Panorama Cotton

File: panoramacotton3.jpg (38KB, 480x360px) Image search: [Google]

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There were also places like this where the whole background layer (a castle or something) appeared to smoothly scale up as you approached it.

The Sega CD had a special chip that let it do this. Was that chip in the Panorama Cotton cart? If not, how did it achieve this effect without it?

>>3784296
The only Genesis game with an expansion chip was Virtua Racing.

>>3784328

Watch this for a couple minutes and tell me how they did it then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0YkMU5nkgE

Panorama Cotton runs at 30 fps.
Since the Genesis only has to pump out half the usual frames it can do twice the graphics.

Ex-Ranza and Chakan also run 30 fps.

>>3784336
Panorama cotton feels like its running slower than 30fps a lot. The scaling is smooth as heck tho.

>>3784289
I love the Genesis but this game is becoming a meme for muh grafx

>>3784289
DUDE
PARALLAX
LMAO

The Genesis' CPU, the Motorola 68k, is well suited to doing scaling in software.

Genesis could scroll each scanline independently for a lot of wavy effects you see in most games. Other than that, it's probably just stuff done in software. You can do a lot of stuff in software, just look at some of the demoscene stuff.

>>3784509
Not sure what you mean by "well suited". It had nothing special to help in that regard. Any CPU architecture with sufficient MIPS can pull off software effects.

>>3784531
>It had nothing special to help in that regard
Large registers and lots of them.

>Any CPU architecture with sufficient MIPS can pull off software effects
MIPS ratings often refer to the simplest instruction the CPU is capable of. It says absolutely nothing about "SIMD" speed.

There's nothing impressive about this, Afterburner and Super Hang On were launch titles for Genesis

>>3784543
And Space Harrier too.

>>3784536
32 bit registers don't help when you only have a 16 bit data bus. And MIPS is the most objective form of measuring the speed of a CPU, you're thinking hertz.

>>3784551
>32 bit registers don't help when you only have a 16 bit data bus
Yes it does. The data bus is only a chokepoint on external memory access. Thanks to the 68k's large 32-bit registers it can happily do matrix operations (for scaling/rotation and such) internally without having to touch RAM. That's where the real software performance advantage comes in compared to contemporary processors.

>MIPS is the most objective form of measuring the speed of a CPU, you're thinking hertz.
MIPS is only barely more accurate as a performance measure than clock speed. And no, I wasn't talking about clock speed.

I'm saying that MIPS ratings only rate the fastest instruction in the entire set and don't take into account realistic memory management situations (and how registers can help).

It's almost as if there was some sort of processing that blasted through the calculations.

>>3784549
The sad thing about the Genesis version is that even the PC Engine version managed to pull off sprite scaling effects.

>>3784629
Like I said, there's nothing special about these kinds of effects.

>>3784289
How do you even get to this level??? I got stuck on stage 3 or something.

>>3784289
>How in the everliving fuck was this possible on stock Genesis hardware?

blast processing, bitch.

>>3784289
All the game does is the Outrun-style ground effect, it just takes it up to 11 and puts bumps on the road. It also draws the ceiling too, but there were a bunch of other games that did that, Outrun 2019 I think. Sometimes it uses the wavy linescroll and at one other place it changes the vertical scroll on every scanline to make the ground look tilted. The shiny river is a simple palette loop.

It never actually does any scaling, all the "scaled" graphics are pre-drawn.

>>3784549
"Smart"phones and tablets (normie devices) are the LEAST authentic way to do retrogaming.

File: SEGACD--Soul Star_Jan20 22_46_57.png (122KB, 640x480px) Image search: [Google]

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>>3784773
>It never actually does any scaling, all the "scaled" graphics are pre-drawn.
This is the only way Genesis/Megadrive can replicate that kind of effect. All the Super Scaled arcade ports were handled the same way too.

For true scaling you need a Mega CD or 32X.

>>3785552
Not really...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2OsH4ZuAlI

There are a few games like Zero Tolerance and Bloodshot/Battle Frenzy with scaling. The homebrew port of Wolfenstein does it too.

>>3785918
Well okay but those were purely done in software and taxed the 68k to its absolute limit.

The demo scene proves that one can accomplish pretty much anything on anything with enough dedication. Whether the ends justify the means is another question entirely.

>>3784508
Oh, you were checking on that old thread? Ara ara~