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Thread: Is there really a convincing argument for the 7800 over NES?

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    Alex (Level 15) boatofcar's Avatar
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    Default Is there really a convincing argument for the 7800 over NES?

    I was reading the latest issue (vol 2, iss 2) of Retro Gamer magazine, and they had a big expose on the 7800, including an interview with one of the guys who designed the machine. He said that graphically, the 7800 was better than the NES, yet not as good as the SMS. Maybe I just haven't been looking at the right games, but I have never seen the 7800 display the kind of sprites that the NES is capable of.

    Case in point- score display. The score display on 7800 arcade conversions is laughable. While miles ahead of the VCS, the numbers are big and blocky, not at all like the polished rounded numbers found on NES arcade conversions.

    Anybody want to prove me wrong on this one?

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    God, I doubt it.

    And that is from a guy who picked the 7800 over the NES way back in the day.

    My bad. I thought the Impossible Mission screen shot on the box was Rolling Thunder, lol.

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    Default Re: Is there really a convincing argument for the 7800 over

    Quote Originally Posted by boatofcar
    Is there really a convincing argument for the 7800 over NES?
    From a marketing standpoint: Yes. Name recognition.

    Atari had been making consoles and arcade games since the mid-70's. What did Nintendo have? Donkey Kong? They even had other companies (most notably, Coleco) port that game to the various systems at the time.

    I think Atari was basically trying to make an effort to rely on their name and their slew of arcade titles. All of those games people had played before, and knew how to play and they liked them. Nintendo was something new, something different.

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    Default When just judging hardware it is really hard

    I still say that that Nes was graphically superior, but it is hard to compare the two, as the 7800 had such a limited library and very few companies other than Atari make games for it. The Nes was on the market far past its prime and had astonishing progammers making games for it(Battletoads comes to mind) in which developers had years and years of time to know the ins and outs of the system.
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    I've always been under the impression that the arguement here is that the 7800 is theoretically more powerful than the NES, but was never really pushed to it's limits like the NES was.

    In any case, where else can you play a good round of Ninja Golf other than on the 7800?!?

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    The 7800 might have had an advantage over the NES early on, but the more advanced NES games had mapper chips inside the cartridges which made it far more powerful. The 7800 on the other hand had a small library and many of its games seemed to be rushed out the door.

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    I've always assumed that the NES had "tricks" whether it were mapper chips or other methods of improving its output. Case in point, many of the NES games looked better than C64 games, and if you look at the resolution, the C64's was higher.

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    One look at Galaga for both systems tells me a lot.

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    From what I've heard, though, the 7800 really could be pushed a lot farther than it was. Yes, the later NES games all had extra chips and mapper tricks, but from what I can tell, nearly EVERY 7800 cart had extra processors. The machine was designed so that the whole system could be customized for the game you were playing.

    For example: I guess the sound chip in the 7800 is basically identical to the 2600's (or maybe worse), and it only has 2 channels. If developers wanted more than 2 sound channels, they had to put an extra sound processor in the cartridge. Any 7800 game that said "Super Game Cartridge" on the label had something extra, whether it was a sound or an extra graphics chip. Ballblazer, Dark Chambers, and Karateka all have that label, although the only game that could take on the NES out of those three would be Ballblazer--and it is AWESOME. If only other designers were as ambitious as Lucasarts was.

    BTW--if you've played Tower Toppler, you'd know that thing was capable of some pretty impressive graphics. It's not as colorful as your average NES game, but as you move around the tower (which is supposed to be round) the whole playfield kind of "warps" or rotates in faux-parallax animation. Every object on the screen seems to have a front, a back, and a couple side angles making for a very realistic appearance, almost like watching a cartoon. Though the NES has some great-looking titles, I never saw anything like this on it. (Although, to be fair, I think Tower Toppler was ported to the NES as Castelian or something--they could have used the same effect there, but I haven't played it.) Anyway, this is just an example of what that 7800 could have been if anybody gave a shit.

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    Well as many of you I have both systems, I find both appealing, but it is the controller what makes the difference. If the 7800 should have more buttons here and there, then you could have had better gameplay, because the 7800 controllers are superb for the time but does lack of the "Start" and "Select" buttons needed in many NES games- Or does someone REALLY like the boxes the NES had for controllers?

    It is a shame we will never know how far the 7800 could had gone. :/
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    I believe the 7800 could handle larger numbers of moving sprites than the NES ever could, but few 7800 games ever took advantage.

    Therefore any strengths the 7800 may have had, were never really used.

    I love underdogs, and the 7800 is definitely one of those.

    If you include the 2600 library, the 7800 is worth owning and AV modding http://www.oldschoolgamer.ca/information.aspx?SID=18, as it's a two for the price of one end result.
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    Im sorry but the NES blows the 7800 away. yes i have both systems but the graphics on the 7800 don't come close the NES. I might be sounding like a Fanboy for Nintendo. I am not believe me, but Remember it was the NES who saved video games and the 7800 was one of the systems that led to it's decline.
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    Quote Originally Posted by stevec1636
    Im sorry but the NES blows the 7800 away. yes i have both systems but the graphics on the 7800 don't come close the NES. I might be sounding like a Fanboy for Nintendo. I am not believe me, but Remember it was the NES who saved video games and the 7800 was one of the systems that led to it's decline.
    I gotta agree. The NES absolutly dominates the 7800 as far as graphics go. I have heard that the 7800 is more powerful. If that is true, then the programmers did a REALLY bad job using the systems power.
    Just compare games that were on both the NES and the 7800. Double Dragon looks pitiful on the 7800, and looks pretty good on the NES. As someone already mentioned, Galaga looks pretty bad on the 7800 and the opposite on the NES.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kid Ice
    One look at Galaga for both systems tells me a lot.
    It tells me that the NES version is more faithful to the arcade original.

    Anyway, the only instance I've ever seen of superior software on the 7800 is Commando. It puts the NES version to shame. I hear that Xenophobe is also superior on the 7800 but I haven't found that game yet to verify it. Every other instance where pro-Atari people or anti-Nintendo people make arguments for the 7800 vs the NES, it is always blatantly false. 7800's Double Dragon is inferior in every way. Tengen's Ms. Pac-Man is superior to the 7800 version (and yes I know the 7800 version was developed by Ms. Pac-Man's original creators).

    The 7800 was better at pushing sprites on single screen playfields with no backgrounds, something that was passe by the time NES was in full swing.

    Atari 7800 is a case of woulda, coulda, shoulda. Great NES games were a reality.
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    The 7800 writes the screen completely differently than the NES or the SMS. It's much more effective at manipulating many sprites without slowdown.

    Furthermore, the NES had one major advantage over the 7800-support. Nintendo simply put money into R&D for the system, and as a result, you had dozens upon dozens of different mappers that can be used to give the system more power. Nintendo also would do additional things, such as larger cart sizes, or battery backed save files. Early NES games were 128k sized-last gen 7800 games were that big. Atari's owners at that time simply didn't want to put any money into the system that they didn't have to, forcing programmers to make inferior looking versions of games in smaller space, with less RAM, or crummy sound. The 7800 was practically built to have additional RAM or POKEY chips in damn near every game, and schematics have been found, as I understand it, for cart sizes up to one meg. But again, never pushed it.

    The 7800 is capable of NES style graphics, though. Take one look at later releases, like Scrapyard Dog, Commando, Alien Brigade, Tower Toppler, or Ikari Warriors. Even earlier games like Xevious, Donkey Kong, and Donkey Kong Junior can all compare visually with the NES counterparts.

    Make no mistake, the NES was utilized MUCH better than the 7800. But to say that the 7800 was outclassed entirely coems down to judgement on various multisystem ports, of which the NES makers simply had more to work with financially.

    Edit: Tengen Ms. Pac-Man sucked ass compared to 7800. 7800 had the speed of the original. Tengen had that stupid Pac-Booster, if I remember correctly.
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    Quote Originally Posted by stevec1636
    Remember it was the NES who saved video games and the 7800 was one of the systems that led to it's decline.
    I agree, Nintendo did save the North American video game industry with the release of their NES in 1985, which was a great system and stepped video gaming into a new and in many ways a better realm, but the system isn't without its own problems, like any. I don't agree that Atari 7800 helped thwart the video game crash of the early 1980's as it was released in 1986 in an a failed attempt to combat Nintendo’s NES after the crash was pretty much over.

    Nintendo probably had the better marketing team at the time as Atari was no longer solely run by the founders that made it glorious which made a big difference and Nintendo also had the way more talented development team on hand as well to pump out those great games we all loved then and now. Nintendo also had the booming Japanese video game industry on their back to get new games made and released for the audiences abroad to enjoy, something the weakened North American development market was lacking.

    It is true that Atari 7800 is more graphically powerful than NES; the system also is weaker in other areas and is exactly the same in others as well. The two systems use different versions of the same CPU running at the exact same clock-rate (a custom Motorola 6502 8-bit CPU running at 1.79MHz or a little less depending on what video standard you’re using), so there's no advantage either way there. Atari 7800 does have twice the RAM NES has (7800 – 4 KB, NES 2 KB) but NES also has 2 KB of video RAM in addition to its main memory. 7800 is capable of 100 sprites on screen at once; NES is capable of 64 sprites at once. They both are capable of the same colours on screen at once but 7800 has a palette of 256 colours and NES has a palette of only 52 colours. Check out this great site for more info on all console specs from every generation:http://www.pcvsconsole.com/features/consoles/gen3.php

    Nintendo’s NES has one of the best sounding sound processors in video game history, most NES games sound more appealing and in a lot of cases even better than that of what Genesis/MegaDrive was able to offer and it’s a 16-bit system and for some reason has one of the worst sounding sound processors in video game history. Atari 7800 has the same sound processor as Atari 2600 did as mentioned earlier. Now from a marketing and development standpoint this seems like a stupid decision but as mentioned earlier as well the system is capable of having separate CPUs for both sound and processing built into the cartridge, which was a cool and expensive way of making games better. NES did similar tricks for mappers and size limitations, etc. SNES did this even more than NES did much the way 7800 was designed to do.

    The controllers are another determining factor in the success of a console, both now and then. Atari 7800 used a tried and true method, albeit a little outdated but it worked just fine, it could have however used a couple more buttons. Nintendo revolutionized controllers with their amazing 2 action, 2 function and 1 directional pad design which made gaming a lot more intuitive and logical from a control standpoint. Many people say now they don’t like that controller design, but without it we wouldn’t have what we have today. We might even be stuck with the more limited spinner paddle design, although the joystick has returned in analog form thanks to Nintendo again which makes true 3D movement possible.

    Overall Nintendo’s Entertainment System looks graphically better than Atari’s 7800 does for the most part but NES also did way way better than 7800 did which never really got off the ground.
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    The controllers are another determining factor in the success of a console, both now and then. Atari 7800 used a tried and true method, albeit a little outdated but it worked just fine, it could have however used a couple more buttons. Nintendo revolutionized controllers with their amazing 2 action, 2 function and 1 directional pad design which made gaming a lot more intuitive and logical from a control standpoint. Many people say now they don’t like that controller design, but without it we wouldn’t have what we have today. We might even be stuck with the more limited spinner paddle design, although the joystick has returned in analog form thanks to Nintendo again which makes true 3D movement possible.
    I don't think it had any extra buttons, but I think the PAL version came with a pad instead of a joystick, with the two buttons on the same surface as the D-pad. It looked kind of like the SMS controllers.

    In any case, yes the NES was capable of more, but don't sell the 7800 short. Looking at still pictures don't do it justice; it's impressive when it's moving. If you're into the early, 2600-style gameplay, the 7800 is as good as it gets for that type of thing. But if you're going to compare it with the NES version of Double Dragon, the 7800 isn't going to compare because it wasn't designed to handle games like that. Before the advent of the really involved NES games (ie-before the disk system had it's hits like Zelda and Castlevania 2), the difference in comparison between the 7800 and the NES might have been similar to the comparison between a PS2 and an Xbox. The NES did quickly come and kick it's ass, though.

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    I dunno....the 7800 LOOKS cooler than the NES does.

    I'd say that's about it, lol.

    I guess at the time, the backwards-compatibility was worth something, you could play hundreds of 2600 games, while the NES's library was probably (at the time) far smaller.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Morbis
    Quote Originally Posted by Kid Ice
    One look at Galaga for both systems tells me a lot.
    It tells me that the NES version is more faithful to the arcade original.

    Anyway, the only instance I've ever seen of superior software on the 7800 is Commando. It puts the NES version to shame. I hear that Xenophobe is also superior on the 7800 but I haven't found that game yet to verify it. Every other instance where pro-Atari people or anti-Nintendo people make arguments for the 7800 vs the NES, it is always blatantly false. 7800's Double Dragon is inferior in every way. Tengen's Ms. Pac-Man is superior to the 7800 version (and yes I know the 7800 version was developed by Ms. Pac-Man's original creators).

    Here's a quick aside. Two MIT students had found success with building boards that increased the difficulty of existing arcade games, the most successful being those for Missile Command and Pac-Man. The board for speeding up Pac Man was eventually bought by Atari and worked into subsequent releases of Pac Man and became the groundwork for the speed of Ms. Pac Man. Becasue of the success of these boards, Atari tried to sue the two MIT students, but eventually failed and just hired them instead to produce their new game console, which became the Atari 7800.

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    double post.

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