Battle of the 32 bit consoles.

[IceCold]

Here, this is what you've all been waiting for. Screenshots of Doom for GBA and for Super Nintendo.

[IceCold]

Here's another Super Nintendo screenshot. As you can see, I guess the GBA ones look a little bit better, but the Super Nintendo doom runs smoother.

[Miles Tails Prower]

Thats kinda nice... but its on a Nintendo platform :mad: :mad:

 

 

 

 

yeech.

OK IM NOT going to start a Console war...

[ubersaurus]

cry me a river ;p it coulda been on Xbox ;p

[Punisher5.0]

One word, EMULATION.  Just download a game like doom or something, I did, run it in the emulator.  It looks like shit.  Something on a small screen will always look better.  Run it full screen and you'll see, it doesn't look any better than the Super Nintendo.  Maybe a few games look a TINY bit better, but not really.

 

Thanks for proving my point IceCold.

[IceCold]

You're welcome Battlesphere1. I don't like when people think GBA is better than super nintendo, cuz super nintendo is a great system, so I had to prove your point.

[Gunstar]

I have some problems with the subject name here...as in the part that says "32-bit," if you are all talking about systems that are post genesis/snes and before the DC, then a modification in distinguishing this era needs to be made, say by calling them the last "generation" or the first 3D systems or something. Why? well as was stated above, the Jaguar and N64 are both true 64-bit systems, and with the current topic heading this would clearly leave them out, but another problem occurs that no one else has mentioned, so I will; the XBOX is a 100% 32-bit system! Should it be included? If so, I say XBOX all the way, in every catagory (including future periphrials that are coming, but aren't here yet). Clearly, bits never really meant jacksh*t, on their own, it's a combination of bits, speed and custom hardware features that when combined, tell of a systems true power. Bits don't mean nothin'.

 

If the original topic starter wants to verify that we are strictly talking the last generation, '93-'98 (I believe the DC, was released in Japan in '98 and the first of the current gen) then I'll go with the Saturn for periphrials, original games the 3DO would take it, in my book, and the system that has the most fun games that I keep going back to over and over after all these years, is the good ol' Jaguar, great games were few, but they were there and I still think the few great Jag games blow away everything else. Just my opinion. Of course the Jag takes the cake for "vapor-ware" periphrials, I don't believe another system ever anounced so many great periphrials that never materialized...

[Ze_ro]

the XBOX is a 100% 32-bit system! Should it be included?

 

Well, there's not a lot of advantage in a CPU with more than 32-bit registers really... Was the N64's CPU (a MIPS R4300 I believe) actually a 64-bit processor? Besides, when discussing "bittage" of newer systems (which, thankfully, doesn't happen all that often anymore), it amost always refers to it's video hardware instead of CPU... otherwise we wouldn't be able to call the Lynx 16-bit (Runs on a 65C02 which is 8-bit, but with 16-bit video hardware), nor could we call the TurboGrafx-16 16-bit (Again, runs on an 8-bit HuC6280, but with 16-bit video hardware).

 

But I guess showing that "32-bit" is a poor way to classify systems was your original intent

 

original games the 3DO would take it, in my book

 

Out of curiosity, which games are your favorite? The only 3D0 I've had access to is my friend's... he only has 8 games, and he never plays the thing (but he's a collector, so there's no chance of me buying it off him). I only played a few games, and none of them seemed all that great to me. Way Of The Warrior was about as bad as Kasumi Ninja, and Out Of This World was nothing amazing... Return Fire was pretty fun though.

 

Of course the Jag takes the cake for "vapor-ware" periphrials, I don't believe another system ever anounced so many great periphrials that never materialized...

 

At least it can be said that Atari had some damn good ideas for peripherals, even if they never came out... I mean, voice modem? It wasn't until Alien Front Online for the Dreamcast that this actually hit a console... I still wish that VR helmet came out, I was really excited about that one.

 

--Zero

[Punisher5.0]

the XBOX is a 100% 32-bit system!

 

What? 100%? I think not. The Pentium 3 CPU is 32 bit but that is it. The GeForce 3 chipset is 128. The idustry has always established a systems "bit" rating by the GPU. If they didnt then the SNES would be 8 bit, the Dreamcast would be 64 bit, etc. But as GBA proved, the bit rating doesnt mean much.

[liveinabin]

Though I love the Saturn and feel it has a lot more 'soul' than the Playstation, the sheer breadth of the PS1's game library, both in number and quality takes it for me. If i'm gonna be honest, I played much more Playstation over the last few years than I did Saturn. Hmm....but if I had to save only one from a fire? The Saturn. And I'd use my N64 to break the window and get it

[Gunstar]

the XBOX is a 100% 32-bit system!

 

What? 100%? I think not. The Pentium 3 CPU is 32 bit but that is it. The GeForce 3 chipset is 128. The idustry has always established a systems "bit" rating by the GPU. If they didnt then the SNES would be 8 bit, the Dreamcast would be 64 bit, etc. But as GBA proved, the bit rating doesnt mean much.

 

Sorry, I had been told that the Nvidia chip was 32-bit. Got some place I can check out the specs? But as far as bitness goes, I look at the system BUS because this is an area where bottlenecks can occur regardless of a chips internal bitness...doesn't the xbox have a 32-bit bus? And yes, I'm quite aware that no one thing, whether a chip's bits, system bus or speed alone is a factor in a systems power, but all combined and more...Manufacturers of computers and consoles will use which ever school of thought makes their machine look better-salemanship, plain and simple.

 

BUT, I disagree that the industry has established that the GPU is how a system is judged. The fact of the matter is that NO one school of thought has EVER been established as to what the "bitness" of a system is...there are actually several schools of thought on the matter: 1) the system should be judged strictly by it's CPU's bitness-these people are idiots (mostly video game magazine writers&editors). Why? Because a CPU is basically only a manager and USUALLY does little work itself, but dictates to the workhorse processors (GPU's and DSP's, etc.) what to do and those processors are the real muscle. 2) GPU's are the benchmark, I assume you are of this school of thought and it's an intelligent one because when it comes to video games and consoles, this is what makes a games graphics rock. But it's a flawed view. Why? Because those bits of power are internal and the graphics put on the TV/monitor have to go through the system bus to reach the screen and your eyes. 3) the systems bus is the benchmark of a systems "bitness" (I lean toward this). Why? Because all those chips have to work together to reach the end result and the common ground is the system's bus. Many times several processors are contained within a single chip and many times chip sets are reduced over time by combining processors into less actual chips, so whether the processors are in many chips or just a few or even one, they all still have to work together on the system's bus. therefore, the 3DO, Saturn, Playstation AND Xbox are 32-bit systems and the Jaguar and N64 are 64-bit. I'm not sure what bit the system buses are for the Dreamcast, Gamecube and Playstation 2 are, but if they are 32, 64 or 128-bit buses, than as far as I'm concerned, that's their true "bitness." but of course, like I've said before, this is only one factor of many in a systems overall power and performance.

[Ze_ro]

I think the biggest steamin' load in this respect has to go to SNK for claiming the NeoGeo to be a 24-bit console. For anyone who doesn't already know, the NeoGeo uses a 68000 as a processor, and has a Z-80 as a sound chip (Sound anything like a Genesis?). The 68000 is 16-bit, and the Z-80 is 8-bit... Adding these numbers provides no meaningful information! If SNK had made the Jaguar, would they have claimed it was 210 bit? (64+64+32+32+16)

 

I find it odd that people gave Jaguar owners much grief about the 64-bit-ness of the system, but at least the Jaguar HAS 64-bit components inside it! SNK's machine obviously has enough hardware inside it to outperform the Genesis, so SNK didn't have much trouble convincing people it was 24-bit, even if that whole thing was a load of crap.

 

Regardless of VHS-sized cartridges, the NeoGeo is a 16-bit system in pretty much any reasonable measurement.

 

--Zero

[AtariDude]

While I would like to be able to say that the Jaguar wins in the 32 bit category (I know..I know..it is listed as a 64 bit system), the real winner is the Playstation / Playstation 2 due to the volume of games. The other systems have great games too but not the sheer number of games.

 

We vote with our dollars folks and the dollars are heavily in favor of the PS.

[Atari-Jess]

I own the SNES doom and ive played the GBA doom

 

GBA doom runs much more smooth with a higher framerate

than SNES doom, and it looks that the SNES is a bit more grainier

than the GBA, I was renting the GBA doom and I did a comparison

to the SNES playing both at the same time

 

GBA

 

CPU 32-Bit ARM with embedded memory @ 16.7mhz

 

MEMORY 32 Kbyte + 96 Kbyte VRAM (in CPU)

256 Kbyte WRAM (external of CPU)

 

32,768 possible colors

511 simultaneous colors in character mode

32,768 simultaneous colors in bitmap mode

 

 

SNES

 

16-bit Central Processing Unit 65C816 @ 3.58mhz

WRAM for CPU 128KB

Video RAM for PPU 64KB

 

Maximum colors Per Screen 256

Total Colors Available 32,768

 

 

So as you can see, the GBA has 2x the amount of WRAM

in system, and has much more VRAM in the system

both systems can produce the same amount of colours

but the GBA can put more at one time on the screen than the SNES

can the processors of the two systems clearly show that the GBAs

32-bit chip is better than the SNES 16-bit chip the GBA's processor

is roughly 4.66 times the speed of the SNES processor

 

this stuff all found from the internet, if someone could show me

specs that are in the SNES's favour i'd like to see em.

 

added chips to the cartridges do not count which easilly includes

all of the superFX chips and the C4 chip and whatever.

[Punisher5.0]

I guess you never heard of the FX chips? Huh? They let the processor run at over 20mhz. Once again I refer to Resolution for what system is more powerful. SNES games run in a much higher resolution than GBA games. I can guarantee that you will never see a GBA running DCK in that resolution and playing that smooth .

[JagMX]

More Enjoyable games: The PSX blows. Saturn wins here by a lot. I'm not sure why, but whenever I look into PSX games, none of them look at all interesting to me. Especially not when there's stuff like Panzer Dragoon on the Saturn. GBA actually has a lot of cool games, but they're all available on other systems (They need to bring out new Mario/Zelda games for this to get at all interesting to me)

 

More Challenging Games: I only actually have a Saturn out of the three, so I can't say for sure.

 

Best memory: Well, you don't need memory cards for the GBA, do you? I'm glad the Saturn has internal memory though. PSX comes in third of course.

 

More Unique Ideas: Saturn. Sega was always one of the best innovators in the industry. GBA loses big here: only two face buttons, lame rehashes of SNES games, and nothing at all new about the design (aside from "more power")

 

Better Fighting games: Saturn for sure! Although most of them only came out in Japan unfortunately.... I really need to get me one of those 4-in-1 cards... SFA3 on the GBA looks to be a good game though.

 

Better Prephirals: Uh... who cares? I'd rather not have to buy any stupid peripherals to play games. I recently saw a gadget to play Gameboy games on a PSX, which sounds pretty cool except for the fact that I already have a Super Gameboy... GBA definitely sucks in this category. What the hell is with all the stupid worm lights!??

 

As for 32-bit systems, there's the Saturn, PSX, GBA, Virtual Boy, 32X, 3D0, Amiga CD32, Phillips CD-i, and NEC PC-FX (Japan only). That's not counting the Jaguar or N64... those aren't 32 bit, even if they were in the era.

--Zero

I have to agree with you fully here on what you said.

but im a huge fan of the 3DO so id pick the 3DO over the saturn. I own both but yet my heart belongs to the 3DO. And the PSX belongs to the trash

[Atari-Jess]

I guess you never heard of the FX chips? Huh? They let the processor run at over 20mhz. Once again I refer to Resolution for what system is more powerful. SNES games run in a much higher resolution than GBA games. I can  guarantee that you will never see a GBA running DCK in that resolution and playing that smooth .

 

did you not read what i said at the bottom of the post?

 

the super FX chip was a chip ADDED TO CARTIDGES

 

meaning they are not part of the original system!

 

the GBA can also have added chips since IT ALSO IS A CARTRIDGE SYSTEM.

 

and STOCK SYSTEM using non enhanced cart games the GBA will

always beat the SNES powerwise, and the superFX2 chip was the one

that made it run at over 20mhz

[Punisher5.0]

I guess you never heard of the FX chips? Huh? They let the processor run at over 20mhz. Once again I refer to Resolution for what system is more powerful. SNES games run in a much higher resolution than GBA games. I can  guarantee that you will never see a GBA running DCK in that resolution and playing that smooth .

 

did you not read what i said at the bottom of the post?

 

the super FX chip was a chip ADDED TO CARTIDGES

 

meaning they are not part of the original system!

 

the GBA can also have added chips since IT ALSO IS A CARTRIDGE SYSTEM.

 

and STOCK SYSTEM using non enhanced cart games the GBA will

always beat the SNES powerwise, and the superFX2 chip was the one

that made it run at over 20mhz

 

Why wouldnt "chips" count? So you are telling me that GBA can play DCK and if it was possible in the same resolution? Because if you do then you are just wasting my time . BTW, the SuperFX 2 chip runs at 21mhz

[IceCold]

I'm probably wrong, since I'm not very familiar with the 7800, but didn't some of the cartridges have a pokey chip added for sound? Does that mean you'd say that the 7800 can't produce shit for sound, no matter what? Oh yeah, and if I'm wrong, don't get mad because i'm not very familiar with the 7800.

[Gunstar]

You are correct. There were a couple games that used the Pokey chip on the 7800. The only ones I can think of off hand are Commando and BallBlazer, but there may have been others...

[Atari-Jess]

ice cold yes, the 7800 had a couple carts using a pokey, ballblazer is the

only one that comes to mind, but no one says that the 7800 has a pokey

and that it makes better sound since it cant without another cartridge giving

it to it for THAT GAME ALONE (im not yelling at you ice cold, nor anyone just making the point stand out)

 

The GBA is not incredibly better over the SNES and with the cartchips the SNES can outperform the GBA but only with the help of those chips, the GBA can pull off that game if it were attached to a television and ran at that res but it wouldn't even need as large of a performance boost since the GBA is naturally better than the SNES by design, but alone it most likely

cannot do that game, but it could better than a stock SNES which the

stock SNES cant do without the chips at all of course

 

the chips dont count because they are not part of the system

and are not even like an addon thing, they are part of the game

and i know the fx2 makes it roughly 21mhz but its more faster to think

out over 20 than just typing the exact mhz (which is actually a few digits larger than just "21")

 

you could put chips in the gba game and would that then make the system more powerful? its not like it cant be done

 

the chips dont count where as say the n64 expansion pack does since

its a standalone thing and can be used on multiple games since it just plugs

into the system you cant count the superfx chips just because they are

not part of the original design that all SNES systems have unless its the

smaller ones but they just are smaller

 

but either way regardless, the GBA is a more powerful system than

the SNES, regardless of the res for DooM the specs just show whats

what.

 

The GBA can pull of the most amazing 3d graphics using a stock console

the SNES can not create something that great RESOLUTION still not counting

 

the specs beat the snes fair and square, superFX chips are not counted

as part of the specs

 

if you were to take a GBA and a SNES and modify the GBA to display

graphics to a television and expand the the res limits, since its limited

to the screen its being used on, the GBA will out perform the SNES

only because it has a better and faster processor and it has more ram

 

but only because the GBA uses a portable mini screen makes it not as

good as the SNES?? thats crazy talk.

 

im just repeating my self geez, why will no one listen when i am giving so many examples for the same silly phrase

 

ill simplify

 

the GBA has more ram and is faster, therefore would not need nearly as much of a boost to compare to the boost needed by the SNES to run with the chips that the games that use them supply in them. the GBA is more

powerful system end of story. prove me wrong and i will admit defeat unless i can then in turn prove you wrong somehow

 

but according to all of the looking and searching and reading and things

that i have been doing for the past few months, the GBA is better

and even if the SNES is using superfx chips, the GBA would only need a small boosting to get back to where the SNES has been boosted since it

is less powerful than the GBA

 

 

im still repeating myself argh

[Punisher5.0]

Emperor Atari Jess,

 

You make some good points but im not sold. First off DCK did not use any FX chips to help the SNES run the game. Rare just used the SNES hardware Another mistake you made was that GBA can not truly do 3D because the system has no 3D hardware Doom is not in 3D its actually a 2D game.

 

Back to this chip in cartridge argument: The N64 has its sound processor in each and every cartridge not in the system. So by what you are saying this means that N64 has no sound capabilites. Does this make any sense?Did the SNES run these games that have the chips in them? Yes. Did Nintendo release these games into the public? Yes. Therefore the games with chips count.

 

The only reason why GBA games look good is because they are displayed on a screen about 2.5" big. They can run games in low resolution because of this. The GBA was never meant to run games in 512X448 resolution like the SNES was. Do you realize how much of a performance hit you get when you run games in higer resolutions? Its dramatic.

 

Those specs you keep on talking about dont mean much. The chipset is what really counts. And a good example of this is the DC vs. the PS2. The DC's Power VR chipset is so unbeleivably efficient that it can compete with PS2 visuals.

 

If you compare the best looking SNES game to the best looking GBA game the SNES would win. Plus I prefer to play Streetfighter with 6 buttons

 

You are getting tired of repeating yourself? I just argued with Z_ero about this for a long time and know I have to do it again. Thanks though for arguing with me. Its fun .

 

So do you have anything left in your arsenal?

[Lost Monkey]

       You make some good points but im not sold. First off DCK did not use any FX chips to help the SNES run the game. Rare just used the SNES hardware

 

The GBA could easily do DKC... it is all just pre-rendered sprites. Yes the game looks amazing, but it is no more revolutionary (in terms of processing power) than most other 2d platformers on the SNES.

 

 Another mistake you made was that GBA can not truly do 3D because the system has no 3D hardware  Doom is not in 3D its actually a 2D game.

 

Have you seen the videos at the link I provided earlier in this thread? If not, I will provide it again...

 

http://www.agbgames.com/ects.htm

 

Actually this is an updated version of the project linked earlier... and it is real texture-mapped 3D.

 

       Back to this chip in cartridge argument: The N64 has its sound processor in each and every cartridge not in the system. So by what you are saying this means that N64 has no sound capabilites. Does this make any sense?Did the SNES run these games that have the chips in them? Yes. Did Nintendo release these games into the public? Yes. Therefore the games with chips count.

 

So... you'll only concede that the GBA is more powerful when cartridges with upgrade chips are released?

 

      The only reason why GBA games look good is because they are displayed on a screen about 2.5" big. They can run games in low resolution because of this. The GBA was never meant to run games in 512X448 resolution like the SNES was. Do you realize how much of a performance hit you get when you run games in higer resolutions? Its dramatic.

 

The default resolution for the SNES is 256X224 and almost all games run at that resolution. The SNES can only display 16 colours in 512X448 mode and cannot do any hardware scaling or rotation at that resolution... so it was primarily used for static title and menu screens.

 

Keep in mind also that the GBA is running at 240X160... which is the size of the screen on the GBA. The SNES is running on a TV screen which has a higher resolution so the image is stretched.

[Punisher5.0]

Hey Lost Monkey thanks for joining in on the fight!

 

 

 

So... you'll only concede that the GBA is more powerful when cartridges with upgrade chips are release

 

They already have these chips in GBA games. Tony Hawk has them.

 

Well according to Jess you cant compare the power of each system by using games with "chips" in them. So by this that means that GBA can not do 3D graphics. So I dont know why he said, "The GBA can pull of the most amazing 3d graphics using a stock console" because the sytstem cant with just using GBA's hardware. Nintendo did NOT put 3D hardware in the GBA!

 

GBA can not do DKC because the system wasnt designed for it. The system can not run the game in its native resolution.

 

When refering to power I also include sound performance. In this area the SNES is better. Just play Revolution X. Most of the GBA games today still use "beep" sounds and dont blame this the GBA's small speaker because you can hook it up to a good stereo just like you can with a SNES.

[IceCold]

I'm glad I was correct about the 7800, I don't like making a fool of myself The only thing I'm gonna say is anybody remember the turboxpress and the nomad? They were pulling SNES style graphics back when Nintendo was still selling the original gameboy. But they weren't a success and GBA is, so who's really winning now?