Historical Revisionism in Video Game and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

[Nutmeg]

Also, you seem to reduce everything to channels and operators

Not really, I only talked about operators and channels with regards to (Yamaha) FM synth, where we can compare across different chip families. Ofc. you can't compare the same way across completely different synths and I never did. In fact I explicitly wrote (repeatedly) that it is even difficult to compare the 2-op only OPL2 with the rest.

Stuff like this go absolutely beyond my technical understanding:

I may be wrong, but this looks like an information sheet for a multi-chip targeting sound driver (like PMD driver) not a comparison of the actual chips themselves.

As for the rest of your post I broadly agree that it is extremely difficult to compare capabilities across platforms as they were all really multi-synth set ups of different combinations and caveats.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

re-visionism. when facts get distorted long time later. that's farthest from truth to what happens to videogames. facts get distorted day0. for over 20 years every single little shit barfed from big names has been sold as the bestesterest thing ever. if it hadn't been just simple and easy corruption, it'd not had been revisionism but straight out hallucinations.

 

[Lucumo]

Stuff like this go absolutely beyond my technical understanding:

I may be wrong, but this looks like an information sheet for a multi-chip targeting sound driver (like PMD driver) not a comparison of the actual chips themselves.

As for the rest of your post I broadly agree that it is extremely difficult to compare capabilities across platforms as they were all really multi-synth set ups of different combinations and caveats.

DetailedChipComparison.png

And it definitely lists stuff that chips can do that others can't. Like the SSG envelope waveforms which the OPN2 has...or the sustain decay which the OPL chips don't have.

re-visionism. when facts get distorted long time later. that's farthest from truth to what happens to videogames. facts get distorted day0. for over 20 years every single little shit barfed from big names has been sold as the bestesterest thing ever. if it hadn't been just simple and easy corruption, it'd not had been revisionism but straight out hallucinations.

Obviously, blurbs on the back of the game or most gaming magazines can't exactly be trusted. Part of the latter has to do with time constraints though. Of course, the other parts contain ignorance, incompetence, corruption and the like.

 

[Inec0rn]

Midi era was king imo PC and console, if I think of most iconic videogame music my midi list is just so much longer.

If don't think I'd have anything memoravle on my list from last 15 years.

Witcher, ffx maybe? If it's videogame big symphony shit it's totally unmemorable to me. I'm guessing the unmemorable symphony shit is away more expensive too.

 

[Nutmeg]

And it definitely lists stuff that chips can do that others can't

It lists some things where there is no equivalent in one chip and the other. It doesn't tell you whether a sister chip on the same board or platform could post process for the same effect, or if you could issue multiple commands to achieve the same thing "in software".

It is far too fine detail to matter. I am not sure of what point you are trying to make in opposition or even agreement with my own, or why you are bringing this up at all.

 

[Mountain]

Midi era was king imo PC and console, if I think of most iconic videogame music my midi list is just so much longer.

If don't think I'd have anything memoravle on my list from last 15 years.

Witcher, ffx maybe? If it's videogame big symphony shit it's totally unmemorable to me. I'm guessing the unmemorable symphony shit is away more expensive too.

Do you listen to new stuff though?

 

[Inec0rn]

I guess so.. I would play at least 1 AAA a year (not so much the last couple years) but sure.

- AOE4 can't remember music at all.
- Witcher, I know is good but honestly I only remember yoddling lady getting excited when you start battles.
- Capcom games..... Sure, they have a repetitive hook in them.
- ffx I know is good but don't remember and that guy's earlier midi work is equally amazing.
- Souls like games, do these games have music?
- Anno all the games effectively have the same score and you put in soany hours you never want to hear it again.
- same for Beth / tes games.

Shrug..

 

[Mountain]

I guess so.. I would play at least 1 AAA a year (not so much the last couple years) but sure.

- AOE4 can't remember music at all.
- Witcher, I know is good but honestly I only remember yoddling lady getting excited when you start battles.
- Capcom games..... Sure, they have a repetitive hook in them.
- ffx I know is good but don't remember and that guy's earlier midi work is equally amazing.
- Souls like games, do these games have music?
- Anno all the games effectively have the same score and you put in soany hours you never want to hear it again.
- same for Beth / tes games.

Shrug..

Video game music is 100 times bigger than ever, and it's more about looking in the right spot than the music not being there.

 

[Lucumo]

And it definitely lists stuff that chips can do that others can't

It lists some things where there is no equivalent in one chip and the other. It doesn't tell you whether a sister chip on the same board or platform could post process for the same effect, or if you could issue multiple commands to achieve the same thing "in software".

It is far too fine detail to matter. I am not sure of what point you are trying to make in opposition or even agreement with my own, or why you are bringing this up at all.

You were comparing single chips and their "capability", basing it on channels and operators.

The OPL3 could do 18 2-op channels, or in 4-op mode, 6 4-op and 6 2-op channels. OPN2 could do just 6 4-op channels. OPN2 didn't have a PCM channel (not sure why you think it does, maybe it's something I just don't know), just 6 4-op channels. So OPL3 is strictly more capable.

I just wanted to show how it goes far beyond that. That in itself was neither agreement nor disagreement. But to fully understand what's listed, one has to have the necessary technical knowledge.

Apart from the SSG envelope waveforms shown on the last page there are also other envelopes.

From the graphics alone one can see that Sustain Decay is better than what the OPL line offers. Or, to quote:

OPL vs. OPM/N Envelope Types

The OPL family provides two different envelope types that you can select through the “Percussive Envelope” setting. In a percussive envelope, the release cycle begins as soon as the decay cycle ends. This allows you to create percussive instruments like drums, xylophones, wood blocks, etc.

The OPM/N family provides only one envelope type, but adds a new setting called Sustain Decay. With this setting you can create both ADR and ADSR envelope styles as well as anything in between.

However, while I can hear differences and understand such a simple graph, the more technical it gets, the more it should be left to the properly competent people.

In terms of capabilities, OPM > OPN2, OPL3 > OPN2, OPNA > OPN2, while it's hard to place the OPL2 (in the right hands it could sound amazing).

Like I said, it's very questionable that you say that OPL3 is better than OPN2.



Bonus technical stuff:

Ignoring the YM2149 for a second, the major differences between the chips coincide around the two chip families (the OPL vs. OPM/N). The OPM/N family provides more granular control over the attack and decay envelope settings (0..31 vs. 0..15), level (0..127 vs. 0..63), and envelope scaling (0..3 vs. 0..1). With more operators, the OPM/N family also allows a wider range of values for algorithm (0..7 vs. 0..1). Even the 4-op YMF262 (OPL3) only provides 4 algorithms.

Do you understand what this means exactly? I certainly don't. It's clear which line is better but in what way do the results differ from each other.

 

[Ol' Willy]

With the rise of the global internet we've seen media outlets and youtubers able to fudge history in ways that paint a false narrative of the past. Games like Earthbound and Chrono Trigger were commercial flops made for niche markets and are held up as giants of the SNES library. Nintendo's infamous gaming crash only applied to 1 regional market while the rest of the world was playing the Master System long into the PS2's line span. Commodore, DOS and Amiga history has been all but invalidated where anything not called Doom is unknown and a novelty for Twitch streamers to play when GoG releases it. The best game ever is Mario 64, despite the best game ever arguments on GameFAQS during that generation's life span were always between Zelda : Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy 7 and Mario 64 getting almost no attention until cross dressing losers started to speedrun it. Banjo Kazooie sold 3 million copies and was upstaged by Croc in magazine coverage and popularity in many regional markets but no one talks about Croc any more while youtube is full of fat fucks getting Jiggy with it.

These are a few examples of revisionism and how the current zeitgeist around retro gaming has been warped through badly researched videos and losers with entire rooms dedicated to NES games because their Dad left one day and never came back. How much of our current history do you think is accurate and what are your personal stories of history now forgotten or warped? Is Nintendo a saviour of the gaymen market or did they fuck up everything so hard they're lucky the industry survived at all? Do you remember the Commodore 64 and played many of the largest game library of any platform ever? Do you just want to say how annoying NES fanboys are and laugh at the constantly flickering sprites other platforms didn't suffer from? Do you want to defend blowing cartridges as a benefit over Atari ones just working? Do you believe ET is the worst game ever because AVGN said so? Lets argue it out and laugh at the manchildren going Bing bing wahoo!

I don't see how your points make much sense, Chrono Trigger and Earthbound are not giants of the SNES because of commercial viability, but because of legacy. Mario 64 was still in that discussion next to FF7 and Ocarina, even back then.

Commodore, DOS, and Amiga consist of games made by 1 or 2 programmers, it's 99% shovelware.

Croc was so-so, that's why people don't talk about it.

Consoletard detected

 

[Falksi]

I don't see how your points make much sense, Chrono Trigger and Earthbound are not giants of the SNES because of commercial viability, but because of legacy. Mario 64 was still in that discussion next to FF7 and Ocarina, even back then.

Commodore, DOS, and Amiga consist of games made by 1 or 2 programmers, it's 99% shovelware.

Croc was so-so, that's why people don't talk about it.

Earthbound is a "giant" because of it's "legacy"? What legacy? 1 shitty game in Undertale?

And DOS games were 99% shovelware? Seriously?...

Some DOS Games

There's over 150 pretty quality DOS games there. Sure, there may be the odd mid or dud game in the list, but few other systems have roughly that amount of quality titles in a generation on a system.

And there are loads of other bangers (Coutdown to Doomsday, X-Wing, Dark sun Shattered Lands games etc.) not on there either.

 

[Mountain]

With the rise of the global internet we've seen media outlets and youtubers able to fudge history in ways that paint a false narrative of the past. Games like Earthbound and Chrono Trigger were commercial flops made for niche markets and are held up as giants of the SNES library. Nintendo's infamous gaming crash only applied to 1 regional market while the rest of the world was playing the Master System long into the PS2's line span. Commodore, DOS and Amiga history has been all but invalidated where anything not called Doom is unknown and a novelty for Twitch streamers to play when GoG releases it. The best game ever is Mario 64, despite the best game ever arguments on GameFAQS during that generation's life span were always between Zelda : Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy 7 and Mario 64 getting almost no attention until cross dressing losers started to speedrun it. Banjo Kazooie sold 3 million copies and was upstaged by Croc in magazine coverage and popularity in many regional markets but no one talks about Croc any more while youtube is full of fat fucks getting Jiggy with it.

These are a few examples of revisionism and how the current zeitgeist around retro gaming has been warped through badly researched videos and losers with entire rooms dedicated to NES games because their Dad left one day and never came back. How much of our current history do you think is accurate and what are your personal stories of history now forgotten or warped? Is Nintendo a saviour of the gaymen market or did they fuck up everything so hard they're lucky the industry survived at all? Do you remember the Commodore 64 and played many of the largest game library of any platform ever? Do you just want to say how annoying NES fanboys are and laugh at the constantly flickering sprites other platforms didn't suffer from? Do you want to defend blowing cartridges as a benefit over Atari ones just working? Do you believe ET is the worst game ever because AVGN said so? Lets argue it out and laugh at the manchildren going Bing bing wahoo!

I don't see how your points make much sense, Chrono Trigger and Earthbound are not giants of the SNES because of commercial viability, but because of legacy. Mario 64 was still in that discussion next to FF7 and Ocarina, even back then.

Commodore, DOS, and Amiga consist of games made by 1 or 2 programmers, it's 99% shovelware.

Croc was so-so, that's why people don't talk about it.

Consoletard detected

To be somebody, you need to play on PC and consoles, both of them, you need to be both PCtrash and a consoletard.

If not you are like a child.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Earthbound is a "giant" because of it's "legacy"? What legacy? 1 shitty game in Undertale?

How could you forget this masterpiece?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/459080/YIIK_A_Postmodern_RPG/

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Consoles couldn't even handle a lot of the best DOS games in that era; imagine trying to run X-Com on a SNES - it lacked either the processor power or the essential high-fidelity mouse controls to run a game that deep - it's shockingly multi-layered. Same for something like X-Wing or TIE Fighter. A console would have struggled with just the battle map of X-Com, never mind having a global strategic layer, and base-building layer. I'm not a purely "PC master race" guy, I play plenty of console stuff too, but cmon, to think that Chrono Trigger represents a gotcha over PC is insane.

What I think consoles did well, that some people perhaps mistake for an absolute advantage of 'kind' rather than 'potential', is that being a single unified platform, you could design games for them that were bespoke to that hardware, without worry that a certain GPU would fry. It allowed swift, stylish action games. As a PC owner, I was always looking in on PS2 titles like Devil May Cry, and wondering why there wasn't anything like that on PC. Smooth gameplay and stylish combos. Essentially, PC lacked big stylish Japanese franchises by the likes of Capcom, Namco and Konami.

But that advantage no longer exists. Consoles became PCs. Everything is on Steam.

 

[Falksi]

Consoles couldn't even handle a lot of the best DOS games in that era; imagine trying to run X-Com on a SNES - it lacked either the processor power or the essential high-fidelity mouse controls to run a game that deep - it's shockingly multi-layered. Same for something like X-Wing or TIE Fighter. A console would have struggled with just the battle map of X-Com, never mind having a global strategic layer, and base-building layer. I'm not a purely "PC master race" guy, I play plenty of console stuff too, but cmon, to think that Chrono Trigger represents a gotcha over PC is insane.

What I think consoles did well, that some people perhaps mistake for an absolute advantage of 'kind' rather than 'potential', is that being a single unified platform, you could design games for them that were bespoke to that hardware, without worry that a certain GPU would fry. It allowed swift, stylish action games. As a PC owner, I was always looking in on PS2 titles like Devil May Cry, and wondering why there wasn't anything like that on PC. Smooth gameplay and stylish combos. Essentially, PC lacked big stylish Japanese franchises by the likes of Capcom, Namco and Konami.

But that advantage no longer exists. Consoles became PCs. Everything is on Steam.

Funnily enough, I got Starfox on SNES shortly before getting my first PC, and going from Starfox to X-Wing was like jumping out a Ford to a Ferrari.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Or you could get TFX or Strike Commander, if your hardware could run the latter though

 

[Lucumo]

As a PC owner, I was always looking in on PS2 titles like Devil May Cry, and wondering why there wasn't anything like that on PC.

But DmC 3 was on the PC. I remember it very well because I was visiting a friend's place and saw the opening cutscene there.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Consoles couldn't even handle a lot of the best DOS games in that era; imagine trying to run X-Com on a SNES - it lacked either the processor power or the essential high-fidelity mouse controls to run a game that deep - it's shockingly multi-layered. Same for something like X-Wing or TIE Fighter. A console would have struggled with just the battle map of X-Com, never mind having a global strategic layer, and base-building layer. I'm not a purely "PC master race" guy, I play plenty of console stuff too, but cmon, to think that Chrono Trigger represents a gotcha over PC is insane.

both bad examples, since x-com ran on an amiga, less powerful than a snes, and by your words you're judging chrono trigger only by its technical specs and needs and not by how it completely revolutionized the genre, and its artistic value.

 

[Mountain]

I don't see how your points make much sense, Chrono Trigger and Earthbound are not giants of the SNES because of commercial viability, but because of legacy. Mario 64 was still in that discussion next to FF7 and Ocarina, even back then.

Commodore, DOS, and Amiga consist of games made by 1 or 2 programmers, it's 99% shovelware.

Croc was so-so, that's why people don't talk about it.

Earthbound is a "giant" because of it's "legacy"? What legacy? 1 shitty game in Undertale?

And DOS games were 99% shovelware? Seriously?...

Some DOS Games

There's over 150 pretty quality DOS games there. Sure, there may be the odd mid or dud game in the list, but few other systems have roughly that amount of quality titles in a generation on a system.

And there are loads of other bangers (Coutdown to Doomsday, X-Wing, Dark sun Shattered Lands games etc.) not on there either.

Earthbound's legacy came from the Americana theme, wackiness, and take on America.

I shouldn't have mentioned DOS, that's just PC games, I was thinking more about the other machines that were pitted against NES as forgotten through "revisionism", there were thousands of games on those systems with barely any quality control.

 

[Falksi]

how it completely revolutionized the genre and its artistic value.

This is exactly the type of retarded bullshit revisionism this thread is supposed to be against lol.

There was almost immediate shift to 3D after Chrono Trigger's release. Few games looked like it for ages afterwards.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

and that's again only the technical aspect. please, stop embarassing yourself.

 

[Falksi]

I don't see how your points make much sense, Chrono Trigger and Earthbound are not giants of the SNES because of commercial viability, but because of legacy. Mario 64 was still in that discussion next to FF7 and Ocarina, even back then.

Commodore, DOS, and Amiga consist of games made by 1 or 2 programmers, it's 99% shovelware.

Croc was so-so, that's why people don't talk about it.

Earthbound is a "giant" because of it's "legacy"? What legacy? 1 shitty game in Undertale?

And DOS games were 99% shovelware? Seriously?...

Some DOS Games

There's over 150 pretty quality DOS games there. Sure, there may be the odd mid or dud game in the list, but few other systems have roughly that amount of quality titles in a generation on a system.

And there are loads of other bangers (Coutdown to Doomsday, X-Wing, Dark sun Shattered Lands games etc.) not on there either.

Earthbound's legacy came from the Americana theme, wackiness, and take on America.

I shouldn't have mentioned DOS, that's just PC games, I was thinking more about the other machines that were pitted against NES as forgotten through "revisionism", there were thousands of games on those systems with barely any quality control.

I mean fair enough, but the NES was snyded with shovelware too. Difference being most the shovelware on a C64 cost £5 as opposed to the £30 NES games cost. And you could easily pirate some micro computer games too.

and that's again only the technical aspect. please, stop embarassing yourself.

What exactly do you mean by "artistic" aspect then? And which games serve as example of directly lifting that from Chrono Trigger?

 

[Louis_Cypher]

DmC 3

I looked it up, genuinely surprised, but this is what I found:

"DMC3 for PC is a notoriously bad port of the game from 2006/2007 by Ubisoft"

Sometimes PC ports existed of big Japanese games, but they were often botched ports.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

What exactly do you mean by "artistic" aspect then? And which games serve as example of directly lifting that from Chrono Trigger?

did monna lisa turn to shit when men invented photo? did we crush michelangelo's david once we had molten plastics? are we burning all mozart's records once we got autotune? art is art. humiliating i have to explain such basic concepts.


a brief summary of why chrono trigger was good.

 

[Falksi]

What exactly do you mean by "artistic" aspect then? And which games serve as example of directly lifting that from Chrono Trigger?

did monna lisa turn to shit when men invented photo? did we burn michelangelo's david once we had molten plastics? are we burning all mozart's records once we got autotune? art is art. humiliating i have to explain such basic concepts.


a brief summary of why chrono trigger was good.

No, Chrono Trigger's a highly overrated kids game with mind-numbingly dull/easy and predictable gameplay. If by "artistic aspect" you mean game quality, then you fail even harder, because it's literally a baby's first RPG.

It has some cool time mechanics, Frog's story is great, but you're doing exactly what this thread is talking about by building it into some genre-defining game and it's not and never was. Final Fantasy 7 suffered from some of the same flaws, but it's influence was FAR bigger and it defined the genre shortly afterwards, and Chrono trigger was long forgotten for years.