The Official Turbografx 16 Thread!

[Steven Pendleton]

5 hours ago, CZroe said:

It may be that they were just putting that on all PCE games to signify that it worked with both but they stopped bothering as soon as it was clear that SGX was going to be a market failure and there was no reason to complicate future marketing with an abandoned platform that way.

As far as I know, Darius Alpha and Darius Plus are the only 2 games to have that logo on the cover. There should be more games with that logo if that was the case. Maybe there are more that I have not seen, though.

 

5 hours ago, CZroe said:

Yeah, when I got my SGX I loaded up Darius Alpha first because I had pruned all the other SGX games off of my Turbo Everdrive SD card back when I didn't have an SGX. Darius Alpha was still there and listed as SGX-enhanced.

I figured the enhancements should be very easy to distinguish by comparing the analog output with both VDCs to the UGX output with only one VDC. This comparison definitely showed the enhancements for every other SGX title including Darius Plus, but not Darius Alpha.

Chris Covell is an expert on these things and he says that Darius Plus checks to see if it's running on an SGX by writing to VRAM on both VDCs and comparing them, which obviously won't work the same if you only have one VDC. That's how it can tell that the second VDC exists or not and, thus, if it is running on an SGX. Chris confirmed that the VRAM is blank through the first boss. I played through the first few and never saw any enhancement.

Someone needs to hack in invincibility so that I can see the rest of the game, but I highly doubt there would be any use of the second VDC if they weren't using it to reduce sprite flicker from the start, which would be the easiest kind of enhancement. All the programmer has to do to get rid of most of that flicker in a way that doesn't fundamentally change the game (which still needs to run on a normal PCE) is determine that it's a SGX (done) then move the player and projectile sprites to the second VDC to reduce the number of sprites per line (not done). Even if something much later does take advantage of the second VDC in a way where they wouldn't want the player and projectile sprites on that VDC, it would make sense to do that from the start and stop doing it when they needed to free up the VDC.

Since they didn't even utilize the SGX for low-hanging fruit enhancements like that I have to assume they didn't do anything more significant later... even if I'm not good enough to play further.

I just got halfway through the game. Darius bosses are actually pretty easy as long as you have a shield, and the actual levels are much harder for me usually. Usually I die because the enemies that the bosses spawn like to smash into you, which kills you even if you have a shield. That's exactly what happened just now. Then since I lost my shield I game overed from all of the projectiles.

 

Anyway, sprite flicker on all of them up to Hard Mollusk, who killed me and I couldn't see what happens when it dies. It seems that they might have forgotten to turn on the SuperGrafxness.

Edited April 10, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[Steven Pendleton]

Okay, I just got my new PSU for the SuperGrafx and I'm still getting some noise when I pause in Gradius on the SSDS3. I do not have the real HuCARD for this one, unfortunately, but I'll try it again on my CRT without the SSDS3 once I get it to see if it's the PSU or the SSDS3. Some minor noise like that doesn't really bother me, but I'd at least like to know what is causing it if possible.

[+Black_Tiger]

9 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Okay, I just got my new PSU for the SuperGrafx and I'm still getting some noise when I pause in Gradius on the SSDS3. I do not have the real HuCARD for this one, unfortunately, but I'll try it again on my CRT without the SSDS3 once I get it to see if it's the PSU or the SSDS3. Some minor noise like that doesn't really bother me, but I'd at least like to know what is causing it if possible.

Is it the official psu that shipped with the SuperGrafx? 

 

 

If you saw flicker in Darius Plus or Alpha it likely means that you don't have the console switched to SuperGrafx mode.

 

I don't have a SuperGrafx any more, but when I did it eliminated all of the flicker in the bosses I saw while playing those games. But I only checked the novelty on SuperGrafx.

 

Super Darius does not support SuperGrafx enhancement.

[CZroe]

Is it the official psu that shipped with the SuperGrafx? 
 
 
If you saw flicker in Darius Plus or Alpha it likely means that you don't have the console switched to SuperGrafx mode.
 
I don't have a SuperGrafx any more, but when I did it eliminated all of the flicker in the bosses I saw while playing those games. But I only checked the novelty on SuperGrafx.
 
Super Darius does not support SuperGrafx enhancement.

Darius Plus is definitely enhanced. Darius Alpha is not despite the common assumption. I wasn't the first to notice:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:PC_Engine_SuperGrafx#Darius_Alpha

Because I have an UperGrafx that gets digital video from the first VDC I can view the output of one and compare to the output of both VDCs... on real hardware. It's identical. People have long noted this in emulators and assumed that emulation was breaking the SuperGrafx detection but I can confirm that is not the case.

When I do the same test with Darius Plus the enhancements are obvious. My setup for this definitely works.

The Cutting Room Floor shows that Darius Alpha has an earlier build date than Darius Plus so it's possible that they had not added SGX enhancements yet or that they broke the enhancements for that build.

[Steven Pendleton]

10 hours ago, Black_Tiger said:

Is it the official psu that shipped with the SuperGrafx? 

 

 

If you saw flicker in Darius Plus or Alpha it likely means that you don't have the console switched to SuperGrafx mode.

 

I don't have a SuperGrafx any more, but when I did it eliminated all of the flicker in the bosses I saw while playing those games. But I only checked the novelty on SuperGrafx.

 

Super Darius does not support SuperGrafx enhancement.

No. I do not have the PAD-113 and there seem to be none for sale in the whole world right now. They seem to run 4000 yen or more, and I'm not paying that for a 31 year old PSU when I can get a new one that works just fine.

 

Darius Plus is enhanced. It's the only SuperGrafx enhanced game that runs on the regular PC Engine. Darius Alpha is definitely not enhanced, whether it was by design or because of a programming error.

[Steven Pendleton]

8 hours ago, CZroe said:

 

Darius Plus is definitely enhanced. Darius Alpha is not despite the common assumption. I wasn't the first to notice:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:PC_Engine_SuperGrafx#Darius_Alpha

Because I have an UperGrafx that gets digital video from the first VDC I can view the output of one and compare to the output of both VDCs... on real hardware. It's identical. People have long noted this in emulators and assumed that emulation was breaking the SuperGrafx detection but I can confirm that is not the case.

When I do the same test with Darius Plus the enhancements are obvious. My setup for this definitely works.

The Cutting Room Floor shows that Darius Alpha has an earlier build date than Darius Plus so it's possible that they had not added SGX enhancements yet or that they broke the enhancements for that build.

Think Chris Covell can be convinced to fix it?

[+Black_Tiger]

18 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Think Chris Covell can be convinced to fix it?

We'd be better off with a SuperGrafx update of Super Darius. Besides the extra content it also has the boss rush mode.

 

But it's far too much of an undertaking for Chris to do it for either Super or Alpha. He'd likely finish his R-Type upgrade first.

[Steven Pendleton]

9 minutes ago, Black_Tiger said:

We'd be better off with a SuperGrafx update of Super Darius. Besides the extra content it also has the boss rush mode.

 

But it's far too much of an undertaking for Chris to do it for either Super or Alpha. He'd likely finish his R-Type upgrade first.

While this is definitely true, I figure it would probably just be easier to fix what's wrong with Darius Alpha, provided that it's meant to be SuperGrafx enhanced, since there might be some existing code in there that someone could salvage and turn the SuperGrafxness on rather than write completely new code.

[DragonGrafx-16]

So the one with the SuperGrafx enhancement is Darius Alpha, the one that's nothing but a boss rush mode and not even a whole game? What was the point in that? You'd think it would make more sense for Super Darius where there would be a lot more on screen. *shrugs*

[Steven Pendleton]

17 minutes ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

So the one with the SuperGrafx enhancement is Darius Alpha, the one that's nothing but a boss rush mode and not even a whole game? What was the point in that? You'd think it would make more sense for Super Darius where there would be a lot more on screen. *shrugs*

Darius Plus is the one that is enhanced on the SuperGrafx, and it's the full game. I wish it was Super Darius instead, though, since it would be nice to have the arcade music and sounds, not the PC Engine sound chip versions, which sound kind of weird to me. There really is absolutely no point in Darius Plus if you have Super Darius, even if you have a SuperGrafx.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[CZroe]

So the one with the SuperGrafx enhancement is Darius Alpha, the one that's nothing but a boss rush mode and not even a whole game? What was the point in that? You'd think it would make more sense for Super Darius where there would be a lot more on screen. *shrugs*

Darius Alpha is the one that doesn't seem to be SGX enhanced (despite the labeling).

Darius Plus is the one that is definitely SGX enhanced (in-line with the labeling).

I recorded a short 30-second demonstration of both games for Twitter but I also gave it a much better shakedown before (played through the fourth boss):

I'm definitely not getting any thing on the second VDC with Darius Alpha. They didn't even move the player ship, shield, or projectiles to the second VDC to increase the flicker-free sprites per line.

Chris Covell responded to the tweet twice and seemed to verify that he saw no activity on the second VDC through the first boss.

[+GoldenWheels]

Man starting to think we have enough action to justify a Turbografx sub forum....

[Steven Pendleton]

25 minutes ago, GoldenWheels said:

Man starting to think we have enough action to justify a Turbografx sub forum....

I think like 50% of that is my fault, but I'm not complaining!

[cybercylon]

On 4/10/2020 at 1:41 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

Okay, I just got my new PSU for the SuperGrafx and I'm still getting some noise when I pause in Gradius on the SSDS3. I do not have the real HuCARD for this one, unfortunately, but I'll try it again on my CRT without the SSDS3 once I get it to see if it's the PSU or the SSDS3. Some minor noise like that doesn't really bother me, but I'd at least like to know what is causing it if possible.

The noise issue can about as vexing as sound issues. What does the noise look like? Are they diagonal lines of noise going down the screen? That kind of noise is usually seen with the Framemeister, and anecdotally, the OSSC is a better paring. It is definitely that way for my setup.

 

If you are using the SCART input, I am sure you know that using a high quality cable is essential. The HD retrovision Genesis cable is also a good one to use (and can help out Framemesiter users).

 

I don't know if a Genesis 1 power supply is enough to power a SuperGrafx or not. If so, it should be easier to get a hold of just to test (and shouldn't be too expensive).

 

Sorry for the 20 questions, but did you get your OSSC from videogameperfection.com or from another source? Yes, it is an open source project, I but I unknowingly got one of those "knock off" versions from eBay. With those, corners are cut when they are built and are often shipped with rubbish power supplies. Mine started having audio noise... of course outside of the 30 day warranty period.

 

 

 

[+Black_Tiger]

aI eliminated all of the audio visual noise that was possible to with my first run SSS3 by switching to official power supplies and an expensive alternative for PC Engine/Mega Drive (but not SuperGrafx) and using packapunch RGB cables from retrogamingcables.

 

With my later model SSS3 I see and hear nothing unusual, but firebrandx says that only the SuperGrafx is absolutely silent and other PC Engine consoles are only 'next to silent' for buzzing.

 

Keeping things in perspective, my 32" TV playing games with a good s-video or transcoded component looks better than any arcade monitor I've ever seen and better than my RGB monitor. It slso has great speakers for a crt, but pixelart game scenes like black background title screens causes a buzzing sound, just like it did with every tube TV I had growing up. And the SSS3 also doesn't produce all of the in-person noise than real PCE CD drives do.

 

For image quality when dealing with upscalers and digital TVs, if you don't get the mod to eliminate it, your PC Engine consoles will produce jailbars through RGB before the video is upscaled.

 

I'm currently using an un-modied CoreGrafx with official psu and packapunch scart cable on my SSS3 and everything looks and sounds as good as my fully modded TurboDuo without attempting a side by side or captured video comparison.

[cybercylon]

never mind... was quoting the wrong person. Apologies for the ninja edit.

Edited April 11, 2020 by cybercylon

[Steven Pendleton]

On 4/12/2020 at 12:02 AM, cybercylon said:

The noise issue can about as vexing as sound issues. What does the noise look like? Are they diagonal lines of noise going down the screen? That kind of noise is usually seen with the Framemeister, and anecdotally, the OSSC is a better paring. It is definitely that way for my setup.

 

If you are using the SCART input, I am sure you know that using a high quality cable is essential. The HD retrovision Genesis cable is also a good one to use (and can help out Framemesiter users).

 

I don't know if a Genesis 1 power supply is enough to power a SuperGrafx or not. If so, it should be easier to get a hold of just to test (and shouldn't be too expensive).

 

Sorry for the 20 questions, but did you get your OSSC from videogameperfection.com or from another source? Yes, it is an open source project, I but I unknowingly got one of those "knock off" versions from eBay. With those, corners are cut when they are built and are often shipped with rubbish power supplies. Mine started having audio noise... of course outside of the 30 day warranty period.

 

 

 

It's a weird static, and yes, I have a real OSSC + HD Retrovision cables.

 

It actually shows up on the Mega Drive using the real MD PSU, so I doubt that using the MD PSU on the SuperGrafx will fix it. I might try it later today just to see what happens, though. Maybe it's the cable. I might get the RAD2x when it's back in stock since that thing looks really awesome.

 

I should note that both systems look just fine on my Trinitron, by the way, so I'm still thinking that it's some OSSC setting thing. I am still not sure about what the vast majority of the OSSC settings do, so this would not surprise me.

 

I just tested the MD PSU. It looks identical. Maybe the noise in Gradius is slightly quieter than it is with my fake SuperGrafx PSU, but it is still there. Other than that, no change.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[glazball]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/turbografx-16-mini-review-mostly-best-in-class-retro-gaming-sometimes-wtf

 

Ars Technica review of the TG16 Mini.  The controllers seem nice since they appear to be almost exactly the same as the originals.

 

The selection of games is rather weird though.  Neutopia I and II in both English *and* Japanese?  Why??  That is so dumb.  In fact, it's my opinion that NO Japanese games (as good and plentiful as they are) should be included on a TG16 Mini.

 

I know some people will be overjoyed to own this, but I'll be taking a pass.  My brief time with the NES Classic was enough to demonstrate that the lag and silly selection of games aren't worth it (to me).

[NE146]

5 minutes ago, glazball said:

I know some people will be overjoyed to own this, but I'll be taking a pass.  My brief time with the NES Classic was enough to demonstrate that the lag and silly selection of games aren't worth it (to me).

Well that's your first problem see.. you're looking at it from a games playing perspective rather than accumulating stuff for your hoard..... err, collection rather  

 

I for one, tired of most Turbo games in the late 80's/early 90's but am still snagging a TG16 Mini, and now I'm wondering if I need to get the PCE mini too because, well.. because

 

[Steven Pendleton]

11 hours ago, glazball said:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/turbografx-16-mini-review-mostly-best-in-class-retro-gaming-sometimes-wtf

 

Ars Technica review of the TG16 Mini.  The controllers seem nice since they appear to be almost exactly the same as the originals.

 

The selection of games is rather weird though.  Neutopia I and II in both English *and* Japanese?  Why??  That is so dumb.  In fact, it's my opinion that NO Japanese games (as good and plentiful as they are) should be included on a TG16 Mini.

 

I know some people will be overjoyed to own this, but I'll be taking a pass.  My brief time with the NES Classic was enough to demonstrate that the lag and silly selection of games aren't worth it (to me).

So what 57 or 58 US TurboGrafx games would you put on it, then? There are only 138 of them to choose from, so...

[CZroe]

So what 57 or 58 US TurboGrafx games would you put on it, then? There are only 138 of them to choose from, so...

I don't even think there are that many they can reasonably license!

[Steven Pendleton]

15 minutes ago, CZroe said:

I don't even think there are that many they can reasonably license!

Yep. That's part of why I brought it up. The other is that the real TurboGrafx failed in the US for 3 reasons: bad marketing, the fact that the Genesis launched first, and its game selection.

 

The mini is saved by its inclusion of Japanese games, and I know for a fact that at least some of them, including Rondo of Blood, did actually make it over to the US in small quantities through video game stores (at least Joe Redifer says so since he bought his copy at a local game store). Are there good US games? Yes. Some of them are on the TurboGrafx mini, but I can't imagine what a TurboGrafx mini with only US games would be like.

Edited April 16, 2020 by Steven Pendleton
forgot the Genesis

[NE146]

36 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

The fact that the Genesis launched first, and its game selection.

My full recollection is they were very nearly simultaneously launched as both showed up at stores at the same time.  While I have no reason to doubt the Genesis was "first", if true.. it really was BARELY first. Heck maybe a few days? Who knows..  I remember that time well because I was very excited for the 16-bit generation and couldn't decide which one to get (I ended up getting both after a period of about a week or so regretting not getting the other one  ).

 

From my personal vantage point there was a LOT of excitement for both systems out of the gate. The Turbo had very strong titles with Blazing Lazers, Legendary Axe, and Alien Crush. While he Genesis seemed to only have Altered Beast with a bunch of not really exciting games like Space Harrier, etc, but it was still amazing.  But yeah the Genesis over time just started really gaining steam with Ghouls and Ghosts, then Revenge of Shinobi, then that jaw-dropping port of GOLDEN AXE (people forget what a feat that was), and it never stopped getting better, that's the thing. 

 

The Turbo on the other hand, while it had a really strong couple years of gaming  with Bonk, Military Madness, Aeroblasters, Devils Crush, Ninja Spirit etc. the pace of new releases got slower, and then what they did release really started looking dated with games that didn't seem to match up with the rapid evolution of stuff coming to the Genesis. When the SNES finally got released, that was the nail in the coffin really for me on the Turbo.. I couldn't be interested in paying full price for Bonk 3 (although I should have been) when there were these futuristic exciting titles like F-Zero with mode 7 to spend my money on, or the colorful graphics of Gradius that looked and sounded like full power 16 bit games.

[Steven Pendleton]

39 minutes ago, NE146 said:

My full recollection is they were very nearly simultaneously launched as both showed up at stores at the same time.  While I have no reason to doubt the Genesis was "first", if true.. it really was BARELY first. Heck maybe a few days? Who knows..  I remember that time well because I was very excited for the 16-bit generation and couldn't decide which one to get (I ended up getting both after a period of about a week or so regretting not getting the other one  ).

 

From my personal vantage point there was a LOT of excitement for both systems out of the gate. The Turbo had very strong titles with Blazing Lazers, Legendary Axe, and Alien Crush. While he Genesis seemed to only have Altered Beast with a bunch of not really exciting games like Space Harrier, etc, but it was still amazing.  But yeah the Genesis over time just started really gaining steam with Ghouls and Ghosts, then Revenge of Shinobi, then that jaw-dropping port of GOLDEN AXE (people forget what a feat that was), and it never stopped getting better, that's the thing. 

 

The Turbo on the other hand, while it had a really strong couple years of gaming  with Bonk, Military Madness, Aeroblasters, Devils Crush, Ninja Spirit etc. the pace of new releases got slower, and then what they did release really started looking dated with games that didn't seem to match up with the rapid evolution of stuff coming to the Genesis. When the SNES finally got released, that was the nail in the coffin really for me on the Turbo.. I couldn't be interested in paying full price for Bonk 3 (although I should have been) when there were these futuristic exciting titles like F-Zero with mode 7 to spend my money on, or the colorful graphics of Gradius that looked and sounded like full power 16 bit games.

Yeah, the time around the launch of the TurboGrafx was fine aside from Keith Courage being the pack-in game instead of something impressive like R-Type, which is an excellent arcade conversion and is a very welcome addition to the mini; it's the stuff that didn't make it outside of Japan later in the life of the TurboGrafx that is the problem. Only getting 138 games in the US compared to just under 700 in Japan is a huge problem for long-term sustainability. When things like Sonic, Virtua Racing, the Shinobi games, Streets of Rage, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, etc. are available on other platforms, the TurboGrafx was getting games like Darkwing Duck and that's about it.

 

I brought up the Genesis for an interesting perspective on the TurboGrafx. The Genesis launched first by like 2 weeks or something, but the PC Engine launched in Japan about a year before the Mega Drive did. They both launched with a relatively similar goal: to bring the arcade experience home. They have similar types of games: shooters, arcade conversions, traditional platformers, etc.. The systems are basically interchangeable in the sense that they both have a huge amount of games that can be substituted for something on the other platform except for Sonic and Virtua Racing. If you look at it from a certain perspective, the 2 systems could more or less be substituted for each other, but because there simply are not enough US TurboGrafx games, you'd have to look at the Japanese PC Engine library for sustainability after a certain point.

 

Still, there is such thing as first mover advantage, which definitely played a role in both the failure of the Mega Drive in Japan and the failure of the TurboGrafx in the US. Basically, from the viewpoint of the average consumer it comes down to this: "These 2 systems both do the same thing. This one released first and is cheaper and has more games, so let's buy that one."

 

In the end, the lack of almost the entire library of good Japanese games not getting released in the US is a huge part of why the TurboGrafx failed miserably. The Japanese Mega Drive also failed miserably with only about 10% of the market share, but Japanese devs continued to support the system until the very end when the Saturn came out. New TurboGrafx releases in the US stopped before they should have, and not having anything released for it killed it.

Edited April 16, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[+Black_Tiger]

10 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Yeah, the time around the launch of the TurboGrafx was fine aside from Keith Courage being the pack-in game instead of something impressive like R-Type, which is an excellent arcade conversion and is a very welcome addition to the mini; it's the stuff that didn't make it outside of Japan later in the life of the TurboGrafx that is the problem. Only getting 138 games in the US compared to just under 700 in Japan is a huge problem for long-term sustainability. When things like Sonic, Virtua Racing, the Shinobi games, Streets of Rage, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, etc. are available on other platforms, the TurboGrafx was getting games like Darkwing Duck and that's about it.

 

I brought up the Genesis for an interesting perspective on the TurboGrafx. The Genesis launched first by like 2 weeks or something, but the PC Engine launched in Japan about a year before the Mega Drive did. They both launched with a relatively similar goal: to bring the arcade experience home. They have similar types of games: shooters, arcade conversions, traditional platformers, etc.. The systems are basically interchangeable in the sense that they both have a huge amount of games that can be substituted for something on the other platform except for Sonic and Virtua Racing. If you look at it from a certain perspective, the 2 systems could more or less be substituted for each other, but because there simply are not enough US TurboGrafx games, you'd have to look at the Japanese PC Engine library for sustainability after a certain point.

 

Still, there is such thing as first mover advantage, which definitely played a role in both the failure of the Mega Drive in Japan and the failure of the TurboGrafx in the US. Basically, from the viewpoint of the average consumer it comes down to this: "These 2 systems both do the same thing. This one released first and is cheaper and has more games, so let's buy that one."

 

In the end, the lack of almost the entire library of good Japanese games not getting released in the US is a huge part of why the TurboGrafx failed miserably. The Japanese Mega Drive also failed miserably with only about 10% of the market share, but Japanese devs continued to support the system until the very end when the Saturn came out. New TurboGrafx releases in the US stopped before they should have, and not having anything released for it killed it.

Darkwing Duck was released at the beginning of 1992. Too many great Turbo games to list were released around then and over the next couple years, including Gate of Thunder, Lords of Thunder, Beyond Shadowgate, Bonk 3, Magical Chase, Dungeon Explorer II, Bomberman '93, Air Zonk, etc.

 

It's often been pointed out over the years just how many great PC Engjne games made it over here. The Turbo library may be much smaller than Genesis and SNES, but it's still packed with quality games and those other libraries are also missing a large number of great Japanese games. It's likely that the Turbo library has a better good-to-bad game ratio than those other libraries.

 

Arguably the PC Engine library's greatest strength is its RPG games, but RPGs were unpopular in North America until the Turbo line was being shutdown.

 

Keep in mind that there weren't 700 games in Japan. By the time Hudson Soft told TTi to stop localizing more games and only finish off some of what was on their slate, there were only around 500 and this after the big surge in the previous year. By the time the Arcade Card came out TTi was burning off their advertising budget on inside jokes.