SMS or A7800 which would win in a fight?

[kevin242]

I dont want to start a war and I realise the Sega Master system has

alot more games, but hypothetically if the same resources were put

into the same game which system would come out on top? Would it

depend on the type of game? Soundwise, lets assume the 7800 cart

has a pokey in it.

[andy_bernstein]

SMS Specs:

Bits (CPU): 8

Bits (Gx): 8

CPU: Z80

MHz: 3.58

Graphics: 256 x 192

Colors: 32 + 32

Sprites: 64

Sprite size: 8x8 or 8x16

Audio: 3 music + 1 noise

 

7800 Specs:

CPU : 6502C

RAM : 4K

ROM : 4K BIOS ROM

CPU SPEED : 1.79 Mhz

GRAPHICS SPEED : 7.16 Mhz

STORAGE: 32K Cartridge ROM

BANKSWITCHING : No

SOUND : TIA Custom Sound

RESOLUTION : 320 X 200

COLORS : 256

[Gregory DG]

Tough call. SMS games are generally larger in size that the few 7800 games. Golden Axe if 512K... Largest 7800 game is Alien Brigade & Crossbow at 144K. Dunno, games seem to feel smoother on the 7800.

 

There also aren't too many games you can compare... Klax, Rampage, Choplifter... Here are some comparison shots. Choplifter looks especially bad on the 7800, but it's only 32K in size compared to the 256K of the SMS version. Klax holds its own on the 7800, but both versions are the same size, which is probably the best comparison.

[Clint Thompson]

I was never really aware of the fact that the SMS was even released until AFTER I had obtained a 7800 and then when all my buddies started getting Sega Genesis... everyone was like... well.... there was the regular sega and then the Sega Genesis..... I'm like, OK? Finally found one at a flea market in what? 96? for $35 I think (probably should have picked it up) with 1 racing game (motorcycle) but the game was crap, imo and it was the first time I ever seen the system so I knew I wasn't going to be able to get games for it easily.

 

It's probably a system I would love to investigate a little further and have some hands on since I've never owned one. How many games were made for the SMS anyways?

 

On the screenshots.... only Chopflifter, imo, looks better on the 7800.

I think it may have something to do with how it was captured possibly as to why the contrast looks so crappy on the 7800 version? but they both look good! so it doesn't matter as long as the gameplay is still there. Klax kinda looks nicer on the SMS too , as much as I hate to say it, but again... maybe it's a different wave etc. I'd have to further investigate to give a proper opinion.

[Clint Thompson]

*contrast as being in Rampage... sorry about that

[DracIsBack]

I dont want to start a war and I realise the Sega Master system has  

alot more games, but hypothetically if the same resources were put  

into the same game which system would come out on top?  Would it  

depend on the type of game?   Soundwise, lets assume the 7800 cart

has a pokey in it.

 

It would depend on the kind of game, the time invested in the game, the quality of the programmers, and their experience with the system.

 

Graphics would probably be nicer on the SMS: As many colors, but brighter, higher resolution. The 7800 wouldn't flicker like the SMS would however, and be able to put a lot on the screen at once.

 

The size issue (again) has nothing to do with a technical limit of the 7800 and everything to do with Jack Tramiel's tight wallet.

 

The 7800 is quite capable of playing 2-megabit, and 4-megabit games, like like the SMS. But Jack would have had to pay to program them and build them.

[DracIsBack]

Also --- let's compare KLAX for KLAX.

klax6

[kevin242]

so out of the three at the time (SMS, NES, and A7800) one could say

the 7800 was the weakest console overall?

[Bruce Tomlin]

It sounds pretty close if you don't count that the 7800 was crippled financially by Jack "The Ripper" Tramiel. Also keep in mind that the Z-80 at twice the clock speed isn't really faster than the 6502, because Z-80 instructions take lots more clocks to execute.

 

But I do have one question for those who know enough about the SMS internals: did it have separate video memory like the Colecovision/MSX/NES? The main problem with the 7800 is that the nicer your graphics, the more cycles get stolen from the CPU. This isn't so bad if you can do all your game logic in the vertical retrace time, but can be crippling for complicated stuff. This is where the NES wins out over the 7800, especially for games with full-screen non-black backgrounds.

 

So how much RAM does the SMS have, anyhow? Those specs don't say.

[The_Laird]

I think they all had their own strengths. The NES had easily the best sound, the SMS had great colours and the 7800 had the superior sprite handling. I don't think Klax looks much different, Rampage looks clearly much better on the SMS and Choplifter is about the same. If you took a game like Planet Smashers and put that on the SMS it would look bad because of the amount of sprite flicker. Other games that made it to both consoles:-

Ms. Pacman - Look about the same.

Pit-Fighter - Only a proto but the 7800 version looks miles better!

Double Dragon - 7800 version not quite as detailed but the SMS version has terrible flicker.

Summer Games - Look pretty much the same.

Pro. Wrestling - 7800 version edges it for me.

 

[/img][/img]

[Classic Pac]

Seriously I am a fan of both systems and own and play both. But lets be honest here as much as 7800 games such as Tower Toppler was amazing. The SMS when hands down can anyone say Phantasy Star?

[The_Laird]

Sorry forgot to add the other pics, that was SMS Pit-Fighter. Here is 7800 one.

 

 

And on 7800...

 

[/img]

[The_Laird]

Keep getting this wrong somehow. I know what i did, forgot to click add here are those screens

[Danno]

As someone who owned both, let me tell you - as much as I am A HUGE 7800 buff, the SMS beat it and the NES hands down in every category except software library size.

 

Choplifter on the SMS had MUCH better graphics, and 3 completely separate and different levels, the 7800 version had just one level, and the sprites were huge clowny-looking things.

 

the 7800 may have been capable of more and better, but the fact is, that never happened. IT had GREAT arcade ports, and a few truly enjoyable games, whereas on the SMS EVERY game was truly well done.

 

I mean seriously - SMS had Afterburner, Shinobi, Outrun, and quite a few others that were damn near arcade perfect. Atari couldn't even get more than one board in Choplifter?

[+-^CrossBow^-]

SMS has a pretty decent version of Golden Axe too and even Sonic 1...if you can find that one.

 

Let's see the 7800 do Sonic...I think it can...

 

It is too bad that Jack couldn't see the potential of the 7800 and really tried to support it properly. I would have done much better with more original titles to set it apart..like Ninja Golf/Midnight Mutants. And we still haven't seen really what the graphics ability of the 7800 could be like.

 

Maria is such an untapped beast...

[DracIsBack]

so out of the three at the time (SMS, NES, and A7800) one could say  

the 7800 was the weakest console overall?

 

It's the wrong way to think about it. "X is unilaterally better than Y"" is really just what marketing departments want customers to think, and what fanboys cling to.

 

The reality, that others have noted, was that it's an issue of each having strengths and weakenesses.

 

The NES is better than the 7800 at side-scrolling games like SUPER MARIO BROTHERS 3, due to its tile based graphics architecture. It's simply easier to create games like that efficiently on the NES than the 7800.

 

That doesn't mean that the 7800 isn't capable of playing these types of games (see SCRAPYARD DOG) but it is more work. And if they were ever squeezed to their nth degree, the NES would come out on top.

 

Likewise, the 7800 is stronger than the NES at games that manipulate the display (ie. BALLBLAZER) and games that move around a lot of moving objects at the same time. It's just built to do that.

 

They are different, designed with different design goals, but designed at the same timeframe in life so from the same generation ... but with different objectives.

 

 

But again, the 7800 was really killed by Jack Tramiel's tight wallets. Yes, there are fantastic games on the SMS and NES (I own both).

 

Sega and Nintendo were also willing to pay for better developers, pay for longer development cycles, pay for bigger cartridges and pay for additional chips like MM3 chips.

 

That goes a LONG, LONG, LONG way to competing properly.

 

Take CHOPLIFTER. Yeah, it sucks on the 7800. It's also done by the same house that did KARATEKA.

 

Now compare CHOPLIFTER to ALIEN BRIGADE. You almost wouldn't know it was the same system, comparing graphics, game length, detail, music -- everything.

[DracIsBack]

SMS has a pretty decent version of Golden Axe too and even Sonic 1...if you can find that one.

 

Sonic is good, but gotta disagree with you on GOLDEN AXE. That was one that I had back in the day and recently repurchased. I always felt it was a game that was beyond the SMS's capabilities to do well. The game was jerky, hard to control and missing key elements. I think they tried but didn't quite make it.

[DracIsBack]

Atari couldn't even get more than one board in Choplifter?

 

It's not a case of couldn't. It's that Atari didn't. I know IBID INC comes here and I don't mean to be offensive, but KARATEKA and CHOPLIFTER really sucked ... against other titles of the day on the NES and SMS and also against other 7800 titles.

[Danno]

Well - you see that's the difference. IBID may have coded it, but Atari released it, so they set the development schedule and the budget, even if they didn't actually code it.

 

Although yeah - IBID did do a piss poor job with both of those games. I mean look at Impossible Mission. Aside from the fact that there's a glitch with finishing the came, the 7800 Version is nearly identicl to the C-64 version. It's the GLARING inconsistencies in game quality that kept the 7800 from selling well.

[EricBall]

See Charles MacDonald's docs and Richard Talbot-Watkin's doc for info about the guts of the SMS.

 

The SMS has 8K of program RAM, 16K of video RAM (access indirectly via Z80 I/O port commands) and 48K of cartridge address space (with bankswitching used to allow larger cartridges). Some cartridges may have additional RAM.

 

Like the NES, the SMS has a grid of 8x8 tiles plus 64 independently positioned 8x8 (or 8x16) sprites with a screen resolution of 256x192. Again, like the NES, the SMS GPU uses a separate memory bus, so the CPU continues to process during active video. Horizontal & vertical scrolling is done in hardware.

 

One interesting difference between the SMS and the NES is the SMS does not have dedicated VROM, so all tile/sprite patterns have to be transferred by the CPU to VRAM. However, this does mean sprite/tile graphics can be updated as required.

 

Sprites colors are from a palette of 16 (tiles have an additional palette of 16) from 64 RRGGBB. Palette entries can be reloaded on the fly, even mid-screen.

 

From this brief look at the capabilities of the SMS I'm amazed. It has equivalent tile/sprite capabilities to the NES and superior color capabilites (16 versus 3 colors per tile/sprite). Like the NES, the SMS graphics capabilities is generally superior to the 7800 save for raw sprite power (e.g. Robotron).

 

Based on http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pea...3938/z80ins.txt it appears a Z80 requires 2-3 times as many cycles per operation than a 6502. So no major advantage either way. (The Z80 has more registers including two 16 bit index registers.) The only limitation I can see is the CPU to GPU interface, which requires multiple port operations to move data to/from VRAM.

 

Sound, don't make me laugh.

[EricBall]

SMS Specs:

Colors: 32 + 32  

 

7800 Specs:  

BANKSWITCHING : No

RESOLUTION : 320 X 200

COLORS : 256

SMS Specs:

Colors: sprite/tile palette of 16 colors from 64 RRGGBB + second tile palette of 16 colors from 64 RRGGBB

 

7800 Specs:

BANKSWITCHING : Yes, although not often used

RESOLUTION : 320 X 200, although 160 X 200 more common

COLORS : 8 palettes of 3 colors from 256 YYYYCCCC

[Ferris]

I'll bank my money on Neo Geo. As an owner of both the MasterSystem and the 7800 obviously I'd have to be fair and say that both systems library of software underutilized the power of the machines. On paper the 7800 is the more capable system but Jack was unwilling to put money into bigger games. There's no reason a game like Zelda or Shinobi couldnt have been put out on the 7800. Until then I will enjoy both for what they were and fire up my Neo Geo when I want serious 2-D puzzle action.

[Clint Thompson]

Thats something buzzing around my head for a minute... being now, 2005....I wonder what a properly paid staff of coders, artists and musicians could do for the 7800 with all the readily easy inexpensive resources we have available today.

 

I promise if I were to ever hit the lottery for some big millions.... you better believe I'll be the first person on the planet willing to pour a few million into game deving for the older Atari systems.

 

(I was thinking this when that $329 million lottery was going... I was like, I could easily plop 20 million into some badness new fresh games

(oh, and of course buy Atari but ya know

[+FujiSkunk]

Atari couldn't even get more than one board in Choplifter?

 

It's not a case of couldn't. It's that Atari didn't.

 

Despite Tramiel's habit of short-changing the 7800, Choplifter is actually a special case.

 

Choplifter was originally a Broderbund game, released for the Apple II and the Commodore 64. The Broderbund version plays the same way the Atari version does: only one level, and your score is simply the number of people you rescued.

 

Atari acquired a license from Broderbund to publish Choplifter on the Atari 5200 and later the Atari 7800. This was normal behavior for them, since they were vacuuming up all the popular computer game licenses they could at the time.

 

Meanwhile, Sega also obtained a license from Broderbund for Choplifter, except Sega's license was for an arcade game. Sega then added the extra levels and the more complex system, among other things. Later, when Sega released the Master System and began porting all their arcade games to it, naturally the arcade version of Choplifter also received a port.

 

So, the reason why the Atari 7800 version is less detailed is actually because Atari didn't have permission to use those extra details. They would have had to sublicense the game from Sega as well, which, under the circumstances, wasn't likely to happen.

 

I suspect that the two versions look as similar as they do because Atari was aware of Sega's superior version, and wanted at least to make it a appear like Atari had the same game.

[Trip_Cannon]

The 7800 version of Choplifter pales greatly in comparison with its C64 counterpart. Even though it has color graphics and bigger sprites the gameplay is way off. The C64 blows the 7800 version out of the water!