I would love it if there were a console that could collect all the great 2D games and be a platform for the new ones but that just won't happen. You're ideal machine would be a small PC running Window XP with emulators for everything. I was at first surprised that the GP2X beat the PSP with an emulator following but later it makes perfect sense as the PSP is a real mainstream game system. Even if it doesn't openly supported homebrew, it's got a much bigger userbase than the GP2X ever will. You're never going to have a system you can't find something wrong with, or atleast something that could have been better. I mean off the top of my head, NES could have benifited greatly from more than 8 sprites per scanline, SNES could have used more CPU power, Genesis could have used more color on screen, etc. Or you could have a seemingly great system that just never gets the games or support it needs to shine (32X). New modern 2D games will come out, it's just that now that there is a choice unlike the old days, many opt for making 3D games. Often crappy ones. ;p
OK I admit that I lied slightly, the video chip in the Genesis was a slightly modified version of the TI TMS9918.
It's not slightly, it's very heavily modified! Anyways, you're certainly not going to get any more compatible than a PC running SDL + USB HID compliant joypad interface.
Lets not argue over how modified it is I fucked up my research, ok? But Vista is still a modified version of Windows 2. Have a look: http://toastytech.com/guis/miscwin1xp.png http://toastytech.com/guis/miscwin12.gif Windows 1 programs running in XP. They run in Vista, too. http://toastytech.com/guis/misc.html Hehehehe.
What they don't show is how slowly your fast modern computer will run if you attempt to run something like Reversi... (It'll eat up about 40% of your CPU cycles if you just run it....). Still back on topic... I still would love to see a 2D Powerhorse console with a nippy 32 Bit CPU and forcing programmers to write code in Assembler and not waste it by writing things in C++ so they can eek the power from the machine and use all the RAM for things like Sprites and Animation.
Holy crap you're right! 98% on my A64! Anyways, does using C++ eat up that much power? I know assembler is a beastly language, but I don't honestly know how many coders nowadays know assembler, never mind code entire games in it. C++ is the most popular because its pretty fast and relatively portable, at least in comparison. I wish there was a massive list of what certain games were coded in, that'd be damn useful. BTW, I saw on Digi Key that an 200mhz SH4 (same as a DC) sells for around $40 Canadian. That's not a lot for that much power, I mean, a PPC 603e will cost that much as well, and you don't get as much oompf for your money with one of them.
Just because a game is written in assembly doesn't mean it's fast, likewise just because it's written in C++ doesn't mean it's slow. Someone can write an object oriented game in assembly or a procedural C++ game. It's up to programmers to optimize where their compilers fall short, if they can and if it makes a difference. You're right about few people writing whole games in assembly, a modern game would be very hard to maintain and most people can't write code as efficiently (in any sense) as many modern compilers can. A 200Mhz SH4 is NOT sufficient for a 2D powerhouse (better than say Neo Geo) without dedicated graphics hardware which again is stupid when "sprites" can easily be arbitrarily sized, operated upon in software and blitted without penalty.
The Neo Geo had a 12mhz 68000 (and a z80). It was not a powerful system by todays standards, or even by the standards 2 - 3 years later. The DC can even emulate a Neo Geo perfectly with an SH4 chip. Is there a better chip out there for the same price? Edit: List of CPUs I can think of: Freescale Coldfire: 680x0 based, much faster than even the fastest original 680x0 chips (up to 300Mhz I think), but still relatively underperforming. Cheap though ($25 - $35). Freescale\IBM PowerPC: Powerful, lots of support, OS support (Linux, OS X, etc), easy ports from other systems (Wii, 360 and PS3 all use PPC chips), but most chips (apart from the aging 603e, which Apple dropped 10 years ago) are quite pricy. Renesas SH Series: Pretty strong, but hasn't been updating recently, so 360 MIPS @ 200Mhz is probably the fastest you can get. Probably still better than the 603 or the Coldfire though. Same CPU as the Dreamcast, so there's a large infrastructure of coders and homebrew software with little change needed. About $40 for the SH4, less for the SH3 or SH2. Freescale iMX31(L): Used in the Zune, ARM11 based CPU. The non-L version has integrated graphics. Havn't read up on it much, so no clue on performance really. About $25, maybe too good to be true?
In a developer point of view, the GBA, GP32 and GP2X are 2D consoles since all of them lack a FPU. Anyway, I was in a group some years ago that started as some guys trying to make a more powerful GP32. When we realized the most we could get from an ARM9 was what the Zodiac could do, we decided to go with the SH family of precessors. We first thought about using a small SH3, then someone proposed to make a portable DC, since it already had quite a scene that we could use. The problem was getting a VR2 that wouldnt drain the battery. Then we heard about Renesas making a DC SOC (system on a chip) but they never gave us the date we needed, since apparently the whole idea got scrapped right out of the lab. Then we moved onto the SH7, which is quite a powerful beast, but before we could get anything on wheels other problems started to appear, like the cost of the prototypes, the lack of interest from other homebrew parties (to make apps, games and emus for our system) and then personal problems, like half of us were in college and the other working on other companies, and before we know it everyone had left the project. The final blow came with the PSP, since we started the project in 2003 when the only portables were the GBA and the GP32, and none of those could emulate 16bit consoles properly. Our system was made so it could emulate even the PSX and N64 (and in theory, Saturn) but when the PSP scene started to show what it could do nobody had a reason to invest in our idea, specially since you could get a PSP cheaper than one of our units. I think the reason why making a "open source" console (as we called it, since you could run almost anything on it and modify the hardware too) is that you need a lot of people to do so, and that people has to put a lot of work into it, not just the usual collaboration and then nothing. Maybe SEGA or SNK could make a Wii-like VC system that runs old games and ocassionally getting some high-end 2D games for it, since they could sell the units with a profit at a pretty cheap price and get some of the old userbase back. All I know is that I would love to see a Sonic 2 remake with sprites as detailed as those in the SFIIT remake. But as I said before, only a company, even a small one, can run such a project, since is too big for just a group of people working in the internets. About your project, Mini-ITX isnt a good idea, we tried one and emus didnt run that fast at all (again, it was 4 years ago) and the gheode doesnt look better either. And ASM codding? are you serious? nobody codes in that lenguage, not since the 16bits days. Even during the 32bits days coders used C++. ASM is just way too complex for today requeriments. One last thing: those prices you say you got for the SH4 look kinda expesive, try to look around for other suppliers, or wait until I contact a friend that may get a better price on those.
So what? The DS lacks an FPU and can still pull-off 3d graphics. The slide I posted showed projected growth. Hitachi restructured their semiconductor business at the time of the SH5 and when SH6 was being developed. SH-6 was never finalized, and SH-7's development was halted and never made much progress anyway. Would you care explaining how you got an SH-7 then? Also, during the 32bit days coders used C not C++. Up until the XBOX companies mainly recommended C for consoles. Finally, many coders code in asm. Who do you think writes compilers? They don't fall from heaven. Assembly language is a vital part of every new hardware. Any abstraction layer has to sit on an assembly-coded layer before anything can get anywhere. Companies such as Rare for example hire experts and indeed require good knowledge of assembler for their top-ranking projects. Despite what you may think, not everyone wishes to pay for an unreal 3 license. Too Human is a great example of that. Lair on the PS3 is another example of hardcore programming in assembler. PS: in case you re wondering about the Super H processor's by Hitachi, I knew a very clever lady who worked on the SH-5 project, I ll see if I can find her CV somewhere. PS: As you like putting it in brackets usually...
I wasnt sure if the DS had a FPU (didnt care to search either, I'm friggin asleep...) but yeah it has some 3D, but a craptastic one, at a level like between the Snes and the N64, which is quite lame for the time being. Even Metal Head on the 32X had more polys on screen...
And if you don't trust me on my SuperH knowledge, well you can trust wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperH
That post got a heavy edit, didnt saw even half of that when I posted, just the part about the DS not having FPU... We didnt, we were working on estimates, cuz you cant make this in just a couple of days you know?. Companies take years to get a final version of the hardware, so we were expecting to get a prototype last year (2006) three years after we started the entire project. We thought that by the time the SH7 would be already in production. Plus at the end of the project there was a lot of confussion, specially with this guy talking about a special SH3 which was called SH7a or something, and since things went downhill not too long after that I'm not sure if that whats we were going to use, a normal SH4 or a "real" SH7. I'm too sleepy (and maybe drunk) right now to remember that... I was in charge of the screen, not the CPU:lol: PS: I never say "owned", just once I said "pwn3d" over someone elses joke.
I can assure you that SH-6 and SH-7 project estimates were never leaked to anyone. the SuperH company that Hitachi formed promptly sold the IPs and SH-7 was never even designed on paper. They couldn't have provided anyone with computational power estimates even if they wanted to - which companies don't, thus having lenghty NDAs etc. speaking of screens then, please elaborate, what manufacturers did you have in mind? and why? What was your target energy consumption rate? I don't want to sound offensive, but to assume the design of a console you need some pretty damn good knowledge of low-level electronics and a very good understanding of physics and maths. The logistics are often dealt with either at the end (Ps3) or at the beggining (Wii) of a project, not concurrently. You work towards an aim (eg price point, performance, or balance of both) , not floating ideas. Some people learn these skills starting off with low-level programming, and through experience getting to know how things work - but there's a great distance between a clever assembly coder and an electronics engineer.
Just got a IM from my old buddy in the project: the CPU we were going to use was the SH7760, a SH4-based chip. Operating frequency 200MHz CPU Performance 360MIP/ 200 MHz Floating Point:1.4GFLOPS/ 200 MHz Cache Large capaciy Cache:16kB instruction + 32kB data (2way set associative) Debug H-UDI, UBC, AUD Package BGA256 Other features Integrate SH-4 CPU core and various peripheral functions on one chip LCD controller USB host SCIF, HAC, SSI, I2C, HSPI, SIM, MMCIF, CMT, ADC, MFI, GPIO Here's the Renesas site if you dont believe me Again, is kinda difficult to remember some thing I was into 4 years ago being asleep in 9AM of a Saturday after coming from a partie, specially since the CPU wasnt my friggin jobOH:
The Processor is SH-4 7760 , the highest end of the SH-4 series. the DC WAS an SH4 7760. So talk about the screen
Well I mentioned some of the guys wanted a portable DC, just couldnt remember the CPU. I may have mistaken the model number with the series number...(do I have to mention I'm about to collapse?) The screen was a QVGA. Remember it was 2003 and most cellphones were using 128x128 screens at best. Only that Tungsten Palm had a bigger screen at 320x320, but it was expensive and most of the guys didnt like it. Today VGA screen arent pricey anymore and theres some kickass Sharp 800x400 screens for cellphones coming soon (fuck, theres even one that has fingerprint reading capabilities...)
Yes, a used Pentium 4 or a MIPS core if you think RISC makes a difference anymore. The fact is a 200Mhz RISC machine can't outpreform even a Neo Geo without graphics and sound being offloaded to external components which I keep saying is stupid since emulating those components is the way to go hands down. Nowadays for 2D games, you make a 2D surface and abstract sprites, backgrounds etc without wasting tens of thousands of gates on silly graphics/audio hardware which is less flexible than a few pages of C! If you used the CPU to do all the work, it'd be just like an emulator without the OS overhead. $25 is not even cheap for a CPU, especially a 68K! I can't think of any reason why anyone use a 68K in a modern console except that they thought somehow it would make the system more oldschool. How many people program 68K compared to IA32 or PPC or MIPS or even ARM? Practically none! If you want CISC today, the best choice is IA. They are FREE if you use a modern FPGA as system glue. How many people write DC homebrew in assembly? AFAIK, everyone uses GCC.
