3 ms·

This is a shame because it was a considerably powerful compared to the famicom This is 100% true: the base Master System is more powerful than the base NE

This is a shame because it was a considerably powerful compared to the famicom This is 100% true: the base Master System is more powerful than the base NES in terms of RAM, and onscreen colors, ability to do split screen / multilayered scrolling, and a few other key metrics. Though, the slightly fuller picture is that the Famicom's weirdly unique architecture made it able to be "upgraded" by hardware on the game carts themselves. So in practice, many flagship NES titles quickly surpassed those on the Master System by various technical measures.

marcodiego 4y ago
Nintendo also had something I think is a great idea when developing the NES: the video hardware had its own bus to the cartridge. This probably saved many cycles keeping the processor busy with other things instead of transferring content to the video RAM. It also allows better use of the system's very limited RAM and video RAM. I don't know if there was any patent related to this, and I can't understand why SEGA didn't copy it. Maybe it could make the console more expensive since SEGA didn't produce their own chips and maybe they were really expecting to make ports easier. I still think a bus connecting the video hardware to the cartridge could make the Master System way more powerful.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  God, yeah. It's very difficult for me to look at retro game hardware design decisions without obsessing over "what if?" scenarios. My favorite (and by that I mean, "most agonizing") what-if's concern the Genesis/Megadrive. I don't have handy links, but: - There was some sort of hardware fail that prevented clear sample playback. The sound chip could play back crystal clear samples but in reality, this was impossible to achieve thanks to some issue (DMA? bus? something?) and in reality, sampled sounds on the Genesis sounded like butt - The Genesis' limited color palette and number of onscreen colors relative to the SNES and even the TG16 was kind of painful. I remember reading that one reason for this limitation was the need to include backwards compatibility with the SMS in the Genesis' video chip -- a feature few if any cared about or used. Arrrrgh. A Genesis with color to rival the SNES/TG16 would have been such a fearsome beast.
- deaddodo 4y ago
  > Nintendo also had something I think is a great idea when developing the NES: the video hardware had its own bus to the cartridge. This probably saved many cycles keeping the processor busy with other things instead of transferring content to the video RAM. It also allows better use of the system's very limited RAM and video RAM. Nintendo did this because they had to, not because it was an ingenious innovation. Sega didn’t do it in the SMS/GG for the same reason Nintendo didn’t do it in the GB or GBA; because those architectures were much more efficient at ferrying data due to their high cycle counts. The Z80, for the most part, at 4MHz is about equivalent to a 6502 at 1MHz due to architectural differences / differing design decisions. Except in strictly loop-based copies, since it can move more data in the same sliver of time, especially if you utilize ported memory.
  - marcodiego 4y ago
    > Sega didn’t do it in the SMS/GG for the same reason Nintendo didn’t do it in the GB or GBA; because those architectures were much more efficient at ferrying data due to their high cycle counts. I'm still unconvinced. I wonder what could be done with that spare cycles and what the video hardware could do with a dedicated bus with a full address space all for itself.
deaddodo 4y ago
There was nothing special about NES’s architecture. It was literally just a cart that, when plugged in, was directly wired to a subset of address lines. Utilizing the CHR/PRG separation allowed for some interesting mapper designs and eased graphics loading, sure. But the Master System was as capable of mapping cart based logic. The Master System just didn’t need it during its peak sales period (due to the aforementioned more capable base design) nor did it last long enough for developers to focus on developing anything special (Nintendo and a few major companies make up the developers of the majority of “official” mappers, Sega didn’t have many big names at the time nor did the support the system long enough to need it). That being said, there totally were a few mappers developed for the console [1]. 1 - https://www.smspower.org/Development/Mappers https://www.smspower.org/Development/Mappers
bananaboy 4y ago
> multilayered scrolling I'm not exactly sure what you mean but both the NES and the SMS have one background layer and one sprite layer.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  Yeah, I didn't use the correct term, really. Most people would associate "multilayered scrolling" with multiple fully independent background layers like the Genesis had. What the Master System did have was the necessary bits (interrupts? scan line counters? etc?) to alter the scroll registers during hblank intervals to do scroll various bits of a single background layer at different speeds. Commercial example, "TransBot" a tiny budget card based game - https://youtu.be/k2U-SnDCJ4M?t=878 https://youtu.be/k2U-SnDCJ4M?t=878 Amazing modern homebrew demo example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMjduDpUeaI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMjduDpUeaI NES games that did this typically needed one of the mapper chips that provided the necessary counters/interrupts/idunnowhat. But the SMS can handle this with ease, no extra hardware required.

marcodiego 4y ago

Nintendo also had something I think is a great idea when developing the NES: the video hardware had its own bus to the cartridge. This probably saved many cycles keeping the processor busy with other things instead of transferring content to the video RAM. It also allows better use of the system's very limited RAM and video RAM. I don't know if there was any patent related to this, and I can't understand why SEGA didn't copy it. Maybe it could make the console more expensive since SEGA didn't produce their own chips and maybe they were really expecting to make ports easier. I still think a bus connecting the video hardware to the cartridge could make the Master System way more powerful.

JohnBooty 4y ago
God, yeah. It's very difficult for me to look at retro game hardware design decisions without obsessing over "what if?" scenarios. My favorite (and by that I mean, "most agonizing") what-if's concern the Genesis/Megadrive. I don't have handy links, but: - There was some sort of hardware fail that prevented clear sample playback. The sound chip could play back crystal clear samples but in reality, this was impossible to achieve thanks to some issue (DMA? bus? something?) and in reality, sampled sounds on the Genesis sounded like butt - The Genesis' limited color palette and number of onscreen colors relative to the SNES and even the TG16 was kind of painful. I remember reading that one reason for this limitation was the need to include backwards compatibility with the SMS in the Genesis' video chip -- a feature few if any cared about or used. Arrrrgh. A Genesis with color to rival the SNES/TG16 would have been such a fearsome beast.
deaddodo 4y ago
> Nintendo also had something I think is a great idea when developing the NES: the video hardware had its own bus to the cartridge. This probably saved many cycles keeping the processor busy with other things instead of transferring content to the video RAM. It also allows better use of the system's very limited RAM and video RAM. Nintendo did this because they had to, not because it was an ingenious innovation. Sega didn’t do it in the SMS/GG for the same reason Nintendo didn’t do it in the GB or GBA; because those architectures were much more efficient at ferrying data due to their high cycle counts. The Z80, for the most part, at 4MHz is about equivalent to a 6502 at 1MHz due to architectural differences / differing design decisions. Except in strictly loop-based copies, since it can move more data in the same sliver of time, especially if you utilize ported memory.
- marcodiego 4y ago
  > Sega didn’t do it in the SMS/GG for the same reason Nintendo didn’t do it in the GB or GBA; because those architectures were much more efficient at ferrying data due to their high cycle counts. I'm still unconvinced. I wonder what could be done with that spare cycles and what the video hardware could do with a dedicated bus with a full address space all for itself.

deaddodo 4y ago

There was nothing special about NES’s architecture. It was literally just a cart that, when plugged in, was directly wired to a subset of address lines. Utilizing the CHR/PRG separation allowed for some interesting mapper designs and eased graphics loading, sure. But the Master System was as capable of mapping cart based logic. The Master System just didn’t need it during its peak sales period (due to the aforementioned more capable base design) nor did it last long enough for developers to focus on developing anything special (Nintendo and a few major companies make up the developers of the majority of “official” mappers, Sega didn’t have many big names at the time nor did the support the system long enough to need it). That being said, there totally were a few mappers developed for the console [1]. 1 - https://www.smspower.org/Development/Mappers https://www.smspower.org/Development/Mappers

bananaboy 4y ago

> multilayered scrolling I'm not exactly sure what you mean but both the NES and the SMS have one background layer and one sprite layer.

JohnBooty 4y ago
Yeah, I didn't use the correct term, really. Most people would associate "multilayered scrolling" with multiple fully independent background layers like the Genesis had. What the Master System did have was the necessary bits (interrupts? scan line counters? etc?) to alter the scroll registers during hblank intervals to do scroll various bits of a single background layer at different speeds. Commercial example, "TransBot" a tiny budget card based game - https://youtu.be/k2U-SnDCJ4M?t=878 https://youtu.be/k2U-SnDCJ4M?t=878 Amazing modern homebrew demo example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMjduDpUeaI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMjduDpUeaI NES games that did this typically needed one of the mapper chips that provided the necessary counters/interrupts/idunnowhat. But the SMS can handle this with ease, no extra hardware required.