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Thread: Trixter: Blast Processing wasn't just fluff after all

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    Red (Level 21) Jorpho's Avatar
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    Default Trixter: Blast Processing wasn't just fluff after all

    I can't vouch for the accuracy, but apparently Sega's marketing hype might not have been so out of touch after all.
    http://trixter.wordpress.com/2008/12...rocessing-101/
    "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)

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    I think what Sega meant with "blast processing" was that the 7.67 MHz 16/32-bit processor is more powerful than the 3.5 16/8-bit processor of the SNES. Which it actually is, even if there is a fast power-up in Super Metroid and an intense STG stage in R2.

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    Hah, blast processing. I frequently make cracks about it to this day. It was wholly a marketing gimmick through and through. Just as ISPs are talking about "Powerboost". I'd imagine legally there's gotta be something behind it, and in the case of the Genesis, I think they were mainly just referring to the fact that it has a faster processor than the competition.

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    I have to tell you as a loyal Nintendo fan there are just some games that I have to play on the Genesis instead of the SNES. A good example the classic treasure Populous. Sure, the SNES has more colors but it just can't keep up with the speed of the Genesis. The SNES version is next to unplayable! I feel the exact same way about the EA sports lineup. Now, this is not necessarily due to "blast processing" but is due to a much better processor for speed sensitive games.
    Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic.

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    Default It's likely a Blitter. See below:

    Blast processing appears to be an implementation of the Blitter (the hardware accelerator in the Amiga and Atari STE machines that was prototyped in the Atari 8-bit computers).

    Take a look at how the term is referenced in this Emulator programmer's forum:

    Note the use of the word "Blitting":

    http://www.aep-emu.de/PNphpBB2-file-...c-t-19870.html


    If you see terms like BitBlt, Blitter, Bimmer, or Bit Block Transfer, you're likely dealing with a blitter GPU.
    Last edited by Neb6; 08-19-2013 at 10:35 PM. Reason: Corrected link

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    Dont the NEO-GEO and Genesis share the same cpu?

    I mean look what the NEO-GEO is capable of with a 12mhz version of the same cpu. I guess its Super blast processing then lol.

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    Quote Originally Posted by BricatSegaFan View Post
    Dont the NEO-GEO and Genesis share the same cpu?

    I mean look what the NEO-GEO is capable of with a 12mhz version of the same cpu. I guess its Super blast processing then lol.
    You are correct!

    A lot of people focus too much on the general-purpose CPU. But the real magic happens in the custom hardware and Graphics Processing Units.

    For example, the Amiga 1000 (1985) and the Mac Classic (1984) both use a 68000. However, games look and play very differently on those two machines.

    In the case of the Amiga, they added on a GPU that runs at three-and-a-half times the speed of the CPU and is able to interleave cycles with the 68000 so that the two never meet. That way, they can both work with the same memory and not argue over RAM.

    In the case of the Neo Geo versus Genesis, you can see that the resolutions, colors, over-all palette, digital sample handling, number of sprites, and sprite sizes are much more impressive in the Neo Geo. That's not the 68000 doing that, it's the GPU and other specific-purpose processors taking care of those functions.

    http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showth...ole-comparison

    http://dextremes.com/genesis/gen-spec.html

    So the real secret is to find out just what's going on in those chips. I'm thinking that a programmer who's done work on emulating the Neo Geo ought to be able to shed some light on this.

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    Commonly cited now (see ref. 57 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Ge...-retrogamer-61) is that one day one Scot Bayless happened to say 'blast data into the DACs', at the marketers went nuts.
    "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jorpho View Post
    Commonly cited now (see ref. 57 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Ge...-retrogamer-61) is that one day one Scot Bayless happened to say 'blast data into the DACs', at the marketers went nuts.
    Isn't a DAC just a Digital to Analog Converter? I have to wonder about this story since the only DACs that I'm aware of in the Genesis are for audio.
    Last edited by Neb6; 08-19-2013 at 11:08 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Neb6 View Post
    I'm thinking Blast is just another variation on Blit or Blitter (Bit Block Transfer device) for the purposes of providing hardware-accelerated graphics.
    Yes, you said that already.

    It's hard to tell if the poster in that thread (whose link you edited out?) is being serious. But if you are for some reason interested in getting to the bottom of the matter:
    Later a lawsuit involving infringements of blast processing related patents was settled out of court in Atari's favor.
    The patents in question are surely a matter of public record. Depending on what level the lawsuit reached, it might be a matter of public record too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitter cites US4874614 .
    Last edited by Jorpho; 08-19-2013 at 11:14 PM.
    "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)

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    There are plenty of SNES games which use very fast scrolling. The opening stage of R-type III.

    There are a couple of stages in Brutal Mario (smw hack) that scroll VERY FAST. As fast as anything I saw on the Genesis.

    Honestly, I think both systems (and the NES and many more) are perfectly capable of scrolling the screen far faster than a player would ever be able to play a game.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jack_Burton_BYOAC View Post
    There are plenty of SNES games which use very fast scrolling. The opening stage of R-type III.

    There are a couple of stages in Brutal Mario (smw hack) that scroll VERY FAST. As fast as anything I saw on the Genesis.

    Honestly, I think both systems (and the NES and many more) are perfectly capable of scrolling the screen far faster than a player would ever be able to play a game.
    I agree to some extent. Take the Shoot Em Up genre on both the SNES and Genesis. Things scroll along nicely on Gradius III or Super R-Type, until things start blowing up on the screen and the game comes to a screeching halt. I notice less of that slow down on the Genesis shooters.

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    "Why did Sega not call it DMA?"

    The same reason I hear there's some nerds that would go nuts if you told them the GBA has Mode 7 graphics!

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    I had always read that "blast processing" was just turning off interrupts on the CPU during vertical blanking interval, allowing the CPU to process more data. It makes more sense that there was a blitter doing DMA. Odd he considers the original 68000 to be a 32 bit CPU, though, it's more of a 16/32 bit hybrid.

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    funny how a marketing phrase just confuses the hell out of people. It was brilliant. Without this marketing nobody would've recognized the strengths of the Sega Genesis. You have to toot your own horn, no time to be humble when selling stuff.

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    http://trixter.oldskool.org/2008/12/.../#comment-7884

    SNES does DMA too. Genesis might do that better than the SNES. But the SNES' "slower" CPU hits far above its "weight" (clock speed).

    Also:
    http://trixter.oldskool.org/2008/12/.../#comment-8159

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jack_Burton_BYOAC View Post
    There are plenty of SNES games which use very fast scrolling. The opening stage of R-type III.
    But none of those games have Sonic the hedgehog (officially)

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    Thank goodness.

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    Quote Originally Posted by blue lander View Post
    I had always read that "blast processing" was just turning off interrupts on the CPU during vertical blanking interval, allowing the CPU to process more data. It makes more sense that there was a blitter doing DMA. Odd he considers the original 68000 to be a 32 bit CPU, though, it's more of a 16/32 bit hybrid.
    If Blast Processing actually is referring to Blit operations then I can understand why there isn't a lot of documentation on the blitter from SEGA. Commodore went as far as to define Blitter for legal purposes. I think the only reason Atari got away with adding a Blitter to the STE and later machines was because Atari helped pay for the Amiga's development. Likely some kind of legal loophole there somewhere.

    I was surprised in the very early 1990s when an engineer from ATI actually admited to me that the hardware acceleration in the ATI Mach series of cards was based on the Amiga Blitter (albeit a bit half-baked). So, I would imagine a host of companies were all finding ways to transfer blocks of graphics as efficiently as possible with a hardware device that had it's own dedicated Direct Memory Access to some kind of video RAM. Then 3D came along and turned (almost) everyone's attention away from 2D gaming.

    After doing some more searching, I found references to the process of blitting from the 1970s. Sounds like Jay Miner's time at Atari and Amiga Corporation led to that technology being refined and brought to a home computing format.

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    Blitters can be specialized hardware, but I am quite sure the name has been used (wrongly) in reference to software or hardware functionality generic to microprocessors.

    The idea of a blitter seems to me nearly as basic as converting binary to decimal - but the USPTO awarded a patent for the blitter but not for decimal-to-binary translation. In the patent, as I suspected, the blitter is basically acknowledged as taking off from the idea of DMA, appearing essentially as a DMA variant.

    More to the point, a system does NOT need a blitter - which quickly transfers data in blocks to the screen - in order to function. It's an extra expense, either a modification to the off-the-shelf microprocessors used in these consoles but which are designed to be used with a family of support chips, or a new component.

    The Genesis probably doesn't have a blitter at all. Reportedly the SNES doesn't and some cartridges have implemented a basic blitter as an assist chip.
    Last edited by Ed Oscuro; 08-23-2013 at 07:45 PM.

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