Best TurboGrafx 16/PC Engine games

[DaveC]

So, I've been ripping my Super CD's and find out Pandora Hugo doesn't have CD support.


Is there an emulator around that has CD support for the PCE/TG16?


Most of my interest is playing my SCD's ... and I can't, which sucks.

Don't use HuGo it sucks.


Exophase has Temper for Pandora being worked on, just wait for that. I think he said it is pretty much done and that it is being held up only due to him dreading the coding of the UI. Once he does that it will be the best TG emu out there.


Until then you can use the Wiz version of Temper under Ginge. It isn't perfect (the frame rate/scrolling jumps around a bit) and the width scaling , if you use it, is done for the target 320 x 240 resolution then doubled instead of a finer target of 640 x 480. Even with those issues it is still better than HuGo and has CD support.

 

[Exophase]

It's being held up a little longer now because I'm working on a new renderer and SuperGrafx support ;p

 

[DaveC]

It's being held up a little longer now because I'm working on a new renderer and SuperGrafx support ;p

Bummer (even longer delay) and at the same time cool. Supergrafx support will be nice.


Any rough estimate as to when it will be released?


What is the "new renderer", I thought the old one was totally smooth even on the old weak GP2X?

 

[Exophase]

Bummer (even longer delay) and at the same time cool. Supergrafx support will be nice.


Any rough estimate as to when it will be released?


What is the "new renderer", I thought the old one was totally smooth even on the old weak GP2X?

Dunno when it'll be released.


There's a reason behind all of this, I swear D:


Basically, I got some ideas for improving rendering speed on more complex platforms like GBA. But in reality they could apply to a lot of old consoles, so I wanted to try it on PC-Engine first as a proof of concept. I got it working okay in C code, but needed to do the ARM ASM version before it could be useful on handhelds. Then I realized, this new method might make it a lot easier to do SuperGrafx and with less of a performance hit than I was envisioning. So I figured I'd try that. But that sort of opened up another can of worms, and I got together and talked with some other PCE guys and we realized we don't totally understand how SuperGrafx works. So I'm waiting on someone to do some demos to confirm some things. This also changes some other stuff about how I do PC-Engine emulation in general - hopefully it'll work out a bit for the better. No, I don't think Temper needed a speed boost, but then again it could help on the GP32 version I would like to be released this century too.


Okay, quick recap, this stuff happened to Temper:


- New rendering ideas that I hope to be useful for performance boosting later emulators I do, and maybe to other people as well (gonna start a forum post on it later)


- New rendering approach makes it a lot easier to rotate the output w/o performance penaly, for no-tearing in Wiz version, and for GP32 version in general


- Also makes it easier to do new scalers, and that 256->640 or whatever one for Pandora eventually


- And has made SGX mode feel more viable, so I've started on that.


This load of stuff went down like a week ago but then I got sick and that hurt my productivity. I hope to pick this up more.

 

[Poem58]

Exo, while not being a code head such as you, and knowing that the PSP TG16 Emu played the SGX games with no trouble, I was curious as to how much performance hit the added working ram and second vid chip adds? The wiki also mentions (but needs citation) that there is also a chip that coordinates the TG/PCE and SGX vid chips (is this true? and is this what complicates things?) I would think just added ram wouldn't be the trouble. Any info you can throw at a fellow TG fan is appreciated (and fear not if it's over my head, I will look it up and learn)


Thanks. As always, thanks for your work and hope you feel well.


(Now I might owe you 2 dinners after seeing this emu!)

 

[Exophase]

Like you say the added RAM isn't a problem.


The coordinating chip you're referring to is the "VDP." It takes the outputs from both VDC chips (which generate independent background + sprites) and mixes them together, putting one on top of the other based on whether the pixel is background, sprite, or transparent. It also applies a window to each of the VDC graphics which can mask off edges of the layer (think the zoom in circle at the end of levels in SMW.. a lot of other consoles with multiple layers had windows too)


In a typical implementation going from standard PC-Engine to SGX will more than double the time it takes to execute, since it'll render the two VDC's separately, checking all 64 sprites for both, and performing fairly complex per-pixel logic to combine the two. For the current implementation I have, I think the impact shouldn't be that bad - BG rendering should be really fast now, sprites are binned per scanline so you don't spend too much unless there are a lot of sprites on a line, and the new method has fast means of applying windows and priority selection that should fit SGX well.


I'm actually kind of surprised that the PSP PC-Engine emulator could handle SGX without a hitch, did it have auto-frameskip?

 

[Poem58]

Like you say the added RAM isn't a problem.


The coordinating chip you're referring to is the "VDP." It takes the outputs from both VDC chips (which generate independent background + sprites) and mixes them together, putting one on top of the other based on whether the pixel is background, sprite, or transparent. It also applies a window to each of the VDC graphics which can mask off edges of the layer (think the zoom in circle at the end of levels in SMW.. a lot of other consoles with multiple layers had windows too)


In a typical implementation going from standard PC-Engine to SGX will more than double the time it takes to execute, since it'll render the two VDC's separately, checking all 64 sprites for both, and performing fairly complex per-pixel logic to combine the two. For the current implementation I have, I think the impact shouldn't be that bad - BG rendering should be really fast now, sprites are binned per scanline so you don't spend too much unless there are a lot of sprites on a line, and the new method has fast means of applying windows and priority selection that should fit SGX well.


I'm actually kind of surprised that the PSP PC-Engine emulator could handle SGX without a hitch, did it have auto-frameskip?

Not sure if it had auto frameskip or not, I usually set all emu's at 0 for frameskip until there is a problem so it was likely not skipping frames. Aldynes looked like it was the most demanding game graphically never missed a beat. I forget the name of the emu or it's author now. I know Zx-81 released a version as well , maybe it was his that ran it. I just looked it up and I thought it was Hue for PSP I was using, not sure it's been awhile yet that one says SGX support is only partial. Whichever one I was using every SGX game loaded and appeared to play just fine, nice and speedy with no glitches. Just wish I could be sure which one it was. Sorry.


Well at least now I know the VDP is real. And thanks for the explanation. I loved reading the N64 thread as it helped to understand just how complex this stuff really is. As The Atari/Imagic etc. programmer Rob Fulop said to the end user it's just "Pure F---ing Magic."

 

[DaveC]

Dunno when it'll be released.


Okay, quick recap, this stuff happened to Temper:


- New rendering ideas that I hope to be useful for performance boosting later emulators I do, and maybe to other people as well (gonna start a forum post on it later)


- New rendering approach makes it a lot easier to rotate the output w/o performance penaly, for no-tearing in Wiz version, and for GP32 version in general


- Also makes it easier to do new scalers, and that 256->640 or whatever one for Pandora eventually


- And has made SGX mode feel more viable, so I've started on that.


This load of stuff went down like a week ago but then I got sick and that hurt my productivity. I hope to pick this up more.

Oh man that does sound like it will take a very long time, lots of work, big project I guess it will be nice when it does make it out.


I guess I will ask even though I am 99.999% sure I know the unfortunate answer, Any chance you would throw us a bone and release the old one you had so we will have something decent in the way of TG-16 before this one is done? Most emus for pandora aren't very good at the moment with loads of SDL screen tearing etc. It would be nice to have a couple of good ones, Picodrive is the other.

 

[Exophase]

No! Don't stifle me ;p


That stuff is not long-time stuff, it's not a huge deal.

 

[DaveC]

No! Don't stifle me ;p


That stuff is not long-time stuff, it's not a huge deal.

Yeah that is the answer I expected, ok.


Anyway the offer to do graphics for some menus or splash screens etc still stands. Let me know if you want anything.

 

[Zor Prime]

Exo, I finally sorted out how to use your PCE emulator for WIZ on the Pandora.


Good stuff. After I pulled my head out of my ass and noticed I had to rename the syscard file I was finally playing SCD's.


I hope the GFX engine rewrite goes well so we can get a native Pandora version before 2010 is over.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Im gonna add a cool game i discovered called metal stoker.Its a shmup in which you can rotate a hover ship and shoot in 360 degrees.Musics not bad either.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/S6t1Vwsqi3s?feature=oembed

 

[Poem58]

Thanks for bringing that one up Khan. I will have to give that one a go, somehow I missed it.


Face, I had never heard of that game developer or publisher or whatever, before I got my Turbografx. However, It seemed to me they had a total command of that system. While not many people seem to like it, Time Cruise (a pinball game) was amazingly done graphically having 3 tables up and 2 on each side of the top 2 center screens then warps to minigames that had everything from golfing the pinball to tilt tables etc. As well as alternate pinball screens and the random "warp miss" that took you to yet another multi screen pinball challenge that was also graphically neat.


They also in that game had some 3-d-ish ball/text demo's you could manipulate as well as spirals you could adjust in size/speed and color. They even had an audio player of sorts you could select and play any music or sound effects from that could play a song you chose and play the sound effects you chose while the original song still played (or you could shut off the song selection then go to the effects) while doing this you could change the cursor for the player even and it had a little graphic equalizer of sorts at the bottom displaying the approx frequencies of the effects and would light up little orbs on the side when it appeared to play a digitized sample.For those of you who like game music check out the music from the "medieval" bonus table, one of personal favorite tunes on the Turbo system


Far more than had to be done in any game. There was also Time Cruise II but I don't think it's really any different, except it may not have all the demo's etc in it. Not really sure, here's a Video of Time Cruise II which doesn't show anything different from normal Time Cruise.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YxTFEl7kd4E?feature=oembed

EDIT: Just did some checking and it appears there is no difference between Time Cruise and Time Cruise II other than region and title screens. Time Cruise II was the Japanese version which explains why mine was just Time Cruise and I never saw Time Cruise II. I am glad I didn't know of and import this game as I would have expected an updated version and gotten the exact same in every way game. Wouldn't have been able to search it on the web back then!!

 

[punkrockserfer]

Hey, just curious if this is still being worked on Exophase? The thread seems to be 2 years old, so I doubt it, but I'd love to have a pandora port of Temper!

 

[Ian J]

Check here: http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php/topic/4621-temper-split-from-other-thread/?hl=temper

aaarrrggghhh Ninja'd h34r:

 

[Kumaki]

So, I've been ripping my Super CD's and find out Pandora Hugo doesn't have CD support.


Is there an emulator around that has CD support for the PCE/TG16?


Most of my interest is playing my SCD's ... and I can't, which sucks.

Don't use HuGo it sucks.

Exophase has Temper for Pandora being worked on, just wait for that. I think he said it is pretty much done and that it is being held up only due to him dreading the coding of the UI. Once he does that it will be the best TG emu out there.


Until then you can use the Wiz version of Temper under Ginge. It isn't perfect (the frame rate/scrolling jumps around a bit) and the width scaling , if you use it, is done for the target 320 x 240 resolution then doubled instead of a finer target of 640 x 480. Even with those issues it is still better than HuGo and has CD support.

Why would you say HuGo sucks?  It doesn't.  I used it just fine, until Temper came out.

Given a choice, I will take Temper, but HuGo was not bad.  What makes you say it was so awful?

 

[ptitSeb]

You can try PCE.emu also.

 

[CocoCreekFisherman]

So, I've been ripping my Super CD's and find out Pandora Hugo doesn't have CD support.


Is there an emulator around that has CD support for the PCE/TG16?


Most of my interest is playing my SCD's ... and I can't, which sucks.

Don't use HuGo it sucks.

Exophase has Temper for Pandora being worked on, just wait for that. I think he said it is pretty much done and that it is being held up only due to him dreading the coding of the UI. Once he does that it will be the best TG emu out there.


Until then you can use the Wiz version of Temper under Ginge. It isn't perfect (the frame rate/scrolling jumps around a bit) and the width scaling , if you use it, is done for the target 320 x 240 resolution then doubled instead of a finer target of 640 x 480. Even with those issues it is still better than HuGo and has CD support.

Why would you say HuGo sucks?  It doesn't.  I used it just fine, until Temper came out.

Given a choice, I will take Temper, but HuGo was not bad.  What makes you say it was so awful?

I can say from my own experiences that PCE.emu is better than Hugo. I could never play BLAZING LAZERS properly with Hugo and with PCE.emu it plays flawless. That is a deal breaker for me because BLAZING LAZERS is one of my favorite shmups for TurboGrafx. ALso playing cd's as mentioned.

There were other games that Hugo could not run .zip well or at all [AIR ZONK for example] and PCE.emu in .pce format can run superiorly.

Forgot to mention that with Hugo ..CADASH and Dungeon Explorer were unplayable and play perfectly with PCE.emu !!

Just my experience though not an argument. :rolleyes:  

 

[Exophase]

Why would you say HuGo sucks?  It doesn't.  I used it just fine, until Temper came out.

Given a choice, I will take Temper, but HuGo was not bad.  What makes you say it was so awful?

You're responding to a post that's 2.5 years old, made by someone who hasn't posted here in nearly as long. As a moderator you should really know better than this :/

While I don't think it's very polite to say that emulators suck that's just an opinion and not some absolute fact that can be argued. It'll be different for everyone depending on what their tastes and standards are. DaveC had really high standards, one of the reasons I did Temper at all was to shut him up

 

[gwaine]

PCE.EMU is a great emulator...plays everything I've thrown at it really well.  CD games, SuperGrafx, you name it.  Fav Turbo/SuperGrafx games:

Military Madness

Devil's Crush

Neo Nectaris

Blazing Lazers

1941

Daimakaimura (Ghouls 'n Ghosts)