So Jag vs SNES

[+Sauron]

Hmm, from what i have read, i tought the Jaguar should be capable of doing better 2d than the Neo Geo. Better color, more versatility when it comes to resolution, and should be able to push way more sprites with faster scaling and rotation. Jag is also better at transparencies. They both use sprites to generate background layers. The only, and "big" (and its huge) advantage the Neo has over the Jaguar, is the massive amounts of memory at its disposal for instant access

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I love the Neo Geo, but i think people overrate its 2d capabilities. I guess its because PS1, Saturn and to a degree Dreamcast, struggled with its ports. The real advantage were those massive cartridges, not its 2d capabilities. Jaguar, PS1 and Saturn should be better at 2d, and they better be, since they are quiet newer tech. They just didnt have the RAM/ROM combo comparable with the Neo. But man, does the Neo Geo rock, love that game catalog of 2d heaven!

 

Someone correct me on whatever i am wrong, i came to this conclusions from some tech discussions on othe sites.

 

Cart capacity was one area where the Neo-Geo wins, the other would be in bus contention issues.

[sd32]

 

Cart capacity was one area where the Neo-Geo wins, the other would be in bus contention issues.

 

An "issue" i read Neo Geo has, is that its CPU has no access to the graphics on cartridge at all, so you could not do some software rendering at all?. So you couldnt do any tricks in software, that it wasnt designed to do. So no chance for games ala Wolfenstein 3D on it, let alone polygonal stuff like Star Fox or Virtua Racing.

[Punisher5.0]

Cart capacity was one area where the Neo-Geo wins, the other would be in bus contention issues.

A super long life span helps too. It's crazy comparing KOF94 to KOF2003. They really got everything possible out of that hardware.

 

IIRC the system has a very efficient hardware design with no big bottle necks.

 

@sd32: I'm pretty sure the system is only capable of displaying sprites. Which is perfectly ok with me.

[BladeJunker]

Hmm, from what i have read, i tought the Jaguar should be capable of doing better 2d than the Neo Geo. Better color, more versatility when it comes to resolution, and should be able to push way more sprites with faster scaling and rotation. Jag is also better at transparencies. They both use sprites to generate background layers. The only, and "big" (and its huge) advantage the Neo has over the Jaguar, is the massive amounts of memory at its disposal for instant access

.

I love the Neo Geo, but i think people overrate its 2d capabilities. I guess its because PS1, Saturn and to a degree Dreamcast, struggled with its ports. The real advantage were those massive cartridges, not its 2d capabilities. Jaguar, PS1 and Saturn should be better at 2d, and they better be, since they are quiet newer tech. They just didnt have the RAM/ROM combo comparable with the Neo. But man, does the Neo Geo rock, love that game catalog of 2d heaven!

 

Someone correct me on whatever i am wrong, i came to this conclusions from some tech discussions on othe sites.

Yeah that's what I could find on Neo Geo specs, every part of the rendering pipeline has dedicated memory for each process. I went looking for a way to expand memory on the Jag but it's pretty hard, you have to go through the DSP and the CD unit and bios are in the way of that while the cart slot is too slow for RAM. It's hard to use little system memory with lots of CPUs but even mid 90s memory was still too costly and is the usual first thing cut from consoles.

 

Well I don't think the Neo Geo is overrated but it was never going to be practical for home consoles, it renders many huge sprites easily but the entire hardware is just not affordable, a long lasting arcade standard but not for home markets despite the AES being a reality. Those massive cartridges are neat but insane when you consider the era they were made, I like many Neo Geo games but several hundred dollars for each game, no thanks.

I know the whole porting of Neo Geo must have been a pain for any developer, not till the Dreamcast could you match more of the originals. I played those ports like most people, some were better than others, easier on Saturn with a RAM cart but decent enough on PS1.

 

I'd say at least Jaguar carts can be larger now which should help, even in 93 it wasn't too hard to reach the end of what you could do with 8MBs. Personally I love cartridges but I'm not shocked games started coming on CDs in the 90s with the manufacturing costs, its funny with flash drives optical disks are being made obsolete and now I'm fighting to keep optical media being stamped at all with streaming cutting into Blu-ray use. I really like having the actual game rather than a server ID.

With the Jaguar I hope more carts can be made since although JagCD production is cheaper there is literally less CD units than base units, the CD add-on is expensive, and the mechanical issues don't help matters. Emulation still needs work on the Jaguar imo, I'd like to see a more active emulation route for homebrew like the Intellivision has, discounted ROM sales and USB adapters by the thousands. Oh and some more Skunk boards too, when most people only have access to the cheaper/common/worst games on the system the public just thinks the Jag is bad EG. like Towers II is good but way too expensive.

[Trooper Galactus]

If you're interested in the Neo-Geo experience but don't want to bust out the money for the AES and the cartridges (perfectly understandable), check out the Neo-Geo X on Amazon. I bought it with all of the expansions and, with the software update from the Mega Pack expansion set, it is REALLY smooth and a perfect replication of the system. Also acts as a handheld system if you choose to use it as such. I've had mine for about a year and never regretted buying it.

[+madman]

Large carts weren't the only advantage that the Neo had. People tend to think that made all the difference, but it's all about the hardware and I don't mean just the 68k and Z80.

 

The Neo Geo X is pretty horrible if you've ever played a real Neo Geo. Most people think the AES is the only home experience, but if you want to get into the Neo Geo, you can find a consolized MVS and buy MVS carts which have spiked over the years but still relatively accessible. Or you can buy a CMVS and a bootleg multicart and have just about everything.

[Lost Dragon]

@BladeJunker:Those are the only 2 coder quotes i'm familar with from a UK Press perspective where the 3DO is directly compared to the SNES in terms of 2D performance.

However the publication they appeared in falsely quoted a good few people i'm aware of before, making 1 out to be a Ninja coder on the Saturn (Harry Holmwood) and when i was in email contact with him, prior to the interview, i soon found out the publication had made the whole set of quotes up, Harry had never touched the Saturn, only the Playstation, they'd need to be confirmed by Mark etc to be taken at face value.

Plus in recent years i've seen likes of Jez San make some 'odd' comments regarding the Genesis/MegaDrive being just a 2D box, when it hosted numerous Polygon 3D games ported from ST/Amiga, so i sometimes tend to question what has been said, as i wonder if the magazine has part quoted or quoted out of context.

[JagCD]

If you're interested in the Neo-Geo experience but don't want to bust out the money for the AES and the cartridges (perfectly understandable), check out the Neo-Geo X on Amazon. I bought it with all of the expansions and, with the software update from the Mega Pack expansion set, it is REALLY smooth and a perfect replication of the system. Also acts as a handheld system if you choose to use it as such. I've had mine for about a year and never regretted buying it.

 

I agree. People on this forum hate on the Neo Geo X -- but it's a fun little collectible. Is it as good as the original Neo Geo hardware? No. But neither are the various famiclones that people buy on a daily basis to not tear up their vintage Nintendo hardware. My Neo Geo X gets quite a bit of usage and the USB arcade stick that comes with it works great on the PC. Overall, it's definitely worth the purchase if you can't afford legit SNK hardware.

[sd32]

Or you can buy a CMVS and a bootleg multicart and have just about everything.

 

This is the smartest thing to do if you just want to play some great games, and what i ultimately did, after owning an AES for years. Collecting for the Neo Geo is insane.

 

[LianneJaguar64]

Jaguar wins. Fatality.