Any love for the 32X ?

[emwearz]

Pitfall running at 30FPS kills it and just makes the Megadrive version so much more enjoyable to play. They took a game that was known for its smooth animation and halved it (technical limitation or not).

I agree with you, underrated and overlooked game!

There is a Pinocchio prototype out (and a hack of it where someone made the colours pop more) and it really shows you how awesome the 2D output could have been on the system. Though I guess Tempo shows this.

If you have not seen Digital Foundry (DF Retro) video on the 32X, goes over some of the history and reviews all the released games (and some unreleased) while also talking about what the 32X and Megadrive are actually rendering in each game. Great watch if you have not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwHZla18P2Y

[marurun]

Any graphical elements generated by the 32X are practically limited to 30 FPS (exceptions are rare). That means the Genesis has to generate any sprites if they need to move at 60 FPS. So at best you’ll have mixed 30/60 FPS content.

[emwearz]

That is where games like Tempo "shine" where pretty much the whole game is done by the MD but the backgrounds (the warping effects, etc) are all 32X. I mean it could run on the MD by itself, but having a migraine is part of its charm.

[Ziggy]

Any graphical elements generated by the 32X are practically limited to 30 FPS (exceptions are rare). That means the Genesis has to generate any sprites if they need to move at 60 FPS. So at best you’ll have mixed 30/60 FPS content.

This is something new I've learned about the 32X. I've always looked at the 32X as a Genesis on steroids. But if the 32X sprites are limited to 30 FPS, that's a huge blunder IMO.

That is where games like Tempo "shine" where pretty much the whole game is done by the MD but the backgrounds (the warping effects, etc) are all 32X. I mean it could run on the MD by itself, but having a migraine is part of its charm.

I've always looked at Tempo as a great tech demo for the 32X. A good example of what the graphics for a 2D game could be, but just not an amazing game. To be honest, I have yet to really give it a chance. Should I?

[marurun]

Any graphical elements generated by the 32X are practically limited to 30 FPS (exceptions are rare). That means the Genesis has to generate any sprites if they need to move at 60 FPS. So at best you’ll have mixed 30/60 FPS content.

This is something new I've learned about the 32X. I've always looked at the 32X as a Genesis on steroids. But if the 32X sprites are limited to 30 FPS, that's a huge blunder IMO.

I don’t fully understand the 32X hardware, but it has 2 frame buffers it composites into rather than sending tiles and objects directly to the screen. So it builds the display and starts work on the next frame while displaying the current one. And despite having a lot of theoretical power in the CPU and even the VDP, apparently making the double frame buffer work well in excess of 30 FPS is stupid challenging.

[Ziggy]

OK, so the DOOM hack is fucking awesome. I intended to just play the first level, and before I knew it I was a few levels deep into the game LOL. I'm definitely going to give this one more time.

[Ziggy]

Does anyone own a copy of Virtua Racing Deluxe?

A lot of sources say (because they all just copy each other) that Virtua Racing Deluxe has some kind of save feature. Can anyone confirm this? A picture of the PCB would clear it up, but I can't find one.

[pierrot]

I have it, and I'm almost positive that it saves lap times, but I haven't actually played it in a long time, and don't have the 32X setup (it lives in the box--).

Probably the simplest way to check for yourself would be to just load it with the Everdrive and see if it creates the save file for it, no?

[Ziggy]

Probably the simplest way to check for yourself would be to just load it with the Everdrive and see if it creates the save file for it, no?

I did, but it didn't create a save file. Yet it created one for Afterburner Complete, which isn't listed as having save RAM.

[emwearz]

Tempo is a pretty average at best platformer and really, it's not worth playing out side of a flash cart to see how it looks.

I own Virtua Racing Deluxe (and the MD version) I will try to pop it in an see if it saves lap times, I don't recall to be honest. I also own Afterburner so I can check that out too.

The Doom hack (which at this point is just a new port of the game) is pretty much one of the best ways to play a "pure" form of doom if you don't own an older P1 system and a crt (I know you have retro computers). If you have played through Doom heaps of times, it is a great new way to give it another playthrough. I wish the keymapping would be back ported though!

The oddest thing about the 32X is it has no dedicated hardware for 3D rendering (polygons) or sprite scaling, which is why when so many people compare it to being a 'mini saturn' or something to that effect, it just really isn't. If you go and read some of the posts by the main Doom 32X Resurrection dev, the amount of effort and resource management they did to pull it off is just awesome.