Since you guys are talking 1080 line output, you've got no choice but to use crazy powerful 3D accelerators to offload as much rendering from the CPU as possible.
I agree since filling a 1920x1080 screen with pixel art is insanity. For hand drawn 2D, 320x240 is ideal and for digitized 2D, 640x480. Both of these resolutions can be realized on a standard definition TV and to reach the best audience they should be.
hmmm when I look at so many PC parts almost every day(thrown out), and the parts are of "older" pentium CPUs then I don't get that pessimism we have had in this thread when it comes to the whole shebang. But still this thread doesn´t deserve to die. Anyway it still has some potential if any one wanted to see some cool ideas.
I would still love to see this happen. I have no hardware knowledge to help out with but I'd chip in where I can, design and stuff.
I believe we have quite a few great designers here. One of them is Calpis, and others who has some great ideas. Heck it is NOT that hard to see things, and make mock-ups of such ideas.
So are you mainly interested in designing a suitable power PC into a sleek console like case or something? I'm not particularly clear what this thread is about anymore. But any half decent PC can run 2D games pretty well. That's not an issue. The issue would be having 2D games worth playing that aren't emulated. And that's a software issue and not a hardware console issue. That's why I think if you want to design your own console, you should stay away from just plopping a PC in a box. If this is just a hobby I don't see why you don't make something retroish which seems to be the goal with a 2D system and make something with a retro design where you have something like a fast 68000 main cpu, a powerful 2D graphics chip that behaves like SNES, Genesis, GBA, etc did with hardware background planes and sprites. Figure out something to do for sound and put all that together into a console. It'd be pretty cool I think. More interesting atleast than a PC in a nice box.
The way I see it there are two options: A) Obsolete hardware - something like a recent Cave board utilizing a discrete CPU (Super H), APU (Yamaha ADPCM controller) and custom VDP (FPGA) with a crapload of discrete memory. Pros: original hardware Cons: hard to source parts, expensive to manufacture, huge development costs, hardware limitations, difficult to develop for B) Contemporary hardware - something like a Taito Type-X, a generic PC with original API, USB controls, hardware dongle etc. Pros: cheap hardware, few development costs, easy to develop for, no limitations Cons: no hardware nuance For anything to happen though, someone has to come up with a game worth all the trouble. Even if the game author's end goal is to put it on custom hardware, most realistically it should be prototyped on the PC.
That's the real problem of it all, games worth all the trouble, that you couldn't have played elsewise. And that just doesn't make any sense because you could just make your game for PC. That's why I think you're better off with option A or just living with the PC you've already got.
How can something that is still produced in various forms be classified as obsolete? The last time I looked Renesas were one of the largest microcontroller makers in the world...
OK, the series may not be retired but the SH2 is definitely past it's heyday as a CPU, not that it isn't suitable for 2D games. Right now the only non-MCU SuperH in production are superscalar SH4, so it's that or IP cores.
hmm the project is dead, but the dream is not. And I think I have found a solution to the joystick parts in the OS(DOS/Linux you name it). What about using a keymapper to make the joystick do its magic ?
They've had this discussion over at Beyond3D with the game devs over there. Basically, any of the modern consoles is more than capable of making ridiculously over the top 2D games. Just because it's "3D" hardware doesn't mean that those effects can't put out a 2D plane with lots of scaling and spinning 2D textures lol. The old stuff doesn't have advantages over modern technology....
Swaaye: what would you choose in parts of a "modern 2D Console" made out of PC parts, cause I guess you are the same Swaaye from vogons. And vogons are actually some of the most knowledgeable guys, when it comes to (mostly) old PC parts and sound cards and what not in that area.
The problem isn't the current hardware in the least. It's the current libraries. Almost nobody is making 2D stuff... so, all the shared resources that the number of 3D games over the years have rendered are used and reused. Here's some fun reading: http://www.gamengai.com/cmnt_inf.php?id=2069&type=translation
^^ +1 Who's going to make titles for a 2D console? There's little commercial interest in it these days, unfortunately.
Yah it's me. I think I'd pick some modern 3D card. No limits on what you can do. Also while not "2D graphics" anymore, there are some nifty new platformers out there. Go look at Trine or Braid. Pretty sweet looking. Actually Braid may be 2D or at least the result looks that way. It seems like these kinds of games are making sort of a comeback in the indy scene. Honestly I'm of the opinion that the old 2D hardware existed simply because the modern 3D hardware we have now didn't exist. Even with 2D hardware they were trying to bring us 3D worlds. All those layers of backgrounds and the sprites with multiple viewing angles, etc. And of course there were the scrolling/scaling ground planes like with Mode 7 etc.
You're required far more work and horsepower to make a polygon-based world look acceptable than in a sprite-based one (even though it's a more realistic world). Either that or polygon artists of the last 15 years just massively sucked dick.
I think this discussion is moot. But on the subject of using 3D to make 2D (etc)... We've all got perfectly capable computers these days. Why hasn't anyone dropped an amazing (2D!) run'n'gun or shmup or platformer for PC? Like, full-blast, crazy perfect? As a side-note, what resolution do the later CAVE games run at? Say, DDP Dai-Fukkatsu and Mushihime? I assume the Deathsmiles 2 will be pretty damn high-res... but also what I've seen it will be at least relatively 3D.
