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Modern Vintage Gamer: How Graphics worked on the Super NES (SNES)

German Hops

GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
Mode 7 was such an impressive graphical feat back then, but I still prefer,

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cireza

Banned
What did you have to compare it to? Sega couldn't come close with their hardware at the time.
It simply looked bad to me. And overall, I strongly dislike any zoom-in zoom-out and rotation effects applied on pixels. Always looks ugly.

This is not about comparing to other consoles, but if you want to go on this topic, MegaDrive actually had a much cleaner signal and higher resolution picture. Games on it were super crisp, especially in France where we had SCART RGB delivered with each SEGA console, while Nintendo was only providing composite (and SNES had a poorer video signal).
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
Always thought that it looked like shit, to be honest. Most usages were redundant and it looked like a pixelated mess.
Depends on how it was used. There were some pretty cool implementations for the time, especially for a home console. Contra 3 used mode 7 really well in my opinion.
 

German Hops

GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
This is not about comparing to other consoles, but if you want to go on this topic, MegaDrive actually had a much cleaner signal and higher resolution picture. Games on it were super crisp, especially in France where we had SCART RGB delivered with each SEGA console, while Nintendo was only providing composite (and SNES had a poorer video signal).
The SNES gives you a lot in hardware including stuff like amazing transparency effects, scaling and rotation of a single background at 60 fps, gradient fills, shape drawing (like triangles or circles), lot's of color, 3 layers of parallax scrolling, 8 channel ad-pcm audio, etc..

The Genesis doesn't give you even close to that in hardware (it's 2 years older after all), but the graphics hardware is very simple and easy to program. It also uses a chunky graphics format, but on the positive side, it has much more VDP bandwidth and arguably the best CPU of the time.
 
The SNES gives you a lot in hardware including stuff like amazing transparency effects, scaling and rotation of a single background at 60 fps, gradient fills, shape drawing (like triangles or circles), lot's of color, 3 layers of parallax scrolling, 8 channel ad-pcm audio, etc..

The Genesis doesn't give you even close to that in hardware (it's 2 years older after all), but the graphics hardware is very simple and easy to program. It also uses a chunky graphics format, but on the positive side, it has much more VDP bandwidth and arguably the best CPU of the time.
A lot of what you attribute to the SNES is actually attributable to the enhancement chip in the cart though. Even games like Mario Kart and Pilotwings required an extra chip. Granted, you could fairly argue that the option of using the chips is just one of the strengths of the SNES, but still.

I definitely find the SNES to generally have more appealing and better graphics, but when the Genesis is played to it's strengths it can look good too.

I'm on a CRT retro binge lately and what I found most surprising is how GOOD TG16 CD anime graphics can look. Holy shit it's like that thing was specifically designed to have the perfectly limited number of colors to force developers to create the most appealing art possible. Games like Galaxy Fraulein Yuna look so damn good on a CRT.
 

Knightime_X

Member
Always thought that it looked like shit, to be honest. Most usages were redundant and it looked like a pixelated mess.
Is this from a perspective of seeing this when it was new, or 30 years later?
Also if you were born in 1990 or later then your statement makes more sense.
 
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Always thought that it looked like shit, to be honest. Most usages were redundant and it looked like a pixelated mess.
Shit or not, I remember it fondly.

Looking for dragons in places that looked like forests whilst flying through the map in mode 7 in FF6 was awesome.

It felt years ahead of that generation for me, even if yes, visually it was raw.
 
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MVG has a captivating voice and explains things in simpler way that even a person without significant technical knowledge about these stuff, such as myself understands.

I still don't know why he says 'YouToob' despite clearly being Aussie

But that's just nit picking
 
Always thought that it looked like shit, to be honest. Most usages were redundant and it looked like a pixelated mess.
It made driving games and other gameplay options that were impossible to emulate on other 16-bit machines... Also, back in 1990 there was just not that many machines with similar graphics processing capabilities (mode 7, 256 colors on screen, transparency, etc.).

The system as a whole is not perfect (why didn't they just put that 10mhz CPU in the machine instead of select carts?)... But overall it's a pretty neat little package.

I was a HUGE Sega Genesis fan back in the days, had the Sega CD (no 32x)... Yet, the snes still did some things that were not possible without compromise, same thing the other way around. But still, no amount of trickery could make the Genesis do the stuff that was in pretty much any SNES game, not without serious sacrifice.
 

cireza

Banned
The SNES gives you a lot in hardware including stuff like amazing transparency effects, scaling and rotation of a single background at 60 fps, gradient fills, shape drawing (like triangles or circles), lot's of color, 3 layers of parallax scrolling, 8 channel ad-pcm audio, etc..

The Genesis doesn't give you even close to that in hardware (it's 2 years older after all), but the graphics hardware is very simple and easy to program. It also uses a chunky graphics format, but on the positive side, it has much more VDP bandwidth and arguably the best CPU of the time.
My intention was absolutely not to turn this into a comparison to MegaDrive or whatever. I know very well the strengths and weaknesses of both consoles.

It made driving games and other gameplay options that were impossible to emulate on other 16-bit machines...
I agree with this entirely.

But still, no amount of trickery could make the Genesis do the stuff that was in pretty much any SNES game, not without serious sacrifice.
Things that SNES can achieve that the MD cannot are very obvious. Mode 7, transparency (MD can actually do some interesting things which shadow & highlight in that regard, not as great, but still to some extend) etc... But actually, the other way round is just as true.

MD can achieve a lot that SNES simply cannot do. The most "stupid" example is displaying a 320x224 resolution. This actually opens a lot of the field of view in games. Also with the CPU it has, it can move much more things at once and compute elaborated engines etc... Every game that is really CPU heavy on MD cannot be done on SNES without sacrifice. Nothing new in the end, both consoles had very different strengths an weaknesses.

Is this from a perspective of seeing this when it was new, or 30 years later?
I played SNES and MD back then has a kid. SNES at friends and MD at home. Never was a great fan of mode 7 really. Transparency was fantastic though.
 
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You should check (if you haven't already) some SEGA-CD games. The same magic occurs in Lunar Eternal Blue, Popful Mail, Captain Tsubasa, Snatcher and others.
Sega CD is down the list but I will absolutely check those out (never even heard of Popful Mail). I did check out the intro to Snatcher though which is still so, so good.
 

dave_d

Member
The system as a whole is not perfect (why didn't they just put that 10mhz CPU in the machine instead of select carts?)... But overall it's a pretty neat little package.
Well one possible reason is the SNES 65816 was an upgrade from the 6502 in the NES so it would have helped with the learning curve from the NES to SNES.(As opposed to having to learn a completely new CPU)
 

RetroAV

Member
LOL.
Space Harrier for teenagers, this so bad and ugly 😹
Also:
-"Better than mode 7"
-"Here software mode 7 ersatz for Megadrive/Genesis"

spongebob squarepants eww GIF
:messenger_grimmacing_ Did you at least skim through the video? Because right now you're not looking too bright.

The cool thing about Mode 7 is that it is done in hardware which makes it easier for developers to utilize in SNES games. And although I find Panorama Cotton more impressive, I also understand that it is harder to pull off which is why the game has no equal on MD or SNES. Don’t let the cutesiness fool you, Panorama Cotton is an industry best of that gen. :messenger_winking:
 

Thanati

Member
Didn’t take long from the OP posting an interesting video about a piece of famous retro hardware, to degenerating into dumbass console wars.

Sigh.
 

Thaedolus

Member
This is more impressive to me than Mode 7:

This is pretty amazing for the Genesis hardware, but you definitely can see its limits compared to the Mode 7 stuff the SNES could put out without much trickery.

I do love seeing all the stuff I never realized the Genesis could do in threads like these. Especially loved the music thread that we had a while back considering the reputation for genesis music being garbage…there’s a lot to like there
 
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