Super Nintendo Games with Super Speed?

[Gentlegamer]

I've heard over and over how the Genesis with its "Blast Processing" was able to create "faster" games than the Super Nintendo. Going purely by the hardware specs, this appears to be true. Yet, I recall playing a few SNES games that made use of speed in the "blast processing" sense of scrolling the screen and moving sprites.

Super Metroid: Using the Speed Booster, Samus can run very quickly, scrolling screen very fast, as fast if not faster than Sonic the Hedgehog

Smash TV: This game had dozens of sprites on each screen, each moving quickly. When the game is finished, it starts over . . . and everything is twice as fast, with no slowdown!

Can you give examples of the Super Nintendo moving things at super speed?

[badinsults]

I think you totally misunderstand the differences. By 1994, due to improved programming, the difference in processor speed did not hinder the performance of many games, unlike say in 1991, when games like Gradius III had tons of slowdown. For instance, games like Uniracers easily showed that a game like Sonic 2 could easily be be done on the snes. A good proxy on the improvements of programming come from the EA Sports series. NBA Showdown is full of rampant slowdown that basically makes the game unplayable. However, if you play NBA Live 96, the animation is smooth and actually holds up to this day. If you look at a game like Rendering Ranger, the speed and graphics far outpace anything that the Genesis could achieve.

[InsaneDavid]

"Blast Processing" was nothing more than a marketing gimmick. One that MANY people bought right in to - and some Sega fanboys continue to buy in to as well.

[Gentlegamer]

By 1994, due to improved programming, the difference in processor speed did not hinder the performance of many games, unlike say in 1991, when games like Gradius III had tons of slowdown.

So the difference was primarily one of familiarity programming for the console and not any inherent limitation in CPU processing speed?

For instance, games like Uniracers easily showed that a game like Sonic 2 could easily be be done on the snes. A good proxy on the improvements of programming come from the EA Sports series. NBA Showdown is full of rampant slowdown that basically makes the game unplayable. However, if you play NBA Live 96, the animation is smooth and actually holds up to this day. If you look at a game like Rendering Ranger, the speed and graphics far outpace anything that the Genesis could achieve.

Very interesting!

And just to be clear, I fully understand that "Blast Processing" was purely a marketing term; however, going by pure hardware specs, the Genesis did have a CPU that was about twice as fast as that of the SNES.

Despite that, I recalled playing many games on the SNES that made use of speed that belied what the Sega marketing asserted and what many later-day video game critics continually crow about the relative speed of the Genesis and Super Nintendo.

I wanted to see if others had experienced the same thing, that the SNES could very well do "speed" as well as the Genesis (just as the Genesis could do scaling and rotation through skilled programming).

[Wraith Storm]

I remember a game for the SNES called Claymates. It had some character like a mouse and when you got a certain power up he could move incredibly fast. I was a Genny guy and my friend that had the game was a SNES guy and when he showed it to me I remember it putting Sonic's speed to shame. I didnt want to admitt a SNES game was moving that fast.

[Icarus Moonsight]

The 68k and Z80 in the Genesis were familiar to programmers and heavily used in other consoles (Neo Geo, SMS ect) and arcade games throughout the 80's and early 90's. The snes chips were custom made IIRC. Try Thunder Force 3 on Genny and then Thunder Spirits on SNES... Thunder Spirits is basicly unplayable by comparison. Just took some time to figure the SNES arcitecture out.

Some SNES games that I've noticed that run at a good clip. (Either fast or little/no slowdown)
Uniracers (fastness)
Space Megaforce (no slo)

??? Aero Fighters ??? it has no slowdown emulated. Haven't tried it on real hardware yet to verify.

[smokehouse]

"Blast Processing" was nothing more than a marketing gimmick. One that MANY people bought right in to - and some Sega fanboys continue to buy in to as well.

Quoted for truth...

I was just a gimmick pointing out a single hardware aspect. In the end it accounted for jack shit. once people figured out what the SNES could do...it was an amazing console.

Check out this old "blast processing" commercial here:

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/2478/

I find it amusing that the one SNES game they actually show is one the Genesis isn't capable of doing without the extra processing the Sega CD brought to the table...

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

Well, the idea that the fast processor in the Genesis will actually allow individual sprites in games to "move faster" is silly of course. Both systems are running at 60fps and can move sprites by any number of pixels per frame. The Atari 2600 can move a sprite across the screen just as fast as either the SNES or Genesis.

That's just not what the faster processor allows. It allows you to do more in each frame than a slower processor, so while individual sprites can still move at the same speeds on both system, when you have a lot of sprites on the screen simultaneously and moving independently, it's much harder for the SNES to do it without slowing down (i.e. doing less per frame, which is not the same as a drop in framerate, which was never a problem in older systems). Of course it's possible to find a game here or there on the SNES that pushes around a ton of sprites or does other cycle intensive operations in every frame, but other parts of the game had to be sacrificed to accomplish that and low level programming tricks were probably used. Same with games on the Genesis that showed more than 64 colors on screen simultaneously.

This is why no one bothers to point out the games on the Genesis that do things like this, because any game on the Genesis can without any special programming skills. Again, just like no one points out the games on the SNES that use lots of on-screen colors.


...word is bondage...

[Zebbe]

I find it amusing that the one SNES game they actually show is one the Genesis isn't capable of doing without the extra processing the Sega CD brought to the table...

Another amusing thing is that the SNES rarely used scaling/rotation without the extra help of special chips - for example in this case of Super Mario Kart - because the processor was too slow to handle it on its own. Sega had the CD add-on, Nintendo the enhancement chips. Go figure.

Some SNES games are faster than Genesis games, some Genesis games are prettier than SNES games. It's not miracle, just natural.

[j_factor]

Sweater Fish Deluxe has it right. "Blast processing" may have been a dumb marketing gimmick, but the processor difference doesn't really have anything to do with how fast games are, per se. I mean, there are games for NES and SMS that move as fast as anything else. The faster processor just allows you to do more processing.

To illustrate that point, one could answer the topic by noting that Zool (which is a pretty fast game) is just as fast on SNES as it is on Genesis. But, it's also just as fast on Master System.

It's not about programming tricks, nor does it mean that the difference in processor speed is meaningless. It has more to do with whether the individual games actually utilize/require the speed. Platformers in general really aren't demanding on processing.

As for the processor speed accounting for "jack shit"... Go play Red Zone or something.

[MarioMania]

Does Street Fighter 2 Turbo count

[Kitsune Sniper]

Speedy Gonzales. Faster than Sonic.

[smokehouse]

As for the processor speed accounting for "jack shit"... Go play Red Zone or something.

In the end it did account for jack shit though...

Both systems had amazing titles that pushed the crap ou tof the hardware, both systems had amazing games, neither took a solid lead in the "16-bit game wars". The faster processor in the Genesis didn't help conjure up the stolen data tapes...

There was no clear cut victory on either side due to either strengths or weaknesses...then again Finl Fantasy III was amazing...

[108Stars]

Well, the Genesis COULD handle Mario Kart. There is a demo existing in the developers´scene letting you drive around a bit, showing a good looking Mario Kart on Genny with 2-player-splitscreen. If developers truly put some effort in it they could surely make it.

About superiority: I think none of the two were clearly superior. The SNES had to use various special chips in games in order to get as smooth results as the Genesis because the SNES-CPU was just weak. Also the resolution was lower. But it surpassed the Genesis in terms of colours. A very important matter, the Genesis only major flaw. I give a damn about 32 000 colours, but having 256 at once is what makes a significant difference. The other advantage of SNES was the digi-sounds it could handle.
I would say there are 2 major advantages for Genesis, two for SNES. It is a clear draw imho.

[Rob2600]

going by pure hardware specs, the Genesis did have a CPU that was about twice as fast as that of the SNES.

As Intel, AMD, Motorola, and IBM have shown us throughout the years, CPU clock speed (MHz, GHz, etc.) can be misleading and irrelevant in many cases. For example, a 500 MHz G4 CPU is more powerful than a 700 MHz Pentium III CPU. Likewise, a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU is more powerful than a 3 GHz Pentium 4 CPU.

However, ignorant consumers associate the highest clock speed with the best product, so to many, the Genesis is considered more powerful than the SNES because its CPU has more Megahertz. Sega's bogus yet clever "Blast Processing" marketing campaign only helped to spread the misinformation, but don't be fooled; the SNES was more powerful than the Genesis.

[Rob2600]

the [SNES] resolution was lower.

That's not true. According to Wikipedia.org:

SNES resolutions (NTSC):
256x224, 256x239, 512x224, 512x239, 512x448, 512x478

Genesis resolutions (NTSC):
256x224, 256x448, 320x224, 320x448

[Rob2600]

neither took a solid lead in the "16-bit game wars". ... There was no clear cut victory on either side

Really? According to Wikipedia.org and vgchartz.com:


Hardware:

SNES: 49.04 million worldwide
Sega Genesis: 29.9 million worldwide


Top 10 Software:

SNES:
Super Mario World: 20.5 million
Super Mario All-Stars: 10.6 million
Donkey Kong Country: 8.8 million
Super Mario Kart: 8.4 million
Street Fighter II: 6.3 million
Donkey Kong Country 2: 4.8 million
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: 4.6 million
Street Fighter II Turbo: 4.1 million
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island: 4.1 million
Final Fantasy VI: 3.4 million
total top ten: 75.6 million

Genesis:
Sonic the Hedgehog 2: 6 million
Sonic the Hedgehog: 4.2 million
Aladdin: 4 million
Mortal Kombat: 2.7 million
Streets of Rage: 2.6 million
Mortal Kombat II: 2.1 million
NBA Jam: 2 million
Street Fighter II: 1.7 million
Sonic and Knuckles: 1.5 million
Sonic the Hedgehog 3: 1.4 million
total top ten: 28.2 million

[Zebbe]

As Intel, AMD, Motorola, and IBM have shown us throughout the years, CPU clock speed (MHz, GHz, etc.) can be misleading and irrelevant in many cases. For example, a 500 MHz G4 CPU is more powerful than a 700 MHz Pentium III CPU. Likewise, a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU is more powerful than a 3 GHz Pentium 4 CPU.

So does this mean that a 7.67MHz M68k is less powerful than a 3.58MHz 65c816? I find it strange that Treasure and Tecnosoft put their games like Gunstar Heroes and Thunder Force IV on the Mega Drive when they could have been even BETTER on the SNES.

However, ignorant consumers associate the highest clock speed with the best product

Really? I thought the number of colours made the best product.

That's not true. According to Wikipedia.org: [...]

He is referring to the standard resolution.

[Rob2600]

So does this mean that a 7.67MHz M68k is less powerful than a 3.58MHz 65c816?

I don't know which CPU is more powerful, but MHz does not tell the whole story.

Really? I thought the number of colours made the best product.

You must not be a typical consumer.

He is referring to the standard resolution.

In that case, the standard resolution for the SNES and Genesis is the same.

[108Stars]

Wow, that seem to be pretty fanboyish posts.
1. The SNES was not more powerfull. Sorry, but that´s bullshit. I grew up without Blast Processing, that campaign never happened in Germany. Julian Eggebrecht of Factor 5 wrote an comparitive article about SNES and MD hardware. The man was involved in the Turrican-games, so he knew both systems. He clearly stated that the SNES CPU was ultra-slow trash. No matter if clockspeeds are not that important always, everybody who knows a little bit about hardware can tell you that the Genny´s CPU was clearly superior. This is a fact. That´s why I called it a draw; this fact makes up for other parts where the Genesis lacks. Thanks to the MD´s CPU a lot of 3D-effects were possible although the Genesis lacked the special-chips for 3D the SNES had.
Live with it: the SNES had one major flaw, and that was the lame CPU.

2. SNES games usually run in 256x224 pixels. Those higher modes are either untrue (Wikipedia...) or are limited to stills. The Genesis´usual resolution was 320x224 pixels; but many multiplatform-games ran in the SNES-resolution of 256x224.

3.Your sales figures. You should know that there are no exact sales figures available. They range from 28 million Gennies to 36 million.
Note: Those sales figures usually go until 1998 only.
The point is, that the Mega Drive unlike the SNES is still sold to this very day. You can still buy it in Brazil, Russia and Asia. Because Sega did not publish the system themselves in Brazil for example, the sales there are most likely not counted. These numbers you say are heavily biased towards the SNES against the Genesis.
Same with the game-charts: The SNES had more sales per hit afaik, more "blockbusters", but the Genesis had a wider range of good sales across games. Every jump´n ru fan bought Mario World on SNES. On Genesis they bought either Sonic or maybe the Disney-titles...or Kid Chameleon.

In the end it is hard to tell a winner. I think until 1998 Nintendo won by a relatively small number...much thanks to the MD´s flop in Japan. In Europe Sega won. In the US the SNESwon, but with the Genny as a close second. The Genesis 3 sold twice as much as the SNES rerelease.
However, as long as you cannot get reliable sources for ales figures until today, your judgement is foolish.