The Official Turbografx 16 Thread!

[7800fan]

Sega did use the slim form for Sega Master System. They were limited to miniscule size (16k I think) with no bankswitching and no battery saves. The format died shortly after the console's release and many games were re-issued in cart format later. Didn't Neo Geo arcade also used the format for storing save games between arcade cabs?

 

I guess back in the day, it was impossible to get massive card game with bankswitching without needing bigger card or fat bubble like Populous for PC Engine did.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Sega did use the slim form for Sega Master System. They were limited to miniscule size (16k I think) with no bankswitching and no battery saves. The format died shortly after the console's release and many games were re-issued in cart format later. Didn't Neo Geo arcade also used the format for storing save games between arcade cabs?

 

I guess back in the day, it was impossible to get massive card game with bankswitching without needing bigger card or fat bubble like Populous for PC Engine did.

Street Fighter II Turbo also has the "bubble" card.

 

 

 

Most copies are complete, because they're not terribly sought after.

 

Earlier Games Express CD games' system cards didn't actually contain any ram, just like the official CD2 system cards.

 

What the Super CD games didn't make clear on their packaging, is that it was the same for those system cards as well. So you can only play Games Express SCD games on Duo systems, because they have all of the ram built-in.

So you are saying it is impossible to play the "unlicensed" CDROM games on a base PC Engine or Turbo with the CDROM addon module, even with the card? (assuming a region converter or mod for Turbo use)

[CatPix]

I have looked around and it's unclear if the Game Express games can work on a standard Hudson system Card or not.

 

Sega did use the slim form for Sega Master System. They were limited to miniscule size (16k I think) with no bankswitching and no battery saves. The format died shortly after the console's release and many games were re-issued in cart format later. Didn't Neo Geo arcade also used the format for storing save games between arcade cabs?

 

I guess back in the day, it was impossible to get massive card game with bankswitching without needing bigger card or fat bubble like Populous for PC Engine did.

I was talking about portable consoles, where a slim format could have been a selling point.

For home systems, there were also the BeeCard for the MSX computer in Japan, that were the inspiration for the Hu-Card (if you haven't guessed that BeeCards were from Hudson )

The Neo Geo memory cards are in-between. They are slim, but they are twice as thick as a PC-Engine card. And they are in fact a standard format of flash cart, that is alike the PCMCIA format. If you find a memory card in JEIDA standard (JEIDA standard I or II if I recall right) then you can use it on the Neo Geo.

in that reagrd, the Neo Geo Memory card is a SD card of the time, as it's a standardized card.

 

And your guess is right. BITD, the way to get more ROM on a card was to... add more ROM modules. Or pay more to get state-of-the-art miniaturised ROM, but that's more expensive.

 

In a cart, you usually have some room. In a card, you're limited. And in fact, on the PC-Engine Hu-Cards, the data space is only the black tab :

As you can see, the picture part is just to handle the card, and doesn't contain any ROM.

Today, with flash memory, you would store hundred of games and the save space in that tiny space, but at the time? no way.

it's why Sega quickly dropped the use of the MyCards, as they could only store the simplest of games.

Edited February 22, 2016 by CatPix

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

In a cart, you usually have some room. In a card, you're limited. And in fact, on the PC-Engine Hu-Cards, the data space is only the black tab :

As you can see, the picture part is just to handle the card, and doesn't contain any ROM.

Today, with flash memory, you would store hundred of games and the save space in that tiny space, but at the time? no way.

it's why Sega quickly dropped the use of the MyCards, as they could only store the simplest of games.

There's no limit to the amount of data you can stuff on a "card," mua-ha-ha!

[empsolo]

They were just very slim ROM modules. The thing I always found strange is that nobody used this form factor for portable consoles, aside from the Atary Lynx, BitCorp Gamate, and of course the Pc-Engine GT/LT. (but by number of unit sold, the Lynx is probably the winenr here).

Even if latter games might had required large ROM, or batteries, it was possible to design a card with a larger form somewhere.. which ruined the concept but heh.

I guess the cost was found too high, and thatn neither Nintendo not Sega though that people would own more than a dozen of games, and certainly wouldn't want to swap games frequently.

The main problem with the Hu-card system is, as Famicom Dojo pointed out, was that you needed constant hardware revisions in order to compete with the latest models of SEGA and Nintendo's 16-bit platforms in terms of both graphics and audio capabilities. Not to mention the fact that the hu-cards needed external memory cards, something you can't use on a stock pc-Engine. Edited February 22, 2016 by empsolo

[CatPix]

Plenty of NES games and early SNES/Genesis games relied on passwords or on nothing to advance in game.

Even early PS1 games like Rayman would offer a choice of suing a Memory card or a password (and ironically, Gex used a password, unlike his 3DO release).

 

And comparing with the Megadrive and Super Nintendo is a bit unfair. The PC-Engine was released in 1987, that's only one year after the Master System, and 2 years after the US release (and 1 year only after a full scale US and Euro release).

If anything, it's amazing that the PC-Engine stood out so well in the 16 bits market when it wasn't made with a 16 bits market in mind; the US marketing about the 16 bits being to follow the Sega trend more than anything - proof is, the European planned release dropped the 16, the console was simply the "Turbografx".

 

 

Plus, early on, SRAM was added in the form of Tennokoe 2 bank, IFU-30, Super CD-ROM² and Turbo consoles, so the saving issue was only a drawback for RPG games. And the move on RPG to the CD platform solved the issue.

Yes, there were still the odd issue of having to move your saves in "banks" rather than individual files, but you had the advantage of being able to keep your saves even if you sold the games, or lost/damaged them. There are pros and cons avout saves data being external or internal to a game.

 

But yeah, as I pointed out, in a card, you have little room for improvement.

 

I always wonder why people think about cards being extraordinary, when they are just miniaturized cards.

Yes, the Hu-Cards needed to improve with bankswitching, more ROM, etc. But the classic carts too needed it.

 

If you pop open a regular 1983 NES game and a 1993 NES games, the board is much more complex on the 1993 one.

The difference was in the room available for those enhancements, and thus, the cost of them.

Nintendo just had to make them power efficient, and able to fit in their standard carts, which, for the US/Euro release, was easier due the vast amount of empty cart. And on the Famicom,, later carts were a bit taller, which wasn't a problem as the console had no for of size limitation.

On the PC-Engine, the solution was either using external hardware (CD-ROM² add-on) or improving the existing cards.

 

You can note that the Famicom Disk System was released for the same reason : the FDS provided extra RAM, extra music channels, and the discs offered more space and data saving, at a time where including all of those into a cartride would have made the cost of one cart too expensive to be realistically feasible, but building those function into an add-on meant for a cheap support and making the customer pay once for added functions.

Edited February 22, 2016 by CatPix

[Prosystemsearch]

If only NEC of America weren't mostly staffed by flimsy-headed and dumb people. We could have had more games such as rpgs come to the US officially, as well as maybe NEC having the guts to take the chance of releasing an American version of the PC engine Core and LT. Also, they REALLY should have had the Turbo Duo have more than just ONE single controller port. Not only that, but I'm surprised that despite NEC's overtly aggressive marketing against nintendo in NA, they never took legal action against nintendo's greedy draconian CUTTHROAT policies in in the West by taking them to court(which the US government did eventually do in mid-late 1990.)

[+Black_Tiger]

The "bubbles" on PC Engine HuCards are purely cosmetic. You could have large roms without them. The actual working components of the average HuCard only take up about 1/4 of its size. Larger roms simply took up more of the unused length.

 

 

 

The main problem with the Hu-card system is, as Famicom Dojo pointed out, was that you needed constant hardware revisions in order to compete with the latest models of SEGA and Nintendo's 16-bit platforms in terms of both graphics and audio capabilities. Not to mention the fact that the hu-cards needed external memory cards, something you can't use on a stock pc-Engine.

The guys behind Famicom Dojo got caught ripping off a few people on pcenginefx and started a flame war attacking their victims and anyone trying to hold them accountable. Apparently it wasn't isolated to one forum and they closed their store soon after. They made their PC Engine video to flame "PC Engine fans" in retaliation. Pretty much every point they make is wrong and/or misleading.

 

The CD-ROM format was always the priority and the only reason NEC agreed to manufacture Hudson's hardware. There were no hardware revisions of PC Engine systems, except the parallel SuperGrafx, which was DOA. The idea of "constant" revisions is funny, as it must be based on different models, which the Genesis has far more of.

 

The two new system cards/CD formats were no different than larger cart sizes. The PC Engine CD-ROM is simply a delivery method and adds nothing except a channel for redbook audio and a channel for adpcm audio. CDs are just a game format and like all disc-based consoles, the bottleneck is how much space there is for a single game segment.

 

CD2 game segments have to fit within 1/4 meg.

 

SCD segments have to fit within 2 megs.

 

ACD segments have to fit within 18 megs.

 

Most CD games are SCD and CD games in general were cheaper than Genesis and SNES carts. So the price of a Super CD system card quickly paid for itself and cover 99% of the library.

 

The PC Engine was actually the only console of the 16-bit generation which didn't receive hardware enhancements/upgrades, such as the Sega-CD, 32X, SVP, Super FX, Super FX2, Cx4, DSP, OBC-1, SDD-1, SA1, ST, etc. Every PC Engine CD game can run on a HuCard. Any redbook or adpcm sound would just be replaced by chip sound.

 

There are lots of chip soundtracks that are impressive for the time, but like games for all consoles, many devs didn't do as good of a job as others. But the CD format was available since the Mega Drive launched, so CD sound was the standard that carts were "competing" against, not the other way around.

 

 

 

 

Kosmic Stardust: Only Games Express CD games require appropriate Games Express system cards and the right hardware setup. All other unlicensed games from bitd as well as all of the published homebrew games of the past 15 years play fine using official system cards.

Edited February 22, 2016 by Black_Tiger

[CatPix]

The "bubbles" on PC Engine HuCards are purely cosmetic. You could have large roms without them. The actual working components of the average HuCard only take up about 1/4 of its size. Larger roms simply took up more of the unused length.

 

The CD-ROM format was always the priority and the only reason NEC agreed to manufacture Hudson's hardware. There were no hardware revisions of PC Engine systems, except the parallel SuperGrafx, which was DOA. The idea of "constant" revisions is funny, as it must be based on different models, which the Genesis has far more of.

 

The two new system cards/CD formats were no different than larger cart sizes. The PC Engine CD-ROM is simply a delivery method and adds nothing except a channel for redbook audio and a channel for adpcm audio. CDs are just a game format and like all disc-based consoles, the bottleneck is how much space there is for a single game segment.

 

The PC Engine was actually the only console of the 16-bit generation which didn't receive hardware enhancements/upgrades, such as the Sega-CD, 32X, SVP, Super FX, Super FX2, Cx4, DSP, OBC-1, SDD-1, SA1, ST, etc. Every PC Engine CD game can run on a HuCard. Any redbook or adpcm sound would just be replaced by chip sound.

 

There are some things I have to disagree with you there.

 

The bubbles on Hucards are NOT aesthetics.

On Populous and on the Tennokoe, they house a battery. I don't know what they house for SFII, but one can assume they house taller sized ROM for the extra size of the game.

 

 

I never heard of NEC releasing the PC-Engine for the CD-ROM² add-on, do you have any source?

 

And while I can agree that CD-ROM² games could have been released on cartridge, I have to disagree with most SuperCD and Arcade games.

Yes, the extra RAM could load more data at the time, but it was also useable (and used, for Arcade games) as extra RAM.

Many SCD and Arcade game simply display TOO MUCH things on the screen for a regular Pc-Engien to display it.

Some programmers claimed that they could use the RAM dedicaced to the red book audio buffer for the main game, so if someone used that trick, that game couldn't play on a regular PC-Engine (but this was more of a theorical possibility than something programmers used).

So, the PC-Engine did received improvement. larger ROM, more RAM.

[Andromeda Stardust]

There are some things I have to disagree with you there.

 

The bubbles on Hucards are NOT aesthetics.

On Populous and on the Tennokoe, they house a battery. I don't know what they house for SFII, but one can assume they house taller sized ROM for the extra size of the game.

 

 

Neat that the Populous battery is replaceable. I wonder if there's a picture of what the "bubble" looks like pried off of a SFII card. SFII I imagine must have contained at least three chips, a 2 megabyte ROM, a 512 kilobyte ROM, and some sort of bankswitch logic. I am not prying open my SFII card to peek inside, but it's just an observation due to the fact that most Hucard/Turbochip games contained a single ROM with a max size of 1 megabyte. I would guess based on the file size alone that the 512 kbyte chip has a fixed position in memory and the 2mbyte chip gets swapped between four available 512kbyte banks. Are there any other Hucard games besides Populous and Street Fighter II CE that use the "bubble" cards?

 

I also imagine the CD system cards used this ROM space as extra RAM, in addition to a small boot code BIOS necessary to start the CDROM. This would make it difficult to store game data on a system card AND make use of extra RAM at the same time, because adding ROM would decrease available address space for RAM and visa versa.

[empsolo]

If only NEC of America weren't mostly staffed by flimsy-headed and dumb people. We could have had more games such as rpgs come to the US officially, as well as maybe NEC having the guts to take the chance of releasing an American version of the PC engine Core and LT. Also, they REALLY should have had the Turbo Duo have more than just ONE single controller port. Not only that, but I'm surprised that despite NEC's overtly aggressive marketing against nintendo in NA, they never took legal action against nintendo's greedy draconian CUTTHROAT policies in in the West by taking them to court(which the US government did eventually do in mid-late 1990.)

 

Except the U.S. government never ruled that Nintendo's third party policies were illegal. Otherwise Sega wouldn't have implemented harsher third party restrictions. What ended up happening was that Nintendo won both lawsuits against both Atari companies but settled out of court with the justice department.

 

Hell, many of Nintendo's third party policies are still with us. Namely third party exclusives, timed exclusives, the console companies being the sole manufacturer of games for the system, etc.

Edited February 23, 2016 by empsolo

[CatPix]

Neat that the Populous battery is replaceable.

 

I also imagine the CD system cards used this ROM space as extra RAM, in addition to a small boot code BIOS necessary to start the CDROM. This would make it difficult to store game data on a system card AND make use of extra RAM at the same time, because adding ROM would decrease available address space for RAM and visa versa.

Well the battery isn't really replaceable, this is a pic I found "after modding", hence why the red tape on the buble cover.

But it's pretty much like it, a CR2032 battery type that is soldered to two tabs. The bubble top on the Tenokoe ROMRAM card is glued, not clipped, so you can easily remove it with heat, maybe SFII works the same.

[Prosystemsearch]

Except the U.S. government never ruled that Nintendo's third party policies were illegal. Otherwise Sega wouldn't have implemented harsher third party restrictions. What ended up happening was that Nintendo won both lawsuits against both Atari companies but settled out of court with the justice department.

 

Hell, many of Nintendo's third party policies are still with us. Namely third party exclusives, timed exclusives, the console companies being the sole manufacturer of games for the system, etc.

>Console companies are still the sole manufacturers of games for the system

Likely true

>3rd Party exclusives or Nintendo platforms still exist in some form

I beg to differ. How come games such as Alien 3, Batman Forever, Another world, Ultima 4, Street fighter 2, Bart VS. the World, Terminator, the Resident Evil games save for 1(which never came on the N64), and Raiden Trad were available for both nintendo and non-nintendo consoles?

[empsolo]

>Console companies are still the sole manufacturers of games for the system

Likely true

Absolutely true. Outside of Homebrew developers and hackers, nobody is manufacturing physical copies of games outside of the console manufacturer.

 

 

>3rd Party exclusives or Nintendo platforms still exist in some form

I beg to differ. How come games such as Alien 3, Batman Forever, Another world, Ultima 4, Street fighter 2, Bart VS. the World, Terminator, the Resident Evil games save for 1(which never came on the N64), and Raiden Trad were available for both nintendo and non-nintendo consoles?

And yet games like LA Noire, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Metal Gear, Valkyria Chronicles, etc remained PlayStation exclusives for a pretty long time. Hell, one of the big criticisms of this generation was that Sony and Microsoft have been open about bribing third parties in the hopes that those third parties would remain exclusive to one of the big two this gen. Edited February 23, 2016 by empsolo

[Andromeda Stardust]

>Console companies are still the sole manufacturers of games for the system

Likely true

>3rd Party exclusives or Nintendo platforms still exist in some form

I beg to differ. How come games such as Alien 3, Batman Forever, Another world, Ultima 4, Street fighter 2, Bart VS. the World, Terminator, the Resident Evil games save for 1(which never came on the N64), and Raiden Trad were available for both nintendo and non-nintendo consoles?

Bayonetta 2 was exclusive to Wii-U. How is that any different? Exclusive games are a staple of many generations of consoles. Turbo/PCe got a number of exclusive arcade ports as well.

[Prosystemsearch]

Bayonetta 2 was exclusive to Wii-U. How is that any different? Exclusive games are a staple of many generations of consoles. Turbo/PCe got a number of exclusive arcade ports as well.

Yes, Indeed. But 3rd parties deserve to have a choice whether or not to make their games exclusive to one title. It SHOULD NOT be all up to the 1st party/console maker company. Yeah, Microsoft, you are THE NEW DAMN cutthroats, you shady bribers! > >

[empsolo]

Yes, Indeed. But 3rd parties deserve to have a choice whether or not to make their games exclusive to one title. It SHOULD NOT be all up to the 1st party/console maker company. Yeah, Microsoft, you are THE NEW DAMN cutthroats, you shady bribers! > >

As Howard Lincoln testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee, nobody at Nintendo was forcing third parties to enter into an agreement on Nintendo's terms.

[empsolo]

Double post

Edited February 23, 2016 by empsolo

[Prosystemsearch]

As Howard Lincoln testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee, nobody at Nintendo was forcing third parties to enter into an agreement on Nintendo's terms.

Okay then. But I still think the part about "Nintendo will manufacture games for Nintendo Consoles" in the west was being too greedy. Nothing inherently dangerous about giving 3rd parties the option of manufacturing game carts if they wanted to. Oh, and the "five games a year for 3rd parties" wasn't as helpful against the flow of badly programmed games with bad controls and/or filled with too many glitches as Nintendo of America and Europe had hoped. There was still many LICENSED 3rd party games of abysmal to mediocre quality that got out.

[Andromeda Stardust]

As Howard Lincoln testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee, nobody at Nintendo was forcing third parties to enter into an agreement on Nintendo's terms.

But when given the choice of "Release on NES only, or do not release on NES at all..." when NES had 90% of the market share, is a tough proposition, don't you think? And several Sega and Atarisoft games got ported over courtesy of the good developers at Tengen. And Nintendo revoked their license as a third party so they did what any self serving company would do. Steal the code from the lockout chips and produce their own shiny black carts. Oh yeah, and their own better more kickass version of Tetris!

[empsolo]

But when given the choice of "Release on NES only, or do not release on NES at all..." when NES had 90% of the market share, is a tough proposition,

1. It wasn't release for the NES only, it was games on the NES could only be played on the NES for a period of two years. 2. Companies were free to make games for other systems in the meantime. Companies like EA and Activision were two that made games for consoles other than Nintendo's during this time period.

 

 

 

don't you think? And several Sega and Atarisoft games got ported over courtesy of the good developers at Tengen.

 

And Nintendo revoked their license as a third party so they did what any self serving company would do.

Yet the licensing agreement said that only five games could be made a year. Nintendo had to show them the door.

 

Steal the code from the lockout chips and produce their own shiny black carts. Oh yeah, and their own better more kickass version of Tetris!

And at the same time lose all grounds for a lawsuit based on lockout chip grounds. That was a stupid move in hindsight. Edited February 23, 2016 by empsolo

[+atari2600land]

Just bought Motoroader. Looking at pics, it seems to be a top-down racer akin to Wave Race for Game Boy. I decided to get back into my collection and give this thing some more love.

[+atari2600land]

I think this game looks interesting:

And is it just my copy of BoxyBoy's title on the box artwork slanted, or is it every single one?

Edited February 23, 2016 by atari2600land

[empsolo]

Okay then. But I still think the part about "Nintendo will manufacture games for Nintendo Consoles" in the west was being too greedy. Nothing inherently dangerous about giving 3rd parties the option of manufacturing game carts if they wanted to.

This policy stemmed from crash, really. Unlicensed third parties had a habit of manufacturing their own games and then dumping them on the market without checking to see if they even worked or not. Nintendo did not want third parties releasing broken games onto the system and thereby ruining the reputation of the NES. And so they demanded that not only would Nintendo enforce quality standards but demand that all North American releases would be physically held to a uniform standard.

 

This is a policy that all modern companies follow.

 

 

Oh, and the "five games a year for 3rd parties" wasn't as helpful against the flow of badly programmed games with bad controls and/or filled with too many glitches as Nintendo of America and Europe had hoped. There was still many LICENSED 3rd party games of abysmal to mediocre quality that got out.

 

But it made sure that other and more smaller third parties would be on the same shelf as the latest konami or capcom title. There was an interview with Activision developers during the NES era. In it they mention that they liked this policy as it made sure that Activision games would not be crowded out by the bigger Japanese publishers. Something that really dogged Activision during the pre crash era when you had small third parties publishing crap loads of games by the barrel to turn a profit. Edited February 24, 2016 by empsolo

[Gentlegamer]

I may have to unsubscribe from the Coleco Chameleon thread, I log in with 200+ notifications that buries updates to fine threads like this.