okay - for those of you that have some knowledge of Sega's SYSTEM 16 A/B boards from ~1986 (just the basic single-cpu ones) and Capcom's CPS board from 1988, how do the two architectures compare?

we can look at the paper-specs and can see that on paper, the CPS is newer, and in some respects, more powerful.

SEGA SYSTEM 16 A/B
Main CPU: MC68000 10 MHz
Secondary CPU: Z80
Video Resolution: 320 x 224
Colors: 4096 on-screen out of 32,768 (?)
Sprites: 128 sprites (16x16 or 8x8 ?)
Background Layers: 2
Effects: hardware sprite zooming/scaling, translucent shadows

CAPCOM CPS
Main CPU: MC68000 - 10 MHz
Secondary CPU: Z80 - 4 MHz
Video Resolution: 384 x 224
Colors: 2048 on-screen out of 65,536
Sprites: 256 sprites (16x16 or 8x8?)
Background Layers: 3
Effects: ???? no zooming/scaling?

but how do these architectures compare in practice? I know that paper specs don't always reveal the realworld in-game capabilities. although some things are obvious.

the newer CPS board has higher resolution, a larger color pallete (although both are large enough) seemingly more sprites on screen, and one more background layer than System 16.

the older System 16 board seems to have a few advantages over the CPS - more colors on screen at once, dispite a smaller pallete, and hardware zooming/scaling.

I'm sure that the differences in the color capabilities between the two are actually very small if non existant. the CPS could probably use upto 4096 colors if programmed to, like System 16 has. and System 16's color pallete of 32768 probably isnt really much worse than CPS's 65536 color pallete.

where things get interesting is in sprites (128 vs 256) parallax background layers ( 2 vs 3) and effects like scaling (some vs none?)


also, I wanted to throw this out there. what if CPS games like Forgotten Worlds, Ghouls N Ghosts, Strider, Final Fight, Street Fighter 2, etc were converted/ported "down" to the System 16 board? we've seen how CPS conversions turned out on the Megadrive/Genesis, which is conciderably less powerful than System 16, not to mention the much smaller rom sizes. now if we 'upgrade' from the newer Megadrive/Genesis (1988) to the older System16 (~1986) in hardware and give System16 conversions/ports of CPS games the same rom size as the CPS versions, how would things turn out? I'd imagine pretty close to the CPS versions in most cases. they'd be slightly lower resolution. but I am sure the System 16 could be programmed to do an additional parallex background layer (like Genesis/MD often was) for games like Street Fighter 2 that seems to use CPS's 3 layers quiet well.

overall there is probably a larger difference between MD/Genesis and CPS or System16, than there is between System16 and CPS, agree?

> okay - for those of you that have some knowledge of Sega's SYSTEM 16 A/B boards
> from ~1986 (just the basic single-cpu ones) and Capcom's CPS board from 1988,
> how do the two architectures compare?
>
> we can look at the paper-specs and can see that on paper, the CPS is newer, and
> in some respects, more powerful.
>
> SEGA SYSTEM 16 A/B
> Main CPU: MC68000 10 MHz
> Secondary CPU: Z80
> Video Resolution: 320 x 224
> Colors: 4096 on-screen out of 32,768 (?)
> Sprites: 128 sprites (16x16 or 8x8 ?)
> Background Layers: 2
> Effects: hardware sprite zooming/scaling, translucent shadows
>
> CAPCOM CPS
> Main CPU: MC68000 - 10 MHz
> Secondary CPU: Z80 - 4 MHz
> Video Resolution: 384 x 224
> Colors: 2048 on-screen out of 65,536
> Sprites: 256 sprites (16x16 or 8x8?)
> Background Layers: 3
> Effects: ???? no zooming/scaling?
>
> but how do these architectures compare in practice? I know that paper specs
> don't always reveal the realworld in-game capabilities. although some things
> are obvious.
>
> the newer CPS board has higher resolution, a larger color pallete (although both
> are large enough) seemingly more sprites on screen, and one more background
> layer than System 16.
>
> the older System 16 board seems to have a few advantages over the CPS - more
> colors on screen at once, dispite a smaller pallete, and hardware
> zooming/scaling.
>
> I'm sure that the differences in the color capabilities between the two are
> actually very small if non existant. the CPS could probably use upto 4096 colors
> if programmed to, like System 16 has. and System 16's color pallete of 32768
> probably isnt really much worse than CPS's 65536 color pallete.
>
> where things get interesting is in sprites (128 vs 256) parallax background
> layers ( 2 vs 3) and effects like scaling (some vs none?)
>
>
> also, I wanted to throw this out there. what if CPS games like Forgotten Worlds,
> Ghouls N Ghosts, Strider, Final Fight, Street Fighter 2, etc were
> converted/ported "down" to the System 16 board?

Ported *down*? System16 can do scaling, end of argument! My board is better than your board :-P
;-)

> we've seen how CPS conversions
> turned out on the Megadrive/Genesis, which is conciderably less powerful than
> System 16, not to mention the much smaller rom sizes. now if we 'upgrade' from
> the newer Megadrive/Genesis (1988) to the older System16 (~1986) in hardware
> and give System16 conversions/ports of CPS games the same rom size as the CPS
> versions, how would things turn out? I'd imagine pretty close to the CPS
> versions in most cases. they'd be slightly lower resolution. but I am sure the
> System 16 could be programmed to do an additional parallex background layer
> (like Genesis/MD often was) for games like Street Fighter 2 that seems to use
> CPS's 3 layers quiet well.
>
> overall there is probably a larger difference between MD/Genesis and CPS or
> System16, than there is between System16 and CPS, agree?
>


Newsdee's Love, Glory, and Discussion Boards

I had a NeoGeo back in the Street Fighter 2 days and I always dreamed of having a port of Street Fighter 2 on my Neo Geo. However, my dream never came true :(.


-------------------------------------------------

> I had a NeoGeo back in the Street Fighter 2 days and I always dreamed of
> having a port of Street Fighter 2 on my Neo Geo. However, my dream never came
> true :(.
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------
>

I often thought about what a NeoGeo SF2 might be like. only problem with NeoGeo is, it's got a lower screen resolution than CPS, so SF2 on NeoGeo would look more pixelated than the sharp CPS version. on the other hand, you could have larger much character sprites and more frames of animation.

I was. (ha, there WAS text!)

> I was. (ha, there WAS text!)
>

So was I! In my mind sprite scaling is a big wow effect which beats a lot of stuff on CPS

Newsdee's Love, Glory, and Discussion Boards

Yeah and I was only speaking of the basic, single-68000 System 16 board's scaling/zooming capability. as seen in Altered Beast. not even talking about the dual or triple 68000 System 16 'Super Scaler' derivatives used in AfterBurner, OutRun, Space Harrier, Galaxy Force, ThunderBlade, HangOn, SuperHangon, etc.


> So was I! In my mind sprite scaling is a big wow effect which beats a lot of
> stuff on CPS
>