Any love for the 32X ?

[Ziggy]

There's something that I forgot about the 32X... It has much improved composite video output.

The Genesis has complete shit composite video output. But some games use composite video to create faux transparencies. I've been using RGB on a PVM for my Genesis, but it breaks some effects in certain games. I posted a while back about this. The RGB output is so nice, it's hard to justify using composite for the rare occurrence of a graphical trick. That and, the composite on the Genesis really does look like shit. I had put some thought into modifying a Genesis for better composite output, so I can correctly display those graphical tricks but without having complete shit video. But, not enough time in the day.

When I was testing my new 32X, I used the composite cables that it came with, and remembered that the composite output from the 32X is much improved over the stock Genesis. It actually looks really good, at least as good as you could expect composite to look.

So now I'm really considering having two Genesis setups on my PVM going forward. My model 1, with RGB and my Everdrive that I can play SMS and Sega CD games with. Then my model 2, with the 32X, over composite. I can use it for 32X games and the odd game that I'd like to see those composite graphical tricks. The only downside is this means I will never see my 32X over RGB.

[emwearz]

I have love for my 32X for a couple technical reasons and then just because I find it such a snapshot of its time.

The composite out of the 32X is way better than later model consoles, but against the best Gen1's there nothing in it on a CRT.

On a technical level, improved composite out of my Genesis II (I also have MD2), which by itself has pretty horrid composite out. I modded my 32x with a 50hz/60hz switch and in combination with my Gen with a 50hz/60hz switch I can play my library of games at 60hz in colour, without RGB or a crystal mod the consoles don't have the ability to output other freq in colour. So nice little double there.

The snapshot, the games are not great (only own 6 games, they have skyrocked since I got mine...~15 years ago) but they just feel so hacked together and experimental. Hardly going to sit there and play most of the games for hours on end, but every now and again it's like a little time machine.

The Doom project is really awesome, the SegaCD/32x combo version they made has the ability to map controls (great for strafing) which they have not back ported to the 32X only port, which I wish they would.

[Ziggy]

The snapshot, the games are not great (only own 6 games, they have skyrocked since I got mine...~15 years ago) but they just feel so hacked together and experimental. Hardly going to sit there and play most of the games for hours on end, but every now and again it's like a little time machine.

The Doom project is really awesome, the SegaCD/32x combo version they made has the ability to map controls (great for strafing) which they have not back ported to the 32X only port, which I wish they would.

Yeah, it has a rather small and lackluster library. But it's really interesting to wonder what could have been. Some of the graphics on the 32X are impressive, and a definite boost to the Genesis. There's such a huge list of canceled games for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... _32X_games

I definitely want to check out that DOOM hack, but yeah, I'd prefer the non CD version.

The DOOM hack makes me wish for more 32X hacks.

[emwearz]

I realised when re-reading "but they just feel so hacked together and experimental." sounded like an insult. I 100% meant it as a big pro for owning the system today. It takes me back to PC gaming during the Voodoo era, just seeing what would work and what they could do to simulate things because the power was not there.

[Ziggy]

I started looking at the Genesis hardware differently the last few years. We got so use to Wintel PCs, that we forgot how home computers were predating the dominance of Windows and Intel. And we got so use to home consoles being a certain thing. You can sorta look at the Genesis as a home computer. It had a Motorola 68000 CPU and a Yamaha YM2612 sound card. The Sega CD was like adding a CD drive to your computer, and the 32X was some sort of CPU and RAM upgrade. It's easy to poke fun at the "Tower of Power," but add-on peripherals like this were once common for home computers.

I think the 32X could have had an awesome library. It's just that game developers gave it the middle finger and so it was abandoned.

[marurun]

I started looking at the Genesis hardware differently the last few years. We got so use to Wintel PCs, that we forgot how home computers were predating the dominance of Windows and Intel. And we got so use to home consoles being a certain thing. You can sorta look at the Genesis as a home computer. It had a Motorola 68000 CPU and a Yamaha YM2612 sound card. The Sega CD was like adding a CD drive to your computer, and the 32X was some sort of CPU and RAM upgrade. It's easy to poke fun at the "Tower of Power," but add-on peripherals like this were once common for home computers.

I think the 32X could have had an awesome library. It's just that game developers gave it the middle finger and so it was abandoned.

I think that way of looking at things is a lot more apt for the PC Engine. The Genesis was modeled after arcade machines, not home PCs. And the Sega CD bolted on a LOT of extra hardware in addition to just a CD drive. It had a more powerful CPU, a bunch of extra RAM, and additional hardware capabilities to boot. But that also added a lot of complexity.

And the 32X really was a kludge. It was not a "proper" upgrade. It was almost more like a bootleg upgrade in some ways. I mean, it had a frame buffer limited to 30 FPS, and the way it layered graphics was similar to how you used to have to do the Voodoo 1 and 2 graphics cards on PC. You had to passthrough the original video signal and layer the 32X graphics over that. It was compositing video analogue-style. So you actually had games where the original Genesis video layers were 60 fps and the 32X elements were only 30 fps. And I can't imagine programming any of that was a smooth experience. It's the sort of setup that would have needed a lot more lead time for truly good development to shape up for it. We're lucky we got some of the stuff we did.

[pierrot]

Even an arcade board is still technically a computer. /pedantry

[marurun]

Even an arcade board is still technically a computer. /pedantry

But not a personal computer or pasocon. I specifically used home PC instead of the more generic computer because I understand pedantry JUST AS WELL AS YOU DO.

[pierrot]

I'll just be over here with my bundle of analog integrators, then--.

[Ziggy]

The Genesis was built with familiar hardware, using the same CPU as Sega's System 16. And Sega, being an arcade game publisher, it was natural for them to have home console ports of their arcade games. But the Genesis, from a hardware standpoint, really wasn't very different than what home PCs were doing at the time. In fact, I've read that IBM considered using the 68000 for their PC, before going with the 8086. Computers that weren't Wintel often had external add-on components via cart and expansion slots. My point was that today we tend to look at the 32X and Sega CD as missteps, and poke fun at the Tower of Power. But really, those kinds of things weren't really all that uncommon at the time (for home computers). So why not try it for home consoles as well? It made perfect sense, really. It's just a shame that these add-ons weren't properly supported (for a few reasons) but it's fun to imagine what could have been.






I haven't really sat and played any 32X games yet, but I've bounced around with a few just to test the hardware and make sure everything works good. But with that, I've already made a few observations that I find interesting.

Pitfall - The Mayan Adventure - Although I've yet to really play this game at length, I think it's an excellent platformer for its time and often overlooked today. And as for Western developed platformers, I think it's absolutely top-tier (I'm generally not a huge fan of them). Anyway, on the surface, it looks like the 32X has a really good port. The Genesis version has a ton of dithering, which looks OK if you don't mind using composite video, but takes a while to unsee when using RGB. The 32X port looks similar to the Jaguar port, no dithering, and overall very nice looking. At least, nice looking in still screenshots. For whatever reason, the sprite animation is only 30 FPS and not 60 FPS like the other ports. And it really looks choppy because of that. That's really a damn shame because otherwise this would have been an amazing port.

Mortal Kombat II - Although I always liked the Genesis, I didn't have one during its heyday. I had a SNES. So maybe it's easy for me to be biased. In the case of MKII, which happens to be one of my favorite games, I always thought the SNES port was king. But I was playing a bit of the 32X port, and now I can see a case for it. I wont get into the long list of differences between ports. But the Genesis version had inferior graphics and lots of missing sounds compared to the SNES. The 32X really kicks it up a notch, improving the graphics and adding in missing sounds. The SNES version really emulates the arcade audio. I know the audio is super low quality, but I always appreciated that it was still the arcade sound even if it is super compressed or whatever. Compared to the Genesis, and in turn the 32X, which uses the Genesis sound chip for the music. I never liked how it sounded so much different than the arcade, I'd rather have the muffled SNES audio. But the 32X might actually play a bit better. It feels like it might be faster or snappier. The one thing I really don't like though is using the Genesis controller for MK games. The SNES controller is definitely the better choice. Aside from the button layout being better, I always have trouble with the Genesis D-pad for inputting special moves.

MK2 Arcade Edition Hack - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Z_OFyGxJY

I'll definitely have to check out the Arcade Edition hack. It makes a number of improvements. You can even take it a step further and get the arcade soundtrack via the Sega CD (MSU-MD) but I'll have to figure out how to do this. I think I'd have to use my real Sega CD, because the Mega Everdrive Pro can't do Sega CD games when plugged into a 32X.