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/
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)
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.
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.
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.
Pope Benedict XVI
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
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.
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)
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:
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 .Later a lawsuit involving infringements of blast processing related patents was settled out of court in Atari's favor.
Last edited by Jorpho; 08-19-2013 at 11:14 PM.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)
Thank goodness.