So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

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Pokun
Posts: 2681
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Location: Hokkaido, Japan

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by Pokun »

Yeah well that's sounds about exactly what I was saying, that's what I meant by taking turns. SNES games do it, Megadrive games do it and even NES games do it.

I meant that for a real fight it's probably very hard to squeeze in more than 4 people around a single opponent without them stepping on each others toes, if you have ever practiced some kind of martial arts for a longer time you can probably imagine, and it might even be worse if you are using weapons. But then again a game should of course generally not be too realistic.
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

Pokun wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 9:37 am Yeah well that's sounds about exactly what I was saying, that's what I meant by taking turns. SNES games do it, Megadrive games do it and even NES games do it.

I meant that for a real fight it's probably very hard to squeeze in more than 4 people around a single opponent without them stepping on each others toes, if you have ever practiced some kind of martial arts for a longer time you can probably imagine, and it might even be worse if you are using weapons. But then again a game should of course generally not be too realistic.
That sounds totally reasonable to me.

If I were to make a beat 'em up, for any system, it's something I would take into account. And, even if there are more characters around the scene, they don't necessarily have to be done via sprites, which is something I would seriously consider in any SNES beat 'em up. A bunch of people could be basically background tiles (like in Street Fighter and even Final Fight 3 in multiple areas), just there in the background standing around with a little tile animation for good measure, and then possibly switch them across to sprites and actual enemies you can fight at a set point if necessary. But, having played and enjoyed Turtles in Time thoroughly on SNES, which usually has around four [regular] enemies and occasionally a few smaller robot dog-thing enemies and the like (up to eight enemies onscreen in total, I think I counted*), I'm very comfortable with what I think could be done on SNES. Up the [regular] enemies to five and possibly six max (the flicker will be irrelevant at five and probably still acceptable at six imo), have a couple of enemies around the player at a time, maybe five max in single player (but not all attacking at once) and around three max per player in two-player mode, and I think there's a starting point for a great beat 'em up there that that ticks all the necessary boxes.

That's my current thinking on it anyway.

*Yeah, three foot clan (actually four, if the guy just falling off the left side of the screen but still onscreen for a couple of frames counts) and five smaller robot dog things (and no slowdown or overt drop-out or flickering): https://youtu.be/i9eZ3JAWjfo?t=2975
TrekkiesUnite118
Posts: 92
Joined: Fri Mar 08, 2013 5:56 pm

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by TrekkiesUnite118 »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 11:26 am
*Yeah, three foot clan (actually four, if the guy just falling off the left side of the screen but still onscreen for a couple of frames counts) and five smaller robot dog things (and no slowdown or overt drop-out or flickering): https://youtu.be/i9eZ3JAWjfo?t=2975
You should probably look at a real hardware capture as there is some noticeable drop out on real hardware around that spot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7L2__J7cV0&t=825s
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

TrekkiesUnite118 wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 12:10 pm
iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 11:26 am
*Yeah, three foot clan (actually four, if the guy just falling off the left side of the screen but still onscreen for a couple of frames counts) and five smaller robot dog things (and no slowdown or overt drop-out or flickering): https://youtu.be/i9eZ3JAWjfo?t=2975
You should probably look at a real hardware capture as there is some noticeable drop out on real hardware around that spot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7L2__J7cV0&t=825s
All things being equal, some rare game moment with two players and eight enemies onscreen that could cause some very minor dropout for a frame or two if they all happen to move into the wrong place onscreen at just the wrong moment, is not the kind of non-problem I waste my time worrying about when it comes to Turtles in Time.

However, when a game has this many shortcomings and issues (characters closer to the camera fading and popping into and out of existence, black flickering bugs, clunky movement and control, clumsy camera, etc), then I'd have some worries: https://youtu.be/Asx9_g_eh54 (random example of the kind of lack of polish and telegraphed technical limitations that I'd actually have an issue with in terms of the quality standards I'm looking for)
Last edited by iNCEPTIONAL on Sun Jul 31, 2022 5:35 pm, edited 4 times in total.
turboxray
Posts: 348
Joined: Thu Oct 31, 2019 12:56 am

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by turboxray »

TrekkiesUnite118 wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 12:10 pm
iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 11:26 am
*Yeah, three foot clan (actually four, if the guy just falling off the left side of the screen but still onscreen for a couple of frames counts) and five smaller robot dog things (and no slowdown or overt drop-out or flickering): https://youtu.be/i9eZ3JAWjfo?t=2975
You should probably look at a real hardware capture as there is some noticeable drop out on real hardware around that spot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7L2__J7cV0&t=825s
He doesn't own real hardware. He tests stuff on his "snes mini".
MSonage
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri May 06, 2022 4:34 pm

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by MSonage »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 1:36 pm Do you know if this sprite order cycling feature was used often in SNES games?

I was looking at a couple of ROM hacks where there was a lot of stuff onscreen but also lots of flickering, and I wasn't sure if this could be improved by using the SNES' sprite order cycling routine or if it already was being used in those examples and that was about as good as it was going to get regarding the flickering.

Here's some examples I've been looking at and wasn't sure about:

https://youtu.be/Zo2l0NxqKUs
https://youtu.be/d8c2OwrcwMA
https://youtu.be/Rf2Gbflgxus
I don't know how, but it looks like Final Fight 2 does hardware sprite priority rotation when it detects any sprite dropout. You can see this with Mesen-S in the "OAM Base Address" thing.
I disabled it once just to see what it changes, and yeah, it prevents enemies or part of them from being invisible. To be honest, it looks nicer sometimes.
You can test it just adding this game genie: 4864-3D0F
This replaces the number cycling at the OAM Base Address for some random RAM address.
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

Well, this is an interesting development.

So, do you think it looks nicer with the sprite priority cycling or without it?

I wasn't clear on which one you were referring to there.

And, do you mean the regular version of Final Fight 2 or the rom-hacked version?
MSonage
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri May 06, 2022 4:34 pm

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by MSonage »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 5:50 pm Well, this is an interesting development.

So, do you think it looks nicer with the sprite priority cycling or without it?

I wasn't clear on which one you were referring to there.

And, do you mean the regular version of Final Fight 2 or the rom-hacked version?
Ops, I mean the code that disable the flicker makes it look better. But it makes sprite dropout more noticiable.
You can test on any version of Final Fight 2, but it's obviously more noticeable on the rom-hacked version as there are a lot of enemies.
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

TrekkiesUnite118 wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 12:10 pm
iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 11:26 am
*Yeah, three foot clan (actually four, if the guy just falling off the left side of the screen but still onscreen for a couple of frames counts) and five smaller robot dog things (and no slowdown or overt drop-out or flickering): https://youtu.be/i9eZ3JAWjfo?t=2975
You should probably look at a real hardware capture as there is some noticeable drop out on real hardware around that spot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7L2__J7cV0&t=825s
By the way, thanks for that video.

You just provided a really clear example of the most enemies I have seen onscreen at once in non-rom-hacked Turtles in Time, four foot clan and five robot dog things, and there's also less obvious dropout to my eyes than the section you time stamped (and certainly not enough for any normal person to ever care about):

https://youtu.be/f7L2__J7cV0 (watch from 14:02)

That's eleven characters in total onscreen at once. And, even with some of them being smaller enemies and a couple of random frames of irrelevant dropout, it's all good in my book--great in fact.

And it's running on an actual real SNES, which is apparently a very important criteria for everything to be judged by in here.

So, yeah, cheers. :D
Last edited by iNCEPTIONAL on Mon Aug 01, 2022 5:03 am, edited 4 times in total.
TrekkiesUnite118
Posts: 92
Joined: Fri Mar 08, 2013 5:56 pm

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by TrekkiesUnite118 »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 6:16 pm By the way, thanks for that video.

You just provided an example of the most enemies I have seen yet onscreen at once in non-rom-hacked Turtles in Time, four foot clan and five robot dog things, and there's also less obvious dropout to my eyes than the section you time stamped (if there is any, it's certainly not enough for any normal person to ever care about):

https://youtu.be/f7L2__J7cV0 (watch from 14:02)

And it's running on an actual real SNES, which is apparently a very important criteria in here.
Then you're not paying attention very well because at the 14:02 part there's noticeable dropout starting and it continues for a while:

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If player 2 was on the same horizontal level as Player 1, I'd imagine we'd see even more drop out. And that's with 3 foot clan and 3 robots on screen and 2 players, there's parts were you can get 4 foot clan and 4 robots.
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

Oh, trust me, I'm paying attention.

No normal person is gonna care about someone being able to capture a static frame of dropout among all the cool action there. And I don't either.

Me, I'm very happy, and grateful to you for providing that nice clear footage of so many enemies onscreen in a real SNES game made back in the '90s [running in SlowROM], with basically no slowdown and irrelevant dropout.

Thank again. I'm off to bed. :D
Last edited by iNCEPTIONAL on Mon Aug 01, 2022 8:44 am, edited 4 times in total.
TrekkiesUnite118
Posts: 92
Joined: Fri Mar 08, 2013 5:56 pm

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by TrekkiesUnite118 »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 6:35 pm Oh, trust me, I'm paying attention. No normal person is gonna care about someone being able to capture a static frame of droppout among all the cool action there. And I don't either.
It's not really a static frame, it persists for a while, and if both players were on the same part of the screen it would be worse. Case in point, a similar situation happens later around the 41 minute mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7L2__J7cV0&t=2457s

You can see there that some enemies just flat out disappear and become invisible, the players are becoming half visible, and it becomes difficult to tell what's hitting them. Some enemies seem to just disappear from existence entirely never to be seen again.

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SlayerOfSmurfs
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2022 12:57 pm

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by SlayerOfSmurfs »

None of the sprite breakup seems game-breaking and in the video provided, it's pretty sporadic and doesn't impact gameplay. These are 16-bit machines, push them too far and weird stuff happens. I don't think that's a surprise to anyone. It's certainly something that can and should be optimized around, but the odd bit of breakup is probably fine, I would say. Also, since there's such an SNES vs. Genesis thing going on here, it happens on the Genesis as well. Gauntlet 4 has tons of it. It does not impact the immense enjoyment I get from Gauntlet 4, nor does it from Turtles in Time. These are old machines that were engineered to a price point, they're going to creak from time to time. It's a calculation that you as a designer have to make at the end of the day. If you think some minor sprite breakup is fine, then go for it, it's your game. If it's awesome, almost nobody will care about a little flicker or breakup.
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

SlayerOfSmurfs wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 11:59 pm None of the sprite breakup seems game-breaking and in the video provided, it's pretty sporadic and doesn't impact gameplay. These are 16-bit machines, push them too far and weird stuff happens. I don't think that's a surprise to anyone. It's certainly something that can and should be optimized around, but the odd bit of breakup is probably fine, I would say. Also, since there's such an SNES vs. Genesis thing going on here, it happens on the Genesis as well. Gauntlet 4 has tons of it. It does not impact the immense enjoyment I get from Gauntlet 4, nor does it from Turtles in Time. These are old machines that were engineered to a price point, they're going to creak from time to time. It's a calculation that you as a designer have to make at the end of the day. If you think some minor sprite breakup is fine, then go for it, it's your game. If it's awesome, almost nobody will care about a little flicker or breakup.
This is all very reasonable and true, and I totally agree with you. :)
TrekkiesUnite118
Posts: 92
Joined: Fri Mar 08, 2013 5:56 pm

Re: So, regarding the sprites per scanline . . .

Post by TrekkiesUnite118 »

SlayerOfSmurfs wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 11:59 pm None of the sprite breakup seems game-breaking and in the video provided, it's pretty sporadic and doesn't impact gameplay. These are 16-bit machines, push them too far and weird stuff happens. I don't think that's a surprise to anyone. It's certainly something that can and should be optimized around, but the odd bit of breakup is probably fine, I would say. Also, since there's such an SNES vs. Genesis thing going on here, it happens on the Genesis as well. Gauntlet 4 has tons of it. It does not impact the immense enjoyment I get from Gauntlet 4, nor does it from Turtles in Time. These are old machines that were engineered to a price point, they're going to creak from time to time. It's a calculation that you as a designer have to make at the end of the day. If you think some minor sprite breakup is fine, then go for it, it's your game. If it's awesome, almost nobody will care about a little flicker or breakup.
I'd argue it's borderline unacceptable in the clip I linked. Most of the robots are hidden behind drop out for most of the fight and a significant portion of the player sprites are missing. The one robot in the upper left corner just completely disappears for the entire fight once the foot soldiers come in. I can't even tell if the players killed it or if the game just dropped it entirely. For a beat'em up I'd say that's not really acceptable. If there wasn't any other way to work around it, they probably should have staggered those enemy waves a bit more to avoid the issue.

Sure this can happen on the Genesis as well, but I believe the general point if you're talking about console wars is that the limit for where that starts to happen is a tad higher on Genesis. It's just one of many strengths and weaknesses between the two systems.
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