Microsoft bans FOSS from Windows Phone Marketplace

[XorEaxEax]

The SNES also had a 'hi-res' 512x448 mode that was used in some games (notably Secret of Mana in the item screens),

Yes, but that only worked for the tiles (and iirc made for some really weird mapping in VRAM), the sprites where still displayed in 256x240 resolution, hence why it was so seldomly used (apart of course from also using more memory which was always a scarcity). In fact I only remember seeing it for text/item display in Seiken Densetsu 3, text in Manara (some Konami RPG), and the title screen of Super Smash Tennis. I don't recall it ever being used in Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2) though. Also, due to the interlace flickering, Seiken Densetsu 3 and Manara used 512x240 for their text displays as I recall, thus only increasing horizontal resolution.

plus a metric ton of co-processors that went all the way up to 20MHz (Super-FX, SA-1 and the various DSP-#s).

But they where not part of the actual system, but rather placed inside the carts (which was expensive). Megadrive also had International Superstar Soccer shipping with a DSP as I recall, guessing for some mode 7-ish effects. You could have put a Super-FX like chip in Megadrive cartridges aswell. You might aswell compare the SNES to the Sega 32X then, which was an addon to the Megadrive which gave it better capacity than the SNES.

[XorEaxEax]

Awesome tunes.

no Streets of Rage? That Enigma'ish track was the most talked about piece of Megadrive music that I can recall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f10CtaCoeVI

Man, this thread is so OT now...

[BlackStar]

Yes, but that only worked for the tiles (and iirc made for some really weird mapping in VRAM), the sprites where still displayed in 256x240 resolution, hence why it was so seldomly used (apart of course from also using more memory which was always a scarcity). In fact I only remember seeing it for text/item display in Seiken Densetsu 3, text in Manara (some Konami RPG), and the title screen of Super Smash Tennis. I don't recall it ever being used in Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2) though. Also, due to the interlace flickering, Seiken Densetsu 3 and Manara used 512x240 for their text displays as I recall, thus only increasing horizontal resolution.

SoM used it for the scrolling background in the menus and (IIRC) the inventory.

But they where not part of the actual system, but rather placed inside the carts (which was expensive). Megadrive also had International Superstar Soccer shipping with a DSP as I recall, guessing for some mode 7-ish effects. You could have put a Super-FX like chip in Megadrive cartridges aswell. You might aswell compare the SNES to the Sega 32X then, which was an addon to the Megadrive which gave it better capacity than the SNES.

The thing is, they were quite popular in games (and you didn't have to pay for another console as was the case for Sega 32X and SegaCD). Even without them, the SNES was capable of pretty awesome graphics: Chrono Trigger, Terranigma, SoM1/2, Tales of Phantasia look pretty even by today's standards.

(Interestingly enough, ISS and ISS Deluxe didn't use any chips on the SNES.)

no Streets of Rage? That Enigma'ish track was the most talked about piece of Megadrive music that I can recall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f10CtaCoeVI

Oh yeah, Streets of Rage! Great tunes - but can you honestly say they match something like Donkey Kong Country 2 in sheer variety and sound quality? To me ears, DKC2 blows SoR out of the water from the very first 60 seconds...

Man, this thread is so OT now...

And much more fun. We've done the Microsoft and Mono evilness topics to death...

[yotambien]

Quick review:
1. Thunder force IV - Metal Squad: I love the tune but the distortion is painful. It's as if the sound signal is made of sawtooth waveforms (which is probably not that far off the mark...)

What. Millions of idi...people bought Death Magnetic since 2008. We are not going to complain about Metal Squad's distortion (1992) now, are we?

2. Thunder force IV - Intro: Starts out great but becomes monotonous pretty quick, plus the music stops playing during the explosion.

You are being picky now. It's 30 seconds of a guitar riff, surely that isn't monotonous according to rock standards.

5. Gradius - great tunes with awful drum sounds. I think I actually prefer the music of G2 for Megadrive over G3 for SNES - the latter sounds smoother and much more defined but the former sounds more raw and powerful.

There never was a Gradius for Megadrive, unfortunately. The two tracks I posted belong to the games released for the MSX computer (1987), the second of which making use of some extra chip included in the cartridges to improve the sound capabilities of the system. I posted them because when judging the sound quality it's difficult to leave apart our musical tastes (or I myself find it difficult), especially when we talk about the sweet memories that these old games evoke. So you see, almost nothing can sound as good to me as those MSX samples, because they carry quite an emotional baggage with them.

Listening to your samples, I have to agree that the sound quality is better overall (it makes sense, two years is quite a gap in hardware technology). And yet, it very much depended on how the potential of both machines was used. Comparing the music of both Street Fighter 2 games, it would be difficult to make a clear choice. Some tracks, such as Chun Li's, are better on the SNES, with much clear sounds. In others, such as Ken's, the Megadrive version takes the lead--somebody synthesised the wrong instrument for the SNES track, with the result that it sounds as if played by a random dude in a fair with a fake accordion.

[BlackStar]

What. Millions of idi...people bought Death Magnetic since 2008. We are not going to complain about Metal Squad's distortion (1992) now, are we?

It's a valid complaint insofar as the competition didn't suffer from this issue. The SNES simply didn't suffer from distortion such as this (see e.g. Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991)).

There never was a Gradius for Megadrive, unfortunately. The two tracks I posted belong to the games released for the MSX computer (1987), the second of which making use of some extra chip included in the cartridges to improve the sound capabilities of the system. I posted them because when judging the sound quality it's difficult to leave apart our musical tastes (or I myself find it difficult), especially when we talk about the sweet memories that these old games evoke. So you see, almost nothing can sound as good to me as those MSX samples, because they carry quite an emotional baggage with them.

I share the sentiment, albeit for GameBoy and PC-speaker tunes. I also have the utmost respect for composers that manage to create music on so limited hardware (a personal favorite: Mystic Quest (GameBoy)).

Listening to your samples, I have to agree that the sound quality is better overall (it makes sense, two years is quite a gap in hardware technology). And yet, it very much depended on how the potential of both machines was used. Comparing the music of both Street Fighter 2 games, it would be difficult to make a clear choice. Some tracks, such as Chun Li's, are better on the SNES, with much clear sounds. In others, such as Ken's, the Megadrive version takes the lead--somebody synthesised the wrong instrument for the SNES track, with the result that it sounds as if played by a random dude in a fair with a fake accordion.

Indeed, a great composer can weave magic no matter the hardware. A bad composer will sound bad even on a modern PC.

Interesting myth: Sony's then director was a fan of the NES but was unhappy of its limited sound capabilities. When the SNES was announced, he sent the design of a superior sound chip to Nintendo: this was the SPC700 that was used in the final hardware.

[devius]

Someone mentioned comparing the SNES to the 32X... sure, here's a video comparing the music from Doom on both consoles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXK0At46EdU

Obviously the SNES port is using the SuperFX2 chip which ran at 20MHz IIRC, while the 32X has 2x 20MHz cpus plus all the ones already on the Mega Drive. Of course the SNES version is graphically inferior (lower resolution), but IIRC it has more levels than the 32X version.
I really like both consoles, since you can find great games on both of them, but you can find more on the SNES. Plus, most SNES games just have that undefinable nintendo feel to them. They just feel like better games somehow. Having said that, there are flawless games as well on the Megadrive, like Another World (Out of this World on the USA), Pitfall, Sonic, Flashback, Earthworm Jim, Mega Bomberman, Thunderforce IV (I bet this one uses all the cpu power it can), etc...

PS: Sorry for taking this so Off-Topic

[devius]

Oh yeah, the SNES might have near cd-quality sound hardware, but the lack of storage space meas that the samples have to be very compressed. This would be a problem that would manifest itself in the form of distortion, like in that Thunderforce IV intro clip. Luckily the SNES included a low-pass filter in the audio output chain to tame all that nasty high frequency noise. Anyone who was trying out SNES emulators "back in the days", before they got feature complete, might remember that the emulated games sounded worse than the real SNES one's, before they implemented the low-pass filter.

[BlackStar]

Plus, most SNES games just have that undefinable nintendo feel to them. They just feel like better games somehow.

Comes down to better quality control, actually. Even so, for every good game there are ten shitty ones even on the SNES - but at least the good ones are *really* good (and you really couldn't go wrong with anything first party such as Zelda or Mario).

Having said that, there are flawless games as well on the Megadrive, like Another World (Out of this World on the USA), Pitfall, Sonic, Flashback, Earthworm Jim, Mega Bomberman, Thunderforce IV (I bet this one uses all the cpu power it can), etc...

Another World, Flashback, Earthworm Jim and Bomberman were cross-platform releases, actually!

Oh yeah, the SNES might have near cd-quality sound hardware, but the lack of storage space meas that the samples have to be very compressed. This would be a problem that would manifest itself in the form of distortion, like in that Thunderforce IV intro clip.

You are right (check the spoken sound clips on most SNES games, they suffer from heavy distortion), but the point was that the SNES APU was ultimately more capable than the Megadrive one. In fact, Byuu (of bsnes fame) has designed MSU1, a SNES addon that uses cheap flash memory to provide up to 4GB of storage. It can be used to stream 32KHz/16bit cd audio decodes it on the CPU and uses a pretty amazing hack to load it to the echo buffer of the SPC700 for playback. The SNES can actually do ~240x160 FMV - which pretty damn amazing for a ~3.5MHz CPU!

This may look like a moot point but it goes to show what would have been possible should the SNES-CD have been realized (without pass-through cables!)

[BlackStar]

Anyone who was trying out SNES emulators "back in the days", before they got feature complete, might remember that the emulated games sounded worse than the real SNES one's, before they implemented the low-pass filter.

Actually, SNES audio emulation wasn't perfected until 2009 or so. Zsnes and older Snes9x versions still sound awful even with the low-pass filter (try any Squaresoft game and compare with bsnes or the real thing).

[BlackStar]

Finally, this is too awesome to not share: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULko...layer_embedded

Note: this is made possible just by adding storage (no external processors or chips). A SNES game could have used this back in the day, if cheap storage was available.