e. recreating the same delay that occurs in many Neo Geo games when you input a move or press a button), the same slowdown in certain shooting games and without sound and graphic glitches, owning an MVS or AES is a fairly inexpensive way to go for most games nowadays. That was all I was saying.

[LiquidPolicenaut]

Speaking fo Neo-Geo games on other consoles, how do the Neo-Geo games on the Wii Virtual Console compare to all the others? I've always loved Baseball Stars and was thinking about gettting it if it was good or should I wait for the PS2 SNK Collection....