Ben Heck’s 16-Bit Console Wars!

Ben and Max are arguing over which system is better, the Super Nintendo or the Sega Genesis. In this episode Ben will take both consoles apart and then look at the main processor, the co-processors, the audio, the video and see how much ram is in each console. Ben will then hook the consoles up to an oscilloscope and compare the read/write speeds of their busses. There can be only one!
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[@Albert-lj5jb]

The Snes had technically superior audio capabilities, but that doesn't stop the Streets of Rage series from having the finest 16-bit music ever produced. Yuzo Koshiro really knew how to get the most out of that Yamaha chip.

[@Phished123]

Lots of SNES games had great soundtracks, but nothing that stood out to me like Yuzo's score for Streets or Shinobi, or Drossin with Comix Zone, or Baker's work for Toejam and Earl.

[@FlintG]

I grew up with the genesis in the 90s and still play it to this day such a fun console. No load times no ads no bs just you and the game.

[@tetsujin_144]

Shockwave No load times... Unless you got Sega CD! :) I totally wanted one as a kid, though. Wouldn't mind having one now, for that matter.

[@FlintG]

Tetsujin Same here too bad its kinda hard to come by I have the model 2 genesis and would like to have the model 2 sega cd. I do also have a sega dreamcast that still works great and have a good collection of games for it also most of my genesis games still have the original boxes.

[@tetsujin_144]

Shockwave I've hardly played anything on Genesis. I'd kind of like to pick one up sometime, though. I've got Famicom and NES (both RGB-modded... so pretty!), Super Famicom, and PC Engine, but I still haven't delved into the Genesis experience. People always talk say its sound wasn't as good as the SNES but to me it's like the last great "chiptune" system.

[@ravagingwolverine]

Tetsujin you should totally try the Genesis/Mega Drive and see for yourself if you like it. Its library is similar in style to the PC Engine in a lot of ways, in my opinion. As for its sound, its bad reputation comes from many western-developed games in which sound clearly wasn't a priority. The system has many games that made much better use of its sound. Its FM synth was common in the arcades for a while and could sound great when used right. One advantage it had in sound over the SNES was its clarity in many cases. SNES often has a muffled sound due to extra filtering. One nice thing about Genesis is that it outputs RGB without mods.

[@tetsujin_144]

ravagingwolverine I'd certainly like to pick up a Genesis but it's not a good time at present, sadly. One of these days I will. I still haven't built up my PC Engine library much, either. As for the RGB thing, SNES can do that, too. :) And most consoles can do at least S-video pretty easily. NES/Famicom is just one of those exceptions, it can't do anything better than composite without some pretty drastic modification. The PPU just doesn't produce anything else.

[@Michirin9801]

Guys, you're totally forgetting about the Turbografx 16! Okay, that was a console with an 8 bit CPU but it had 2 16 bit graphics processors! It could show even more colours on-screen than the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis combined! Not to mention, it was the most powerful 8 bit CPU of all time! It had even more arcade-close ports than the Genesis, and it was much faster than the Super Nintendo too! 7.1 MHz, almost as fast as the Genesis! And the sound was also amazing, it used wavetable synthesis (programmable waveforms) instead of FM synthesis from the Genesis or sampled sounds from the Super Nintendo, so it could produce cleaner sounds than the Genesis and the sounds were much less muffled than the SNES! The Turbografx 16 was an amazing system that deserves a lot more attention than it gets, it's a true hidden gem forgotten by time, and also a technological wonder considering that it is 1987 hardware that stands up really well against the 1988 Mega Drive and 1990 Super Famicom!

[@retrosoul8770]

Well, I don't know much about the Turbo Grafx, but what do you think are the best games on the system, since that's what matters most.

[@Michirin9801]

There are loads of great shmups on the system, but the stand-out ones that come to my mind are Hudson's Soldier series, which consists of Super Star Soldier, Final Soldier, Soldier Blade and Star Parodier (CD), there's also Blazing Lazers which was a great launch title, Air Zonk, Aero Blasters, 1943 KAI, Cotton Fantastic Night Dreams (CD) the absolute classics Gate of Thunder (CD) and Lords of Thunder (CD) and the system's holy grail Magical Chase, as well as many others that I would name if I had the whole day to keep on naming... There are also some pretty cool action platformers on the system such as the Bonk series, Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge and Bonk 3, they take some getting used to but once it clicks with you they're a blast, then there's New Adventure Island, one of the best in the series, Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu, which is probably the best game based on a celebrity, Dragon's Curse is like a Metroidvania with RPG-esque elements before Super Metroid was even a thing, Ninja Spirit is great, Legendary Axe 2 is a lot of fun, Kaze Kiri Ninja Action (CD) has amazing graphics that rival GBA games, Shubibinman 3 (CD) is a great (if super-easy) tech-demo, but the one true game that will get anyone hooked on the TurboGrafx-16 (unless they have a really messed up taste) is Castlevania Dracula X Rondo of Blood (CD), which I consider to be the absolute best game in the series bar none... And that's because I haven't even talked about the top-down action games, such as Bloody Wolf which is like Contra but from a top-down view, Last Alert (CD) is a spiritual successor to Bloody Wolf with amazingly bad voice acting, Cratermaze is a fun top-down maze game with a super-catchy soundtrack where you collect things and bury monsters to kill them, Valkyrie no Densetsu is Namco's best game on the system, Ys Books 1 and 2 (CD) is the quintessential Action RPG on the system, Ys IV, which was fan-translated, takes everything that Ys 1+2 did right and does it even better with amazing graphics and music, Neutopia 1 and 2 are the system's response to the Legend of Zelda, but they're flip-screen kinda like Zelda 1 (they came out before A Link to the Past) but hey, if you ever wanted a 16 bit version of Zelda 1 these are the games for you! Dungeon Explorer is the system's response to Gauntlet, it supports 5 player action, the sequel on CD is even better, but the top-down action game you must play on TurboGrafx-16 is Bomberman '94! It's the definitive Bomberman game on the system, it's pretty much the same game as Mega Bomberman on the Genesis, only better in every single way, there's also Bomberman '93 which is pretty good too, with great music to boot, but '94 is better... A few other honourable mentions that I can't fit into the aforementioned genres are Devil's Crush which is probably the best pinball video game ever, Special Criminal Investigation is a good racing game, a great version of Street Fighter II, a version of After Burner II which far surpasses the Genesis version, Ys 3 (CD) is my favourite Ys game, but it's a departure from the rest of the series for being a platforming RPG, Popful Mail (CD) is an even better platforming RPG but it's Japan-only so it's a little hard to progress, Double Dragon II (CD) is maybe the best version of the game, Cosmic Fantasy II (CD) is one of the few traditional RPGs for the system that was actually translated back in the day, Mad Stalker (CD) is a good sidescrolling beat'em up with mechs, Tengai Makyou Kabuki Ittoryoudan (CD) is the other best fighting game on the system, Asuka 120% Maxima Burning Fest (CD) is the 'other' other best fighting game on the system, and the Xanadu games (CD) are Japan-only action RPGs that really show off the system's graphics and sound capabilities, the 2nd game is currently being fan-translated, the closest thing you can get to them in English is Ys IV, so if you like that then look forward to that translation because Xanadu 2 has even better graphics and music!

[@niki75]

The assessment about the Power Base Converter is almost correct. It's mostly used for adapting the Mega Drive cartridge port to the Master System cartridge. But it also has some passive circuitry, I cant recall what exactly it does, but one of it's primary functions was to suspend the 68k (And to that extend the YM 2612 synth chip) and put the Z80 (and the Texas Instruments PSG) in charge of the system.

[@DamianYerrick]

15:29 The only parts of the Super NES that run at 1.8 MHz (same speed as the NES) are the controller ports. PPU I/O ports are 3.6 MHz, RAM is 2.7 MHz, and ROM can be 2.7 MHz or 3.6 MHz based on the memory control register.

[@GreekRetroGeek]

There is this strong feeling that everything in most genesis games run faster without struggling, there are more things happening on screen while backgrounds might include multiple layers and this contributes to the action being more intense. The snes, no denying how much I like it too, feels like it is more slugish despite more colorful. I always had this perception even 10 years ago when I was still unaware of those technichalities.

[@SpaceAce114]

Ben Heck confirms blast processing

[@mOczakowski]

...confirms what now, crap processing? oh no, it's bull shit advertising at it's best, for weak minded numbskulls that walk and drive around with their mouths open.

[@FriggOff361]

@@mOczakowski iz joke

[@Corristo89]

14:34 "The SNES lived under the bridge and ate people, but it wanted to learn the true meaning of Christmas." I almost fired my coffee at my screen when Ben randomly let off that line xD The limited power of the SNES really makes you wonder if the SNES CD addon from Sony (which would become the PlayStation to haunt Nintendo to this day) would've had enough processing power to actually take advantage of the much larger size of CDs. Ironically, the Genesis ran into the same problem, only the other way around. It had the processing power but lacked the graphical and audio capabilities to actually take advantage of CDs. In the end both consoles were great. Both had an amazing lineup of games and plenty of exclusives to keep us entertained for years. And to be honest, the Genesis wasn't really made to compete with the SNES, but with the NES. Remember, the Genesis came out in 1988, the SNES in 1990.

[@diglet553]

Still love my Megadrive more than my Super Nintendo, I grew up playing the MD so I'm way more attached to it in a nostalgic sense, it holds a very special place in my heart.

[@VexylObby]

I like how Ben humorously points out how esoteric the information he talks about can be. Thanks for trying to make a connection between the layman and the expert!

[@dan_loup]

Well, time to list and nitpick and be annoying. First, the power base converter don't just "make the cartridge fit", but it not only adapts the pinouts to work, but it also does some memory mapping wizardry to fool the SMS game into thinking the sega genesis memory map is the SMS memory map, but nothing major and the actual SMS work is indeed done by the genesis. Secondly, the snes indeed was planned at some point to run the NES games, but the main obstacle was the radically different audio chip, that simply could not emulate the NES audio. Now on the matter of the graphics data, both consoles work with 16 color, 8x8 graphic "bitmaps" called tiles that are assembled like a jigsaw puzzle onscreen, and both had the same exact size of tiles, memory wise. The higher variety of colors snes offered came from the wider selection of palettes to use on the tiles. The genesis offered you 4 sets of 16 colors, while the snes offered 16 sets. also those sets on the genesis were composed of 512 possible colors, while snes offered 32768 colors to choose from. Now to add one more interesting detail to the already big wall of text, the snes required much cheaper ROM chips because you could use slow, 8bit 2.68 or 3.58 Mhz ROM chips (yes, the devs could potentially sabotage the system even more by using cheaper 2.68 Mhz roms) on the system, which allowed most snes games to actually have more data than the genesis ones, that required a blazing fast 7.6 Mhz ROM with 16bit bus, thus why games with more details and tile variety etc like RPGs were better on the snes, while games that required a CPU that was not constantly in pain ran better on the genesis. And well, in terms of which is better is entirely dependent on your taste for games and your mood, as not only the developers were wildly different, as the systems enforced wildly different games with their limitations, and the developers of that time in general tried their best to deliver awesome games, and did what they could do.

[@Modenut]

The show starts at 1:37 if you want to skip the awkward acting.

[@livvy94]

I care more about "which games are more fun" than "which system is technically superior"

[@sparticus214]

+vince94 (haxxor199x) Both are equally obsolete because 100 megahertz is the minimum unit that matters at all in modern Risc architecture .

[@retrosoul8770]

Both are very fun timeless consoles, collect for them both. I can't imagine a 16-bit era without Alien Soldier or Mega Man X Super Metroid or Shinobi 3 NInja Warriors or Streets of Rage 2 Final Fantasy VI or Shining Force (1 or 2) R-Type 3 or Thunder Force IV Contra 3 or Gunstar Heroes the list goes on and on...

[@retrosoul8770]

I'm confused by your comment. 3rd parties are not as much concerned with technical superiority as they are with the consoles install base size and sales rate. Hence why the DS, 3DS and Ps2 received more support despite being technically inferior to their direct competitors. Also you somewhat contradicted yourself by lumping the GC in there, the GC was superior to the Ps2 yet received less games, (though it still received wayy more than the 64 and Wii U), so it's ridiculous to compare the GC to those two. Also our comments are regarding the 16-bit systems not the 6th gen systems?

[@greyfoxzero]

Neo Geo was technically a 16 bit system. That would mean without a doubt it was king of the 16 bit systems.

[@hezekiahramirez6965]

+Grey Fox What was that "24 bit" thing about? I never got that. I mean visually it was definitely superior, I mean play the games on the hardware and it's readily apparent, but I don't know what the hell was going on there.

[@greyfoxzero]

+Hezekiah Ramirez It was 16+8 so for "marketing" purposes they said 24. It's the longest lived system to date with 14 years of software release.

[@greyfoxzero]

+Hezekiah Ramirez It was 16+8 so for "marketing" purposes they said 24. It's the longest lived system to date with 14 years of software release.

[@gabiballetje]

So... is it possible to mix the two up and frankenstein up a SNEnesis ?

[@natgrant1364]

This needs to happen.

[@danibot3000]

This was infinite times more clearer and also enjoyable then the infinite amount of opinion videos out there :)

[@josephperry3700]

I love Super Nintendo Chalmers

[@teamcannonfodder3410]

so since the master system could be played on a genesis without the power base converter...maybe a future project you could do would be putting a second cartridge slot on a genesis so you can have both on a second system without the power base converter

[@Douglie007]

+Team Cannon Fodder you could make a second port, and you could use add in the FM sound chip to give the SMS games better audio. To save you time you can get a mini power base with FM from Stone Age Gamer.

[@teamcannonfodder3410]

Doug Plummer im thinking more of a future project for Ben, it would be much simpler than some of the projects he does and would be interesting to see how well it performs

[@Douglie007]

gotcha, will in that case he can build the FM sound board himself and add it to the new port, then make the entire system into a better portable then the Nomad. Even start with a Nomad, you can mod it to play the SMS games also

[@TheChikyChiky]

What bugs me is that this is all known information. Anybody who's capable of googling spec sheets can do a side by side comparison. Base console, the SNES trumped virtually everything except for processing speed. This was Sega's only claim, so my God, Blast Processing was plastered every where! Never mind that audio was generally better on the SNES. Never mind that the color palette was larger and brighter than the SNES. Never mind that rotation and scaling could be handled in Mode 7 with the SNES while the Genesis needed it's 32X and CD Attachments.

[@ravagingwolverine]

TheChikyChiky considering Nintendo had an extra two years to develop the hardware, it's strange that they even let Sega have that advantage. And it's not a small thing either as it allowed Genesis games to have more objects on screen without slowing down which is a big plus for some genres such as shooters. There are a number of examples of SNES games with less going on in general or inexplicable slowdown. It's an advantage Sega probably shouldn't have had at all.

[@goncalotordo4507]

TheChikyChiky This is actually not true. The Genesis has other advantages over the SNES that were either not mentioned in the video or were only briefly mentioned here. Did you notice the part where he said each pixel on the Genesis carries less data because of the lower color count? There's an upside for Sega on that: Its games run at a higher resolution. Basically, Genesis games run at a higher resolution than SNES games. Another difference not explained in the video are sound channels. The Genesis uses 10 sound channels while the SNES uses 8. Finally, he didn't compare the clockspeed on the co-processors. The Genesis' co-processor runs at a faster MHZ than the SNES' main processor. So there's a lot more to it than just a faster CPU.

[@tammura22letsplays]

+Gonçalo Tordo you just blow my mind

[@goncalotordo4507]

+TAMPUZ Thank you :)

[@tammura22letsplays]

+Gonçalo Tordo i didn't even know sega genesis/megadrive had 10 sound channels i thought the snes had more sound channels but when i saw your comment.. BOOM!

[@SproutyPottedPlant]

Some prefer the FM synthesis sound but I like both sound chips.

[@midnight80090]

"He's gonna take you back to the past, to mod some shitty consoles that suck ass. He rather have a terabyte take a diarrhea dump in his ear."

[@yoianrhodes]

midnight80090 so wait... the thing that made your trolling possible is shitty

[@midnight80090]

yo ianrhodes I was doing a poor as stated above parody of the AVGN theme not trolling :)

[@yoianrhodes]

Sorry I guess I thought you thought that this was shitty

[@yoianrhodes]

I'm sorry and I love your face

[@midnight80090]

yo ianrhodes Haha well thanks mate!

[@rickonami]

5:21 WOW! I'ts cool that you recognize the MSX systems.

[@audrniasn]

WOW! You around here! Love ur channel!

[@SomeOrangeCat]

Decades later, sad Genesis fans still seeking some sort of redemption for a chapter of history that's already been written.

[@kablooey2369]

+Andrew Vrba Read this paragraph. The SNES chip may be more capable, but its the one that sounds like shit. How? The reason revolves around how it uses its audio ram. The genesis, with its 8k audio ram, is fine. It actually could probably do fine with 6k due to the synthesizer making very effective use of its audio ram.. However, the SNES, having a non synthesized audio chip, is constantly filling the audio ram and making a terrible use of it. 64k may sound like enough, but 64k audio ram is not enough for the SNES. That's why it sounds muddy and has no bass. Also not to mention, the genesis can swap its memory faster due to its 7 MHZ cpu. I will admit, if the SNES did not have its memory bottleneck and slow CPU, it would be better than the genesis. But the factor is Nintendo was really stupid when they designed the SNES, and even the N64 (Controlled entirely by the GPU), and SEGA's engineering division was superior in many ways. If they had built a system meant to kick the SNES out of the market, they could have done so. But you have to remember that the Genesis was meant to compete with the NES. I will say that the Genesis has terrible graphical capabilities compared to the SNES. This states teh differance between the two systems. Nintendo had a terrible engineering team, and thats the reason the Genesis survived. Engineer from Nintendo: "Lets build a system to beat the other system and make sure it has severe bottleneck because we wanted to do a cheap shitty job at building a system capable of beating our competition" Nintendo CEO: "That sounds like a great idea!". 2 years earlier: Sega engineers building the genesis: "Lets build a system that has a shitty video processor but great CPU and nice audio with no bottleneck" Sega CEO:"Cool lets do this!" Sega of Japan:"Today at Sega of Japan, we are going to be little shits and shoot our own company in the foot by declining every good idea from our awesome team in america" -(Just a joke but its true XD).

[@SomeOrangeCat]

DejaVoodooDoll But if you needed to buy a peripheral that cost as much as a console, to get better audio, does that really count as "winning"?

[@filthypigdaddy]

+Phoenix Gaming God you Sega fanboys are annoying

[@kaoticisland]

There’s one more contender you guys totally missed. Turbo Grafx 16

[@StoneFlange]

Felix breaks up the fights, knows Linux well and manages all the important stuff in the lab (such as girl scout cookies)... I'm beginning to think he is the invisible hand guiding the show to success!! I'm registering life long members of the #FFC (Felix fan club) starting now!

[@schmatzler]

Jim Stiernberg I wonder if he's also cutting the videos. Since Alison left they look much more awesome and the notes in the text boxes have useful information instead of just...things.

[@StoneFlange]

Haha!! That's true, I find myself actually pausing the video to read the notes carefully now

[@thepoliticalstartrek]

Motorola 68K possibly the most epic CPU ever. I think they stopped making it in 2012.

[@thewandererguitar]

You can't really claim SNES winner with 64KB of audio RAM vs 8KB of audio RAM since these are two completely different audio subsystems. The SNES uses its audio RAM to store samples while the Genesis uses its mis-named audio RAM to store the Z80 program which runs the audio subsystem. Samples on the Genesis are actually read directly from the cartridge ROM by the Z80. Therefore the Genesis didn't need a large amount of RAM. The Neo Geo only had 2KB of audio RAM and we all remember how shitty the audio was on Neo Geo right?

[@HypnoSwag]

+db-elec I'm biased as hell, but you watch any comparison video on KZbin and they always favor the SNES. It was technologically a superior console. You can try and justify the opposite to the best of you're abilities, but at the end of the day it was better.

[@HypnoSwag]

Please stop flooding my inbox with your ridiculous comments. You're obviously butthurt about my opinions regarding the Genesis, but frankly I don't care. Take it elsewhere.

[@Hypno-Swag]

You do seem pretty butthurt, and that's why you're firing back at all of his comments. Take your long winded rants somewhere else. Nobody is going to read all these ridiculous paragraph long comments you keeps posting.

[@Hypno-Swag]

Sounds more to me like he's irritated than offended. I would be too if my inbox was pummeled with several unnecessarily long responses to a comment.

[@HypnoSwag]

***** LOL, I think you got him all fired up, and now he's trying to be subtle about it.

[@davidzel2]

That was by far the best and most interesting comparison I have ever seen. AWESOME!!!!

[@troy4393]

While the SNES had a slower processor, it could preform WAY more operations per second than the Genesis. (and SNES had mode 7, where as the genesis couldn't do mode 7 without the Sega CD) And the super FX chip (and other special chip games) only cost $10 more than a regular game. Sega's only SVP chip game, Virtua Racing, cost over $100!

[@troy4393]

***** But nobody did (or could)it at at the time. The computers they used were far too limited. It's like saying the Atari 2600 supports speech synthesis. It does, but with atarivox which was not developed until over 30 years after the original release on far more advanced computers.

[@troy4393]

***** They didn't know the hardware well enough to do it. Trust me, if they could, they would. Nowadays there are ways to play Sega CD games in genesis cartridges, but they couldn't do it in the 90's because they didn't have the technology or a good enough understanding of the hardware.

[@troy4393]

***** Clearly, they didn't know everything, otherwise they would have used mode 7 in another one of their super biased comparison commercials.

[@troy4393]

***** The term "blast processing" was mainly inspired by the speed of the processor (and it's supposed superiority over the SNES), and by the speed of their blue mascot. If they could do mode 7, they would That's the way Sega of america worked. Their attitude towards pretty much everything was "Why the F*ck not?". It would be one less thing that the SNES could do that the genesis couldn't.

[@goncalotordo4507]

Troy Dietz Does it really matter if they didn't do it back then? They're doing it now and the homebrew scene over at the Sega Genesis is amazing. So far it definitely trumps any homebrew scene for the SNES. in 2010 we received a new Sega Genesis game on a cartridge called Pier Solar. Project Y is currently well under development and it looks like an arcade game from '92. Undead Line was released earlier this year and more Sega Genesis releases have already been strongly hinted at.

[@Ger221SP]

Audio samples of the SNES are of low quality, whereas the synthesized sound of genesis has high fidelity audio. That makes at the present the sounds of the SNES sound like old tapes.

[@DjVortex-w]

Super Metroid is a counter-example to your deduction that the SNES could only be used to play slow-moving/slow-paced games. I don't know if, and what kind of, programming tricks they needed to invent to make it work, but the console was clearly capable.

[@GaryBusey-sLaserdiscCollection]

WarpRulez A separate chip on the cartridge to make up for the crap CPU. Much in the same way Sega made a CD addon for better audio plus hardware scaling and rotation.

[@spiderobert]

WarpRulez Super Metroid was certainly not as fast as sonic. which is a pointless argument, because going fast never really added to the game and most of the game-play of Sonic was kind of boring compared to a lot of SNES titles.

[@DjVortex-w]

spiderobert "Fast" in this context shouldn't be a measure of how many pixels per frame the background moves. That's trivial, and doesn't measure any kind of hardware prowess. Rather, it should be a measure of how much stuff is moving on the screen at the same time. In other words, how fast the console is at rendering moving stuff.

[@spiderobert]

WarpRulez but that's rendered on the graphics chip and is stored in the graphics chip memory, which they already said is superior

[@b4ux1t3-tech]

WarpRulez The difference is that Super Metroid had supplementary hardware inside its cartridge. The Genesis, by itself, is better for fast-paced games. There is literally no arguing that, as that's exactly what this video showed. Super Metroid was the exception that proves the rule.

[@TheDrakon]

I always thought what makes a system truly great is how good the library of games for it are. There's plenty of systems with far more powerful hardware but much weaker game libraries.

[@glitchsmasher]

I can't see the bad graphics of MK on the genesis behind all the blood on screen the SNES doesn't have.

[@fnjesusfreak]

***** MK2 was much better on the SNES. Most of the sound was missing on the Genesis. :P Plus the music was on the wrong levels.

[@fnjesusfreak]

But they still did a better job than Probe. I would have liked to see how an MK2 port on the Genesis would have come out on Sculptured's watch - I bet it would have been a lot better, and would have rivalled the SNES port.

[@fnjesusfreak]

*nod*. But here we have an apples-to-apples comparison, as opposed to with the MK2 ports when you could blame the inferior Genesis port on the developer.

[@fnjesusfreak]

32X too. Better than the Genesis port? Sure. But why was it STILL worse in almost every way than the SNES?

[@glitchsmasher]

***** I love how it took suck a big add on for Sega to be on par or still fall short of the SNES. The prime example is Doom, where the SNES version beat the 32X version by far (While the original PC version stomped all ports)

[@matthewwolff3729]

Sega shattered Nintendo's dominance in the home console market, thus paving the way for Sony to become the market leader!

[@ConsoleWars]

Lol such an awesome video!

[@Hitman-cn6zz]

lololololo Console wars

[@PopeYoda]

The intro finally perfectly embodies The Ben Heck Show. Well done.

[@arwlyx]

Ben! If possible, do a Playstation 2 vs Original Xbox detailed benchmark and testing. It was the fanboy fight of the 2000s! I'd love to see that, specially knowing that the PS2 was waaaaay ahead of it's time.

[@jorenmartijn]

What about the GameCube? Can't it join the benchmarking party?! :P

[@arwlyx]

jorenmartijn I don't think the GameCube has that much of horsepower compared to the PS2 and Xbox

[@dan_loup]

Well, benchmarking those systems would not do justice because the plot is quite thicker. The PS2 is basically a system with a very powerful CPU but a very basic GPU with a very fast but small video memory (4MB at blazing fast 48GB/s that is pretty much twice the speed of the PS3 video memory (!)). Now on other hand, both cube and Xbox have a weaker CPU, but most of the 3D workload is made by the more advanced GPU that did for example hardware T&L and mixed the audio on separate DSPs, instead of using the CPU like the PS2 did. Also cube/Xbox supported texture compression, that allowed em to do more with their memory spaces, and primitive pixel shaders, that allowed em to do certain special effects on screen like bump mapping, screen deformations, realtime shadows... This last part the PS2 CPU can actually pull off, but you needed to sacrifice the CPU time the game would use.

[@kerndesertpreppers1274]

Mike Fox Screw the new consoles go old school or go home.

[@TheSliderW]

Mike Fox Would be more fair and accurate to compare the PS2 to the DCast and Xbox to GC. Xbox would win in any case though.

[@nekomasteryoutube3232]

From that era of Gaming, I have 3 consoles that I had at least 2 favourite games on. Sega Genesis : Phantasy Star 2 and 4 (Never finished PS2, but I have Finished PS4 at least 4 times in my life, as I grew up with that game). Shining force is an honourable mention here Super Nintendo : Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger (Never finished both but got pretty far in each game IMO). Sword of Mana is an honourable mention here TurgoGrafx 16\PC engine : Popful Mail and YS Book 1 & 2 (Again, never finished either but got rather far in each game)

[@Renegade666]

Megadrive and SNES Audio is completely different, neither is actually "Better", although I really prefer the Megadrive soundchip, especially for the more upbeat electronic/rock based music. And come on, no one can deny this has one of the best soundtracks to any game ever: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oZemqGeqrZp0g6c

[@retrosoul8770]

Fully agreed, I prefer the sound chip of the Genesis also, I adore the Musha/Thunder Force IV/Gunstar/Comix Zone/Shinobi esque metal and rock sound. It delivers fantastic bass and tremble. It's loud, clear, crisp, unique, and awesome. I do also really appreciate the orchestral contrast of the Snes chip too however. Games like Final Fantasy VI, Super M, DKC, Contra 3 truly sound fantastic too, I hate how folks make these ignorant blanket statements though. While it's true that the Snes chip is "newer" than the Gen chip, there is no way it's sound is "objectively" better than the Gen, that simply just isn't the case because both chips seem better at different musical styles. There's *always* a gray area, nothing in life is ever so black and white.

[@riche8958]

nice timing with the bill murry ghostbusters quote. I dunno who else caught it. channel is awesome, even thou you officially killed my childhood belief that snes/genesis/n64 etc worked on magic. I subbed.

[@chrisw8069]

SNES games also run at a lower resolution 256x224 vs 320x224 on the Genesis.

[@chrisw8069]

Caleb Claxton actually no it doesn't . Running a menu at 512x448 is not the same as running in game at 256x224. Fact is the Genesis ran most games at 320x224 and the snes ran all of its games at 256x224.

[@retrosoul8770]

To add, if you boot Genesis and Snes games on emulators you can tangibly and very easily see the difference in screen resolution. In their native aspect ratios, you can see on your monitor that the Snes window is a cropped square, while the Genesis window is rectangular, allowing a wider horizontal field of vision in it's games. Games like Revenge of Shinobi and Thunder Force IV, compared to sayy Mega Man X and Contra 3 very easily display the difference in field of view (aka screen resolution).

[@chrisw8069]

Caleb Claxton Snes cpu couldn't push as many sprites as the Genesis. That's why even the legend of Zelda had slowdown. Sports games and Shumps are especially better on Genesis than Snes. For better or for worse the two systems are equal. Where one is great the other isn't and vice versa.

[@retrosoul8770]

Chris W it's irritating how many people just don't see that. One big reason I think is because "brighter and more vibrant" colors in SMW is easier to notice than "how many sprites are on screen" in SOR2 and Gunstar Heroes. But still, the ignorance regarding the technical prowess of both consoles is insane. So many misconceptions out there and all are almost blindly in favor of the Snes.

[@mrmong]

You missed out that genesis has a higher native video resolution than snes by a noticeable amount, also more audio ram doesn't mean better audio quality, the synth chip in a genesis sounds clear and lacks the fuzz that snes music has, however some board revisions on the genesis ruins the sound

[@ramsesgarcia8461]

Anyone know how to make snes grey again. I hot used one it is extremely yellow.

[@Sonicdude10]

Ramses Garcia Retro Bright. Look it up.

[@Armanition]

There isn't much you can do. The problem with older hardware like that, is in the plastic itself. To conform to fire safety standards, a flame retardant chemical was added to the plastic in consoles (among other hardware). Over time, as the plastic is exposed to UV light and/or heat, that flame retardant chemical makes the plastic have a yellowish color to it. You may notice that if you have an older cartridge with stickers on it, you'll find that the plastic underneath looks brand new. The same would apply if you looked at the plastic inside the console (or cartridges, etc.). You're better off leaving it as-is. If you try to use say, a general purpose cleaner on it, or a Magic Eraser or whatever else, you'll do more damage to the plastic than it's worth. Your best bet is to try and reduce exposure to light or heat sources. Hope this helps!

[@SMAAAASHTV]

***** Retr0Brite is just a recipe that uses the hair developer you speak of, it's not an actual product you can buy anywhere.

[@SMAAAASHTV]

***** that's just someone selling premixed ingredients based on the recipe, not an actual licensed product. I don't even know if it's legal to sell it on ebay due to the chemicals.

[@nychold]

Actually, I think the Neo Geo was the best 16 bit console of the day, even though it was incredibly expensive and no one had it. But, of the two most common 16 bit consoles, each had its advantages, but I give the upper hand to SNES for only two reasons: (and yes, I pronounce each letter in the title) (1) The 65816 did require multiple data reads and writes in order to handle 16 bit data, true, but most of its operations took few clock cycles. There's no operation on a 68000 that takes less than 4 clock cycles to complete, just because of how it was designed. Meanwhile, the 65816 could perform several operations in 2 or 3 clock cycles. The 65816, despite its slow clock speed, *was* a faster chip for general operations. It did, however, lack multiply or divide operations which would give the 68000 the advantage there, even though division on the 68000 was incredibly slow. (2) The Genesis was released in 1988, and it was likely in development for years before hand. The SNES was released in 1990, two years later. Those two years meant more bang for the buck, allowing Nintendo to put more RAM (one of your touted features) and better tech into the SNES. Which gives the SNES an advantage bordering on cheating. You may as well compare the SNES to the Intellivision. I mean, they're both popular 16-bit consoles, even though there's a 10 year gap in production. So, yeah, it's fun to compare the systems, but without proper contexts, it will always boil down to "SNES came out later, had better technology, and was therefore superior." But at the same time, despite having inferior technology, the Genesis fought the SNES and held its own. It was two years older (which, in tech terms, is HUGE) but it was still as popular as the SNES. That says a lot.

[@akawhut]

I always called the Snes either Super NES, Super Nintendo or S NES (s as it's own word), but never snes. That just sounds wierd.

[@b4ux1t3-tech]

akawhut Ess en ee ess ftw.

[@bzhmaddog]

akawhut In France we called it Super NES or Super Nintendo

[@GTSN38]

+akawhut people who Don't like nintendo call it sness , they're mad cause SNES kicks sguh's ass that's what I call a Sega Genesis (A sguh)

[@danhoang4291]

There can be only one... TurboGrafx-16!

[@synaesthesia2010]

really wish you people would refer to the genesis by its true name, the megadrive, it was only called the genesis in america be a product there with the name megadrive already existed

[@jessietomich8043]

+craig thomas I didn't know there was a world outside of America.

[@HypnoSwag]

+craig thomas Genesis just sounds better.

[@doug6394]

you're not going to throw a fit they're not saying "Super Famicom"?

[@rosemaryfriedw124a8]

+Rockman IXA genesis have the 8-bit audio

[@Schwarzorn]

It's not like they renamed it for Europe; the console was named the Mega Drive, released in Japan as such (1988), renamed Sega Genesis for North America (1989), and released in South Korea, Europe, and Oceania, and Zealandia as, of course, Mega Drive (1990).

[@Fordi]

I love the new intro, man. The "Regrettable Acting" bit made me laugh out loud the first time.

[@Slot1Gamer]

My mum just calls both the Genesis and SNES "Nintendo"

[@TheLoveMario]

Slot1Gamer she should at least call the Genesis "Sega" instead of both "Nintendo"... this is a mistake most moms do.

[@MrROTD]

Slot1Gamer My mum called the cartridges tapes

[@Porygonal64]

Rex Holes You put the freakin' tape in wrong.

[@damonmc2106]

Slot1Gamer My mum called every system "game"....even the computer was just "game" Mum: "Stop playing game!" Me: "It's called an Xbox!"

[@MikaelMurstam]

Slot1Gamer that's because for moms, the word "Nintendo" means video game console.

[@TheBalancedFan]

Did you show the data for when the Genesis uses both audio chips from the Master System and Genesis for certain games, such as Streets of Rage 2? Yuzo Koshiro and the composers at Technosoft used both the 6 channel FM chip (Genesis) and the 4 Channel PSG chip (Master System) to make the music richer. Did you include this in the spec? A lot of people omit that, and it really does make a lot of Genesis games sound better.

[@adnaanmansuri6151]

"Chrono Trigger. Best game ever made." Nuff said.

[@MASTERVETEAM4]

Yeah but Castlevania IV locks the frequency at 2.68 instead of 3.58. (Early game didn't use the full CPU. )

[@Sprong4]

to me saying the snes sound chip is supirior is the same as saying a 12 string acoustic guitar is better than a 6 string electric because it has more strings. they are both completely different instruments and each has its own distinct sound.

[@104d_3rr0r_vince]

Where is the PSG on genesis? Did I missed this part? Snes had more colors but most games run at a lower resolution.

[@retrospiel]

It's actually the opposite: Genesis games run in HIGHER resolution than SNES (320x224 vs 256x224) so it effectively has less VRAM to store the graphics of an individual screen.

[@Christuserloeser]

retrospiel He does his "research" using Wikipedia.

[@JohnRiggs]

I like how you speak in a language that I can understand. I appreciate that :) Great video.

[@TofranBohk]

I find it mildly annoying when people say "sness" or "snez ". I always said, "Super NES" or "Super Nintendo" (sometimes ess en ee ess).

[@fnjesusfreak]

t0f0b0 I sometimes even still say just "Super"

[@KhanGarth]

Yeah Ben is weird. Who says "snes" phonetically? Everyone's says Super Nintendo or often just Super, given the right context of course.

[@fnjesusfreak]

Outside of him and ReviewTechUSA, I've never heard "SNES" pronounced phonetically. (Ironically, I think I lived in the same general area as ReviewTechUSA back in the SNES era.)

[@TheBalancedFan]

Garth Palmer I say SNES

[@LotoTheHero]

t0f0b0 I wouldn't say I find it annoying though perhaps a bit odd. I referred to Nintendo's first system as the N.E.S. (en ee ess) , so it only seemed natural to call the "Super" version the Super N.E.S. I honestly don't see why it bothers people. We all know what system is being referred to. :P

[@Alianger]

Would be interesting to see how fast/intense SNES games like Sparkster and Rendering Ranger read on that thing. Overall this was good but you could do more episodes to take in more factors like resolution (in practice many multiplatform games had somewhat higher res on MD/GEN), how code took up less space on SNES (?), addons vs cart chips and so on.

[@MrROTD]

SNES is way better never mind any specs because it's the games and controller that kicked so much ass

[@WR3ND]

I was an NES kid and we had a Genesis later on and would rent the SNES occasionally, but yeah, in general I prefer the SNES for the games. Tech specs are more relevant in PCs and computational work. Having good games are more relevant for gaming consoles. For example, I much prefer the SNES over the N64 overall, and even the NES over the SNES.

[@WR3ND]

For a little perspective, the Motorola 68000 processor of the Genesis is the same processor in 20 year old TI-89 calculator.

[@movement1957]

I beg to differ, the megadrive has way better sharp RGB video support and looks way better in my opinion

[@Atariatari-ky9te]

Yeah this video is old and Ben is comparing the composite video of each. The Mega Drive has the best RGB picture compared to the SNES and PC Engine (both are more muddy looking compared the the sharp clean Genesis image). I am so happy Sega used 320 resolution as the native res for the Mega Drive instead of 256 like the SNES and PC Engine. 320 Res gave a more acurate arcade video picture.

[@Schwarzorn]

My pet peeve has always been both the 'S-N-E-S' _and_ 'Snes' pronunciations, as well as 'Super Nintendo'. The official abbreviation is *Super NES*.

[@ribenasquash]

Yeah but do you pronounce it “ness” or “nez”?

[@hitkid2456]

It's just to cut down on syllables you know. Not everyone wants to say a mouthful. (Hell I'd say "SFC" if I could get away with it.)

[@Schwarzorn]

@@ribenasquash Nes, not Nez. S only becomes like a Z when it's pluralizing or sometimes if in the middle of a word. That includes with a silent E after it. Even tho...I pronounce _grease_ as "grees" despite the "greez" pronunciation making more "sense".

[@ribenasquash]

@@Schwarzorn Yes but SNES has a Z sound on it’s final letter because otherwise you sound like an idiot. Nobody pronounced it like that in the 90’s. I can think of lots of words ending in two s’s but not many with only one. I only came up with bus and bogus.

[@Schwarzorn]

@@hitkid2456 Sure... The main one used in North America only cuts five syllables down to four. And it's used in writing where syllable count is irrelevant.

[@s0nnyburnett]

Great episode, love this kind of stuff. Should do more console comparisons.

[@lillydoye7418]

*Cough cough* mode 7 *Cough cough*

[@shiru8bit]

Michael Obed Mode 7 is called so because it is one of 8 modes of the main SNES graphics chip. It is available without any additional hardware on cartridge.

[@adimifus]

As an example, f-zero made extensive use of mode 7 without any additional hardware on the cartridge.

[@SMAAAASHTV]

Michael Obed cough cough moron cough cough.

[@thegreatagitator4675]

SMAAAASHTV cough cough butthurt cough cough.

[@SMAAAASHTV]

The Great Agitator cough cough you're a dumbass, mode 7 was all done with system hardware cough cough

[@ChrisLeeW00]

It's not the size of the hardware, but the flexibility of the software that really counts.

[@topherwaters80]

snes was better. nuff said. that's the definitive answer.

[@Leroyteam]

Explain?

[@topherwaters80]

Imo, it was the better console of the two.

[@cormano64]

"the definitive answer" =/= "imo"

[@Leroyteam]

Chris Waters Why was it the better console? Explain, unless your a zombie fanboy.

[@topherwaters80]

+The Trust well my opinion was that it had better games then genesis, but that's just my opinion. I'm not a fanboy.

[@treepizzle]

What about the turbo grafx!!!!!????? Amazing system!

[@TimmyTechTV]

Ben is soooooo wrong. Its S-NES

[@presterjohn71]

Moogle Midgar, Snez in the UK.

[@duskbump]

just noticed the setup with the computer behind Heck. Genius how that worked out...no case required.

[@JC-qu5lv]

Also comparison of the FX chip in carts and the SVP for Genesis? Love your vids!

[@pokey4200]

Excellent! Hey Ben Heck can you do a video on the backwards compatibility ? That you talked about in this episode...

[@DatGameCollector]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the longer the life cycle of older consoles yield more power out of games. So using a launch game maybe wasn't the best choose?

[@fusoya6544]

Would love to see an analysis of the PC Engine and Neo Geo consoles to make up the 4th gen.

[@skizzik121]

Poor turbo gratis 16 never got any love...now OR then but I loved mine truly and deeply

[@Maru96]

skizzik121 it got a lot of love in japan, even sold better than japanese genesis.

[@Siosal01]

Been watching your show for years but consider me a subscriber now. Man I miss my old Sega Genesis (stolen). Great video.

[@Slot1Gamer]

The Ben Heck Show 4:18 The Mega drive has a motorolla 68000 processor but does use a Zilog Z80 for sound and input / output processing. The master system only has a Zilog Z80 for all tasks. The Powerbase Converter (which allows you to play Master System games on the Mega Drive) reroutes the cartridge to use the Z80 processor already in the Mega Drive. But it does contain a Mega Drive ROM image which instructs the Mega Drive on what to do with the input. This means that Master System games will only work on the Mega Drive WITH the powerbase converter. If you try to plug them in directly it is likely you will damage the cart and/or megadrive.

[@kanpaifighto]

Ben! Funny you would mention potential backwards compatibility on the SNES! The game Super Mario All-Stars was, with the exception of audio and visual assets, ported directly from the old NES source of each respective Mario game...it even still has some of the old debug features left in from Mario 3 as a result, inadvertently of course. Guess the similar architecture was something Nintendo was very aware of!

[@dishwater63]

How did you get into the SNES? They have a security socket on the screws that need a specific head to unscrew them. Did you just pry it apart, make your own tool, or purchase a tool? The reason I'm asking is because I'm looking for a good security bit for the SNES and the one that I bought did not work. It was junk. So I'd like to buy one that's reliable. Thanks in advance if you respond!

[@edwest2263]

I just discovered this channel and it is so awesome! You've combined electronics engineering AND retrogaming. My mind. I can't even... As for the video, not too many surprises. While "blast processing" was a made up technical spec, the term was not completely unfounded. You proved that by comparing processor speed and emphasizing bus width. What was Nintendo thinking with an 8-bit data bus? Maybe backwards compatibility was the true motive. I own both (including 32X and Sega CD attachments), but I always preferred the Genesis library for its arcade gameplay. SNES games that fell into the arcade/action genres or ports always seemed too slow paced for me, despite better visuals. Sound quality varied; I hated the fake SNES "trumpety" samples and weak bass, but some Genesis soundtracks, notably from EA, are terribly grating on the ears. Still, SNES is a great system for RPGs. Though the Genesis fared well in that department as well (Shining Force, Phantasy Star), especially with the Sega CD add on (see Working Designs' releases, Shining Force CD). The Sega CD's redbook audio, FMV, along with Mode 7 equivalent hardware scaling and rotation IMO leveled the playing field between SNES and Genesis when it came to RPGs. On the other hand, the Genesis 32X was just simply awful. Arguably it doesn't offer anything more than an SNES teamed with a SuperFX chip. But in the end, for me the Genesis was the best 16 bit system of all time.

[@uHnodnarB]

I like how Felix is like "hey, do you guys want the neighbors to call the cops on us again?"

[@ovodomina]

Great Video! Blast Processing Lives in our hearts!!

[@Slot1Gamer]

at 4:11 Ben says you can plug a master system game directly into the console... "There was nothing inside it (the MS adapter) and all it did was adapt the shape of the cart" The Mega drive has a motorolla 68000 processor but does use a Zilog Z80 for sound and input / output processing. The master system only has a Zilog Z80 for all tasks. The Powerbase Converter (which allows you to play Master System games on the Mega Drive) reroutes the cartridge to use the Z80 processor already in the Mega Drive. But it does contain a Mega Drive ROM image which instructs the Mega Drive on what to do with the input. This means that Master System games will only work on the Mega Drive WITH the powerbase converter. If you try to plug them in directly it is likely you will damage the cart and/or megadrive. TLDR, if you plug a Master system game directly into the console you will most likely kill the game and system..

[@PrinceXTC86]

Superb acting skills! I LOVE The Ben Heck Show! :D ^^;

[@skaluv]

Genesis had BLAST PROCESSING!!!

[@russelljennings2778]

What about the turbo graphx 16??

[@mmmhorsesteaks]

Good lord that laughing at the end :-D truly regrettable acting :-D nice comparison.

[@hezekiahramirez6965]

Ben's "At what cost?" argument might hold more water if not for Phantasy Star IV.

[@jasonpatterson8091]

As much as I loved Allison, I'm really enjoying the Ben-Felix-Max dynamic that has developed.

[@rangerboy932000]

would it be possible to take the pros from both systems and make one ultimate system that would play both genesis and snes games?

[@RallyDon82]

the snes and genesis were so damn close yet each had its own quirks to set them apart enough i would say it was the perfect storm the 16 bit console era, great systems and most importantly the best damn games of any generation!

[@NoTySir]

The outtake bits at the end crack me up every time.

[@b4ux1t3-tech]

That last little bit made me want to build a 16-bit console out of an ATMEGA.

[@Porygonal64]

Pfft. Everyone knows the Turbo-Grafx 16 was the best 16-bit console.

[@supersat]

Given all the crazy addressing modes the SNES supports, it really seems like they were considering backwards-compatibility at some point. In particular, the "LoROM" mode emulates the NES memory map (RAM at 0x0000, and ROM from 0x8000 to 0xFFFF, no matter what bank is selected).

[@FerHivore]

I’ve got a compromise on what to call the SNES: say its first letter and then pronounce the last three as one syllable: “Ess Nez” Perfect!

[@absojake]

I wouldnt say the music being limited to samples in the ram is that bad. It could adequately reproduce that old yamaha synthesizer on the genesis.

[@RazorEdge2006]

The Mega Drive's sounds are clearer, without compression, with a higher audio frequency, and better bass. It's possible for the SNES to sample the Mega Drive's FM synth chip, but it would be heavily compressed, with the quality significantly reduced, particularly the bass quality.

[@48hourrecordsteam45]

Sega was too stingy with the ram.. That audio needed 24/32 kbts of ram

[@SMRTMinako]

You know what would be a great project? Make a combination Genesis + Sega CD + 32X that doesn't require 5,000 cables hooked up to the back!

[@treepizzle]

I noticed you have the gen model one WITH the HD graphics labeled on the top. So its the best of the many available sound chips available on the genesis.

[@Kev0n05]

Ben Heck is the man!!! Can't wait for the next episode

[@robbrg246]

i looked on the net for a vid like this for a wile. never found it. until now. thank u

[@JC-qu5lv]

You should do a 8bit console wars with Atari 7800, NES, and Sega Master System. Also maybe a revisit of the 16bit/8bit wars with the TurboGrafx 16.