[Pexs]

Anyone ever try this?]

Because loading Genesis cartridges on the SNES is totally a thing.

[gold lightning]

Yeah... I wouldn't count a console-on-a-chip that happens to use the SNES as a power source.

[.Luke]

I guess if something like this were to be done, Sonic 1 would be the best to port over? It's the one Genesis game that's the most documented, from what I can tell, unless Sonic 2 by itself is more optimized.

InvisibleUp, on 07 October 2014 - 05:20 PM, said:

Also, Sonic 1 special stages with smooth rotation would be amazing.

It's actually possible in the vanilla game, but the programmers turned off smooth rotation. (I don't know why, but somebody mentioned something about motion sickness.) Quite a few hacks in the works right now are turning it back on, and it looks amazing. Add that to the variable jump height more hacks are including, and Sonic 1's Special Stages are legitimately playable to me.

flamewing said:

But worse is that the number of sprites in the SNES was far more limited than in the Genesis — check Gunstar Heroes and the lack of SNES equivalents for an example.

Yikes. I take it the number of rings Sonic can drop would have be cut down dramatically because of that. (16 versus 32 isn't too bad.) The SNES's resolution is also lower, so less sprites would be on-screen, but that might only marginally help with the limits of the video hardware, as you mentioned.

[Covarr]

Hez, on 07 October 2014 - 08:44 PM, said:

I don't think any scaling of sprites would be necessary. the Sonic CD panning would be enough.

It's not just about screen real estate. It's about the fact that the pixels aren't square. It'll display at 4:3, and all the sprites will look too wide.

[Felik]

How does Retro-Gen work?

[Uberham]

Felik, on 08 October 2014 - 02:13 AM, said:

How does Retro-Gen work?

One would assume it's one of those crappy "mini" consoles, modded to use power from the SNES and output vide through it too.

Might make a "wow" at first, but that's about it.

[flamewing]

.Luke, on 07 October 2014 - 09:19 PM, said:

I guess if something like this were to be done, Sonic 1 would be the best to port over? It's the one Genesis game that's the most documented, from what I can tell, unless Sonic 2 by itself is more optimized.

I'd argue that Git S2 is better documented; but it is overall the same engine. But there is a trap: S2 (and S3&K, for that matter) are better optimized for the Genesis. Since the SNES has a different CPU and a different architecture, this doesn't mean anything. It could be that some optimizations they make would result in a slower game in the SNES, or would not be needed.

Moreover, it is unlikely that any code would be reused; so it would be more like writing the engine from scratch. Since you are already doing that anyway, you can optimize as much as needed along the way, picking up what works best from S1, S2 and S3&K, and ditching what is irrelevant for (or irreproducible on) the SNES.

[Black Squirrel]

Felik, on 08 October 2014 - 02:13 AM, said:

How does Retro-Gen work?

RetroGen (accessory)

Hendricks 266, on 07 October 2014 - 08:44 PM, said:

Black Squirrel, on 07 October 2014 - 02:53 PM, said:

The 256x224 resolution would give you trouble

Stealth's Sonic 1 for GBA does fine with 240x160.

There's no horizontal stretching on that system though - the pixels are square, unlike the SNES.

Think: Sonic 2's two player mode, except all the time (and not quite as severe). It might not work out so well in some situations, and unless the art was re-drawn, there will be scrolling issues to contend with in boss fights and whatever. This is a disadvantage with the GBA version too.

[Overlord]

Cooljerk, on 07 October 2014 - 05:01 PM, said:

It'd probably play a lot like Uniracers.

Nah, wouldn't work. Try putting your name in on Unirally as Sonic and you'll see why =P

[Chaos Rush]

Hendricks 266, on 07 October 2014 - 08:44 PM, said:

Black Squirrel, on 07 October 2014 - 02:53 PM, said:

The 256x224 resolution would give you trouble

Stealth's Sonic 1 for GBA does fine with 240x160.

I'd also like to mention Sonic Classic Collection on the DS, which had a resolution of 256x192. While those games were vertically scaled (meaning the 224 vertical pixels were squished into the DS's 192), they weren't horizontally scaled at all, they were just cut off. And it didn't really make much of a difference.

[KingofHarts]

We mention DS ports and Stealth... Let us not forget he also did these...http://forums.sonicr...=1

Granted... resolution differences aside, we are also talking about, what I'd assume to be superior hardware with the GBA and the DS... back to the main topic in question, the SNES...

[Tanks]

Covarr, on 08 October 2014 - 12:16 AM, said:

Hez, on 07 October 2014 - 08:44 PM, said:

I don't think any scaling of sprites would be necessary. the Sonic CD panning would be enough.

It's not just about screen real estate. It's about the fact that the pixels aren't square. It'll display at 4:3, and all the sprites will look too wide.

I mean that's a minor thing though, is it not? Just getting the game running at some semblance of "full-speed" would be a feat in its self.

I seriously want to see the SNES pull off a Sonic 3D special stage in Mode 7 though. Show me that I'll shake your hand or something people do to congratulate others.

[HCKTROX]

Approaching current situation, I wanna just throw something here...


It was an original idea by other of mine friends, but I was asked to join and help on anything it required, maybe documenting stuff about original engine, helping with the code logic, stuff like that. Main game coding is ran under SuperFX chip for this version

This post has been edited by HCKTROX: 09 October 2014 - 08:14 PM

[The Game Collector]

I just got into a debate on facebook today about how the Genesis alone doesn't seem to be able to run a game with such fluid graphics like Donkey Kong Country. The person came back with Super Donkey Kong 99 but I came back with yeah the graphics are ported, but the water is not moving and the music and physics are horrendous. Another guy said, that is because Genesis cartridge chips have never contained enough space to hold all the info a Super Nintendo cart did. So it got me wondering, since Sega CD increases all that storage space, I wonder if Donkey Kong Country could be ported to Sega CD and look/sound as good as or better than the SNES version. I wonder if someone will ever attempt it. With a CD soundtrack, it could even outdo the original if someone could get the physics and graphical animations ported to a T.

[Varion Icaria]

The Game Collector, on 09 October 2014 - 08:35 PM, said:

I just got into a debate on facebook today about how the Genesis alone doesn't seem to be able to run a game with such fluid graphics like Donkey Kong Country. The person came back with Super Donkey Kong 99 but I came back with yeah the graphics are ported, but the water is not moving and the music and physics are horrendous. Another guy said, that is because Genesis cartridge chips have never contained enough space to hold all the info a Super Nintendo cart did. So it got me wondering, since Sega CD increases all that storage space, I wonder if Donkey Kong Country could be ported to Sega CD and look/sound as good as or better than the SNES version. I wonder if someone will ever attempt it. With a CD soundtrack, it could even outdo the original if someone could get the physics and graphical animations ported to a T.

While the CD grants you more space, It actually limits the current space you can access at a time depending on what mode WordRAM is in. It actually makes things a lot harder to program for. Your better bet would be to use the SF2Mapper to enable banking similar to the 32X and from there you can switch banks when you need to access more data perhaps.