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The Official Turbografx 16 Thread!


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I recently bought a Hyperkin tg16 controller. It works perfectly, has good button action. It even came with the pc engine adapter cable. 

 

I had about the opposite experience with the Old Skool repro controller. The II button doesn't work well, the buttons overall are soft and don't spring back very well. And, it doesn't come with the adapter cable.

 

So, Hyperkin wins this one.

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42 minutes ago, Cobra Kai said:

I recently bought a Hyperkin tg16 controller. It works perfectly, has good button action. It even came with the pc engine adapter cable. 

 

I had about the opposite experience with the Old Skool repro controller. The II button doesn't work well, the buttons overall are soft and don't spring back very well. And, it doesn't come with the adapter cable.

 

So, Hyperkin wins this one.

Both of my Old Skool controllers came with the adapter cable.

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@turboxray Generally speaking, yes, but debatable as well given maybe someone easily could prefer the guitar centered audio of the CD track over the SPC file in the SNES ROM.  Personally I go either way, but I do enjoy the SNES tracks at times more, another reason I tire of it being dumped on so much as it has merit, even if it's NOT the same game and is a side story of it.

Edited by Tanooki
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4 hours ago, Tanooki said:

@turboxray Generally speaking, yes, but debatable as well given maybe someone easily could prefer the guitar centered audio of the CD track over the SPC file in the SNES ROM.  Personally I go either way, but I do enjoy the SNES tracks at times more, another reason I tire of it being dumped on so much as it has merit, even if it's NOT the same game and is a side story of it.

I dont see the Turboray post your responding to. If your referencing my comparison post on the last page.

 

As for me the SNES version is heavier and louder, and has background notes (that sound funky) that the PCD doesn't have. The main sound in that one doesn't sound like it's taking full advantage of CD and sounds more monotone to me, also quite.

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@Leeroy ST Yeah I don't either, said something I commented back to.  Either way... what you said, that matches pretty well how I feel about the whole deal with the PCE CD.  WHile some of them sound cleaner on the audio samples they used because of the lack of compression compared to SNES samples, they also do sound quieter, lighter, maybe monotone as you said or just weak.  The SNES one has more of the opposite of that going on when you have matching tracks between the two titles.  I'm not knocking the PCE CD the music is excellent, just feel it's a battle for first and second for music depending on the stage as the variety changes what is there/missing(or soft.)

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4 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

@Leeroy ST Yeah I don't either, said something I commented back to.  Either way... what you said, that matches pretty well how I feel about the whole deal with the PCE CD.  WHile some of them sound cleaner on the audio samples they used because of the lack of compression compared to SNES samples, they also do sound quieter, lighter, maybe monotone as you said or just weak.  The SNES one has more of the opposite of that going on when you have matching tracks between the two titles.  I'm not knocking the PCE CD the music is excellent, just feel it's a battle for first and second for music depending on the stage as the variety changes what is there/missing(or soft.)

It's similar to me with SNES vs. GBA music.

 

FFV overworld theme sounds better, more upbeat and loud, less soft, no hissing.

 

Most of Mega Man & Basses soundtrack sounds better to me on GBA too. 

 

Was there another pre PSX era version of Dracula X btw?

Edited by Leeroy ST
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10 minutes ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

I thought most ports of SNES games on GBA sounded worse... like everything was bit crushed. 

They typically do, @Leeroy ST lost me on that comparison.

 

At it's core the GBA kind of goes one way or the other with audio just to start.  A few games early on they decided to go with the B-team style of audio where you split the music between the main CPU and then the z80 in there meant for the old 8bit system games.  It left more time to run games having less overhead or for maybe some cleaner audio due to the sharing, while the z80 was kind of limited for clarity without sounding out of place.  A few gems like Final Fight One used it, but you can kind of tell if you pay even the slightest attention for the quality loss.  The A-team way of it, most games go this route, is using the one solitary processor there that ARM chip.  It's good and bad, because you have to balance your act really carefully on how much to reserve for the entire game, ai, logic etc, then audio samples.  Often people went for more quality in visuals over audio, so you get some pretty lower quality khz audio or muffled samples (kind of like a piss poor SNES title would get from some lesser projects/companies.)  But the system could also just do amazing ear candy at the loss of the rest...  Because of this, depending how well balanced you could rarely if ever exceed the SNES audio quality, but you could match it, often though it fell a little to noticeably short where the sample sound is more muffled, flat, just less rich. (Or as you said, crushed.)

 

Final Fantasy on the GBA sounds great, but, oddly, a little less great than the SNES games for whatever reason.  They're not taxing games to say the least, but they're close, just like Link to the Past and the Mario Allstar/World 1+2 conversions (SMAdvance 1-4).  Others just fall more flat like Phalanx isn't as nice, R-Type 3 is pretty poor compared, it's very hit and miss.  In the end it just depends how much you want to push matching the SNES visual flair and output as it'll eat more resources, but if it's a less intense game, the audio should match or maybe exceed a little.

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On 9/1/2021 at 11:09 PM, Leeroy ST said:

Example: 

 

Snes:

 

 

GBA:

 

 

 

Or

 

Snes:

 

Gba:

 

Are those supposed to show the GBA in better light than the SNES or something? Those GBA sound track examples are literally just the basic GB sound channels paired with a streaming drum-loop. The OST-23 has a short sample intro, but otherwise it also follows the same approach. You find that superior to the snes full 8 channel synth sound generation???

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8 hours ago, turboxray said:

Are those supposed to show the GBA in better light than the SNES or something? Those GBA sound track examples are literally just the basic GB sound channels paired with a streaming drum-loop. The OST-23 has a short sample intro, but otherwise it also follows the same approach. You find that superior to the snes full 8 channel synth sound generation???

You're talking about technicals instead of how they both sound in execution. Example, SNES king stage seems like it's missing notes. When you start the SNES version while cleaner it sounds like again, notes are missing, there's no "echo" or "flute", and the SNES version replaces those with a terrible MMX3 level crunchy guitar 15-16 seconds in (and only for that part). There are also times SNES has the beep boop sounds which drop it's grade 

Edited by Leeroy ST
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Speak and Spell is offended I say.  Seriously though, that's a bit extreme.

 

At a base level the reason the GBA sounds 'better' maybe to someone, it's not sampled audio, it's more a tone generator setup going there so it's cleaner, sharper, but definitely doesn't sound in any way better unless you're like a chip tune style addict or 80s arcade chip quality sound at least.  The SNES one compared may seem maybe a little muffled, definitely softer, but the tones tend to all run louder/softer and around each of them, it's not individual, so you not listening clearly for it, you could think something like that flute was missing, it's not.  It's a taste issue in part, but largely no the GBA does not sound better.  It doesn't even have dedicated audio on that system as it all comes off one 16mhz ARM chip, and that has to deal with AI, mechanics, all the visuals, all the audio, it's percentage based basically what each bit gets reserved within the CPU allowance, but also memory limits.  Some companies tried to buy a little etra room cheating, using the GBC modified z80 side, and rarely it works nicely, you'll get some cleaner audio at points for some samples sinc eit's not fighting for resources, but the audio is clearly 'off' GBA standard and it's obvious.  Capcom was notorious for it, Final Fight One does it and it's clear you have like GBA sfx and a mix of music over the z80 and main chip it's strange, works ok, but strange.

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The GBA has some games that end up sounding better for various reasons but no one said GBA had "technically" better audio than SNES.

 

Just like how SNES Dracula X sounds better to some on stage 1 than the PCEversion which uses a CD. That doesn't mean they are arguing SNES sound in general is Technically better than PCD.

 

The GBA can get real bad, just look at harmony of dissonance. Outside stage 1 the ost is unlistenable and even stage 1 is grating on repeat. Filled with beep boop sounds, crunching, high pitched dings, poor imitation bass, etc.

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18 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Called Time Cruse II in japan.

 

Not entirely sure a Time Cruise 1 actually released though.

Apparently both Time Cruise I and II were being developed at around the same time, but the first game was left unfinished for whatever reason, leading to Turbo Technologies to just go ahead in releasing the sequel, possibly with the intention of later releasing the first game, but evidently that never worked out.

 

https://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/PCE_1990Q1.html

Edited by electricmastro
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