RyaNtheSlayA wrote:dunpeal2064 wrote:So, why did the genesis only call itself 16-bit?
The Motorola 68000 was 16/32bit. I believe the instruction set was entirely 16bit even though the processor was 32bit? Something along those lines anyways. I don't think it was a fully 32bit processor anyways.
Either way, bits suck, and should have never been used as a measure of performance. Have to love marketing tools. Bigger always = better.
First of all, I am NO expert in this area. Head over to the Assember site if you want really knowledgeable people (although Redifer has definitely been involved in these sorts of threads before!).
AFAIK, every 68000 ever put in a home console was 32-bit. There were different versions of it, of course. The one in the Genesis was 32-bit, just like the others. However, it was limited by a 16-bit wide bus. In a real-world comparison, that is sort of like saying that there was a highway built that could have up to 32 lanes (big highway, haha), but only 16 of them are in use. So, while true that the Genesis is actually 32-bit in its main processor, it is
effectively 16-bit.
Likewise, the main CPU in the SNES is 16-bit, but uses an 8-bit wide bus. So, surprisingly, as least for the main processor, the SNES is effectively an 8-bit games console. Also, as far as I know, the SNES really is an underpowered system. Nintendo seems to have gone a bit cheap on the hardware. It could have been a fair bit more powerful than it ended up. It's saving grace is some dedicated hardware to handle special effects, which is why a lot of the game looked so good on it. It had scaling and rotation effects that the Genesis or TG-16 just could not come close to. It also had four time the amount of colours on screen than the Genesis had (but less than the TG-16), and a MUCH larger selection than both the Genesis and TG-16. The sound chip had sampling abilities that were very nice as well.
The main CPU in the TG-16 is 8-bit, but the graphics processor is 16-bit (as is the one in the Genesis. It had very impressive sprite capabilities and 512 colours on screen at once, which was higher than all other 16-bit consoles. The main disadvantage it had was a lack of hardware support for special effects. The Genesis and SNES both had hardware support for parallax and a few other things (more in the SNES), but a lot of these things had to be done via software on the Turbo. The end result was that, even though the TG handled a lot of multi-platform games better than the other two 16-bit consoles, they looked less impressive to most as they often featured fewer special effects (especially in the parallax department).
As for the Neo Geo, yeah... it really did kick the ass of all the other 16-bit consoles in almost every way. In the odd areas that it didn't (mostly a few things the SNES could do), the hardware in the Neo was so powerful that it could be done in software without much issue. It uses the a more advanced version of the 68000 found in the Genesis. There really is no comparison hardware-wise, the Neo is way beyond the SNES in hardware.
So, why did the genesis only call itself 16-bit?
Beats me. They probably could have gotten away with calling it 32-bit. I'm glad they went with 16-bit, though. It feels right.
I always assumed the SNES was more powerful than the genesis.
In terms of special effects and colour count, it is. In terms of raw processing power, nope. Blast processing, baby! Add on the Sega CD, and the Genesis/Sega CD blows the SNES out of the water in
most every way except for colours (which SHOULD HAVE been upgraded!).
