Atari 7800 and Vanilla NES: Similar machines with opposite Strengths?

[JaguarVision]

The average gamer who's heard of the 7800 would likely say that the NES was much more capable and way ahead of the 7800. Citing games like Megaman 6 or SMB3, even thought he NES itself can't run those games either as it would need assistance in order to run those specific pieces of gaming software. But, the Atari 7800 could have did this as well, just that the people running the company didn't want to invest too much money into it. Also, to be fair, the 2nd gen 7800 games ran really well against many of the 86-88 NES games that used extended hardware.

 

But with that said, how powerful was the NES compared to the Atari 7800 at their base power levels? I've heard many theories such as the NES would still win, or the 7800 would obliterate it. But looking at their games maybe it's both are better in some ways than each other? That they are basically similar in power but aim for two different things? Completely different strategies?

 

The NES was modeled and inspired by the colecovision hardware and isn't, in it's standard vanilla form, that much more powerful. But, enough for some noticeable differences at times. But while it is stronger, it suffers from certain elements the colecovsion didn't, slowdown, flicker etc.

 

This becomes even more puzzling when you take a game like BallBlazer. The Nes suffers running the game, or even games with multiple sprites on the screen. The 7800 has zero problems with it. Even the 5200, the console big brother to the 7800, with a design closer in similarity to the NES, can run both much better. Why is this so?

 

I look back to old archived forums from the early days of the internet were many people say the 7800 took the Colecovisions path and the NES took the Atari 5200 path and I never really got what they meant until these recent days.

 

I believe we should breakdown the differences in strengths of the 7800 and NES to get a better idea:

 

Atari 7800:

+ Higher Base color count

+ Can have any size sprite on the screen

+ Focuses more on CPU

+ Can have multiple moving objects on screen (of varying size)

+ Backwards compatibility

 

NES:

+ More detail/color on an object

+ Tile-based graphics

+ Scrolling hardware support

+ More color use on screen at once

+ Focuses more on Graphical chips than CPU

 

Now, a game like Megaman 6 or Castlevania 3 has extentions that help make the NES gain more strength. However, even with that help it has issues running multiple enemies on screen and handling of a game like Ball Blazer, while the 7800 does both at ease. Yet the 5200, which has a more similar design to the NES then to the 7800, is more capable of doing both better than the NES while checking a lot of the same bullet points. Why is this?

 

The true fact likely is that the Atari 7800 is a more general focused console that has similar development to say a then-modern pc or an arcade board, where over time you can get more improvements out of the base hardware, while the NES kind of focused on being a more entry level computer focusing on expansions to provide greater fidelity with the base being at its highest power from the start. This could explain why the NES got a lot of MSX ports, and loses on a lot of advantages say, the 5200 has, since it was designed in mind to be expanded by hardware in the first place.

 

So if that's the case the NES is likely weaker. But being designed to be expanded was likely a long-term plan to make up for that, at the sacrifice of performance. While the 7800 went with the modern day strategy of achieving improvements off the same hardware just over time.

 

The 5200 didn't focus as much on expansions but also shares the NES feature of having it's games already meet it's peak performance to the metal. by 1983 with Congo Bongo, Buck Rogers, Star Raiders, montezuma, Super Cobra, Robotron etc. You were already reaching the peak of the 5200 power and many games after it were marginal improvements or lesser while the Colecovision saw considerable improvements over time with more time with its hardware.

 

But I would like some other views on this.

[CatPix]

The true fact likely is that the Atari 7800 is a more general focused console that has similar development to say a then-modern pc or an arcade board, where over time you can get more improvements out of the base hardware, while the NES kind of focused on being a more entry level computer focusing on expansions

In modern times, arcades are a rather minor thing, and modern computers are designed like the NES is, to be hardware-upgraded over time. It' why there are whole forcums around computer upgrades, even, so peopel choose what hardware suits their need the best. So I'm not sure about what you're trying to say here...

Even by the 90's, arcade boards were based on a "generic" design, and the game data would come on a second board that would carry the ROM of course, but also if needed, more RAM, and additionnal sound chips or the like.

 

Let's no forget poorly optimized OS that require several time the power of their predecessors for little to no difference for the end user in regard to functionnalities...

 

Let's not forget several things here :

The Famicom was released in 1983 in Japan, that mean that the hardware was pretty much selected and tested in 1982. The 7800 was released in 1984.

Also, Nintendo and Atari worked to release a "common system". According to testimonies and reports from Atari, in 1982, Nintendo came with an almost finished Famicom prototype and demontrated it to Atari staff. That also mean that Atari knew what Nintendo had and knew what to aim for.

Nintendo was going forward, Atari were still on their old ways : the Famicom can do horizontal scrolling perfectly, but struggle at vertical scrolling. The 7800 is the opposite, with a vertical scrolling, for shooter games.

Nintendo wanted their console to be available cheap from the start. In Japan, the Famicom was sold very cheap. This fact was dinimished by the changes needed to be made for the US release with a more solid look, different controllers, etc. But Nintendo knew they would have to improve their system, as they knew it was cheap.

Edited June 6, 2017 by CatPix

[7800fan]

Commando for 7800 vs NES shows the difference very well. 7800 has better looking helicopter at the start and no noticeable flicker or slowdown while NES version has what looks like a badly done one-bladed helicopter and a whole lot of flickering and slowdown when the screen gets crowded.

 

For NES games made pre-MMC chip, 7800 tended to do far better easily. When Nintendo introduced MMC, it helped the game improve on graphic quality and complexation. I doubt anything on 7800 can compete with MMC3 or MMC5 chips. Had Atari stayed longer, they may have introduced an advanced custom bankswitching chip to compete with later NES games but Atari was really struggling against both NES and SMS at the time, not to mention those awful pro controller. Not comfortable and somewhat awkward, its only benefit is it is left and right hand friendly while NES and SMS pad could only be used one way.

[empsolo]

Commando for 7800 vs NES shows the difference very well. 7800 has better looking helicopter at the start and no noticeable flicker or slowdown while NES version has what looks like a badly done one-bladed helicopter and a whole lot of flickering and slowdown when the screen gets crowded.

 

For NES games made pre-MMC chip, 7800 tended to do far better easily. When Nintendo introduced MMC, it helped the game improve on graphic quality and complexation. I doubt anything on 7800 can compete with MMC3 or MMC5 chips. Had Atari stayed longer, they may have introduced an advanced custom bankswitching chip to compete with later NES games but Atari was really struggling against both NES and SMS at the time, not to mention those awful pro controller. Not comfortable and somewhat awkward, its only benefit is it is left and right hand friendly while NES and SMS pad could only be used one way.

That presupposes that old Jack Tremiel would authorize cartridges containing more than 144k of memory. Something he was never convinced to do. Meanwhile the NES and Sega Master System both had stockpiles of games that routinely crossed the 3 or 4 megabyte threshold.

 

 

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Edited June 6, 2017 by empsolo

[high voltage]

Oh no not another newbie NES fanboy.....who let you guys out at the mo?

[zzip]

The 7800s real innovation was the Maria graphics chip which allowed lots of large sized multicolored hardware sprites.

 

Apart from that, it was lackluster

 

Most games were stuck with 160x200 graphics mode which was kinda dated by the late 80s

 

2600 sound chip, are you kidding me??? Built in Pokey would have been better, but even Pokey sounded dated by the late 80s.

[godslabrat]

. Had Atari stayed longer, they may have introduced an advanced custom bankswitching chip to compete with later NES games but Atari was really struggling against both NES and SMS at the time

 

 

This is really the beginning and end of the argument, IMO. The NES was better due to the fact that both the hardware and software were pushed for years, and the proof is in the overall NES experience. Could the 7800 have had this, given enough time? Maybe, but I see no reason to think it would have. It's just as reasonable to think that if the 7800 had done better, Atari would have decided it was "good enough" as it was and continued to publish games that looked and played like 2600 games (slight exaggeration, I admit).

 

Saying the NES was the better system doesn't diminish the 7800. It's just that the latter system was a product of an earlier era, and more importantly, and earlier mindset. Even though the 7800 and Famicom were created at almost the exact same time, the NES was the first of its kind and the 7800 was the last of its. I don't see the two machines as being similar at all, but that's not to disparage either.

[Video]

Slowdown and/or flicker is based on the game, not the hardware. Even the 2600 could run games with no flicker or slowdown, assuming said games are made within the systems limitations. That's why so many Atari and Activision games work so well, they are designed with the systems limitations in mind.

 

I remember SNES vs genesis, "oh SNES sucks due to slowdown". Interestingly, SNES would match genesis and really only seemed to suffer when the game makers would make the same game on both systems, then proceed to have the SNES version run 20+% more sprites (lemmings anyone? Genesis ran 100, SNES ran 100 flawlessly but many levels preceded to dump out 120 and the game bogged down) I bet the lynx couldn't handle much more than the 40 it ran, and the 8 bits? Lmfao.

[Tanooki]

The SNES slowdown though in many cases wasn't due to the hardware, but piss poorly done programming and porting of games off Genesis to the SNES too. An infamous one out of the gate was Gradius III which had both and people love to use it to peg the SNES sucks argument. But if you go into some other shooters, even from Konami who learned from their mistakes, you'd end up with a game that didn't have the graphics drop out and it would minimize or have none of the slowdown. Take Gradius III of theirs and throw it up against their own Parodius trio of titles, either Twinbee game, or in the state Axelay and you'll see a learning curve without sacrifice but gains. The NES had its limits too, one company that realized it best I think was ASCII and with GUN-NAC. Ever look in the options screen on that one? You can choose to have the game either slow down when necessary to keep the graphics solid, or you could go with sprite flicker and it would never slow a bit. They pushed it as far as they personally could both ways, then gave the player the choice which was admirable. But yet another one we didn't get legitimately, which the Japanese did was Recca and that sucker gets insane without dropping a beat. It's too hard to make blanket statements when you get one example that can counter another.

[mbd30]

Total Carnage is an example of a SNES game that pushes a lot of enemy sprites without slowdown. Some earlier SNES games just weren't programmed well.

[mr_me]

 

 

This is really the beginning and end of the argument, IMO. The NES was better due to the fact that both the hardware and software were pushed for years, and the proof is in the overall NES experience. Could the 7800 have had this, given enough time? Maybe, but I see no reason to think it would have. It's just as reasonable to think that if the 7800 had done better, Atari would have decided it was "good enough" as it was and continued to publish games that looked and played like 2600 games (slight exaggeration, I admit).

 

Saying the NES was the better system doesn't diminish the 7800. It's just that the latter system was a product of an earlier era, and more importantly, and earlier mindset. Even though the 7800 and Famicom were created at almost the exact same time, the NES was the first of its kind and the 7800 was the last of its. I don't see the two machines as being similar at all, but that's not to disparage either.

Developers only want to sell their games. They don't care what system that is. In the later 1980s that was the NES not for any other reason than the install base. Developers would have pushed any system with a large install base as they did with the NES and the Atari 2600. The 2600 had only two sprites, programmers had to stand on their head and do back flips to make a decent looking game but they did it.

 

Edit:

Shouldn't the Sega Master System win this contest?

Edited June 7, 2017 by mr_me

[empsolo]

Developers only want to sell their games. They don't care what system that is. In the later 1980s that was the NES not for any other reason than the install base. Developers would have pushed any system with a large install base as they did with the NES and the Atari 2600. The 2600 had only two sprites, programmers had to stand on their head and do back flips to make a decent looking game but they did it.

That's not true at all. The Wii had a massive install base and yet very few third parties took the time to really push the Wii to its limits outside of say Sega. Most of the great looking and great playing games were either on the 360 or were on the PS3. So yeah, hardware is a big factor for which the 7800 simply had severely lacked.

 

 

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[mbd30]

Developers only want to sell their games. They don't care what system that is. In the later 1980s that was the NES not for any other reason than the install base. Developers would have pushed any system with a large install base as they did with the NES and the Atari 2600. The 2600 had only two sprites, programmers had to stand on their head and do back flips to make a decent looking game but they did it.

 

It really is amazing how much the 2600 has been pushed, considering that it was originally designed to play games like Combat and Pong.

 

Princess Rescue shows that even Super Mario Bros. can be done on the 2600.

[mr_me]

That's not true at all. The Wii had a massive install base and yet very few third parties took the time to really push the Wii to its limits outside of say Sega. Most of the great looking and great playing games were either on the 360 or were on the PS3. So yeah, hardware is a big factor for which the 7800 simply had severely lacked.

 

 

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It was true for the NES. The NES was not the technology leader and the 7800 was a distant third in the market. For the Wii there may have been other reasons why it wasnt the best platform for a developer to sell games. [Or maybe they just didnt like dealing with Nintendo.] Edited June 7, 2017 by mr_me

[empsolo]

It was true for the NES. The NES was not the technology leader and the 7800 was a distant third in the market. For the Wii there may have been other reasons why it wasnt the best platform for a developer to sell games.

Except that's still not true. The 7800 had trouble with things like smooth scrolling and the fact that developers would have been forced to use their own sound chip or pay Atari for POKEY to get the same basic capabilities as the 2A03 on the NES. That's not to mention the fact that the 7800 was a pain in the ass to develop for and not as easy as the NES or Master System.

 

 

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[mr_me]

Except that's still not true. The 7800 had trouble with things like smooth scrolling and the fact that developers would have been forced to use their own sound chip or pay Atari for POKEY to get the same basic capabilities as the 2A03 on the NES. That's not to mention the fact that the 7800 was a pain in the ass to develop for and not as easy as the NES or Master System.

 

 

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I didn't suggest the Atari 7800 had better technology.

[8th lutz]

The 7800s real innovation was the Maria graphics chip which allowed lots of large sized multicolored hardware sprites.

 

Apart from that, it was lackluster

 

Most games were stuck with 160x200 graphics mode which was kinda dated by the late 80s

 

2600 sound chip, are you kidding me??? Built in Pokey would have been better, but even Pokey sounded dated by the late 80s.

The 7800 had more than the 2600 sound chip and the Pokey sound chip.

 

GCC was doing research and development on an Atari 7800 sound chip called Gumby before Jack Tramiel bought the Computer and game console division of Atari. I've read Gumby sound chip was supposed to be better than pokey, but there isn't a lot of information on that sound chip. What I know is Gumby sound chip was supposed to be one of the things put in a 7800 game cartridge.

 

Gumby wasn't used due to Tramiel not being the rights of some of the stuff GCC did with the 7800. Tramiel didn't buy the keyboard, software programs for the keyboard, the Gumby soundchip, and 2 of the Atari 7800 launch titles.

 

I think the Gumby sound chip would've been interesting if there was more information about it. We don't if that sound chip was going to be better than Nes chip or not. The way it is, The Gumby Sound chip is something that should've been in the 7800 motherboard a first place if the sound is better than Pokey.

Edited June 7, 2017 by 8th lutz

[CatPix]

Pokey should have been included anyway. It sounds a bit dated, but I still think it hold well against the base NES chip (because again, the NES sound beneficied from several hardware and software improvement on carts, some carts going up to incluse an AY-3-8910... A sound chip that is as old as POKEY).

 

For an amazing comparison, someone played/recreated the Megaman II tunes... with POKEY :

https://youtu.be/GpkjoB29fEQ

I mean, I can tell it's not the same sound chip, but I do'nt hear any critical lack that would make POKEY inferior to the NES basic sound chip.

Edited June 7, 2017 by CatPix

[Trebor]

The 7800 had trouble with things like smooth scrolling...

Huh?

 

Both fairly common games, Choplifter and Tower Toppler feature parallex side scrolling.

When playing Scrapyard Dog, there's fast and silky smooth side-scrolling.

The homebrew platformer Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest features some great graphics, including a lot of parallex scrolling.

Smooth vertical scrolling with Xevious.

Plenty of left and right smooth side-scrolling in both directions under the Adventure-Action game, Midnight Mutants.

Toki contains scrolling in all four directons with the base hardware.

[empsolo]

Huh?

 

Both fairly common games, Choplifter and Tower Toppler feature parallex side scrolling.

 

When playing Scrapyard Dog, there's fast and silky smooth side-scrolling.

 

The homebrew platformer Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest features some great graphics, including a lot of parallex scrolling.

 

Smooth vertical scrolling with Xevious.

 

Plenty of left and right smooth side-scrolling in both directions under the Adventure-Action game, Midnight Mutants.

 

Toki contains scrolling in all four directons with the base hardware.

You misread me. I never said it was impossible. I said it was hard to scrolling games due to the fact that the CPU essentially ran all of the graphics rendering and processing. You can have scrolling but a smaller resolution and less colors and sprites due to the amount of time for the CPU process those instructions.

 

Sure with software trickery you can get a smoother scrolling game onto the system but by and large the 7800 isn't designed to do scrolling games efficiently.

 

 

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[Trebor]

You misread me. I never said it was impossible.

 

I never stated you claimed it was impossible. My comment to your statement was "Huh?"

 

 

I said it was hard to scrolling games due to the fact that the CPU essentially ran all of the graphics rendering and processing.

 

Actually, you stated...

 

The 7800 had trouble with things like smooth scrolling...

 

 

You can have scrolling but a smaller resolution and less colors and sprites due to the amount of time for the CPU process those instructions.

 

Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest fits in none of the above categories of a smaller resolution, less colors and sprites. At times, it is pretty incredible the number of sprites present on the screen along with smooth parallax scrolling (Sections of Level 2 are particularly impressive in this regard, although I really like Level 3 as my personal favorite).

 

As it has been touched upon earlier in the thread, the lack of support, including available programmers actively working and pushing the limits of the 7800 was barely at the tip of the iceberg, BITD. Some really impressive modern software and hardware homebrewing has been put out and continues to move forward for the platform, thankfully.

 

 

Sure with software trickery you can get a smoother scrolling game onto the system but by and large the 7800 isn't designed to do scrolling games efficiently.

 

Software trickery? Efficient and good programming provides the smooth scrolling.

 

Semantics aside, the several original retail games mentioned earlier showcases smooth scrolling very nicely. A few of them include smooth parallax scrolling on the native hardware as well.

 

Agreed, the 7800 is definitely not designed to do scrolling in the most efficient manner; however, it does scroll - including the aforementioned parallax scrolling - quite well. While doing so, it does not have any trouble in performing the task. Nonetheless, the gist and intent of the comment is understood better and the clarity provided, appreciated.

[DickNixonArisen]

I think the 7800 didn't succeed like it could have partially because it didn't differentiate itself enough from the 26? It wasn't a new company, a very different looking console, etc? Nintendo was new and novel. And the 7800 didn't have a first party IP mascot like big N had Mario, Gen had sonic, SMS had... Alex Kidd... hehe. So it came off as old hat I think. And I'd guess that hurt developer interest. I also think that although it did have a D-Pad, it shipped with sticks and maybe that was also a kind of outdated image maybe.

[CatPix]

The 7800 (lack) of success is more due to the abysmal incompetence of Atari in selling it. Well, selling their games and system, and then providing games for it.

Mascots helps identifying a system, but the PS1 and 2 sold well without one; the Atari 2600 had none and sold up to 1991.

[mbd30]

The 7800 (lack) of success is more due to the abysmal incompetence of Atari in selling it. Well, selling their games and system, and then providing games for it.

Mascots helps identifying a system, but the PS1 and 2 sold well without one; the Atari 2600 had none and sold up to 1991.

 

The PS1 had Crash Bandicoot and Lara Croft.

[adolescent]

 

The PS1 had Crash Bandicoot and Lara Croft.

Official mascot was Polygon Man (at least at the very beginning). Edited June 13, 2017 by adolescent