DF Retro Extra: Sega's Blast Processing Was Real - But What Did It Actually Do?

[@gc3k]

I retroactively won a ton of 4th grade recess arguments

[@LordMarlle]

Sega never used it. You still lost

[@LordMarlle]

@Sean Mondout Touché

[@garethUK]

@@LordMarlle The argument was never "Sega uses Blast Processing in its games!" - it was "The Mega Drive can do Blast Processing!". So he won.

[@garethUK]

@KanadianSpaceProgram You just joined the world's most exclusive club for people who don't understand what a console war is.

[@garethUK]

@KanadianSpaceProgram You continue to not understand, in the same way that a goldfish does not understand it is in a tank in someone's living room. Don't worry. Your limitations are not your fault. You were just unlucky.

[@FeeLtheHertZ]

My brain needs Blast Processing to figure out half of what's being said in this video. I love it.

By far the comment of the year for the DF video of the century!!!

[@turdhat]

The tingle you feel lets you know that it's working.

[@CaveyMoth]

As AVGN would say, "BLAYASST!"

[@rodmunch69]

As someone who grew up in this era, was a nerd who paid attention to all this stuff and has a degree in computer science, I had no issues following any of this.

[@FeeLtheHertZ]

@@rodmunch69 That's incredible dude, we're all super proud of you. I'm learning programming in Objective-C and Swift, have been building computers since 2005 with ease and am going in for software engineering and audio engineering, some of this shit was a little off my 2nd nature language of computer talk. But no, go ahead and pretend you're actually important to people on the internet you biggot. This isn't LinkedIn, it's KZbin. Get off your high horse.

[@RetroGamePlayers]

I watched this on a Game Gear with the TV Tuner. It uses Past Processing

[@turdhat]

HAH !

[@Nikku4211]

So you're in 2009?

[@richardmoores]

Great stuff

[@testikuskitestdrivr6012]

This joke requires an age limit, you have to actually collect moss in order to understand it.

[@clonedbraixen]

Then you had problems with the battery.

[@bisc67]

I spent WEEKS trying to get this working, back in the day. I could never get the CPU synced right. This is a great solution. But my method just switched the 16 entries on the color palette giving 16 out of 512 per scanline. The image looked good, but I could never get it stable due to the exact timing issue mentioned. I worked on the Genesis at Iguana

[@duffman18]

You worked for Iguana? Blimey. Did you work on NBA Jam then?

[@bisc67]

I didn't work on nba jam. That was mostly the guys in tees side studio.

[@scoobyrex247]

@@bisc67 what titles did you work on?

[@MeownaMeow]

yeah right i did that too the other day, was crazy dude

[@jonnyrockwell]

FUN FACT : Gabriel Morales is now just a brain and eyes bubbling away in jar and communicates via blast processing.....could you tell?

[@latinochico]

Wouldn't have him any other way

[@morgado4308]

Lovecraft reference?

[@SuperKokuJin916]

Streets of Rage 3? 😎

[@sylvierose2799]

@@morgado4308 the insects from MiGo I think

[@DenkyManner]

Though it had a basis in fact, when used in marketing 'blast processing' just meant how fast the games were. They basically gave the faster CPU a nickname.

[@anniewarbucks1794]

Yeah that's more like it. It would be incredibly hard to explain DMA to a layperson so they'd just associate it with faster-paced games and play the megahertz card against the SNES' 6516-based processor.

[@RedArremer]

Although according to the background story, the marketing guy actually took the term from this specific programming trick. It just wasn't ever used in a commercial game. Since we in the public didn't know it at the time, we just assumed it was a comparison of CPU clock speed.

[@elimalinsky7069]

@DejaVoodooDoll I second that. CPU clock speeds mean very little when comparing two different architectures. CPU clock speeds only matter when comparing CPUs within the same architecture, preferably within the same generation, class and manufacturing process.

[@elimalinsky7069]

@randomguy8196 back then graphics were actually rendered on the CPU and the GPU was responsible for interpreting the code into an image that could be displayed on a CRT screen. The CPU in the Mega Drive was faster than the one in the SNES for certain instructions, while the one in the SNES was faster for other instructions. From what I understand, the Mega Drive could draw sprites faster, but could not handle complex game logic at the same time, while the SNES could draw sprites a bit slower but could execute a more complex game code while doing so, but when a Mega Drive game was slower with less scrolling it could compute more complex instructions and faster than a similar game on the SNES. There was always some kind of tradeoff going on. The SNES had a much more powerful display chip that could do a lot more with higher resolution and more simultanous colors but it was still dependent on the CPU doing the calculations.

[@butcherjsy8]

@DejaVoodooDoll The MD's cpu really was way ahead of the almost 8bit snes cpu. Of course the snes made up for it with its other chips and enhancement chips found on some cartridges. Still, Nintendo really should've oc'd the cpu... Hopefully DF will do a 16bit console comparison one day, better late than never!

[@wingman-1977]

Man, seeing a crispy clean OG Genesis is a rarity.

[@marcsm2008]

I have one like that too (or rather, it's a Mega Drive, how it's called here). I always loved the Sega consoles, and the Mega Drive was always my favorite. I kept mine in pristine condiion, and it still looks like new. Of course, the fact that it's black helps (white consoles would eventually become yellow), but I always treated this console like it was my baby. Plus, a can of WD can do wonders to clean it to make it look like new. ;)

[@AndyRetroGamer]

Have five different versions of Genesis and Mega Drive :) Love it :D

[@deepcitrus7023]

im a second child, my sister before me had recieved an nes and genesis and never really used them a whole lot. by the time i was born, i poked around and saw two boxes, an opened but brand new genesis, and a still sealed nes. of course had i known itd have value maybe i wouldnt have asked to open it, but hey. where would i be then? finances werent as great by then, so as a kid in the 2000's i grew up with super mario/duck hunt , sonic 2, street fighter 2, couldnt complain about that!

[@wingman-1977]

I loved all the Sega consoles, but my two faves were the Saturn (for the Japanese imports) and the Dreamcast (arcade perfect versions of games).

[@tatitorodriguez376]

20 years from now somebody will discover how to make xbox power of the cloud work.

[@SmaMan]

And do something useful with those "Terraflops" they wouldn't shut up about.

[@jrbrawlersgaming1816]

@@SmaMan oh Silky ya killin em!🤣🤣🤣

[@Web720]

@@SmaMan Except teraflops are actual useful.

[@MrGreatDane2]

@@SmaMan 4K > 1440P

[@MondoMurderface]

@@Web720 Teraflops are only a minor aspect of rendering and performance. Much like blast processing the term is more of a marketing gimmick.

[@amberdean1263]

This was such an awesome watch. I never get tired of learning more of the technical magic behind my favorite childhood console.

[@FamilyGuyBob]

Sega: What's blast processing? Pfft, we don't know but it sounds cool doesn't it?

[@thalesn]

Also... It screams "90s!"

[@rodmunch69]

In the fantastic book Console Wars they explain that the marketing department was looking for some feature that the SNES didn't have, one that Sega could tout, and would also fall in line with the idea of Sonic - that the Genesis was about speed, speed, speed. So when they find the obscure reference to this, it was actually called something else, I forget what, but after a few rounds of going back and forth they came up with the name blast processing. It really was a good tool for Sega fanboys to roll out, to say the kiddie SNES didn't have blast processing and that's why Mario was so slow - that was literally the idea behind it.

[@ryzmaker11]

@@rodmunch69 blast processing refers to the mega drive faster than snes dma transfer which is factual and thus this has nothing to do with fanboys it's weird how some people are still in denial towards this (for the most part nintendo fanboys, unsurprisingly) btw the mega drive has plenty of technical advantages over snes: better cpu, higher resolution, more flexible sprite engine, better 3d capabilities...

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

supermario_2 Exactly!

[@alaeriia01]

@@ryzmaker11 The SNES was technically superior to the Genesis in almost every way. The Genesis' CPU was clocked significantly higher (7.6 MHz vs 3.5 MHz), which was what Genesis fans were talking about when they mentioned "blast processing". The playground counter to blast processing, of course, is Mode 7, which was the SNES's sprite scaling and rotation trick.

[@ryzmaker11]

"The term "blast processing" was originally coined in reference to the Yamaha VDP graphics processor's DMA unit "blasting" data at high speeds" (cf. Sega Retro's page about Blast Processing) so this actually applies to *many* official Mega Drive games Sonic the Hedgehog 2 included. But then the term is also used for some specific tricks which are doable with the Mega Drive hardware. KZbin channel "GameHut" did some great videos about this.

[@fireface8377]

Why are you explaining something in the comment section of a video explaining the thing you're explaining? Are you stupid or something?

[@ryzmaker11]

@@fireface8377 missing the point yet calling me stupid

[@shiru8bit]

​@@fireface8377 he's explaining a totally different thing. Timed pixel streaming explained in the video (a bizzare trick not suitable for real games) vs. DMA streaming into VRAM (every game on Genesis and SNES does this, Genesis has a bit faster DMA).

[@ryzmaker11]

@@shiru8bit thank you :) and since we're at it, mind if I ask your opinion about this? why there are so many misconceptions and even some sort of denial about blast processing despite it being a specific and obvious thing in the first place? I think it would be more interesting to analyze the deceitful advertisement "smashing the myth about speed and power" that nintendo spreaded in various magazines as an answer to blast processing hopefully digital foundry will realize this and take the opportunity to talk about aforementioned claims

[@Tornado1994]

Correct.

[@MunkeyChips]

2 DF Retro's in one day?! You spoil us, sir.

[@matuzaato]

I love DF retro Sundays

[@BenHeckHacks]

Genesis was twice as fast as SNES. Also SNES dipped even lower when accessing certain parts of memory. On top of this the cartridge slot had only an 8 bit bus (vs 16 on Sega) meaning pulling data off cart also slower.

[@segaunited3855]

Correct!

[@davecarsley8773]

And yet... Super NES had the better versions of games (in most cases). Why?

[@segaunited3855]

@@davecarsley8773 Genesis was designed to outdo the NES. One sided bias sure does suck.

[@elimalinsky7069]

I always thought "Blast Processing" was simply a way to say that the Sega Mega Drive had twice the CPU clock speed that the Super NES had. Never thought it is an actual feature that was never used.

[@xninja83x67]

Same

[@avideogamemaster]

But it is about the clock speed lol

[@Cooe.]

Not just twice the clock-speed, but the MD's Motorola 68000 was a TRUE 16-bit CPU (actually 32-bit internally, with a 16-bit data bus), whereas the Ricoh in the SNES was just a souped up version of the NES' 8-bit CPU, that while now 16-bit internally, retained the NES' 8-bit data bus (aka, both internally & externally it was 1/2 as wide what Sega had on the CPU front). In terms of CPU performance, system to system, it's not even freaking close. The SNES gets absolutely annihilated (we're talking nearly a factor of 4x faster for the 68000; workload depending). Look at their video processors instead though, and the story is much the opposite (with the SNES' being far more advanced & feature rich; with the MD's 64 on-screen color limit in particular being TERRIBLE by comparison). This is what lead to the respective "hit game types" of each system. Sports & action games? Sega all day. Huge, expensive, & expansive JRPGs? Nintendo was the place.

[@elimalinsky7069]

That's why the Mega Drive could handle sports games so well. All those simultaneous AI instances would have probably brought the SNES to its knees. The MD even had a few flat shaded polygonal games without using any additional hardware extensions, just by brute forcing calculations on the CPU, which the SNES couldn't do with stock hardware. The Mega Drive could also handle full multilayer scaling and transformation in software using raw CPU number crunching, while the SNES needed specialized computation units in the display processors (the SNES had two of those) for similar effects. Interestingly enough, the XBOX One and PS4 in our modern times kind of went the same route that the SNES took. They both have terrible CPUs (AMD Jaguars, which were used in mid-range laptops back in 2012), but use decent GPUs, which hold up well even today.

[@Cooe.]

@YTCensorsMe Poop Depends entirely on the game type & how it was developed. The MD/Genesis' 64 on-screen color limit was an absolute do not pass GO, do not collect $200 game-over killer to any slower paced, highly artistically detailed games like RPGs (and JRPGs in particular), and Mario & DKC type platformers (Yoshi's Island would have made the MD's VDP fucking implode rofl). For anything with high speed action & screen update rate (ala Sonic), high concurrent sprite &/or AI agent counts (sports games, action titles like horizontal & vertical shooters, etc...), or anything extremely CPU dependant though, the SNES was a HORRIBLE machine to work with. This is why soooooo many multi-plats ran like fucking dog shit on the SNES, even when they looked (statically) & sounded better than their MD/Genesis counterparts. Getting the required CPU performance out of the SNES required very low-level programming to maximize usage of its' specialized processors to keep primary CPU load at an absolute minimum (similar to how proper Saturn development worked, but far, FAR less complex & onerous).

[@streetmagik3105]

My Genesis nostalgia is at peak right now! I preordered the Genesis mini yesterday--it looks like SEGA finally did it right for the 30th anniversary, and with M2 doing the game ports, it should be on par with the Nintendo minis. Great video!!!

[@MrSEA-ok2ll]

After seeing some of the amazing possibilities of so many chipsets, it saddens me to see how little the Sega CD and 32X were properly utilized.

[@trinitikorneli2750]

Mr. SEA The games for Sega CD and 32X were shit. And the idea for "a console in a console" is stupid and in this case even badly made. But Mega Drive for its time was the best thing to play games on it. No doubt about.

[@bladerj]

mega drive for a time had better games, snes had better colors with 32 bit. i know they made a mega drive with 32 bit later but it was already end of the line .sega cd came at the wrong time and with shit games to boot to warrant the price increase, game cube burried it. @@trinitikorneli2750

[@segaunited3855]

32X was a terrible,terrible piece of hardware that wasn't needed. Regarding Sega Earth, Few Developers were game in wanting to see how far its more Enhanced M68000 could go and where it could be taken. They were still squeamish to CD-ROM technology at the time.

[@DeadNoob451]

Holy crap. Very impressive work by everyone figuring this stuff out. Sega might as well have used "Its so advanced that even we cant grasp the full extend of it greatness." Also mandatory pun that i had a blast processing all this information.

[@joeydlite]

As i stuff Pringles into my face while sitting here in my underwear, i nodded in agreement when he said "13 FIFO writes"

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

Whoa! The overscan junk is actually CRAM dots!? That’s so cool! And this can be used to draw images on a CRT!? That’s amazing! I love it! This blast processing thing looks way cooler than I could possibly image!

[@WeeWeeJumbo]

I was a teenager through this phase of the OG console war, and I clearly remember all this-but I’d never heard the details behind the scenes. This is awesome, Linneman

[@mozamboni]

This interview uses "Post Processing"

[@ZephniStrife]

It definitely does. Its the geekiest yet best way to communicate

[@cyphaborg6598]

I'm having a *blast processing* this.

[@spork8655]

-youtube

[@gc3k]

oh ho

[@DJSHaKa]

I see what you did here...

[@gravious]

Commodore Amiga had a similar display related CPU based trick to show enhanced graphics, HAM mode (retroactively renamed HAM6) allowed all 4096 colours of the Amiga palette on screen at the same time.

[@p0k314COM]

But HAM was static only.

[@gravious]

@@p0k314COM no, you could animate it... there are lots of examples on youtube :)

[@jaildesigner]

@@p0k314COM I though Lionheart used it for ingame, iirc

[@ThetaReactor]

Or the Game Boy Color, which could swap palettes between scan lines to imitate 15-bit color.

[@p0k314COM]

@@gravious »only in few demos, not in production. HAM6 and HAM8 takes to much power in animation. It was typical static format.

[@dava00007]

It would have been nice to see the Wolfenstein Sega CD port, or the more interesting effects from the demos (maybe roll the demos they made in loop instead of those two or three images). Anyway, this is the weirdest thing of the kind, and I find it sad that nobody stumbled around the solution to make it usable back in the days... console wars would have been crazy! And the potential for Sega CD games would have been mind blowing!

[@elefsidi]

If Sega of America didn't focus on those shitty FMV games, the Sega CD would succeed.

[@CyclesMcHurtz]

I believe the big issue was time to work out the timing (and the various adjustments for the different TV output timing signals), awesome work on the team that got it all worked out. That was certainly no easy feat.

[@chrisrobinson82]

Very good point!

[@urbanmidnight1]

We didn't hear the slogan in Europe, was a US thing.

[@MrBillgonzo]

Lucky bastards. Do people still argue over the specs of these consoles like we do in the US?

[@XBladenoJutsu]

I wish there was a good KZbinr (glances at DF) to make a real video comparing the specs of the SNES and Genesis. There is not a single one that exists currently that accurately provides real limitations and comparisons of both, but just the 'on paper' details of both and nothing more, making the SNES seem way more powerful than it actually is in practice.

[@urbanmidnight1]

@@XBladenoJutsu Very true!

[@MrBillgonzo]

@@XBladenoJutsu I would love this. The closest thing I've seen was Ben hecks break down of the consoles, but that wasnt exactly what I was looking for. I want an indepth technical breakdown. None of this "which was better" bullshit cuz these consoles are of an era where consoles had unique architectures and were not like comparing apples to apples. Not Like a ps4 vs xbox.

[@urbanmidnight1]

@@MrBillgonzo Yes 😂 Our generation will never move on.

[@RyonTeachesMugen]

I always thought Blast Processing was a burst of processing power, making the visuals / games run at a much faster rate. Such as sonic running beyond the screen and the game catching up.

[@_aitchfactor188]

Mr.splinter sub Yeah clearly “blast processing” really wasn’t the direct colour technique that some marketing guy overheard and decided to advertise as something entirely different.

[@_aitchfactor188]

Mr.splinter sub yeah but it’s not blast processing like you said lol

[@jc_dogen]

@Mr.splinter sub except the marketing guy wasn't conveying anything concrete, he just heard blast and ran with it.

[@oubrioko]

*_Blast Processing_* is what happens inside your intestines about an hour after eating Mexican food.

[@enessan37281]

The crazy(not really) thing about this is that the vocals used in that specific Sega ad can be heard in Waterflame's Blast Processing, which is basically named after that. I just noticed now.

[@AshtonCoolman]

The Genesis was powered by the same Motorola 68000 CPU that the Sharp X68000 and the Amiga had. It had great sprite processing too.....I'm not sure that was blast processing but it was a blast to play games on.

[@electronash]

7:26 Shout out to Chilly Willy. He definitely knows his stuff when it comes to Sega hardware (and coding). ;)

[@madmax2069]

Indeed he does.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

So I was taught a few years ago by some other retro nerds that Blast Processing was real, and that it was a technique that allowed for data to be blasted into the DAC mid-scanline. Apparently the the term was coined when an advertising PR-guy or something heard the world’s Blast & Processing during an explanation from a coder and used it in advertising. The technique could be used to draw images with more colours than is normally possible using it, but I’ve never known exactly how. This is really interesting as I’ve always wondered how it works! I think I knew at one point, but I’ve forgotten since then. Just one extra thing I wanted to say though, this advertising thing was never used in Europe!

[@GugSport]

I find it fascinating how game programmers of ye old had to worked close to the hardware like that. In this day and ages, with engines that make the development process so streamlined and accessible, this window to the past is very interesting.

[@The90sGamingGuy]

I wasn't a Genesis kid in the 90's but enjoyed the system. My parents bought my brother and I a Super Nintendo, i played Genesis at my baby sitters house for nearly every day after school for about two years. Her son also had a Super Nintendo so we would play both systems off and on usually during the summer. I barely understand the super technical stuff that is being talked about in this video lol.

[@solonepeon5805]

Well if you remember playing Donkey Kong country for the 1st time back on the SNES then maybe that is when you started to change about how you saw things yes/no?🤣😂

[@miikasuominen3845]

That sounded very much, like what the Atari ST-scene programming geniuses did with the infamous Sync Scrolling. If I remember correctly, it was "totally perfected" only few years ago. Again, by finding a "timing formula" that made it to work perfectly, without cliches... Excellent stuff, though totally outside my knowledge of programming ;)

[@paul1979uk2000]

I'm not 100% sure but didn't the Amiga do a trick using the copper to allow it to display a lot more colours on screen at once? I remember many games using it where it was clear that it was displaying a lot more colours then the Amiga could normally do. If it's not that, I might be thinking of that HAM mode which I think allowed the Amiga to display around 4000 colours on screen at once.

[@rasz]

@Paul there were 2 (two, Galaxian clone and something else I forgot) Amiga games actually using HAM in the gameplay part of the game.

[@Galahadfairlight]

@@paul1979uk2000 Many Amiga games used it. Shadow of the Beast for instance was physically only in 16 colour dual playfield mode, but with judicious reloading of the colour pallete, some areas of Beast on Amiga were over 128 colours. Lots of games used it, most famously stuff like Lionheart and Jim Power heavily relied on colour reloading, the latter was a very colourful game.

[@paul1979uk2000]

@@Galahadfairlight Yeah I remember many games using it and it's funny really because a lot of home computers and consoles ware able to do tricks that the designers thought the hardware couldn't do, the C64 is another example of that with some of the later games from the 90's onwards.

[@Galahadfairlight]

@@paul1979uk2000 the Amiga was designed from the outset to be able to reload with the copper chip. The Amiga didn't really have much in the way of hardware bugs to be exploited, it simply didn't have the restrictions of other machines.

[@jimmelton5846]

That beautiful Snatcher CD intro music.

[@Lewdology]

This was definitely beyond my knowledge to understand fully, but the visual aid was really helpful. Outstanding work.

[@RazorEdge2006]

This video presents a very limited interpretation of "blast processing". What "blast processing" is actually referring to is the DMA controller. What this video is referring to is a specific trick you can do with the DMA controller, rather than everything else the DMA controller can do. For example, the Mega Drive's DMA controller allows it to do sprite-scaling or push 3D polygons without the need for enhancement chips. That's "blast processing". Yet the video just wants to limit "blast processing" to a color trick, instead of presenting the real practical benefits of the Mega Drive's DMA controlller's "blast processing". For example, 3D polygon graphics (e.g. Star Cruiser, Hard Drivin, Race Drivin, etc.) or sprite-scaling (e.g. Batman & Robin).

[@Mario_N64]

That's what I read on a magazine back in 1992.

[@jakethreesixty]

I can't believe these so called "experts" were this wrong about something, they should honestly just delete this video lmaoo

[@jenningsmills5398]

Funny how "blast processing" wasn't a thing until the magazines started talking about the snes's mode 7. Even people at sega now admit BP was BS.

[@Sh-hg8kf]

Fun fact : Wolf3d on the snes uses mode 7 to display everything from the map to the enemies, floor, ceiling, and many more

[@haiaokuwa]

Totally makes sense! This almost sounds like Amiga’s Hold and Modify (HAM8) mode. Love it! This is a $1M idea. I wish they had figured this out back when the Genesis was new. Sega would have made them very wealthy in order to buy this secret. And this would have turned Sega Mega CD games into very nearly the kind of 2D powerhouse that everyone always said the Saturn was.

[@segaunited3855]

Saturn was actually a Mapped Rich 3D console. It have many key advantages over PS1 and even N64 in the mapping department.

[@jekblom123]

So "blast processing" meant a display of a larger color pallet... and Genesis DIDN'T have it in any of it's games... Thanks, 90s ads.

[@xtremegold2950]

did have it . japonese developers knew how to use the hardware graphics and sound..properly they did use blast prossesing but not on all games... at the time americans game develpers didnt know how to program..most american games for the genesis looks awfull plus sound

[@TurboPikachu]

I was always under the impression that blast processing was referring to a more arbitrary advantage like the Genesis' Motorola 68000 boasting a nearly 2x clock speed over the SNES console's lethargic Ricoh 5A22 chip.

[@leeboy2k1]

So basically the ever so slight bonus of a Raster interrupt *see C64 ;) was only utilized by enthusiast hackers, and took so much scrutiny by the X68000, that the speed advantage the x68000 had over the Snes was basicallly moot at retail level of coding.

[@KyanbuXM]

Pretty much.

[@fullsdready]

I wonder though... How do you know that this peculiar function of the Mega Drive hardware was indeed what SEGA called "blast processing" back then? Is there some kind of old documentation or something I missed?

[@jc_dogen]

interview with the tech director at sega. he mentioned this track as "blasting data to the video dac" and the marketer ran with it

[@nothing1080p]

Another Amazing video as always thank you so much digital foundry.

[@JopieHaargel]

Dougs interjections during the explanation sound like they were added in post...

[@ajsingh4545]

*Sega Genesis also had a much faster CPU than the Snes*, allowing for more sprites and objects to be on screen without slowdown. So that is also another example of Sega's blast processing power. There is an interview from a dev of Gunstar Heroes on one of the retro mags I have where he says that there is no way they could put Gunstar heroes on Snes because the game would slow way down due to all of the aciton on screen. This is why you never saw crazy over the top games on the Snes due to the inferior CPU. There were games that pulled it off like Space Megaforce but I don't know how Compile (dev of the game) did it.

[@ryzmaker11]

compile did that by seeking help from the sound cpu and same happened with smash tv's turbo mode but even then, both are games with mostly small sprites, limited physics, limited AI and such, it's not as complex/intensive as run 'n guns (gunstar heroes; contra hard corps; alien soldier...) or beat 'em ups (streets of rage 2 and 3; comix zone...)

[@MaxwelThuThu]

@@ryzmaker11 Rendering Ranger R2 has all those things.

[@ryzmaker11]

@@MaxwelThuThu I'm glad someone brought this game up because rendering ranger confirms *exactly* what I said above since the run 'n gun sections are nothing to write home about and while the shooter sections are more impressive (because easier to handle), they still show lot of limitations: mostly small sprites, limited AI, limited animation (including the explosions which look lame (and you can notice that explosions is another thing which is often limited in snes games)), etc. not to mention it runs in snes' limited AND flawed resolution of 256x224 pixels (= limited screen estate and wrong aspect ratio once in 4:3) whereas every mega drive games that I previously mentioned run in 320x224 pixels which is the mega drive most used resolution and rendering ranger also has very muffled sound (the music in particular) which is another recurrent snes' issue

[@ajsingh4545]

​@@ryzmaker11you shared some awesome info here

[@xehP]

lmfao this guy is reading from a script, and jon is there like hmm, mmh, as if he's talking from him mind.

[@MondoMurderface]

Right? lmao.. Its so freaking awkward. Edit: Im pretty sure it was an edited pre recorded Q&A and jon was editing in fake responses. Weird..

[@manuelbesada]

@@MondoMurderface true. It's annoying AF

[@richarddavies6597]

Video got me interested straight away by having the snatcher soundtrack playing in the background.

[@videogameobsession]

0:25 I love the scene cracktro style intro complete with greets. :) I was in my share of those back in the day. _=SpooNMan=_ R.i.S.C. member , BBS: SYSOP 2112 ;)

[@atomicbrain9401]

Blast processing is simple: GENESIS DOES WHAT NINTENDON’T

[@leeboy2k1]

*SuperNES custom display modes, also do what Genesis don't.

[@gridline]

Maybe if Sega blast processed some fun games I'd still be playing my Genesis 30 years later.

[@XBladenoJutsu]

It's amazing how much bias and close mindedness can keep people from trying and enjoying new things.

[@9erGuy]

Nintendo is what Genesisn't.

[@hpickettz34]

Snes was a slow pos console that needed dsp helper chips to compete with Sega genesis.🤣🤣

[@ITSFRICKENADAM]

Sounds like this guy was sent questions before the interview and wrote answers down that hes reading from

[@RageCage64]

Typically videos like this are real-time interviews, but DF Retro likely voiced over his own parts for polish.

[@Great.Milenko]

@@RageCage64 but it makes it sound horribly fake and scripted.

[@AlejandroLZuvic]

@@Great.Milenko he answers the questions, he explains it very well and it's he who does the talk. How is that fake? Yeah, scripted, but way easier to understand compared to a raw improvised explanation.

[@MondoMurderface]

@@AlejandroLZuvic The replies are edited over a pre recorded and pre edited script and or Q&A. It is a very un natural sounding conversation. "hmm.. ahh.. right" the embellishment on it is so bad and out of place.

[@vice86]

@@MondoMurderface "well...."

[@billmalt2602]

I legitimately just thought "blast processing" was a way of telling kids it had a faster CPU than the SNES in a way they could understand.

[@everythingpony]

It was

[@Kraigon42]

I like how the ad for it basically completely misrepresents what could have been a major selling point for the Genesis.

[@urbanmidnight1]

The Megadrive is even more my favourite 16bit console now.

[@jamesw242]

@@youtubesuresuckscock that's OK you like what you like and no one will argue an opinion. Problem is, yer dogging people that do for no particular reason except boredom / first grade trolling attempt.

[@urbanmidnight1]

@@jamesw242 👏👏

[@tenzaemtade6146]

@@youtubesuresuckscock I like how trolls like you get trolled harder than they're trolling lmao

[@TheCrazyStudent]

Cool video. I once saw a Mega Drive in a store on April 1 many years back. Not only did that particular Mega Drive have blast processing, but it was actually a special edition that also had hyper memory control, multiplexed rotational bitmapping, a Motorola 68070 CPU with integrated supersonic calculation capabilities, and bug blocking for increased software stability. It seems like these machines were only sold on April 1 on that year because I never saw them in any store ever again. Buying one of those would be very foolish though considering that there is no software available that supports the extra features.

[@AlessandroCussino]

Next we want to know what the Snes is really capable to do.

[@AlessandroCussino]

@mipmipmipmipmip Who knows ;-)

[@astracrits4633]

@Azure Plumber There were also some really interesting things done with it later in its life like Super FX, but that mostly came from the cartridge instead of the console itself IIRC.

[@WeeWeeJumbo]

This is gonna sound hokey, but to my mind, video games back then had a charm that they don’t have now precisely because they had little to work with. Everything was much more special because it was harder to accomplish. Think about stuff like the Opera House scene in FF6. That kind of magic simply isn’t possible anymore, because I *expect* lossless 7-channel cinema reference compositions performed at Abbey Road by the London Philharmonic

[@hkoizumi3134]

Indeed. I used to be a programmer back in the 90s as well and I dove into assembly with z80 platform. What I remember fondly about that time was figuring out few tricks to do what was considered impossible. I really liked finding new ways to cheat the system. I vaguely remember I came up with something called the Boolean logic. Around our programming circle, we knew the logic of if and then were very taxing to the computational cycle. So I used logic from Boolean ; true or false, to act as a if and then condition. The technique was very efficient and it cost less in terms of space in memory to program it. Good times.

[@JetWolfEX]

It's true, there's so much back then I took for granted, like soundchips at the time scaling and parallax effects, 3D rendering, and just having a lot going on at once. It wasn't until I really looked into how it all worked and what the limitations were that I realized how intense the work on some of those games must have been to implement those features within a reasonable time frame. These days it's all about how high the resolution can be and if it runs at a stable 60fps, personally I don't care at all what resolution a game displays in, it doesn't impress me, but seeing 3D polygons on a stock Gen/MD or seeing fluid animations in a Snes game does.

[@NiGHTS1980]

My boss asked me to work a little faster. I told him to hold on while I activate my blast processing.

[@americafuckyeah4520]

The age of DF Retro!!! So much Retro content lately.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

This demo honestly drives me insane, despite how awesome it is. The images are all scaled wrong. They look like this awful badly scaled images you make when you squish and stretch an image in MS Paint. With correctly scaled pixels, the images would look amazing.

[@solamon77]

This really makes me hate Sega's marketing. Their whole marketing in the 90s was all about selling inferior hardware to rubes.

[@ckmondaviable]

I though blast processing was just sega superior processor!

[@nicwilson89]

4:07 It's not mechanical and it's not a physical gun. It's an electrical process and uses horizontal and vertical deflection coils (electromagnetism) to direct the stream of electrons to the appropriate are. If you disconnect the deflection coils, you'll get a single spot in the centre of the screen that's very intense as all the electrons are just being given off and accelerated towards a single spot without the coils. The gun doesn't move, the changing field strength and direction of each coil targets the electron beam where it needs to go.

[@SlyBeast]

Interesting...so it did exist but no one was able to use it at the time despite the marketing said. Am I understanding this correctly? I had always thought that Blast Processing referred to the Genesis having a faster processor than the SNES (and I think Sega marketing did too at the time).

[@792p]

Excellent subject and great presentation.

[@Imgema]

I always thought it was referring the faster CPU of the Mega Drive compared to the slow SNES one.

[@SteelSkin667]

I remember that GameHut video and being suitably amazed, but the ingenuity that goes into the automation of that syncing process is absolutely amazing.

[@RazorEdge2006]

Blast processing refers to the Mega Drive's graphics DMA unit, which blasts around graphics data much faster than the SNES. But there was just no way to explain this to the average layman in a way they could understand, hence Sega came up with "blast processing".

[@DarkReturns1]

Umm no lol. It was all marketing, watch the video

[@jakethreesixty]

Nah dude, commenter is right, Digital Foundry really messed this up 😆

[@protoblaze]

Times like this I am so glad I am nerdy enough to understand whats going on

[@Starburst7641]

So you start out having a conversation, then goes straight into awkwardly reading a script lol. Anywho interesting info thanks for putting it out there.

[@chrisrobinson82]

Yeah I picked up on that too but thought it was a good move. If he was stumbling and pausing when thinking what to say he would've lost 99.99% of the people that watch/listen to Digital Foundry! (in my opinion anyway)

[@AndyGilleand]

@@chrisrobinson82 Honestly, since it was audio, editing would fix any issues with that. As it is now, I got bored with the script reading.

[@patchkolanauthor]

Just want to say, really appreciated the Snatcher "One Night in Neo Kobe" background tune. What a fricking number.

[@TboneTenEighties]

Genesis is the best 16-bit console imo. Super N was great but Genesis took the cake.

[@larsmuldjord9907]

Awesome vid - I love these very specific things you can do with the old consoles and computers. I remember something similar on the C64 where they would basically switch very quickly between two images to sort of emulate more colors since flickering two colors after one another would create a third color (or something along those lines). It's quite commonly used in demos I believe. Don't know the specifics, but it's really impressive stuff to look at.

[@RyuHayabusa06]

Cool video but really, it wasn't used in any games. It is only good for still pictures on the Genesis. Where's the "blast" processing? Oooh, more colors on a still screen. PC Engine could do that without "blast" processing.

[@Nebulous6]

Simplifying this process is why the designers of the Atari 2600 and Atari 8-bit machines thought up the Amiga's DMA and Copper (co-processor). It certainly makes 'Blast Processing' a whole lot easier and frees the 68000 CPU to do other work.

[@jesfest]

Now I want to see a homebrew game on the megadrive actually use it

[@Thrashman138]

Great video! I love this deep dive stuff. MOAR!!!

[@drunkensailor112]

This is proof that reality bounds according to will. We all believed and wanted blast processing and now it's real!

[@archipelago93]

I have literally zero clue what they’re talking about in 90% of this video. And yet I love it.

[@gilbertgotfried]

Now somebody go back in time with Gabriel and win this war for Sega. I wanna play licensed Zelda and Yakuza 19 on my Sega Switch already.

[@MilkerMurphy]

God no, we live in the good timeline. (edit: maybe "okay" timeline because sega is still around)

[@OniMirage]

This was an awesome retro video. I was definitely in the Sega camp back in the day. SEGA!

[@GoatTheGoat]

Really cool programming technique. But it has nothing to do with blast processing. Blast processing is simply using the Genesis' VDP's DMA controller to move data around in the Genesis' memory.

[@shiru8bit]

@Ozaleto 7K per vblank on Genesis in H40 mode vs 5K on SNES. Also 5K on Genesis in H32 mode. Not that far.

[@jc_dogen]

+Ryan Patterson "But it has nothing to do with blast processing." wat. this was confirmed years ago "Marty Franz [Sega technical director] discovered that you could do this nifty trick with the display system by hooking the scan line interrupt and firing off a DMA at just the right time. The result was that you could effectively jam data onto the graphics chip while the scan line was being drawn - which meant you could drive the DAC's with 8 bits per pixel. Assuming you could get the timing just right you could draw 256 color static images. There were all kinds of subtleties to the timing and the trick didn't work reliably on all iterations of the hardware but you could do it and it was cool as heck. So during the runup to the western launch of Sega-CD the PR guys interviewed me about what made the platform interesting from a technical standpoint and somewhere in there I mentioned the fact that you could just "blast data into the DAC's" Well they loved the word 'blast' and the next thing I knew Blast Processing was born."

[@andy7666]

I have no idea what you guys are talking about but it is fascinating.

[@DayvidHarding]

I found this very interesting. Once he started explaining what bp was it got really uncanny valley. It sounded like he recorded an explanation of it which is fine, but then it sounded like you peppered in responses to give the illusion of a conversation. It was really distracting. Maybe next time you should just say it's a recording and let it play. Maybe I'm going crazy and it was a real conversation. Anyways, love your channel and keep up the great work!

[@MuscleCarsRuleYT]

Sega : we have blast processing Geometry Dash players/robtop : …

[@cormano.]

Wasn't "blast processing" just a marketing term to show the faster CPU the megadrive/genesis have against Snes?

[@dan_loup]

I think it was more about the DMA engine being a lot faster on the genesis.

[@MrBillgonzo]

Dude, watch the video. He explains it. The fast DMA on the genesis allows for pallet swaps while the screen is drawing a line on screen, so that the next line can have a completely different pallet. This results in generating a still image that consists of more colors than the genesis could produce in a single pallet. It requires precise timing which a modde/hacker discovered an formula for to keep the lines in sync.

[@cormano.]

Chris Kurz yeah i know, but who was the first using the term or name?

[@jc_dogen]

@@cormano. marty franz the former tech director at sega of america was talking about how you could blast data into the video DAC to do this kind of trick. scott bayless took that and turned it into the term "blast processing"

[@renakunisaki]

Fun facts: 1) Technically the Atari 2600 had Blast Processing. This was the only way it could show anything. Since it didn't have any real video processor, it had to work in sync with the TV and send pixels just like this is doing. 2) The Nintendo DS also has this feature! There's a mode where you can just send pixels directly to the screen. It's not a glitch, and it uses a buffer so you don't need to worry about timing. I'm not sure any game ever used it though.

[@novinworks]

SHENMUE 3 IN 16-BIT LETS GO!

[@Dirk1Steele]

Loved this video. And two DF Retro videos in a single day. I feel rather spoiled!

[@josephschwarten6468]

I love the Snatcher music in the background.

[@Aristowi]

Really good stuff. However, I think it gets very technical. Maybe you could make a video or series explaining terms and processes like svd, DMA, 68 thousand and all that stuff so the audience can have a better understanding in future DF retro episodes, something like the basics of retro technology. I have learnt a lot with these videos and other sources, but it gets overwhelming at times and I feel like I arrived at the middle of the course and had to learn the hard way to understand instead of getting there from the start and learn the basics. Just a suggetion, I love the content.

[@pelgervampireduck]

68k is the cpu, the same kind used by older macs, commodore amiga and other systems. instead of intel x86 those systems used the motorola 68k. dma is "direct memory access".

[@Aristowi]

@@pelgervampireduck Thanks for the reply, I know that, it was just an example of technical terms that might get many people confused that are interested in these videos but don't have the technical knowledge. There is a lot of technical information in these videos that remain unexplained, and my point wad that it might drive somepeople away instead of drawing more attention to the subject.

[@pelgervampireduck]

yes, some parts are a bit confusing or "too fast".

[@amberdean1263]

Major props for the Thunderforce IV music at the end.

[@franesustic988]

Not used? What are you talking about? Didn't Gamehut make a video how they used blast processing to achieve thousands of colors on screen in Toy Story?

[@DigitalFoundry]

He implemented this technique but never shipped it. Toy Story isn’t using this specific method (Blast Processing)

[@franesustic988]

@@DigitalFoundry Indeed, you are right sir, apologies. Shouldn't have doubted DF. It seems researching Sega Saturn has scrambled my brain. Keep it retro!

[@shiru8bit]

Toy Story simply overlays three layers (BG1,2 and sprites) to pull out 46 colors on screen in these scenes. This approach is not good for games too, and does not allow to have full screen images, because there is not enough VRAM for three fullscreen layers of unique tiles (3360 is needed, but there is only room for about 1700).

[@moofree]

I used to play on Oerg866's Minecraft server almost a decade ago. This is only one of his multiple notable contributions to the Genesis demoscene.

[@michaelfavocci6722]

...it was real to me

[@FeeLtheHertZ]

It blasted it's way into my heart.

[@danielmccormick700]

I would've liked to hear more of this. Wouldn't mind the discussion going longer.

[@R4pStu]

Well, the Sega Mega Drive was a blast indeed. Legend says Nintendo is still trying to process that.

[@BDreGaming]

The blast processing DF logo is GOLD

[@TheSterlingArcher16]

I understood approximately zero percent of this video!

[@lordbezzington8435]

This isn't my leisure domain either

[@SianaGearz]

i don't feel they do a very good job at explaining. But if i can help clear something up?

[@TheSterlingArcher16]

Siana Gearz Go for it.

[@SianaGearz]

@@TheSterlingArcher16 Yeah uh, where do i start? What's the first word or sentence that you didn't grasp?

[@TheSterlingArcher16]

Siana Gearz Haha thanks for the offer but I wouldn’t waste your time! I’ll live in ignorance.