The 16-bit War. . . .

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TrekkiesUnite118
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Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by TrekkiesUnite118 »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:37 pm That's not going to happen for a few reasons:

1. The number of audio channels I've listed are the ones widely accepted as the official specs for each system [and I'm specifically talking about the many places outside of this blog and some other particular Genesis enthusiast sites].
Define widely accepted. Because even the Wikipedia article clearly states that the Genesis has both the YM2612 and SN76489 chips available to provide sound and links to their individual articles stating their individual specs. Sega's own official dev manuals from the era list both chips and how to use them. So by not including them in your total channel count you're being dishonest.
iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:37 pm 2. That part of the article was created as a .png, and I can't be bothered changing it to account for random exploits.
The PSG Channels aren't a random exploit, they're part of the hardware. They count. The 32X can even use them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDIRjXyOVgQ

Really the break down of that chart should be something more like this:

Total Number of Channels: 10
Sound Type: FM Synth + PSG + PCM.
Last edited by TrekkiesUnite118 on Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
turboxray
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Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by turboxray »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:37 pm As far as I'm aware, the specs I've listed for each console are the ones that are commonly accepted as the official numbers, so I'm going to stick with the officially stated six FM audio channels on Genesis.
Let me fix that for you:
iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:37 pm I'm completely wrong and I'm going to ignore official IN-GAME majority usage for the sake I'm too lazy to change a picture and the fact that I don't understand specs, let alone anything that has to do with audio. It might be completely wrong, but it's my version of right. Because it works in my fanboi favor. Yes, I know I'm pretending to be fair, but that isn't my real intentions.
I mean, that's what you meant to say. I'm just making it more clear.
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

Did anyone get back on whether it was Columns III I should be using rather than Columns?

Edit: Well, there's a certain flow in here that's not quite working for me, so maybe you should comment in the blog about everything you disagree with. Cheers.
Last edited by iNCEPTIONAL on Sun Jul 31, 2022 12:22 am, edited 5 times in total.
TrekkiesUnite118
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Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by TrekkiesUnite118 »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:53 pm Did anyone get back on whether it was Columns III I should be using rather than Columns?
Why don't you listen to them and other puzzle game OSTs on the Genesis and form your own opinion on the matter?
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

Yeah, I'm going to leave it as Columns.

And, I think the article is done now, other than me changing the text about "rarely used" back to the way it was before.

That's for helping me to decide.
Last edited by iNCEPTIONAL on Sun Jul 31, 2022 12:24 am, edited 2 times in total.
TrekkiesUnite118
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Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by TrekkiesUnite118 »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:57 pm Yeah, I'm going to leave it as Columns.

And, I think the article is done now, other than me changing the text about "rarely used" back to the way it was before.

That's for helping me to decide.
So basically you're ok with having an article that's pretty much blatant misinformation as long as it makes the SNES look good? If so why did you bother asking for input in the first place?
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

You know, I just realised my original specs were absolutely fine the from start: 6 FM channels. That's exactly how many FM channels the console has, and that's exactly how many I listed. Plus, I additionally mention later on in the article that it's possible to use the legacy Master System PSG for additional audio channels too, which I give my opinion on those, so the Genesis sound is fairly represented to the level of detail I wish to go into in my article. Silly me--I had it right all along. Now, the only part up for consideration is whether more games use the Master System legacy channels than those that don't, and I'm comfortable leaving my article as is until I see a definitive list or at least a full count on that one way or another. Yeah, I'm cool with that. Cheers.
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dougeff
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Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by dougeff »

Looks like 90+ games use PSG channels. Out of 700 total is about 13% of games. And the list I saw frequently said only some times ... let's say half of the time. We could make a rough estimate and say about 6-7% of Genesis songs used PSG.

Sorry, I read the wrong total. It's closer to half of games used PSG. Maybe more... 60% I guess.

It seems the most popular reason is for the noise channel... for an extra percussion instrument (cymbals)
Last edited by dougeff on Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:50 am, edited 2 times in total.
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turboxray
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Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by turboxray »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 7:49 amSilly me--I had it right all along. Now, the only part up for consideration is whether more games use the Master System legacy channels than those that don't, and I'm comfortable leaving my article as is until I see a definitive list or at least a full count on that one way or another. Yeah, I'm cool with that. Cheers.
Let me get this straight: The official development documents lists it and show how to use it - it was there from day one. Day one. And offical games use it.. and that's not good enough for you? Let me put this in SNES perspectives for you. "The 512x448 resolution on SNES is only used by one game, and even though it's in the official development documents, I'm comfortable leaving it off the list because it's a hack.. or until someone proves otherwise". Honestly, I know you're willing to die on the sword for hi-res mode - but far-far more Genesis games used PSG+FM than SNES games used high res mode... and yet you have no qualms about that. 1 game used 512x448 and that's good enough for you to have it in the spec list. A good amount of games used PSG in combination with FM, and you're saying that's not good enough? How are you not embarrassed by this??? Have some dignity.



What is it with you have thinking everything is either a "hack" or "proper"? Is everything that black and white to you? Is the z80 a "hack" on the MD too? Is shadow and highlight, that gets you a palette of 4k colors not "proper"? There are plenty of things to debate between the two audio setups, but you touched on none of them. You tout "universal this" and "common that", but you gloss over and/or entirely neglect the same that puts SNES in bad light. Where's the infamous "snes muffled sound" - right or wrong, that as huge common belief/opinion/whatever. I know you think you're being smug, but you're just prancing around as ignorant (and arrogant).

As for the writing; it's very glossy and gives the impression the opinion(conclusion) is what drove the article and research, rather than the research driving the conclusion. All you did was look for sparse evidence to support your already preconceived conclusion. You even purposely provide miss information. The only positive I have to say, is that at least you seem to understand the concept of "nod to the opposition" haha. I'm not saying the Genesis needs to "win"; it doesn't - just portray things accurately. But the very fact that you see things as winners and losers, tells me you have a very child-like mentality; black and white. Instead of deciding what the outcome, how about presenting all material (putting whatever focus on what you think is important) and let the reader decide? Otherwise this garbage is just article is just "here's my glorious opinion, and here's how I justify it". If this supposed to be a console war article, then this just amounts to trite propaganda.
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TmEE
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Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by TmEE »

dougeff wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:24 am Looks like 90+ games use PSG channels. Out of 700 total is about 13% of games. And the list I saw frequently said only some times ... let's say half of the time. We could make a rough estimate and say about 6-7% of Genesis songs used PSG.

It seems the most popular reason is for the noise channel... for an extra percussion instrument (cymbals)
That doesn't seem right at all, majority of the MD games use PSG for music and SFX, with most notable exception being games using Krysalis sound driver which only do FM+PCM and don't touch PSG at all. One time I got a chance to briefly communicate with Matt Furniss (who did music using that driver) and he mentioned they never got the AY part to work which makes me think there was some lack of documentation since the PSG is completely incompatible with AY...
There's already 200ish games using GEMS sound driver of which most use PSG too for music, majority of SMPS using games use PSG for music which there's 100+ of, EA games do and there's a whole bunch, and there are many others. Games not using PSG are the minority though I am unsure how big of a minority it is.
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dougeff
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Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by dougeff »

Sorry, I read the wrong total number. It's closer to half of games used PSG. Maybe more... 60% I guess.
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iNCEPTIONAL

Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

dougeff wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:47 am Sorry, I read the wrong total number. It's closer to half of games used PSG. Maybe more... 60% I guess.
Do you have the link to that list or where it's mentioned about the number of games that use PSG?

If I can confirm it's around 60% of Genesis/Mega Drive games that use the PSG then I shall change that one bit of text to read "although, almost half of the games don't use the legacy Master System PSG audio chip at all" or something like that.

Fair is fair.

But, just to be clear, the number of properly confirmed games that use the PSG has to be over 356.5 or thereabouts, which is half of the officially listed 713 total games for Genesis/Mega Drive (even though there's technically a few more than that now), for that to happen. Let's say over 350 just to be nice, directly tested and confirmed, and the text gets a tweak.
Last edited by iNCEPTIONAL on Sun Jul 31, 2022 9:56 am, edited 3 times in total.
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dougeff
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Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by dougeff »

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qlYxH ... mlnST-8pMQ

60% is wrong too. But it's around 50%.

(originally I scrolled all the way to the bottom, then scrolled up till I saw 96, which is where I got the wrong numbers. it splits things up multiple ways.)
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iNCEPTIONAL

Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

dougeff wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 9:18 am https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qlYxH ... mlnST-8pMQ

60% is wrong too. But it's around 50%.

(originally I scrolled all the way to the bottom, then scrolled up till I saw 96, which is where I got the wrong numbers. it splits things up multiple ways.)
That dude's numbers seem to add up to well over 713 games total (which is the official number that comes up on Google, Wikipedia, etc), if I'm reading his numbers correctly, maybe even closer to 1000, so am I missing some data about the total number of Genesis/Mega Drive games here?

Yup, 351 (music only, 10 of which use PSG samples) + 556 (no PSG use at all) + 96 (minor/partial PSG use, one or a few tracks) = 1003 total.

Also, at least from what I can see, he's confirmed 556 that don't use PSG at all, which would indeed be more than half, i.e., the majority.

Am I reading and/or counting that stuff wrong, or, can we now call this one also settled, and my article remains as is?

Well, I could change it to something like "although, the majority of games didn't use the extra PSG channels". That would be perfectly acceptable to me. In fact, I'll trust this article as the best and most reliable source presented so far, and do that just now. :)
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Re: The 16-bit War. . . .

Post by Pokun »

Anyway the SN76489 in the Megadrive isn't just a legacy feature for backwards-compatibility with the Mark III, it's the official and only PSG the system has, just like the Neo Geo having an internal SSG in its FM chip as its PSG. Not counting it as part of the system's audio capabilities is just silly.
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