Greatest HuCard of all time - Poll

[SignOfZeta]

SF2CE is the pinnacle of HuCards, but since it's not on the voting list, oh well.

Technically its pretty impressive since its the biggest, and since it does things Super CDs could never do. It isn't actually all that fun though...to actually play...in 2011, IMO. The bigger picture has to be considered, and in the grand scheme of things once SFII' Turbo was released I played Champion Edition about two times.

For a true SF fan back in the day the lifespan of this HuCard was only about a month between its release in June and the SFC release of Turbo in July. And honestly since the game cost almost $150 (plus a $50 controller) that cash was better spent in the arcade playing a CPS version of Turbo while waiting for the home version.

The timing for SFII' on PCE really sucked

It is cool that it was the only home version of SFII' for a long long time, until the Capcom Collection series came out for PS and SS, I think, but in 1992 I was only interested in the newest update. Now that all 5 versions of SFII are really damned old, I still don't care to play SFII'. I vastly prefer Super Turbo and, on occasion, The World Warrior (just because its so massively unfair), or Rainbow Edition. SFII' is great if you, for some reason, don't have 50 other version of Street Fighter II in your possession, but its honestly kind of useless now. I'd rather player other fighters on PCE like Asuka, Flash Hiders, or AVG. Sure, they are inferior games, but that haven't been totally superseded like SFII' has been.

[Vecanti]

SF2CE is the pinnacle of HuCards, but since it's not on the voting list, oh well.

Technically its pretty impressive since its the biggest, and since it does things Super CDs could never do.

I've heard that before and I always wondered from a technical stand point what people meant by that.  What Does SFII do on HuCard that would not be possible if it were on a Super CD?

[SignOfZeta]

The Super System Card doesn't have enough RAM to load both characters, the BG, and all the sounds from a then-modern fighting game all at once. That's why the Arcade Card was invented.

Fighting games are massive RAM hogs, which is why almost nothing ported to Playstation survived animation cuts.

[awack]

Just to add to what SignOfZeta said which is absolutely right.

SFII has 12 levels/fighters, what you have to understand, is that you play two fighters/levels at once, but you only access the CD once per level...so thats almost one load for two levels.

So why do Side scrollers(a couple) and shooters end up better on the DUO as far as unique sprite frames, sprite size and unique BG tiles are concerned...because some of the best CD games have two loads per level(level and Boss)
To put this into context, remember that a single CD access per level(level and Boss) of 64K/Half a meg (CDROM2) is enough to compete with 8 meg cartridge games.

Thats a bit of an over simplification, because design/memory allocation can come into play.

[CrackTiger]

Although 2 megs would be tight for any kind of SFII port, what I've heard from programmers is that because the sprites are so animated and so fast, that they can't use compression either. Too bad the Arcade Card wasn't released sooner...

The Super System Card doesn't have enough RAM to load both characters, the BG, and all the sounds from a then-modern fighting game all at once. That's why the Arcade Card was invented.

I think that the sounds could be done with adpcm. They wouldn't be as clear as the HuCard SFII though. But I'm sure that the ACD fighters would've just stuck wih adpcm.

SF2CE is the pinnacle of HuCards, but since it's not on the voting list, oh well.

Technically its pretty impressive since its the biggest, and since it does things Super CDs could never do. It isn't actually all that fun though...to actually play...in 2011, IMO. The bigger picture has to be considered, and in the grand scheme of things once SFII' Turbo was released I played Champion Edition about two times.

For a true SF fan back in the day the lifespan of this HuCard was only about a month between its release in June and the SFC release of Turbo in July. And honestly since the game cost almost $150 (plus a $50 controller) that cash was better spent in the arcade playing a CPS version of Turbo while waiting for the home version.

The timing for SFII' on PCE really sucked

It is cool that it was the only home version of SFII' for a long long time, until the Capcom Collection series came out for PS and SS, I think, but in 1992 I was only interested in the newest update. Now that all 5 versions of SFII are really damned old, I still don't care to play SFII'. I vastly prefer Super Turbo and, on occasion, The World Warrior (just because its so massively unfair), or Rainbow Edition. SFII' is great if you, for some reason, don't have 50 other version of Street Fighter II in your possession, but its honestly kind of useless now. I'd rather player other fighters on PCE like Asuka, Flash Hiders, or AVG. Sure, they are inferior games, but that haven't been totally superseded like SFII' has been.

I didn't get SFII' the week it shipped, but it was still several months and what seemed like an eternity during that generation, until Turbo arrived for Genesis and SNES. Both of those games contain Champion Edition though, so the PCE port isn't really the only
version of CE.

Champion Edition is still my favorite version of SFII to this day and I chose it over all others to buy as a dedicated cabinet from an arcade vendor around the time that Alpha 3 was current. Even if I preferred 'Turbo, the PCE game was the only portable 16-bit port until the Nomad was released and it got a huge amount of play time on my TE.

[Arkhan Asylum]

I think that the sounds could be done with adpcm. They wouldn't be as clear as the HuCard SFII though. But I'm sure that the ACD fighters would've just stuck wih adpcm.

You can only play one sound at a time with ADPCM.  That would immediately suck as soon as one person throws a hadoken and the other throws a sonic boom

HADOSONICBOHADOSONIHADO

etc. etc.

thas what you'll hear.

and then the punching effects too. 

HADO*WHUMP*

YOGA *SwooooosH*

etc. etc.

it would be retarded

[termis]

Yeah, back then, Turbo was the version to play -- and this was still true as new versions kept on coming out -- but as time passed and the idea of "playing the latest & greatest version" no longer became relevant, CE version eventually reclaimed its status as being my favorite.  If I had to explain, in retrospect, the additions in Turbo seems a bit... I dunno, tacked on.  For example, Chun Li's fireball, and Ryu/Ken's air-spin kicks just doesn't seem "natural" at all.  It all just seems a bit hodge-podgy just to go against all the hacks in its time.   And couple other minor gripe include strange default color schemes (Purple gi on ken, drab gray on Chun Li, strange flesh tones of Blanka/Dhalsim, etc...), and the default speed being too fast IMO (though it seemed right at the time, but in retrospect, I think the too-quick pace de-emphasizes some of the strategy of the game) - yes, I undertand it can be adjusted, but not in the arcades, and fast was the way people were used to playing Hyper by the time it hit homes anyway.

And it's true that the timing+cost of the PCE version really wasn't worth it to vast majority of folks at the time.  No argument there.  And even now, if I want to play CE, I'll pop in SF collection in my saturn most of the times.  Still, I'll pop in CE in my PCE once in a while just to marvel at what the little 8-bitter did.  But hey, we don't live in the past, and we now enjoy the systems/games for what they are now.

Edit: just noticed Zeta said Super Turbo, not Hyper Fighting.  For me, by the time Super Turbos came around,  my interest was waning in SF2 (I think this was generally true too, since the first SSF was kind of a flop IMO).  I was under the impression that Hyper Fighting was the version of choice for most folks this day, but I could be wrong...

[Vecanti]

The Super System Card doesn't have enough RAM to load both characters, the BG, and all the sounds from a then-modern fighting game all at once. That's why the Arcade Card was invented.

Fighting games are massive RAM hogs, which is why almost nothing ported to Playstation survived animation cuts.

You think so? I look at an entire level of Lords of Thunder or this level in Gate of Thunder:

And it just seems like the one SFII background and few sprites pale in comparison. Now maybe the CD is loading data as the level is playing and there is just no pause as you go through the shooter and you can't notice it and that wouldn't work with SFII type game?

[TurboXray]

The Super System Card doesn't have enough RAM to load both characters, the BG, and all the sounds from a then-modern fighting game all at once. That's why the Arcade Card was invented.

Fighting games are massive RAM hogs, which is why almost nothing ported to Playstation survived animation cuts.

You think so? I look at an entire level of Lords of Thunder or this level in Gate of Thunder,

and I just seems like the one SFII background and few sprites pale in comparison.

'Zeta has it right. There's not enough CDRAM for an identical copy of PCE SF2 hucard to run via Suoer CD 3.0. Lords of Thunder and Gate of Thunder have 'tiled' style backgrounds. I.e. A lot of the level is made with reused tiles. SF2 has a lot of unique detail. But ignoring that, and assuming the whole BG was loaded into VRAM (which is the case on the hucard version), the sprites themselves is the real problem. There's just waaay too much unique frames of animation of two players to fit. GOT and LOT also use compression on the sprites, and decompresses them in real time as a back ground process (from what I saw in the debugger), and even compressed, it doesn't match that of SF2's # of frames of animation. None of the SF2 games on cart for the 16bit systems could be decompressed in real time, that's why the carts are big and all the sprite frames are uncompressed. You need fast as possible access to the frames for vram updates. 256k isn't going to cut it. I mean, the code has to use some of that ram too. You'd need 512k to 640k to do it properly and equivalent (handle 2 chars frames + code). The arcade card started proto working stage development stages in summer-ish 1992. I wouldn't doubt it that SF2 was probably projected for it. But the AC was delayed (AoF was already finished and ready by fall 1993). But there's no direct evidence of that, just speculation.

Now maybe the CD is loading data as the level is playing and there is just no pause as you go through the shooter and you can't notice it and that wouldn't work with SFII type game?

It's not. It's playing CDDA tracks. They could have streamed data via the sub channel, but they didn't (no game does and only CD+G's did that). But you can easily test this for your self. Take the disc out (open the lid) while playing any level of GOT. You can play through the level without the music. The only game that I know of that streams the level is the Tenchi wo Kurau game, and it used chiptunes because it needs access to the CD for data (can't play CDDA tracks at the same time).

[SignOfZeta]

Edit: just noticed Zeta said Super Turbo, not Hyper Fighting.  For me, by the time Super Turbos came around,  my interest was waning in SF2 (I think this was generally true too, since the first SSF was kind of a flop IMO).  I was under the impression that Hyper Fighting was the version of choice for most folks this day, but I could be wrong...

Super Turbo didn't have the massive PacMan-scale popularity of the earlier versions (didn't even have a contemporary home version, unless you count DOS/3DO), but it was the game to play at least until Street Fighter Zero came out.

You have to realize that the true 2D fighting game fans haven't stopped playing Street Fighter and KOF since SFII was released, and there was a 10 year gap where only one Capcom 2D fighter came out for consoles. So what are they playing every day? Rock Band? Call of Duty? Fuck that shit!

Until SFIV and MvC3 came out it was primarily, MvC2 and CvS2 (most popular) then probably Super Turbo (DC/XB/PS3 version or arcade re-release), Third Strike, and SFZ3. Most people broke out Super Turbo a least once in a while. Its true that things don't "match", some moves have too many frames of animation to blend in with the old stuff, the voices are all fucked up, etc, but its a little better than Turbo was. As a game it is really really good. The damage is still high compared to a new game, but nothing compared to SFII' where a well placed (or lucky) throw or 100 Hand Slap can shave off %30.

The SNK fans had something to play pretty regularly until KOF XI. Then there was a huge wait, then the putrid but promising KOF XII, and now a huge wait. People really want a home version of KOF XIII, but it might never happen.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Listen dont mention MvC2 or im going to find a way to ban your account.

That game should not be mentioned, ever.

[CrackTiger]

I think that the sounds could be done with adpcm. They wouldn't be as clear as the HuCard SFII though. But I'm sure that the ACD fighters would've just stuck wih adpcm.

You can only play one sound at a time with ADPCM.  That would immediately suck as soon as one person throws a hadoken and the other throws a sonic boom

HADOSONICBOHADOSONIHADO


...it would be retarded

You mean like the "retarded" arcade original? The highlighted section of your quote is exactly how the HuCard and arcade versions are. The HuCard version only uses a single channel for voice and a separate single channel for sfx. Sfx and voices cancel each other out in different variations between various versions of the game.

The voices for an Arcade Card port could be done with adpcm like the ACD fighters, using PSG for sfx. But it would be cool to hear a sample heavy game that mixes adpcm and regular pcm samples.

Maybe multiple channels of samples could run out of the adpcm channel at a reduced quality if programmed the right way, like how the Genesis versions do? The Genesis version also seems to use only 2 channels for samples, but allows voices to overlap and cancel out sfx at times.

[Arkhan Asylum]

I dunno if the PCEs adpcm thing can work like that.  At least not with what I've messed with.  You load the samples into the chip, and fire off where / how long of a sample you want to play and playing another one retriggers everything.   MAYBE would some hardcore fiddling, it would be possible... but Im not sure.

I dont recall the PCE SF having that problem, or the arcade one.  I know each character cancels their own voices out if you launch a new attack quick enough (hadoken to shoryuken).. but I don't recall each player cancelling each others effects out.

OK,  That one has it kind of I guess, when the elephants and shit cut off the shoryuken.

But, I think the problem would be far more prominent on the PCE... assuming ADPCM was used

The best way to do it would be to play samples on the PSG channels itself and not use ADPCM (like the PCE one does already, since its the best version! mWhahahha).  Use the PCM as extra storage!! lol

I fired up my new copy of SF2 from BlueBMW (my copy from Falling Junk broke).

I forgot how good the chiptunes sound lol

[nat]

Agreed. Lots of people get down on how the music in the Duo's port of SFII' is inferior to all the others, but I actually prefer it over every other port. The best reasoning I can come up with is other people are loyal to the sound of whatever port they grew up with and anything that sounds different just isn't as "good."

[Arkhan Asylum]

The PCE's sound is my favorite sound, so hearing Guile's tune all PCE chirpy is fucking awesome.

anyone who says its inferior is a tool.

[OldMan]

A very wierd though hit me when I was reading this....

I dunno if the PCEs adpcm thing can work like that.

What if the adpcm sound (which is stereo, i think) had different voices on each channel? Think you could mute the left side if the player wasn't in an attack? Sort of just toggle the channels to get the right sounds?

You would have to load the adpcm channels seperately, and you -might- (okay, probably) would have to track where you left off when you needed to change sounds. Think it would works?

[Arkhan Asylum]

A very wierd though hit me when I was reading this....

I dunno if the PCEs adpcm thing can work like that.

What if the adpcm sound (which is stereo, i think) had different voices on each channel? Think you could mute the left side if the player wasn't in an attack? Sort of just toggle the channels to get the right sounds?

You would have to load the adpcm channels seperately, and you -might- (okay, probably) would have to track where you left off when you needed to change sounds. Think it would works?

No, the ADPCM chip isn't like that.  You load up raw samples and set the playback rate, offset and length to play, and fire it off.  There aren't independent channels.

You can see more about it here, sort of.  The formatting on the page is all fucked up and meth-induced.  Whoever put it up didn't proof-read it or something.  It used to not be jacked up, so who knows what happened there.
http://archaicpixels.com/index.php/MSM5205 

[CrackTiger]

Agreed. Lots of people get down on how the music in the Duo's port of SFII' is inferior to all the others, but I actually prefer it over every other port. The best reasoning I can come up with is other people are loyal to the sound of whatever port they grew up with and anything that sounds different just isn't as "good."

Although the sound is nothing special by PCE PSG standards, the composition is better than everything, including the arcade. I love a lot of the sounds used in the Genesis version, but it's pretty unbalanced and sounds unfinished. The incorrect note at the end of the title screen music is hard to listen to. I prefer the original compositions overall to the SNES WW & Turbo remakes (they are different from each other), but the stereotypical SNES reverb fart sounds are what make it less enjoyable for me today.

[awack]

Like has been said, two medium/medium large sized sprites with 77 to 100 frames each, eats up allot of memory, and you cant stop in the middle of a fight to load more data from the CD.

You can how ever do that with other games like Winds of Thunder, Rondo of Blood and Beyond Shadowgate, screenshots below show the variety in each level from WOT, no cartridge shooter on the mainstream consoles came close in terms of sprite frames/variety. 

 

Level one




Level two





Level three





level four




Level five




Level six




Level seven







Infact, the only thing that comes close that Ive found is a cutemup, Parodius 2 (SFC) thats because its twice as large as other shooter at 16 megs, but not only does Winds of  thunder have more frames and variety, just look at the characters below ...WOT is a monster of a shooter.

WOT



Parodius 2

[Vecanti]

Like has been said, two medium/medium large sized sprites with 77 to 100 frames each, eats up allot of memory, and you cant stop in the middle of a fight to load more data from the CD.

I was trying to get into more of the Ram VS Rom limitation.  The SuperCD card is basically 2meg of RAM.  I'm thinking in a technical terms are there somethings a HuCard rom can can do that RAM can't? 

A much better way to ask my question to clear things up is this, are we saying that if NEC had said we want to send out a SFII demo to stores that consisted of just 1 Level, and just 2 characters and nothing else, no continue screen, no selection screen, simply let's say, Chun Li level and just Chun Li Character and Ryu.  Nothing else.  No nother screens.  That that would not fit in a 2Meg HuCard?

A full 1/8 card size of the entire finished game 1 level, 2 characters, but without all 12 characters, 12 full levels, 2 bonus levels, all the speaking for the continue screens, start screen, settings screen, selection screens, all the unique endings for each individual character, the intro animation, etc?  That was more what I was getting out, is there some thing different when using 2Meg card vs 2Meg ram from the SuperCD card?

[Arkhan Asylum]

I dunno, the more I look at it, MAYBE they could have done a SCD release of SF2.

Some things would need tweaked (animation frames especially), but these two fighting games are by no means awful games.

I really like both of them actually.

I mean, if they could port it to the Commodore 64, they can port it to the SCD

[awack]

Yeah,  the two fighters per level is the key, its like combining two levels but only one load time(2megs) where is other type of games can have four loads every two levels(8megs).. which is why the duo can do games like Rondo, WOT, Beyond shadowgate etc, cartridge memory is more versatile in a way since you can use any amount during at any point during a game, if they wanted, they could have put four fighter each round in SFII..there are other limiting factors that would make that unlikely though..

is there some thing different when using 2Meg card vs 2Meg ram from the SuperCD card?

Bonknuts should be able to confirm or deny this, but i think that 2meg CD memory is if anything better than 2meg card, since it acts as system memory, and helps get around the limited system memory(8KB for pce)

[CrackTiger]

I dunno, the more I look at it, MAYBE they could have done a SCD release of SF2.

Some things would need tweaked (animation frames especially), but these two fighting games are by no means awful games.

I really like both of them actually.

I mean, if they could port it to the Commodore 64, they can port it to the SCD

If they simplified the backgrounds of SFII so that they were more like those games, then they might have been able to have pulled it off. But the stages might've ended up looking closer to this-

It wouldn't have been that bad, but a SFII game with noticeably repeating tiles would break the game's mystique.





I never noticed the different art between similar enemies in Lords of Thunder. I think that I always assumed that they were simply palette swaps.

[awack]

I never noticed the different art between similar enemies in Lords of Thunder. I think that I always assumed that they were simply palette swaps.

Haha, same here, i guess thats another benefit of a CD game.

[TurboXray]

I was trying to get into more of the Ram VS Rom limitation.  The SuperCD card is basically 2meg of RAM.  I'm thinking in a technical terms are there somethings a HuCard rom can can do that RAM can't? 

First, instant access to a wider range of memory. And the second is reusable data. A level or area can be build of assets reused from other areas, partially or completely - and not look the same. Those are the two strengths of hucard vs CD (specially format/design).

A much better way to ask my question to clear things up is this, are we saying that if NEC had said we want to send out a SFII demo to stores that consisted of just 1 Level, and just 2 characters and nothing else, no continue screen, no selection screen, simply let's say, Chun Li level and just Chun Li Character and Ryu.  Nothing else.  No nother screens.  That that would not fit in a 2Meg HuCard?

Not bit for bit of the hucard version. Ignoring sprite frames for just for a sec, you still need game logic/code. You still need sprites sheets. You need animation tables. Etc. These are lookup tables with timings per frame, sequences of frame animation, meta-sprite object to low level object (real sprites). That can take up a nice chuck, especially for a fighting game with a lot of animation - not just the literal pixel frames themselves. Then add the actual pixel frames in. Samples take up space, so put them in ADPCM ram (whether you use ADPCM to play them or not. ADPCM access for read/write is slow, but fast enough for PSG PCM driver to read out and play). 2megs is 256k. Code+lookup tables are probably going to be 64k+ at minimum, but probably more. And BG data could remain all in vram (i.e. it's a separate read and load from CD). And assuming no chiptune music driver (CDDA instead). You have roughly 192k best case scenario and probably 128k worst case, left over for sprite frames. Split the difference and say it's 160k free for sprite frames. Dhalsim's fighting sprite frames (and projectiles) as 130k in the PCE hucard. That's more than half of the available sprite reserved CDRAM right there. Some characters have a little less and some have more space requirement. So could you do it? Yes, but it wouldn't be exactly like the hucard. There would be missing frames of animation. And that's assuming all areas load from CD (map/stage/character select, continue/loose screen, etc). If this were SGX SCD, you could probably just get away with it. With its additional 24k of ram, plus having two VDC's you could have more room in each VDC. I.e. preload a few sprite frames stay in vram memory. But back to the PCE, so if the scenario you chose had two chars that required less than a total of 160k (or whatever is really available) of sprite frame ram - then sure. But what good is that, if you have to cripple other characters to conform to that?

A full 1/8 card size of the entire finished game 1 level, 2 characters, but without all 12 characters, 12 full levels, 2 bonus levels, all the speaking for the continue screens, start screen, settings screen, selection screens, all the unique endings for each individual character, the intro animation, etc?  That was more what I was getting out, is there some thing different when using 2Meg card vs 2Meg ram from the SuperCD card? 

Between a 2meg hucard(rom) vs 2meg CDRAM (ram)? No, no difference. But what you're missing is that the the SF2 game itself doesn't neatly divide each stage area into evenly divided parts. If you forced it into such, something would have to give. And like I said previously, rom has the direct ability to reuse any asset of the entire rom for whatever purpose. It's a form of compression. And it's makes design mechanism that still gave advantages to hucards over CDRAM. And it's not like that 20meg hucard has lots of wasted space, because it doesn't. It's packed. Even the BG tiles are compressed (which, with a rom that size you'd figure there wouldn't be a need to for such relatively small screens).

[awack]

oops, i forgot these two large characters, similar but very different in outline and detail.


the four legged creatures middle right. Looks even more impressive in comparison than before



God, im an idiot, i keep leaving large charcters out of the WOT sprite sheet, like i said, a monster of a shooter.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Well if you drop some of the animation frames, thered be less overhead.

Its not like other versions of the game didnt do this.  

and no matter what you do it would never turn out like this pile of fuck

Repeat a bit more tiles than the arcade, drop the animation frames some, itd be ok.  I bet chiptunes would still fit in.  You use the built in stuff, and all the music from SF2 could fit in like <16k of space.

also

Here is another reason why I hate when jackass Europeans touch Japanese games.

Why is Ken's music playing in Vega's stage.  more importantly why are they all fucked up rehashes, and who thought the guitars sounded good?

They sound like 3AM infomercial guitars.

[Vecanti]

Between a 2meg hucard(rom) vs 2meg CDRAM (ram)? No, no difference. But what you're missing is that the the SF2 game itself doesn't neatly divide each stage area into evenly divided parts. If you forced it into such, something would have to give. And like I said previously, rom has the direct ability to reuse any asset of the entire rom for whatever purpose. It's a form of compression. And it's makes design mechanism that still gave advantages to hucards over CDRAM. And it's not like that 20meg hucard has lots of wasted space, because it doesn't. It's packed. Even the BG tiles are compressed (which, with a rom that size you'd figure there wouldn't be a need to for such relatively small screens).

Yeah, but you don't have worry how efficiently you split and load it with CD. You can duplicate things if it's going to make it easier to load in to 2meg chunks later. You only have to worry about the single biggest point where you need the most data at once to have a complete level.  

So with the idea of NEC creating a Demo HuCard of SFII  it's really as simple as saying it's would be a limit of fitting 1 Level and just 2 characters into >2meg HuCard as well then?  1 level and 2 characters being the time I can think of there being the single point that most memory would be used/needed in SFII.

[CrackTiger]

Yeah, but you don't have worry how efficiently you split and load it with CD. You can duplicate things if it's going to make it easier to load in to 2meg chunks later. You only have to worry about the single biggest point where you need the most data at once to have a complete level. 

Since you're talking about technical advantages/disadvantages: You don't have to worry how efficiently you split and load it with a HuCard either.

So with the idea of NEC creating a Demo HuCard of SFII  it's really as simple as saying it's would be a limit of fitting 1 Level and just 2 characters into >2meg HuCard as well then?  1 level and 2 characters being the time I can think of there being the single point that most memory would be used/needed in SFII.

Yeah, it's the same challenge whether it's cart/HuCard or CD. You're just trying to fit enough of the original game within a certain amount of space. With Super CD, you technically have 2 1/2 megs of space to work with and adpcm uses compression, so if the sample quality can be adjusted (can it?), the same quality samples should take up less space using adpcm than pcm. I don't know if you need more code to use adpcm samples though... But Bonknuts already pointed out that the character sprites alone, with no game code, sound or backgrounds, pretty much uses up 2 megs of space.

[SignOfZeta]

I dunno, the more I look at it, MAYBE they could have done a SCD release of SF2.

I mean, if they could port it to the Commodore 64, they can port it to the SCD

Well, yeah, but they wanted it to not be shit.

Asuka and AVG are impressive, but I'm pretty sure if someone went through the effort to make one of those massive sprite sheets for these games and compare it to SFII' you'd see a huge difference.

SFII' is a six button game, three punches, three kicks. Three when standing, three different ones when crouching, three different ones when jumping, and often times three different ones when jumping diagonally. Also you have three different strengths of special (usually the same animation, but different timings and speeds need to be coded). You also have way more speech and the backgrounds have destructible obstacles, line scrolling floors, and animated elephants and bicycles and people and stuff.

In addition to being a fucking great game just from a gameplay perspective, SFII was also pure graphical overkill from hell when it came out, which is partially why it was so successful. All the home versions are extremely good, considering the limitations. Even the b/w Gameboy one is surprisingly decent. They could have made something like Super Fighter 3 (bootleg FC cart) or the C64 game, but they are (or were) Capcom, and they don't put out much crap (well, now they do). If the PCE one was more like the C64 one it would have been extremely unpopular. Bad, not just for Street Fighter and Capcom, but bad for NEC. Keep in mind that the SFC version of SFII had been out for some time and it was very close to the arcade. A C64-quality version would have really made the PC Engine look like an 8-bit relic.

[Arkhan Asylum]

I wasnt saying they make it C64 quality, I was just saying if they could manage that on the C64, the SCD should be able to handle a better game.

Its one of those never-going-to-know-for-sure things, unless someone decides theyre going to try and do it.

but even then, I doubt it would ever see completion.

and now that I think about it anyways, who cares if it wasnt on CD?

the card is easily accessible and playable.

[TurboXray]

Yeah, but you don't have worry how efficiently you split and load it with CD. You can duplicate things if it's going to make it easier to load in to 2meg chunks later. You only have to worry about the single biggest point where you need the most data at once to have a complete level.

Correct. You don't have to worry about global efficiency side like you do on a cart rom project. But I think that's obvious. What's not so obvious, is just is how limiting 2megabits of ram can be, compared to a rom project. Sure, ADPCM can save space that you would normally store for samples (assuming your game/etc is using SFX samples), or as slow ram (cause it's much slower to access) giving you a total of 2.5megabits is no samples used. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure you can't read ADPCM while it's playing. You can only write to it while it's playing (huvideo does this to stream ADPCM from main memory to ADPCM memory). IIRC, it's because the play pointer register and the read pointer register are shared, but the write pointer register (that forms the address) isn't. I.e. you can't do 2.25megabit normal (2megabite fast, 0.25 slow) and 0.25megabit for sample playback via ADPCM controller combination at the same time. But I could be wrong, I'd have to look into it. ADPCM 8khz takes up less space than 7khz 5bit pcm, so it's an advantage to use ADPCM to store and play samples over normal interrupt+DDA method of the cpu. And ADPCM play takes almost no cpu resource too in comparison, which means no complex dual interrupt system (VDC and TIMER, both out of sync/phase) ).

 Many CD titles are self contained areas/levels with redundant data. So it's faster to load a level/area/whatever, instead of seeking all over the place for different packets/chunks of data (funny, Rondo does exactly this though, making the loading longer than it should be). And lazily, they simple recopy/paste enemies from other levels of the game into these sections, when they could have added something unique to each level sprite or tileset, etc. A strength of the CD format severally missed out on, on most titles IMO.

So with the idea of NEC creating a Demo HuCard of SFII  it's really as simple as saying it's would be a limit of fitting 1 Level and just 2 characters into >2meg HuCard as well then?  1 level and 2 characters being the time I can think of there being the single point that most memory would be used/needed in SFII.

Correct. Though, you could make it even more painful but save some memory if you have the winning poses/etc part of the match as a 'load' section as well, but that would mean next rounds would have loads too (where as additional rounds of the same characters and same level would need no reloading if no character loose screens appeared,etc). If NEC upgraded the SCD 3.0 memory to logical additional 256k via cart instead of a funky number like 192k (which means multiple chips), then it's pretty likely that you would have seen a version SF2 on Super CD. And maybe only SCD. Dunno. There's no denying that SF2 port to SuperCD would have suffered some cuts in character frames of animation as it is now, but that it's only speculation as to if that's the main reason why they didn't do Super CD version. Maybe there were other influencing factors, like making an impressive hucard, making it available to all PCE systems CD or not, including portables, etc. But one would think, that if the the 2megabit CDRAM limit *wasn't* a huge factor as I and others are pointing out, then why wasn't there a slightly crippled SCD release of it at the same time or relatively close? But then again, why didn't we see any additional SF2 games for the ACD that had none of either projects limitations - yet saw impressive ports of Neo Geo games?

 Also, Bonk 3 SCD game has missing frames of animation for giant bonk that couldn't fit into memory (or specific level design requirements, maybe most levels but not all). Yet the hucard version has the additional frames.

[OldRover]

Many CD titles are self contained areas/levels with redundant data. So it's faster to load a level/area/whatever, instead of seeking all over the place for different packets/chunks of data

This is what I do, since it seems logical... reseeking multiple times, even in the same general area, is an expensive operation.

[spenoza]

But then again, why didn't we see any additional SF2 games for the ACD that had none of either projects limitations - yet saw impressive ports of Neo Geo games?

Capcom ports for the PCE were almost universally programmed by NEC Avenue or some other company that was not Capcom. Capcom basically didn't get involved with the PC Engine, so decisions about platform and such were up to NEC/Hudson.

But let's think about the release timetable a little bit. Street Fighter II hit the SFC in June of '92 Street Fighter II' on PCE was released exactly 1 year later. A mere month later the SNES got Street Fighter II Turbo, skipping the '/CE release altogether. The MD lagged another 2 months in getting Street Fighter II' Plus: Champion Edition. While the PCE had the first release among the 3 consoles of the SF2 upgrades, it was also the only version not programmed by Capcom.

Further complicating this is that a single month after the MD release of SFII' Plus Capcom released Super Street Fighter II to arcades, with several new characters and upgrades to graphics, animation, and sound all around. NEC Avenue could likely have released an Arcade Card version of SFII' Plus/Turbo/Champion, but the Arcade Card didn't come out until March of '94, meaning that 5 months AFTER the release of Super SF2 to arcades players would be getting, essentially, the Genesis/SNES version of a slightly upgraded SFII' in a form available only to a more limited audience of gamers (those who bought the Arcade Card and already had a CD unit or Duo). And a mere 3 months after the release of the Arcade Card (June '94, one year after the release of the SFC SF2T), Capcom brought Super SF2 to the SFC.

The argument could be made that the Arcade Card could accommodate a more than passable port of SSF2, but I imagine the license cost to NEC Ave or Hudson would be large enough that it wouldn't have been worth the cost, disregarding the development time and the limited potential for sales. It could have boosted Arcade Card sales greatly if it had been released before the SFC version, but arriving later and with the hardware burden it would have required, it would have been a tough sell, even if it had been better than the SFC version and, later, the MD version. The Neo Geo licenses from SNK were probably much cheaper and helped differentiate the system, especially given how relatively badly the SFC and MD dealt with those ports (NEC Ave and Hudson were both much better dev houses than the companies that licensed the Neo Geo titles for the SFC and MD).

In the end, the PCE version of SFII' on Hucard was well placed to take advantage of the tail end of the PCE's market presence, and beat all other SF2 upgrades to market. It was available for anyone who owned any form of PC Engine compatible hardware, meaning more potential for sales. Given how few Arcade Card games were released, it was clear that the PCE dev houses knew the system's days were limited and were thus not eagerly embracing licenses or original IP left and right. I really think NEC Avenue handled the SF2 property on the PCE as well as could be expected, if not better. Had they taken any other approach I think they would have seen less success.

[awack]

Also, Bonk 3 SCD game has missing frames of animation for giant bonk that couldn't fit into memory (or specific level design requirements, maybe most levels but not all). Yet the hucard version has the additional frames.

Yep, memory allocation, how much memory you want to use and where. They decided to use a large chunk, not just for one, but for two large sprites Simultaneously, the lesson in my oppinion, is how not to design a game..no matter what level, you will be walking past the same brick, rock or tree trunk over and over and over again, character sprites have 2 or 3 frames each, Bosses are large, but not much better animation wise.

And lazily, they simple recopy/paste enemies from other levels of the game into these sections, when they could have added something unique to each level sprite or tileset, etc. A strength of the CD format severally missed out on, on most titles IMO.

I might be wrong, but I'm guessing production time/cost. If you look at the average side scrolling action game, they have around 200 to 600 unique sprite frames, the absolute best, range from 700 to 1000 frames, Rondo has about 2900 frames, of which somewhere around 2600 are unique...not only that, but many are very detailed, try and draw several frames in the style of say Aladdin(cartoony) and then try in the style of Rondo/SOTN.



Level 3, almost looks like an entire game.






there are are quite a few more unique tiles than whats in the shots like this shot, but I'm just giving an idea.




Hell, they didn't even care if it was all visible to the player, I'm guessing they were thinking about putting a window there.

BG layer on                                          BG layer off





I started ripping Asuka, but fighting games are just so damn boring to rip. Every time i play it, i find a new move you can pull off, the game is really hurt by the two button setup. I'm probably the only person who feels this way, but i prefer Asuka over SFIICE, its faster, more going on on-screen at once, great combination moves and other things like being able to step to the side to dodge.

[Arkhan Asylum]

As a whole, Asuka 120% and Advanced VG are both more fun than SF2CE to me.

nostalgia and chiptunes are the only things keeping SF2CE interesting for me.

[TurboXray]

Further complicating this is that a single month after the MD release of SFII' Plus Capcom released Super Street Fighter II to arcades, with several new characters and upgrades to graphics, animation, and sound all around. NEC Avenue could likely have released an Arcade Card version of SFII' Plus/Turbo/Champion, but the Arcade Card didn't come out until March of '94, meaning that 5 months AFTER the release of Super SF2 to arcades players would be getting, essentially, the Genesis/SNES version of a slightly upgraded SFII' in a form available only to a more limited audience of gamers (those who bought the Arcade Card and already had a CD unit or Duo). And a mere 3 months after the release of the Arcade Card (June '94, one year after the release of the SFC SF2T), Capcom brought Super SF2 to the SFC.

It might have come out in March '94, but the card was supposed to come out in fall '93 (design wise, it was final and ready, etc). It was delayed because of production reasons (IIRC, relative to cost.. the ram ICs). The Arcade card started out mid-to-late '92, was upgraded and working/finalized mid '93 (the original arcade card has missing a lot of key features and required the CPU to be in slow mode (1.79mhz) to access the data ports). Art of Fighting was finished by fall '93 and ready for release. I can't say for other titles, as I don't have access to the source code for that project. But it wouldn't be unthinkable for other titles as well. That puts a different time frame to all of this. AoF came out in late '92, and it would've been released almost a year to date for ACD (though they had the direct source code for the Neo Geo version. I can see it in the comments and parts of the translation to 6280 code). SF2 game series were mostly upgrades to existing engines. Much easier to tweak and modify and existing engine that to build a game from the ground up. The turn around/dev time to produce the additional games in the series wouldn't have taken as long, since they already had SF2 CE developed and released. More profitable from that standpoint, and most profitable to produce a disc than a hucard with a custom mapper and lots of rom. But then again, your target audience is smaller. But, the more A list games you have for the new format - the more popular it becomes and the base increases (every potential Duo unit and user, was a potential buyer for the upgrade). They also should have played the benefit bi-compatible card more often of the ACD (SCD titles the loaded much less when using the ACD).

I might be wrong, but I'm guessing production time/cost. If you look at the average side scrolling action game, they have around 200 to 600 unique sprite frames, the absolute best, range from 700 to 1000 frames, Rondo has about 2900 frames, of which somewhere around 2600 are unique...not only that, but many are very detailed, try and draw several frames in the style of say Aladdin(cartoony) and then try in the style of Rondo/SOTN.

They could have added small changes in detail to the enemies. I don't mean any major stuff and something more than just palette swaps. Once the original set was pixel'd, making more unique changes for additional sets would more of a trivial thing relative to starting from scratch. I'm not saying this with specifically Rondo in mind (though my comment about it was specifically the rather strange poor load scheme used), but generally to all CD games for the PCE. Sure, there are some exceptions but most don't feel like much of any advantage from the CD storage format itself (other than cinemas, adpcm streaming, or CDDA tracks).  Some of those frames of animation you count aren't specifically a 'pixeled' frames (they use palette and/or multiple sprites overlaying via script or such). I'm specifically referring to pixel'd frames of animation (because they almost always take up most space to store each frame than the other method mentioned).

[FraGMarE]

Where the hell are SF2:CE and Nectaris/Military Madness?!  Better question... where the hell is Ninja Spirit?!?!?!  In lieu of those, I voted Devil's Crush.  The music is amazing, and the replay value is better than anything else on this list, except for maybe Bomberman 93/04 in Battle mode.

I'd also like to point out that many of the enemies in WoT/LoT use "ball n' chain" sprite mechanics, which require next to no animation frames stored in RAM/VRAM.  All you need is a body, a head, and a somewhat circular sprite you can chain together to form the "neck".  The actual animation of said enemy is just executed in code by moving around those three sprites.  Simple but effective... elegant, really.  Dracula X, on the other hand, is a marvel... there are so many animated frames, it's ridiculous.  Then again, it accesses the CD quite frequently.

I'll be pretty honest here and just say fitting two SF2:CE characters, the background tiles, voices, and code into 2Mbit (256KB) of RAM (at least without sacrificing animation frames) is pretty impossible.  Have you ever gone through and looked at all the SF2 characters' frames?  There are a LOT.  Consider that each 16x16 sprite uses 128 bytes of RAM/ROM.  Each SF2 character frame is comprised of ~16 of those sprites (give or take, depending on the particular animation frame).  That's 2KB.  Let's say each SF2 character has 64 unique animation frames (a pretty conservative estimate).  That's 128KB.  Double that, since there are two characters on-screen, and that's your 2Mbit (256KB) of RAM used up in character animation ALONE... that's not even counting background tiles and code.  Perhaps if the Super System Card was 3 or 4Mbit, they could have pulled this off... but as it was, HuCard was the obvious choice for mass appeal without sacrificing the game's integrity.

[Vecanti]

Yeah, I see what you are saying. I was looking at it from even if each sprite was 1meg each, the system with SCD card + console ram is 2.5meg.  There are 12 characters.  20meg card - 12meg = 8meg for the rest of the game.  There are 14 levels(with bonus rounds), battle over screen with lots of talking (counting 10 to 1) that loads separately, 12 character endings that load separately, the opening screen animations, the setting screens and character selection screens, and so forth.  You dived that 8 meg by all that other stuff.  Are you loading .5 meg of stuff for each of just the 1/14 of the levels?  If so 14 x .5 is 7meg +12meg for characters that is 19meg.  That leaves 1 meg for all the other endings, openings, selection, etc.  And still leaves room for it to be theoretically doable.

[SignOfZeta]

I'm sure that a version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo/Super Street Fighter IIX could have been done with the arcade card, and it would have been the best version of SFII until the PS and SS versions came out. It would have been better than the 3DO since while the 3DO version had larger sprites, it also had really pathetic backgrounds (missing things even the SNES ver of SFII had).

But would it have sold? Well, probably? Its hard to say. Capcom decided that Super was good enough for SFC and MD and that Super Turbo wasn't necessary. I found this really fucking frustrating back in the day. If they felt that it wouldn't make money on the SFC then...its hard to make the case that it would have made any money as an Arcade Card release. It did get released on 3DO...a PCE version would have made more money than a 3DO version, wouldn't it?

Either way, it sure would have been nice.

[awack]

Some of those frames of animation you count aren't specifically a 'pixeled' frames (they use palette and/or multiple sprites overlaying via script or such).

Absolutely, in 2700/2900 total, i include most of that stuff, not all but almost all.I subtract 300 of those to get a total of 2400/2700, if i subtract 400 frames, thats removing 1 in every 6.8 frame.. thats to many in my estimation.

In contrast, the totals i got for Dracxx(1005/1080) SCIV(650/680) all include color cycling, mirroring, and sprite shifting.

Heres an example of Bloodlines





We also have to remember that not every frame is equal, some of the largest sprites are completely missing or downsized.


Rondo


Dracxx



Not only that, but check this out, looking at the shot below, you will notice that the Dracxx  dracula is just shifting sprites from left to right to simulate animation...right above his elbow, his arm shifts to the right a few pixels and then back, which is why you see his arm farther away from his body and then closer....now look at Rondos Dracula, from his upper body to his lower body to his face, those are all redrawn .

Still, i counted all of these as unique.


So, in the end, when you compare these games in detail, you realize that rondo is far, far more impressive than even the 2700/2900 versus 1005/1080 frames would suggest.

It might have come out in March '94, but the card was supposed to come out in fall '93 (design wise, it was final and ready, etc). It was delayed because of production reasons

I read somewhere there was a fire at the plant that manufactured the memory and thats what set it back.

[spenoza]

For all the mistakes NEC and Hudson made with the PCE hardware, I'm sure they were watching the market and aware that delays were likely. I'm not convinced the delay was last-minute and totally unexpected. Still, given the price up the upgrade AND the hardware requirements behind it, not to mention the quickly rising star of the SFC, there were tough decisions to be made. Nintendo did not make things easy on NEC and Hudson.

Also, Super SF2 used a new engine on brand new arcade hardware, not just a simple tweak. It was the debut of the CPS2 hardware and so the development would have been based on two options: totally reprogram the new SF2 for the PCE or do a massive retro-fit on the old engine.

I wonder if Super SF2 would really have been a solid boon to the Arcade Card and PCE in general. The SFC was already doing so well in the market, and access to Square titles and the great stuff Nintendo was putting out meant that the SFC Super SF2 would have been more than adequate even if an ACD release was better in some regard.

It might have come out in March '94, but the card was supposed to come out in fall '93 (design wise, it was final and ready, etc). It was delayed because of production reasons (IIRC, relative to cost.. the ram ICs). The Arcade card started out mid-to-late '92, was upgraded and working/finalized mid '93 (the original arcade card has missing a lot of key features and required the CPU to be in slow mode (1.79mhz) to access the data ports). Art of Fighting was finished by fall '93 and ready for release. I can't say for other titles, as I don't have access to the source code for that project. But it wouldn't be unthinkable for other titles as well. That puts a different time frame to all of this. AoF came out in late '92, and it would've been released almost a year to date for ACD (though they had the direct source code for the Neo Geo version. I can see it in the comments and parts of the translation to 6280 code). SF2 game series were mostly upgrades to existing engines. Much easier to tweak and modify and existing engine that to build a game from the ground up. The turn around/dev time to produce the additional games in the series wouldn't have taken as long, since they already had SF2 CE developed and released. More profitable from that standpoint, and most profitable to produce a disc than a hucard with a custom mapper and lots of rom. But then again, your target audience is smaller. But, the more A list games you have for the new format - the more popular it becomes and the base increases (every potential Duo unit and user, was a potential buyer for the upgrade). They also should have played the benefit bi-compatible card more often of the ACD (SCD titles the loaded much less when using the ACD).

[FraGMarE]

Yeah, I see what you are saying. I was looking at it from even if each sprite was 1meg each, the system with SCD card + console ram is 2.5meg.

The Super CD-ROM system used 2.0Mbit (256KB) of RAM, not 2.5Mbit.  There was 64KB built into the unit and the Super System Card added another 192KB.  In a Duo, the 64KB and 192KB were both simply just built onto the system board.

It really doesn't matter how you divide up the way you believe the HuCard allocated the data.  It doesn't change the fact that each full character animation set used around 1Mbit (128KB) at a MINIMUM.  I'm looking at this from a PCE pixel artist perspective... if someone told me to try to fit two SF2 characters into 256KB of RAM and still have room for code, backgrounds, and voices, I'd tell them they basically have three options: 1.) Compress the graphical data and suffer slowdown, 2.) Drop some animation frames and suffer choppy animation, or 3.) Fuck right off.  There's just no way all that data is getting crammed into 2Mbit of RAM.   

[SignOfZeta]

There isn't a huge difference between CPS1 and CPS2 (see the CP Changer port of Street Fighter Zero to see what the CPS1 could do).  I don't see why the existing SFII' couldn't just be ported to the Arcade Card and have the Super Turbo assets added to it. It's just five more characters/BGs and one super move each.

As for it being worth doing financially...again, that's hard to say. I'm sure it wouldn't have been worth it for Capcom, but it might have been worth it for Hudson or NEC to do it.

The absence of any decent port of SSFIIX (only 3DO and Marty ports existed) until years after it's arcade release is puzzling. Sure it would have sold in as large of numbers as SFII'Turbo, but neither to %95 of games in general, and it wouldn't have been very expensive to develop.

[Arkhan Asylum]

There's just no way all that data is getting crammed into 2Mbit of RAM.   

3 FRAMES! STANDING, HALF OF PUNCH THROWN, ALL OF PUNCH THROWN, ETC.

WE CAN FIT IT ON A 5.25" FLOPPY.  C64 STYLE.

That would suck so bad.

[CrackTiger]

I would assume that any port of SSFIIT would have been based off of SSFII for SNES.

[TurboXray]

Yeah, I see what you are saying. I was looking at it from even if each sprite was 1meg each, the system with SCD card + console ram is 2.5meg.  There are 12 characters.  20meg card - 12meg = 8meg for the rest of the game.  There are 14 levels(with bonus rounds), battle over screen with lots of talking (counting 10 to 1) that loads separately, 12 character endings that load separately, the opening screen animations, the setting screens and character selection screens, and so forth.  You dived that 8 meg by all that other stuff.  Are you loading .5 meg of stuff for each of just the 1/14 of the levels?  If so 14 x .5 is 7meg +12meg for characters that is 19meg.  That leaves 1 meg for all the other endings, openings, selection, etc.  And still leaves room for it to be theoretically doable.

It's 2.5megabit *IF* you treated ADPCM ram as slow ram (which is fine, just not for code. But SF2 still needs 'samples', so it's almost useless to talk about ADPCM ram as holding anything else but audio. I.e. my statement that you can't play ADPCM samples and read other parts of it for non-audio use at the same time). Excluding ADPCM, it's 0.5 megabit for CD 2.0 and additional 1.5 megabit for SCD 3.0 upgrade, for a total of 2.0 megabit SCD 3.0 CDRAM.

[Vecanti]

Well, I think there should have been a SFII laseractive version anyway.  Floor and sprites are SCD and the backgrounds laserdisc.  Kickass!

[SignOfZeta]

I would assume that any port of SSFIIT would have been based off of SSFII for SNES.

I can't imagine why they would go that route when they already had the bulk of it done for the SFII' HuCard. Fundamentally it's almost the exact same friggn game. Add some new characters and backgrounds, different endings, supers, make Ken's shouryuken burn people...thats about it.

[spenoza]

I would assume that any port of SSFIIT would have been based off of SSFII for SNES.

I can't imagine why they would go that route when they already had the bulk of it done for the SFII' HuCard. Fundamentally it's almost the exact same friggn game. Add some new characters and backgrounds, different endings, supers, make Ken's shouryuken burn people...thats about it.

SSF2 is actually a bit more different than simply that. I'm pretty sure there were some fundamental engine changes, even if it doesn't appear that way to the casual player.