Which system do you think has been pushed the most?

[NE146]

Definitely the VCS.

[keepdreamin]

Agreed. Just compare KOF94 to 2003. It looks like the games are on a different generation systems.

I'd say Fatal Fury 1 vs Mark of the Wolves is an even better example. Or Cyber-Lip vs Metal Slug 3

[derFunkenstein]

The Gameboy Color had similar architecture but the CPU was clocked twice as fast and overall like 3x the memory (VRAM + main RAM) of the green-and-white consoles, but it's still pretty impressive what people could do with that thing.

[BillyHW]

#1 2600

#2 C64

#3 NES

[Mr SQL]

Speaking of pushing the VCS as far as possible, how about the Starpath Supercharger's ability to increase the RAM from 128 bytes to 6KB. That was quite the jump. That's probably different from what you were looking for, but I think it's still worth mentioning.

Absolutely, there were many parallels to the RAM expansion board with cassette interface that came out for the 1975 Altair - both systems were relatively underpowered with 128 and 256 bytes of RAM, enough to run simple machine language programs but not BASIC. SuperCharger was an apt analogy.

 

Like the board for the Altair you would have to load BASIC from tape, but the onboard graphical OS was present in ROM and far ahead of it's time with starfield simulation screen savers and a help system.

 

The C64's SID chip has probably been pushed more than any other music chip, the subtractive analog synth sounds amazing and eludes emulation, apearing in coveted high end modern studio euipment like the Elektron SID Station.

 

[+remowilliams]

Systems that weren't out long such as the Jaguar belong on the other end I think of pushed the least.

It has been pushed plenty already, it's no supercomputer. It certainly has its strengths but they generally aren't what people think they are.

 

The vocal minority who keep carrying on for decades about 'if it was only pushed HARD ENUF it could do (insert Quake here)...' have absolutely zero idea of its strengths/limitations based on its architecture or what it is realistically capable of.

[+CyranoJ]

If you want to see a system maxed out and 'pushed to the limits' try emulating an 8Mhz machine on a 14mhz CPU with a couple of RISCs...

[Tanooki]

Funny you should say that because that reminded me of the insane effort to get a SNES emulator working and smoothly on a GBA of all things. In the end it was canceled, but not before they got a fair few games working at 80-100% speed though with no audio. Still that really was demanding way too much yet pulled off something admirable too.

[Osgeld]

cpu and graphics should be no problem for the GBA to run SNES, but that custom sound processor, that was a bear for a 33mhz arm

[high voltage]

Magnavox Odyssey....Interplanetary Voyage is the next level

[Tanooki]

I was pretty sure you're overguessing the GBA power, though it was 16mhz and it is -- from the wikipedia:

 

CPU ARM7TDMI @ 16.78 MHz, Zilog Z80 @ 8 or 4 MHz

 

You may be thinking of the DS. It has 2 ARM chips in there one at 67mhz and the other runs at 33mhz.

[JaguarVision]

Hmm.id say the 360.

 

I mean we went from gray fuzzy he block graphics and high blood with PDZ and Cameo and ended with Halo 4 and GTA V.

 

I mean outside Atari I can think of a bigger difference between the start and end for console graphics. PSx had a jump from Ridge Racer to Crash 3 but not nearly as much.

[+SpiceWare]

If you havent yet, check out mike99mccarthys video about PRGE. Theres a Bosconian playing on a VCS that looks amazing from what I could see. Dont know what kind of tricks theyre using, but Id like to play it.

Edit: Just watched it again. They call it Draconian or something. Homebrew with arm processor. Looks like Bosconian. At about the 2:45 mark.

Thanks, you can play Draconian via Stella (need ver 5.0.2 or newer) or on real hardware via Harmony Cart

[SignGuy81]

It has been pushed plenty already, it's no supercomputer. It certainly has its strengths but they generally aren't what people think they are.

 

The vocal minority who keep carrying on for decades about 'if it was only pushed HARD ENUF it could do (insert Quake here)...' have absolutely zero idea of its strengths/limitations based on its architecture or what it is realistically capable of.

 

 

I think you missed my point completely. Trust me I'm not one of those ones that think the Jag is some supercomputer or even on the same level as the N64 or any of that nonsense. I didn't mean either even that it wasn't pushed to it's limits as far as some games go. I meant pushed the least because it is a known fact that many games didn't utilize it's hardware to its full potential, not that some games didn't.

[Schizophretard]

Late PS3 games aren't all that more impressive than early ones, for example.

More modern stuff impresses me less due to having higher capabilities and intents from the get go. Don't get me wrong, Xbox impressed the hell out of me on release, but there was little at the end of its life that made me feel like it was a totally different system.

What these two posts are pointing to is what I would use for my criteria for determining which has been pushed the most. If a massively successful console with a huge library made by huge development teams has games released at the end of life that don't look much different than at launch then chances are that its maximum potential has been reached and can't be pushes any further. Especially if it is a disc based system with no helper chips or add-ons that puts a limit on what can be done in a game.

[Flojomojo]

Yup. We have been able to take for granted that games will run at full speed and resolution for a long time now. Development is about art style and level design, rather than squeezing technical performance and "writing to the metal" nowadays. I think this is a good thing.

[BydoEmpire]

Can't argue with the common wisdom of #1 the VCS and #2 the c64. Both went way beyond what they ever should have been able to do.

 

Just for a different angle, how about the PC? Obviously it's a different situation with the hardware evolving and expanding over time, but who would have envisioned the VGA & Soundblaster 90s era of PC games when the system was initially released? The original hardware wasn't necessarily pushed so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but the basic platform sure was.

[Video]

You could argue modern consoles were being pushed due to the lack of difference between launch games and final games, but I think it has more to do with laziness and lack of trying on part of developers. How about how unimpressive the current generation is over last gen? I mean seriously there is little reason to get a new system outside of the fact they simply stop selling games for them.

 

Knowing something like 2600 is a glorified pong machine, but pulls things like pitfall or smb is saying something, 360 having generic shooters at launch followed by the generic shooters at the end of its life, not so much.

[Schizophretard]

You could argue modern consoles were being pushed due to the lack of difference between launch games and final games, but I think it has more to do with laziness and lack of trying on part of developers. How about how unimpressive the current generation is over last gen? I mean seriously there is little reason to get a new system outside of the fact they simply stop selling games for them.

 

Knowing something like 2600 is a glorified pong machine, but pulls things like pitfall or smb is saying something, 360 having generic shooters at launch followed by the generic shooters at the end of its life, not so much.

 

I don't think game genres would be the determining factor between laziness or the hardware being pushed. It would be something more along the lines of answering a question like,"With the PS2 being the best-selling home console with so many huge development teams and a huge library isn't the chances pretty high that at least one of the games pushed the console to its limits or at least came really close?" I'm leaning towards yes because I don't see future homebrewers doing the VCS equivalent of going from Asteroids to Space Rocks. It would probably just be the kind of differences we already seen like going from GTA3 to San Andreas.

[zzip]

Yup. We have been able to take for granted that games will run at full speed and resolution for a long time now. Development is about art style and level design, rather than squeezing technical performance and "writing to the metal" nowadays. I think this is a good thing.

Consoles still get pushed and 'coded to the metal'. Any PC enthusiast will happily tell you how weak the Xb1 and PS4 are, but yet these consoles have kept up pretty well with PC gaming all generation and occasionally even outshined it a bit in exclusives. The difference is PCs never get coded to the metal because there's too much hardware variation, but consoles do get that kind of optimization. And I still see patches issued to improve performance

[mbd30]

Can't argue with the common wisdom of #1 the VCS and #2 the c64. Both went way beyond what they ever should have been able to do.

 

Just for a different angle, how about the PC? Obviously it's a different situation with the hardware evolving and expanding over time, but who would have envisioned the VGA & Soundblaster 90s era of PC games when the system was initially released? The original hardware wasn't necessarily pushed so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but the basic platform sure was.

 

 

It's interesting how they pushed PC hardware in the earlier days. The PC was a terrible game machine compared to the competition so programmers had to be creative. For example, playing digitized sounds and speech through the PC speaker. Or using a non-standard CGA mode to get 16 color graphics in some games such as Round 42.

[tbb033]

NES and SNES with all those add on chips or Genesis with the SCD and 32x (plus they had that add on chip for Virtual racing).

[+save2600]

I don't think the PC Engine has been mentioned yet. Incredible what they were able to pull off with the higher meg cards and the Super CD-ROM2. Dracula X is simply gorgeous, as is Gate of Thunder and the HuCard of Street Fighter II C.E. is nothing short of amazing. Stupendous really, and one of my all time favorite versions of the game. Have always been amazed at how large, colorful and flicker free the graphics can be on that system.

[+Black_Tiger]

I don't think the PC Engine has been mentioned yet. Incredible what they were able to pull off with the higher meg cards and the Super CD-ROM2. Dracula X is simply gorgeous, as is Gate of Thunder and the HuCard of Street Fighter II C.E. is nothing short of amazing. Stupendous really, and one of my all time favorite versions of the game. Have always been amazed at how large, colorful and flicker free the graphics can be on that system.

 

The PC Engine wasn't pushed very far based on its potential, especially with color and resolution. Even impressive games like Lords of Thunder are full of poor color use.

 

Here's what the PC Engine can actually do for a port of the arcade SFII', compared to the rushed port we got based on the neutered Super Famicom versions:

 

 

 

 

[Newsdee]

So there is a newer upgraded port of SFII for PC Engine? Any links?