Quote Originally Posted by Wavelflack
There is no Choplifter on NES. I presume that you meant SMS, but I wonder.
In any case, I am not talking about scrolling the entire screen, but line scrolling. There is nothing of the sort in SMB, and indeed (to my awareness) not at ALL on NES. Perhaps line scrolling is an archaic term, so I'll explain: Individual scanlines scrolling at independent rates. Street Fighter 2 reviewers called this "warping". Look at the floors of SF2, or the water in Sonic 1 or 2. Now you know what I mean. Got get a copy of Choplifter and an SMS, and play it. Then tell me if it could be attempted on NES, and if so, why have I seen nothing of this technique on NES?
Not only does it have the line scrolling, but also has independent (ie; separately scrolling) background layers. The game is not slow, either, nor does it slowdown.

Incidentally, I can see careful timing and VDP tricks creating a pseudo line scrolling effect, but not when foreground objects are present; they would warp as well, and that's no good. Again, look at Choplifter. Rocks, tanks, buildings, etc.

This is an early 1st gen SMS game. I have only seen pictures of the last gen SMS games, but they are extremely impressive and I literally cannot imagine the NES coming remotely close to pulling some of that off. See the MK series, or whatever you like. If NES could do any of that (even Choplifter graphical techniques), then it would have. Look at the number of developers NES had working on it. They were not sitting on their thumbs. Look at the Nintendo R&D depts., Rare, Codemasters, whoever, all working to squeeze what they can out of the NES. Somehow they overlooked ways to beat SMS on all of this? I doubt it.

Give examples. Show where the peak of NES achievement outshone SMS. Until then, it's a theoretical dream that has proven insuperable.
There is a choplifter for the NES, a first gen game also--although it's actually a Famicom only game (Famicom and NES are the same system).

None the less, the NES can do "line scrolling" as well, it's called parallax scrolling, an effect to give a pseudo 3D effect. I know of a lot of games that do this on the NES. In the background, Batman Return of the Joker uses it a bit, 3D World Runner does as well (in a slightly different way). Super Mario Bros. 3, of course, uses it for the warp zones, on the entire screen, making waves. In fact the homebrew game Solar Wars does this, and many other demos exist as well. It can be done without a mapper, but it's more efficient to use one, in which case, one with an IRQ such as MMC3-6 is good.

Neither the NES or SMS have background layers, that was in the SNES, etc. Parallax scrolling can be done in two different ways, by "line scrolling" the background (and when the graphics are done properly, it really can look like different layers), or by sprites. There are many NES games which use sprites, which would give a layered effect as well. There are also homebrew demos (nesdev.parodius.com).

As well, Super Mario World ( http://www.bripro.com/low/obscure/in...p?page=hko_smw ) was ported to the NES (Famicom), as well as many incarnations of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat (even Tekken), all in the past years by pirate companies. MK and SFII were also officially ported to the SMS, GG, and Game Boy! They were simply not ported to the NES officially because the system was dead. None of these fighters are that great though, not for the NES, GB, SMS, or GG, heh. Some of the SFIIs on Famicom are alright though.

To explain why new SMS games can be better than the old NES ones is simple. Two reasons: 1) companies usually won't put more effort into their games than they need to, until other companies come out with more impressive stuff, in which case they'd need to improve their stuff to compete. Games were simpler then, so developers didn't have to put as much into them. 2) Do you know how much easier it is now to do the games? heh. With emulators, Windows and other GUIs, good bitmap editing software, fast PCs, efficient compilers--if they had the tools we have now, the NES and SMS games would be incredible!

Systems are all about the games, and it's clear that you love the SMS for them. I love the NES more for the games I'm nostalgic about. It's all good. When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter which system is more powerful. Same reason I play PS2 over X-Box and GC, it's all about the games. I do in fact have a couple SMS consoles, a handful of GGs, and many games, so I do play it too.

As a programmer, I'm developing an NES game because not only am I nostalgic about the system, it really does, no questions asked, give a developer the ability to be more creative and do more.

The fact that NES games use mappers is not very important, as all of the systems did, other than for first gen games. The mappers were generally very little cost compared to the ROMs, and were pretty much built into the price.

The MMC5 gives the NES graphics overall, far more superior to the SMS or even GG. It allows 16384 background tiles at once (vs. the SMS 256). It also allows automatic horzontal split screen, and a scanline IRQ allowing for easy vertical split screen. It gives enhanced graphic and program banks switching, and also includes hardware aided 8bit*8bit->16bit multiplication. It's very powerful, but as for code, other than the aided multiplication, I wouldn't exactly call it a co-processor. It's really just a bankswitcher still, with a few bonus features (basically just counters).

The MMC6 is just a slightly modified MMC3, which is nothing compared to MMC5. Just a bankswitcher + scanline counter IRQ.

As for the peak of NES outshining the SMS, you'll see soon enough, when I release my ultimate homebrew NES game, heh. I've been working on it for well over a year, and will hopefully have it done by the end of this one.

Every graphical effect the SMS can do, the NES can do as well, and then some! If you find an SMS game that does something completely wacky that you don't think the NES can do, let me know. I'll explain how it can be done on the NES as well