Messages

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: The TG-16 looks amazing with a CRT tv!]

It depends on which PVM you get. Mine doesn't support S-Video. It supports Composite and RGB.

The Genesis looks so much better with S-Video because the Composite video quality was HORRIBLE on most hardware revisions. Colors are dramatically different between Composite and RGB in my testing. Other systems don't have nearly as bad Composite Video output as the Genesis seems to have.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Duo save capacity comparisons and/or alternatives requested]

Someday the Turbo EverDrive flash cart could support backing up your save data to the SD card. Perhaps even file management.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Pc engine on par technically with snes / genesis ?]

Some people aren't fans of PCE cause they just don't know it exists. I had never heard of the TG16 or PCE until around 2000 or so when emulation was getting popular. Or perhaps they just don't know about some of the amazing games that were made for it. I imagine perhaps one of the most well known games would be Castlevania Dracula X. One of my favorites is Lords of Thunder. However I have no idea how or when I found out about it. It may have been from stumbling across a Turbo DUO promo video that featured it.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition]

In fact, since I almost never watch any TV it's amazing I manage to spend any money at all!

TV isn't as integral a part of American life as it was 20 years ago. The internet, the increased popularity of video games among many other things have dropped TV viewership down from what it was years ago when there were fewer entertainment outlets. The fact that there's more channels, ondemand options and netflix from 20 years ago has further led to a decline. TV ads had a much bigger impact then than they do today.

I hadn't really thought about how younger people didn't experience TV being relevant. When I was a kid, everyone watched a lot of TV. Well much more compared to today. Now unless you have cable TV there is very little worth watching and even if you do there isn't really that much compelling to watch. Ads are all about drugs now. The internet and on demand and DVDs/Blu-ray have certainly changed entertainment.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition]

You know there are alot of factors that helped determine winners and losers. Sega's success with the Genesis in the US was definitely helped by good timing, marketing, and most definitely Sonic The Hedgehog both as a game and as a Mascot.

I do think that the TurboGrafx 16 was doomed, maybe not from the outset. But unlike in Japan the prices definitely made a big difference. The PC-Engine really shines with CD-ROM games and that technology just was too expensive for the market in North America at the time. The Sega CD certainly wasn't a success. And they had things going for them. Sega was hot at the time. While the line-up of games may not have been AAA, the price is most likely the real reason it wasn't near as popular as the base system.

I like the PCE but without things playing out quite differently I think they were doomed to fail in North America. This idea about if Sega had gone down and made room for NEC may have helped but I still think the Super Nintendo would have been #1, and probably would have dominated the generation. Anyway, you can speculate about these things forever.

About the original topic, Street Fighter II' was definitely not worth the cost of bringing to the TG16. There were plenty of other games way better they should have tried bringing to North America instead. Castlevania is definitely one. Gradius II might have been another. Probably a good number of HuCards that should be on such a list too. Tiger Heli for one.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Thoughts on resurfacing Turbo CD games]

The older CD-ROM systems *should* be less likely to scratch up the discs for you.

Anyway, CDs with proper handling should last a long time. But shit happens, and eventually unavoidable issues may arise and cause the disc to no longer be readable. It should hopefully be a long way off. But I wouldn't make any plans to be playing your Turbo CD on your 95th birthday just yet.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Thoughts on resurfacing Turbo CD games]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_rot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_bronzing

While I've not heard about any mass problems with any game CD-ROMs, these discs are not never ending. Eventually the reflective layer could get exposed to oxygen and begin to suffer from oxidation. Then it will eventually be useless. How that happens, who knows. You very well could find that a particular CD-ROM lasts 100 years after being pressed. But those are all estimates obviously as the format has not existed that long. We do know that heat and humidity are bad. Oxygen probably too. So if you store all your discs in a cool, dry, oxygen free room, you'll be in good shape. Really my point is just that you shouldn't worry too much about it as eventually the disc may stop working despite your best efforts to avoid any scratches or extreme temperatures.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: TG 16 power switch very hard to turn on]

Open it and see what is in the way. Maybe some piece of plastic or something is in the way. You probably don't want to keep forcing the power switch over if you don't know what is causing the resistance.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Thoughts on resurfacing Turbo CD games]

People were commenting that CDs will out live you. While that depends on your age, for younger people that is not necessarily true. Yes people tout CD-ROMs as having such a long life-span but there are CD-ROMs that have already failed. And they all will fail eventually. And depending on how old you are, and how old a particular disc is, you may out live it. And how well made the disc is and how well stored and handled it has been all play a factor. But even if you store it and treat it like a champ it may still fail on you one day. So don't go overboard worrying about it.

I agree that you should only resort to resurfacing if a disc is not playing correctly or at all. And that you should seek professional help and not try to get a cheap fix.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Turbo Everdrive PC Engine / Turbografx 16 Flash Card Nearing Release]

Has anyone tried out the Turbo Everdrive with a DUO R from doujindance, as I read there have been problems with using the neo flash cart.

I have a DUO-R from him with the RGB mod, no region mod, and it works fine. I believe I saw someone else that had one of his newer ones that had the region mod too and it worked fine for them.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Do I buy Dracula X?]

I mainly played the Belmont's Revenge I think on GB, and only a few levels here and there. The point was CV2 on NES felt unfinished and could have been better than it was.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Do I buy Dracula X?]

Castlevania IV was absolutely awesome. Of the earlier Castlevania games, only CV2 was a weak link. And I think part of the problem was likely development constraints and they probably ran out of time before they really had what they wanted. It's still decent but compared to 1, 3, 4, Dracula X, Bloodlines, SotN, and even the Gameboy games it is probably the least favorite.

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Street Fighter II: Champion Edition - PC Engine]

Actually the bankswitching probably wasn't the problem exactly. The most popular emulator for a long time was MagicEngine, which uses or used some sort of Hash/Checksum calculation to detect SF2 and emulate the mapper. So if you changed just 1 byte of the ROM, MagicEngine didn't want to emulate the mapper anymore. Atleast that is what I recall running into when I thought it would be easy to just insert the english text into this game. But that was years ago. And there really was no point to it. It could be done, and probably no more difficult than other translation hacks. But until someone just feels like it, it won't happen. It's not like someone is going to do it for fame.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Any chance of a CDROM2 unit on an FPGA?]

Patching the 3.0 Japanese BIOS would make the most sense as it has the greatest compatibility. But you could probably patch other versions too since alot of what you would be doing would apply to other versions too.

I'm not sure what you mean by an IDE converter. You mean the idea would be to replace the drive with an IDE CD-ROM? Anyway, I agree Drakon. Eventually if someone with the skills and knowledge required becomes interested, it surely can be done.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Turbo Everdrive PC Engine / Turbografx 16 Flash Card Nearing Release]

This isn't really a fully formed idea, but would it be possible to create a kind of adapter that would connect to the back of the TG16, take a USB key or SDCard and simulate a CD-Rom drive? And use the Turbo Everdrive for your CD system card?

I don't know if the fpga on the turbo everdrive is powerful enough to simulate the extra ram found in the cd system cards.  And probably krikzz is the only person capable of knowing how to program the OS for how it's used.  And yes I'm sure you could build something that plugs into the back and uses fpga to simulate the cd drive, but nobody has bothered yet and it takes a good amount of skill to build something like that.

You can't "simulate" the extra RAM. And the Turbo ED contains no RAM at all. However on a Super CD-ROM system, the RAM is available to other HuCards as the Turbo ED can run BIOS images. So the Turbo ED could possibly use a hacked BIOS image and load off the SD card. But there would be no redbook audio. Though with the USB port you could in theory cue another device like a PC to play the audio.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Any chance of a CDROM2 unit on an FPGA?]

Did you post in the right thread? I have a feeling you might have intended to reply in a different thread. We were talking about ways to play CD-ROM games without an actual working CD-ROM drive. My suggestion is to tackle it from the BIOS rather than trying to emulate the hardware of the CD-ROM drive. It would work just find if all games follow procedure and use the BIOS to load data from CD-ROM and play Audio Tracks. Rewriting the BIOS functions to instead communicate with another storage device could be achieved. And the software approach would probably be easier and faster than attempting to clone the exact hardware behavior the CD-ROM has.

No Mott, i have no idea what thread i'm in, we were talking about skittles right. I don't have your understanding of the technical aspects, but i do grasp what your trying to do. I was only suggesting that if someone were to use an sdcard to load iso's (that was talked about in this thread right?) yet you would still need a cd capable bios to run said iso as its not emulation right? then using a flash card could cover the bios aspect of the problem. Otherwise i'm an idiot and was just trying to be part of the discussion

When I first read your reply it seemed like a reply to a similar topic elsewhere on this board. I think I was thinking of the thread about adding backup ram to a portable console.

The CD Detect signal isn't necessarily needed if you rewrite the BIOS. That signal may be more important to the actual CD-ROM drive, which if you rewrite the BIOS you can bypass that.

Either way, something could surely be done to emulate the CD-ROM to run ISO style images.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Any chance of a CDROM2 unit on an FPGA?]

So what you are suggesting is that to re-write the bios in a way that ISO games are loaded via the HuCard slot with a device similar in shape to Turbo Everdrive?

How would you go about re-writing the bios on the console?

Yes, you just need a device to plug into either the HuCard Slot or Expansion Port to get all the connections you need. The BIOS should contain functions related to all disc operations. You can then hack these routines to use different hardware on this device to get the same data that would be stored on a CD-ROM normally and read by communicating with it. You are basically making the BIOS access a new storage device. It could be done if the BIOS is always used for such functions. The Famicom Disk System on the PowerPAK similarly uses a hacked BIOS I believe.

Again, mixing audio isn't a big deal, you could mix two signals together is inject the redbook audio. The whole task could be done.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Turbo Everdrive PC Engine / Turbografx 16 Flash Card Nearing Release]

I agree, KRIKzz did not design the board to have any type of covering on it. By changing the thickness you could be doing damage to the HuCard Slot. And we don't exactly have a source for new ones for now. So any difference in thickness had better be very minor. Which I suppose that may be possible.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Any chance of a CDROM2 unit on an FPGA?]

Did you post in the right thread? I have a feeling you might have intended to reply in a different thread. We were talking about ways to play CD-ROM games without an actual working CD-ROM drive. My suggestion is to tackle it from the BIOS rather than trying to emulate the hardware of the CD-ROM drive. It would work just find if all games follow procedure and use the BIOS to load data from CD-ROM and play Audio Tracks. Rewriting the BIOS functions to instead communicate with another storage device could be achieved. And the software approach would probably be easier and faster than attempting to clone the exact hardware behavior the CD-ROM has.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Any chance of a CDROM2 unit on an FPGA?]

Has anyone ever done a complete disassembly of the Super System Card 3.0 BIOS? Or does anyone have a document detailing all the function calls in the BIOS? Since there are homebrew CD-ROM games I would guess someone has atleast some good information on the BIOS.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Any chance of a CDROM2 unit on an FPGA?]

While that's true then you need to get a Expansion Connector, and I'm not sure if you can find those easily. Also if you don't make whatever it is coexisting with the CD system, you'll have to clone the hardware for the extra sound channel. But it might not be a very complex setup to handle. Either way it would be a sweet project.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Any chance of a CDROM2 unit on an FPGA?]

The problem i see with de pce cdrom is the red book
audio stuff. How do you gonna control this over the hu slot
or extension port? Since game data/psg sound is very independent
handled to the red book audio.

You can't do it with just the HuCard slot, atleast not in stereo. Instead you'll need to mix the audio from the proposed device playing the audiotracks with the system's audio output. It's not a huge deal. If such a device interfaced with the expansion port it would be no problem but would leave DUO's out in the cold.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Any chance of a CDROM2 unit on an FPGA?]

The expansion connector and HuCard slot have many of the same signals/pins. You can do or imagine any method you want for playing CD images off a SD card or other media. Trying to hardware emulate/simulate the actual CD drive may be unnecessary. I think my idea is better if it will work. That is based on the CD games all properly using the BIOS for any interaction with the CD-ROM. If they do you could probably load off of any media you could imagine, though audio would require the media be fast enough for streaming it, or you could I guess just have something setup to cue a separate CD player.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Turbo Everdrive PC Engine / Turbografx 16 Flash Card Nearing Release]

The CD System Bios works as long as you play only regular CD-ROM games if you have a regular CD-ROM but if you have a Super CDROM (includes the DUO) it will also work with Super CD-ROM games. The reason is that the Turbo EverDrive does not contain the required RAM like a real system card. But if you have a Super CD-ROM the memory is already present and seems to work fine with a flashed BIOS rom running.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Turbobooster Plus schematic?]

Wouldn't the better way to "figure it out" be to look up technical information on how it works in the system? I checked the only document I had on the PCE memory map and it didn't have any labeled or similar to "2kb Backup RAM". It might just be mapped at some particular address on the external bus. If you can find out where it is mapped and if it has any particular rules to how it is controlled you could figure out how to take some chips to map some memory in.

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: MSR *WILL* be finished, come hell or high water... hell more likely.]

It was the only way to fly.

Made me think of this.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Any chance of a CDROM2 unit on an FPGA?]

The PCE doesn't use a 6502 though. Honestly if you have enough money, and it would be a lot, there is nothing stopping you from paying a company/lab to do the work to break it down and make it possible to clone it exactly. I want to see a DUO with SGX support and native S-Video & RGB output as well as Region Switching. That would be nice. But I don't know that we will ever see that. Something more likely is like those FireCore Genesis clones. Essentially it's a device that is just built to run an emulator but it can use real media (cartridges). You could probably build a system like that for the PCE.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: PC Engine Setups]

Nice room you have there. My setup isn't terribly fancy since I don't have alot of room. I have a 32" Samsung LCD TV for my modern consoles, 360 and PS3. Some random sound system that wasn't terribly expensive to go with that. Then I have the far more important 19" Sony PVM monitor which accepts Composite and RGB video. I really wish it accepted S-Video! Mainly for the N64 and GameCube. Maybe I need to get a S-Video to RGB decoder and use the second RGB input for that. Anyway, I have connected the BNC RGB input to a BNC to VGA cable that connects to a box with a Euro SCART connector. Through SCART cables I run most of my older consoles. The older consoles I have out right now are:

Composite Video:
Nintendo 64
GameCube
NES

RGB Video:
SNES
Sega Genesis + Sega CD
PC-Engine DUO-R
Sega Saturn
Playstation 2
PSOne
NeoGeo MVS


Having a good CRT for your retro gaming is critical. If you don't, you'd better hope you have a HDTV that actually does a good job with them as most are crap. The real deal is way better than emulation. I have most of my bases covered for old school gaming. No Atari though.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Any chance of a CDROM2 unit on an FPGA?]

So I guess I better get a CD-Rom solution and a PC Engine (which I still don't have!)

Well I'm not certain that you couldn't do it with just the HuCard slot. There is a fair chance that you could simulate the CD-ROM via BIOS changes and a new media like SD assisted with a FPGA or something else. The only thing I'm sure of is the DUO lacks any way to directly mix stereo audio with just the HuCard slot. You'd need to hookup to the AV's audio output and mix in the CD system audio.

The point is something could probably be cooked up. The bad thing is that it's less likely to be done when it is so easy to just fix your CD-ROM. But I'd certainly find it interesting if you could just plug something into the Hucard slot and actually run CD games off mass storage media. Maybe eventually it will happen. Also the PC-Engine + Briefcase CD-ROM system I've always thought was awesome looking.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Any chance of a CDROM2 unit on an FPGA?]

If all games fully utilize the BIOS for loading data from CD-ROM, playing Audio, etc then you could probably rig up a device with a hacked BIOS to load images from fast enough media. If you used the expansion port you could mix in the base audio with the redbook audio and hopefully you'd implement the I think adpcm sound channel that was added by the CD system. On DUO systems it might be a bit more tricky and might require modding if not all the required signals are there.

I don't know of anyone working on any such project but it is possible. Also I would imagine that there is still a healthy supply of suitable replacement parts for repairing CD-ROMs for the PCE.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Turbob?]

I'm honestly flabbergasted at the number of new members that post "What does turbob mean" or "What does obey mean" or any of the other myriad questions that new folks ask without doing seemingly ANY research into this community.

Actually I'm not a new member. It wasn't until last night that I actually paid much attention to "Turbob", so I googled it and found nothing so I figured I'd just ask. My favorite response was that was the name of the Kid on the TurboGrafx 16 box.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Turbob?]

Where did this Turbob term come from and what is it supposed to mean? Just curious.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: how to store loose hu cards]

The HuCards I have I keep in an old Floppy Disk caddy. Works well enough. Would work better if I had more Hucards to fill it up.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: How old were you when the Turbo Grafx came out?]

I think you see some diverse ages because while some people actually had TG16 marketed in their region, some of us including me never heard about the TG16/PCE until much later. Emulation and the internet is how I learned of its existence probably back in 1999 or 2000. And you can thank Castlevania for that. It got me interested in the system and since I've played many other great games for the platform.

Back when the TG16 was alive, I was busy playing either the Atari 800 home computer, NES and later SNES. If I'd have seen a Turbo DUO playing Lords of Thunder back then I would definitely have wanted one. I recall they had some promo where they tried to promote the DUO with that game.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Top Turbografx-16 games (as voted by users)]

It's an interesting result so far. Good idea to limit it to just TG16 releases.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Turbo Everdrive PC Engine / Turbografx 16 Flash Card Nearing Release]

Uncertainty? Barring a personal tragedy, KRIKzz will likely be making the Turbo ED for quite some time. $80? There are PCE CDs and HuCards that are quite pricey too so that doesn't seem like a stand out reason. Point 3 seems reasonable if you have to deal with idiots messing with your stuff. Point 4, you just mean they do it to do something? I guess why not, but I don't think the card is particularly vulnerable.

And if you have a DUO and don't need to play an Arcade CD-ROM, there is no need to remove the Turbo ED unless you are going to play an actual HuCard. System Card 3.0 and also the Games Express System Card both work fine with it. You are right though that if you don't have a Super CD-ROM or DUO then you apparently can't use the Turbo ED while playing Super CD games.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Turbo Everdrive PC Engine / Turbografx 16 Flash Card Nearing Release]

I don't get why everyone is so paranoid and wanting to encase the thing. Hold it from the edges like you do a CD. Put some electrical tape over the JTAG port if you are worried and use that as your point to pull it out of the system.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Could the TG16 / PCE handle Donkey Kong Country?]

Whenever people ask if you could have some game from one platform on another platform they never seem to specify anything after that. Do you mean exactly the same? Almost like what you see with 360 and PS3 games? Or do you just mean more like say, Rock 'n Roll Racing which appeared on both SNES and Genesis (or Mortal Kombat, SF2, etc.)? DKC has simple gameplay that takes advantage of the SNES PPU and SPC chip to offer a good platformer with very nice graphics and audio. So if you don't care about graphics and audio changes, sure the PCE could do it.

If you wanted minimal downgrades you'd want to use the SuperGrafx and the CDROM. Either using a HuCard with alot of ROM while running music from the CD or by using the Arcade Card. You'd still lose any color blending type effects, like I think Squaks the Parrot with the Flashlight effect. But gameplay wise the game could work. Again though really the game was made to show off the SNES PPU and SPC chips. And it does.

For other games it all just depends how much you want to change them to get them on different hardware. Really between the PCE, SNES, and Genesis none of them are a clear winner above any of the rest. They are all different and have different ways of doing things and some things they are better at than the others. Programming wise I do like the Genesis for the 68000 which has a big address space. SNES has alot of addressable memory too but it is a bit less nice with the 65816's system of banks but you can get used to that. PCE just has the 64K so you're going to be banking plenty. But the CPU should be much faster than the SNES which I do like. SNES is nice for having a huge 128K worth of RAM which Genesis coming in second with only 64K and poor PCE in last with 8K. It really makes me wish the DUO had not just integrated the Super CD-ROM but also the SuperGrafx. The PCE seems more complete that way.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Is there a way to fix a turbo chip]

You could try putting something thin underneath the edge that has the contacts to try to push it up and maybe it will make better contact. It is *very* unlikely the card is just dead. While it could happen, the most likely cause of a card not working is a problem with the contacts. They are so tiny. If they get dirty or indented it may make poor contact in the HuCard slot. I suppose the better thing would be to clean the contacts and somehow coat them in a highly conductive substance to make contact at a higher point.

The idea being that the contacts have gotten depressed or scratched and they are not up high enough to touch the receiving pins in the HU slot. As suggested if you try to insert it slightly to the left or right of *normal* you might make better contact. The point at which it normally makes contact could be worn down a bit or dirty. NES and other carts often can have the same benefit from inserting them a bit off center.

I would bnot rub the contacts with sandpaper unless you can't get it to work under any other circumstances. You could damage the card beyond repair by sanding it.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Prospect of Making Some OMG RAREZ! Game Boots]

Factory pressed CDs are better. They are more stable and better for reading compared to writable media. However I disagree with the hate for playing CD-Rs. Not everyone can afford to buy a ton of games but they still might want to play the games on the real console. If the system can read the CD-R fine and it is burned correctly there is no difference to you playing the game. It's certainly better than emulation. Emulation can have all sorts of issues such as accuracy and performance. Another thing to consider about stamping new "bootleg" CDs of games is that eventually the original discs will fail. If you can and do make new ones then you can keep on playing. The lifespan of CD-ROMs was once said to be like 100 years but in reality it is probably a lot less.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: What battery can power this screen and a PC Engine?]

Doesn't the PCE run off a 9VDC input to a regulator that drops that to 5V? 12V is probably a bit much for healthy operation. It might work but I think it would produce more heat, but that might be ok. And if you have the screen running off that 12V source AND the PC-Engine the actual Voltage to the regulator in the PCE might be less and more favorable.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Graphics Glitch - DUO]

I agree with thesteve. The RAM chips may not be bad. You might just have a bad/dry solder joint or maybe a damaged trace. You could try reflowing/resoldering the RAM chips and see if that fixes the issue. Judging by the partial graphics correct display, maybe one or more of the address lines on the RAM chip is dry/poor contact. I'd suggest locating the RAM chip (make sure it is the right chip) and get a pinout and figure out which pins are address lines. Resolder those. If you fix it I would certainly like to hear what you had to do to get it working.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Street fighter 2]

Voted for Genny/MD - simply because it has the most faithful gameplay to the arcade version and the closest music (largely due to the similarity in Yamaha sound chips).

And the gameplay is more faithful, how exactly?

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Street fighter 2]

Don't forget the Genesis version music wise ,sound close to the CPS hardware

Close? Not really. Closer? Yes. The SNES version for example doesn't sound bad by any means but it doesn't sound like a YM chip. But the sound hardware or composition of the music for the Genesis doesn't stand up to the CPS1 original.

Really all the ports to the 16bit systems were good and they are all still SF2. It's pretty much pick your preference and go so you will probably pick your favorite systems out of the three.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Turbo Everdrive PC Engine / Turbografx 16 Flash Card Nearing Release]

Where is here? For me, it was to the USA and it took under 2 weeks from when I got the shipping notice email to receiving it. 11 days.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Street fighter 2]

Yeah if they came out with some kind of RAM Cart like with the Saturn (could have used the expansion port I imagine) the PSX could have done fine with 2D games but that was just not Sony's strategy at the time with their no-2D policy. Can't say I'm happy with that policy but it sure worked well for them.

I'm not certain but I've heard from people who know a good bit about the PS1 hardware that it should have been possible to add more RAM perhaps even Video RAM to the console via the Parallel I/O port on the back. So they could have gone that route. The sad thing is that it wouldn't have just been useful for things like 2D Arcade ports like games from Capcom and SNK. Games like Final Fantasy VII had to make cuts due to VRAM limitations. I'm pretty sure the out of battle models were not intended to look like barely better than Super FX 3D models. Other games certainly could have benefited from more memory. Sony just chose not to do it. Personally I think they should have and then later models could have just cut the external I/O port and had the upgrade built in.

Don't most/all of those later Capcom ports on Playstation have slowdown? Even though they are pushing less characters and animation?

Nope. And slowdown wouldn't be related to animation. Animations are mainly a memory issue.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Street fighter 2]

Genesis never had a version, the SNES had improved sound, but the PCE seems the best, not considering TURBO. The PSX also sucks with 2d.

That is very misleading. The PS1 can do 2D graphics fine. The Street Fighter 2 ports showed this. However the problem was the PS1 had a measly 1 megabyte of Video RAM. This was not enough when it came to later 2D games such as Capcom VS series (X-Men VS SF, Marvel VS SF, Marvel VS Capcom) and NeoGeo games like King of Fighters and Metal Slug. The PS1 was designed with 3D graphics in mind but it can work for 2D games just fine. The Saturn is seen as superior but it has a more complicated system design but it benefits from some extra Video RAM stock I believe, but more importantly thanks to the upgrade carts that included 1 and 4 megabytes of extra RAM. But it is a memory issue really. There is no reason the PSX Video processor couldn't handle such games.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Turbo Everdrive PC Engine / Turbografx 16 Flash Card Nearing Release]

Demand right now is probably pretty high. All new EverDrive carts tend to have this issue. You are right, just keep checking. Eventually a new batch will be available. If I remember right the reason he isn't taking more orders right now was he ran out of PCBs and the shipment of new PCBs got delayed. But more will be available sooner rather than later so keep checking. I recommend checking once a day, maybe whenever you check your email.

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: zeograd super hucard]

It's kind of interesting but a pretty limited number of games have the potential to work well because the Super CD only has a very small amount of RAM. I think any game that is over 256Kb won't fit. Play around with it if you want but there is no future to it. If you want all the HuCard games in one thing now there is the Turbo EverDrive.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Street fighter 2]

Really? I had a 6 button pad and SF2 for my first PC-Engine DUO. I didn't think the pad was that great. I definitely preferred the SNES controller and SF2 Turbo on my SNES. Again I really like all three systems. But the SNES had the best version of SF2.

I don't understand how "the hardware was pushed by graphics and sounds" makes it a better port. Graphically the PCE suffers from not having two background layers. Sound wise it doesn't compare to the SNES's SPC chip. I don't know what you mean by palette either. The SNES hardware had greater color resolution. I mean it's still a nice port of SF2 for the PC-Engine. You can have your favorite though. Mine is the CPS1 version. ;)