Top Gear 2 question (Genesis)

[Wraith Storm]

I picked up a mint copy of Top Gear 2 for the Genesis. I had never played it on the Geny but had some of the Top Gear games for the Snes and the N64 and loved them.

The Genesis version is basically a "not as fleshed out" port of the Snes version. They stripped a few options from the game and the graphics may not be quite as good as the Snes version, but one thing is bewildering. The audio...

The music is great and the sound effects are great, but you have to choose between "Music" OR "Sound Effects" during the game. You can't have both at the same time!!!

Was there a reason for this??? It's not like the Genesis couldn't handle both Music and SFX at the same time. It seems to me it would have taken MORE work to program the audio as a "selectable option" than to just let it play like it does in every other game.

[PresidentLeever]

I didn't know that, sounds like a pretty sloppy port then.
About the music well, maybe they didn't want them to interfere with each other but then again it's not like they couldn't have just used the least used music channel for sounds, the soundtrack isn't too complex.

[Octane06]

I've played both versions of the game, and know that the SNES version is better in pretty much every way, including sound. I think the reason both SFX and BGM can't be played at the same time on the Genesis is due to the hardware. I don't know everything about sound systems for the consoles, but I do believe that the SNES has 8 channels for sound playback and the Genesis only has 6. The SNES already had a tough time pulling off the music: as far as I can tell, 7 of the system's channels were being used for it. I say this because whenever more than one sound effect was being played at the same time in game (such as the engine and skidding around the turn), an instrument channel of the music would be cut off. I found this to be VERY annoying, especially considering it one of the leading instruments that was silenced for each song. Perhaps this, along with the reduced number of channels and different sound hardware of the Genesis, led to the sound effects being seperated from the music.

By the way, this isn't the only time Gremlin did this: the same option occurs in Lotus III (II on the Genesis).

And, a little off topic: I find it interesting that this is the only game of the original Top Gear trilogy that was not exclusive to the SNES. I can see why 3000 was exclusive (it required a special chip used only in that cartridge), but I don't get why the original was never ported.

[Wraith Storm]

I've played both versions of the game, and know that the SNES version is better in pretty much every way, including sound. I think the reason both SFX and BGM can't be played at the same time on the Genesis is due to the hardware. I don't know everything about sound systems for the consoles, but I do believe that the SNES has 8 channels for sound playback and the Genesis only has 6. The SNES already had a tough time pulling off the music: as far as I can tell, 7 of the system's channels were being used for it. I say this because whenever more than one sound effect was being played at the same time in game (such as the engine and skidding around the turn), an instrument channel of the music would be cut off. I found this to be VERY annoying, especially considering it one of the leading instruments that was silenced for each song. Perhaps this, along with the reduced number of channels and different sound hardware of the Genesis, led to the sound effects being seperated from the music.

By the way, this isn't the only time Gremlin did this: the same option occurs in Lotus III (II on the Genesis).

And, a little off topic: I find it interesting that this is the only game of the original Top Gear trilogy that was not exclusive to the SNES. I can see why 3000 was exclusive (it required a special chip used only in that cartridge), but I don't get why the original was never ported.

Wow. Sounds like you know your Top Gear games!

I bet your right though. If the Snes had more sound channels than the Genesis (and Top Gear 2 used them all) then they just seperated the music and sound effects when it was ported to the Genesis.

Thats interesting that they did the same thing on Lotus. I wonder why they didn't just recompose the music or sound effects to use less channels? Maybe just a rushed port... Thanks for the insight, I had been wondering about this.

[ccovell]

Check out almost every old European computer game and you'll see an option for Music OR sound FX. It's just a result of laziness and incompetence (in this area only, mind you) going back years. I bet Top Gear 2 was ported from the Amiga version, which also probably suffered from this limitation.

Remember that the Genesis has 10 sound channels in total (6 FM, 3 PSG, 1 noise) so the audio channels are barely a consideration. I've got a suspicion that Top Gear 2 on the Genesis rarely uses more than 4 sound channels, just because...

[Rob2600]

the Genesis has 10 sound channels in total (6 FM, 3 PSG, 1 noise) so the audio channels are barely a consideration.

Could the Genesis use all ten audio channels simultaneously?

[ccovell]

Could the Genesis use all ten audio channels simultaneously?

Of course!

Many games used the FM and PSG chips at the same time; just try playing a .VGM file in the VGM player in WinAmp, and enable/disable the sound chips to hear.

[Rob2600]

Of course!

Many games used the FM and PSG chips at the same time; just try playing a .VGM file in the VGM player in WinAmp, and enable/disable the sound chips to hear.

Cool. From what I understood, the Genesis had six sound channels...and the four other channels were for Master System games being played using the Power Base Converter.

I was under the impression that most Genesis games just used the six standard sound channels. How many channels do games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Space Harrier II, and Street Fighter II use?

[ccovell]

All 10 channels are standard in the Genesis, because every MD/Genesis system has them built-in. Along with a Z-80 and legacy SMS mode. For most games, the Z-80 CPU is used exclusively to store and run music code, play samples, etc.

All 3 games you listed above use both FM and PSG chips for their music. It's not my job to count how many channels are used; if you're interested, do some experimenting in an emulator or WinAmp, as described above.

A lot of crappy-ass US-developed Genesis games only use the FM chip, and have the 68000 control it, rather than shunt that task off to the Z-80. Why? Well once again, ineptitude, laziness, etc... (ie: they're 68000 wizards, but don't know Z-80 or PSG from zucchini or parsley.)

[robotriot]

Yea I bet that has to do with Top Gear 2 and Lotus probably being ports from the Amiga, where this was a very common limitation due to only four sound channels being available there. Which doesn't mean some clever programming/sound engineering could overcome that.

[Octane06]

I knew I would not be accurate in my sound hardware description and forget about something like the PSG. Anyway...

just try playing a .VGM file in the VGM player in WinAmp, and enable/disable the sound chips to hear.

I went ahead and actually did this with the VGM files for Top Gear 2 and found out that the only the FM and noise channels were being used. The PSG was indeed ignored. I guess the porting team was either lazy or did not fully understand the hardware, the possibilities mentioned earlier. I could not confirm that the music was ported from the Amiga version, though, especially considering I was not able to find the MOD files for that port. In fact, I could not find much on the port at all...I guess it really wasn't known.