How Sega enhanced the Mega Drive/Genesis - The SVP, 32X and Mega CD explained | White_Pointer Gaming

[@WhitePointerGaming]

As a bit of a clarification: At 10:10 I mention that the Mega CD's sample-based sound chip provided an extra 10 sound channels. It would have been more accurate to say it provided an extra 8 sample-based sound channels, plus an additional 2 channels (left and right stereo) for CD audio. Thanks to @malachigv for spotting this.

[@malachigv]

Oh, I didn't even realize you were referring to CD audio

[@rustymixer2886]

Great video yeah soul star core looks like early ps1 game imo

[@rustyboomerton2235]

One day, the childhood version of me went to Wal-mart to buy a couple of new SNES or Sega games, and there was this weird Sega thingy in the center island display of the electronics section. "32X...huh? It's only $24.99...that's so cheap! For 32-bit??!" I started looking at the games... Star Wars Arcade...$4.99 Doom...$4.99 Virtua Fighter...$4.99 Virtua Racer...$4.99 I walked out with a new game 'console' and several games, and spent less than I was planning on spending on just two new games for my old 16-bit thing THAT is how I remember 32X, so you must understand that it's probably my favorite console ever released =) As a poor kid, being able to play 3D games on the cheap was like having superpowers

[@kregadeth5562]

Thats awesome !

[@malachigv]

MD dev and general channel lurker here. Pretty good explanations, though there were a few inaccuracies I've noticed, so I wrote them down in no particular order:. Don't let the sheer girth of my text overwhelm you, there aren't that many. 2:02 Don't remember where I heard this, but apparently Sonic 3 was planned to be an SVP title during an early stage of development, and was a contributor to the game being rushed, along with the more widely known McDonalds deal. Take this with a grain of salt though. 11:04 WRAM is used for more then just data transferring, so it's not really Video-RAM per-say, it's just... RAM that both consoles have access to, at varying points in time. For FMVs it's heavily used for that purpose though, serves as a great data buffer 8:13 -I'm kinda surprised you didn't mention anything about the 32X frame buffers rendering priority.- *he did, it was just brief and I just didn't notice lmfao.* Basically, you can choose to make the 32Xs video either render in front of, or behind of the MDs video. If you're familiar with old animated shows with how they have cells for characters put on top of painted backgrounds, it's kind of like that, except you can choose what acts as the the cells and background. For example, in Knux' Chaotix they chose to have the 32X as the cells, but Tempo chose to have it as the background. Because of this, you can't have the 32X act as, say, a layer in-between the MDs foreground and background layers, it's just fundamentally impossible. 8:45 It frees up a lot of things actually: for MK2 it frees up both the sprite layer and more importantly, almost half of the Colour-RAM; fighting games usually two rows of CRAM for each fighter. With no fighter rendering on the MD side, you can have a lot more freedom in adding colour to the foregrounds and backgrounds, while also using the MDs sprites to add extra layers like those dragons in the background. It also frees up some Video-RAM, but it's less of an improvement compared to the other two. Still good, can easily fit those dragons. 10:35 A common misconception, it's 61... ignoring beam racing tricks which can easily bump it up to the thousands; see Lufthoheit. That wasn't a request. kzbin.info/www/bejne/eqXRonWliMuVqNE To be specific, it's 15 per 8x8 tile, with 4 palettes to choose from, and an extra one for overscan. Overscan can be set to use any colour in CRAM, but you get the most mileage setting it to one of the otherwise transparent colours; the first in the palette. The 32X adds some complications for the overscan palette if the MD is the "cell". See Sonic 1 in Space for 32X: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bZS9goKkZ9uBlck 5:01 Not necessary inaccurate, but the terminology was misleading. The 32X has two extra channels, one for the left and another for the right. Any additional channels beyond that are combined in software with the combined data being streamed to the audio processors; the same can be done on the stock mega drive actually, though usually not in stereo nor as high quality as the 32X can do. For MD examples (because for the 32X it's like half the library) Toy Story and Ristar are commercial examples of this, and XGM1 - a sound driver commonly used in modern mega drive homebrew- supports a whopping four samples using this method; XGM2 strips it down to three, but has better audio control features and built-in data compression 10:10 Unlike the 32X audio, this one was actually inaccurate. It has 8 channels... like the SNES. Less audio features compared to the SNES though so there's that. Then again, a 12MHz 68000 CPU can surely do some post-processing

[@WhitePointerGaming]

Thanks for the feedback! I actually do mention that the 32X puts its image either on top of or behind the Mega Drive's video signal (6:25), although don't go in depth into exactly how it does that. Yeah I know the colour palette is *technically* 61 due to the transparent colours, but I've always found it easier to explain that it's 4 palettes of 16 colours = 64. It was my understanding that the Mega CD sound chip provided 8 PCM channels, plus an extra 2 channels (left and right stereo) for CD audio. In hindsight, it probably would have been better to be more specific about that, instead of just saying it added 10 channels. Since this video focused more on the graphical capabilities, if I ever explore the sound in more detail I'll definitely clarify this. Agreed on your other points, I appreciate your insights!

[@TurboXray]

" and an extra one for overscan." It's not for overscan. It's the backdrop color. Overscan might show that color, but that's not the purpose of the color slot.

[@TurboXray]

" you can't have the 32X act as, say, a layer in-between the MDs foreground and background layers, it's just fundamentally impossible." Not in hardware, but you can in software. If the 32x is the top layer, you can cut out sections that match the graphics underneath on the MD side. I.e. masking. It aligned up correctly, 32x graphics can be "shown" between MD layers.

[@malachigv]

@@TurboXray regarding the counterpoint for the foreground and background layering, yeah saying it's "fundamentally impossible" was a massive reach (it has a frame buffer, _technically_ it can run Crysis), though it would likely better probably illuminate the 32Xs mixels problem. And okay, backdrop colour, good to know the proper term. I've mainly been calling it that for the same reasons people say the MD can render 64 colours: simplicity, if it quacks like a duck and blah blah then it's a duck

[@Liam3072]

Also at around 04:00 - while he does mention it later, it's not really correct to say the VDP was "capable of producing" anything. Anything produced really was produced by the SH-2. The VDP did nothing more than take whatever picture the SH-2 had produced and wrote in the framebuffer, mix it with the Genesis' content, and put it on screen. The SH-2 did all the actual work interms of graphics which is why the 32X is so underpowered compared to a Saturn, much more than the difference in clock speed. The real difference is that the Saturn had its own hardware-accelerated VDPs to actually produce things, the 32X doesn't.

[@Disthron]

The I think how the SVP chip worked was closer to the 'lock on' system with Sonic 3 and Knuckles. If memory serves, it was actually a patient dispute that caused the VDP lock on system to not be a thing. It would have been cool if the main cart had Virtua Racing, with the lock on feature allowing a kind of passthrough.

[@DigitalDiabloUK]

The era when SEGA just decided to throw hardware at the problem, rather than having a cohesive strategy.

[@thedrunkmonkshow]

Man growing up I used to think that the 32X was powerful and that there was untapped potential still left in it if game designers and programmers had more time with it. But a couple of years ago when I sat down and really read through the available documentation on the specs of hardware, it's shocking to me that Sega went with that type of hardware configuration in 1994. Did they not look around at other systems like the Jaguar or the average MSDOS/Windows to see what happens when you build games on a system that lacks video acceleration of any kind? Not even a 486 the early Pentiums which ran at a much higher clock speed could render games like Doom or Descent at a decent frame rate so what made them think two SH2s could do the job at 23Mhz each? Speculations aside I am excited and interested at what's happening on the Homebrew front. The Wolfenstein 3D and Golden Axe demos looked very impressive.

[@ostiariusalpha]

Well, about DOOM... 😅 If you look at the recent 32X homebrew release of DOOM Resurrection by Vic Luchitz, you would know those SH2 can handle the game just fine and dandy. The actual issue with the original DOOM 32X was its rushed development schedule.

[@WhitePointerGaming]

You can't really compare the clock speed of CPUs of consoles and PCs, especially not from that generation, because the PCs needed to be doing more than just running a game (they had an underlying operating system, drivers, etc) and were built as general-purpose machines. The consoles were dedicated to just running games, and had specialised hardware built for running games.

[@thedrunkmonkshow]

@@ostiariusalpha Thanks for the heads up! I hadn't looked it it when I wrote my prev comment but after checking it out now there's very noticeable improvements like a normal viewing window, textures from a distance appear normal instead of dithered, enemies can turn around, better FM music composition and a much better framerate to where it reminds me of the classic MSDOS version. That really gives me high hopes for the future of what can be done potentially. 😇

[@thedrunkmonkshow]

​@@WhitePointerGaming Well that's the point I was trying to get to...the 32X add-on didn't really offer anything specialized for running games. It's basically two general purpose CPUs and a bitmap video display without it's own sprite/tile acceleration and nothing to aid in 3D calculations leaving everything to be done by the CPUs in software. Even older consoles like the NES and Master System had tile and sprite hardware acceleration. By comparison to the Saturn, aside from having CD storage, having those two hardware features is what made that a more capable system for running games.

[@heilong79]

I have been saying this for years, they were add ones like buying a light gun for your system but people talk about them like they were consoles.

[@AppliedCryogenics]

I think people understand that the 32x was an add-on for the Genesis. It was a stopgap measure to try to keep up with the competition during the development of the Saturn.

[@AppliedCryogenics]

Sega kind of dropped the ball by not encouraging more enhancement chips in gamecarts like Nintendo was willing to do on the SNES. Genesis only had one-ever enhancement chip in a cartridge and that was the vector processor in virtua racing, which was hella expensive. snes had like 8 or 12 different enhancement chips in their cartridges.

[@Nobunaga1983]

I’m actually more impressed by the Sega cds capabilities than the 32x. The Sega cd scaling had so much potential, outrun, road rash, so many games could of used this

[@ostiariusalpha]

Sadly, there wasn't enough DMA bandwidth in the Mega Drive/Genesis VDP to fully exploit the CD peripheral's capabilities. The Gate Array ASIC chip could switch between a "Mode 7" scaling and rotation function and a more general purpose DSP mode, that could do the math for polygonal algorithms much the same as the SVP chip does. Its output though far exceeded the ability of the DMA unit on the MD to transfer graphics data to VRAM, which is why Sonic CD's bonus stage has such a low frame rate and Night Striker has such low resolution.

[@JD-jx6gw]

* could have.

[@Nobunaga1983]

@@JD-jx6gw Batman returns cd shows exactly how racing games could look

[@RobsonRoverRepair]

100% bud. The Mega CD was absolutely a power house of the time. Sega made the mistake of making it an add on only, and should have done the MD2 as a single md2cd all in one. Creating a new standard console. MD2 with cd built in. Md1 as the basic system with the mega cd upgrade. Basically a Megadrive and a Megadrive Pro Would have been a brilliant way to move people to Saturn, skip 32x and making it backwards compatibility with md carts and mega cd discs.

[@Nobunaga1983]

@@RobsonRoverRepair Md with cd with little color buff and no need for 32x or early Saturn

[@GreyMatterShades]

I've enjoyed a lot of these videos so far, and this might be my favourite one yet! - 2:18 This is really interesting. I've said for years that instead of making the 32X, Sega should've boosted the SVP (maybe gone with a single Hitachi SH2) but made it a lock-on cart like Sonic & Knuckles so they wouldn't need to put an expensive chip in each game. I had no idea they'd actually planned to do so. Ultimately I think this would've been a better strategy for prolonging the Genesis' life than the 32X was, especially if they'd managed to make these new carts compatible with the Sega Saturn's cart slot. While we're at it, it would've been great if they'd made the Saturn backward compatible with Sega CD games, but that's probably a pretty tall order considering the differences in system architecture. Anyway, loved the video. Keep up the great work! 🍻

[@Liam3072]

I think they felt the Genesis' onscreen color limit was becoming too much of a constraint. Hence a more full-fledged add-on. The 32X was just not a good middle ground though: its two SH-2 was too complex and expensive for a small little add-on, but the lack of an actual VDP with hardware-accelerated features made it way underpowered as a 5th gen machine.

[@WhitePointerGaming]

Glad you liked it, this one took a lot of work!

[@GreyMatterShades]

@@Liam3072 I agree on both counts. The 32X was trying to bridge the gap between generations, but in the end it wound up being desirable to neither. And the lack of compatibility with the Saturn made it seem like a waste of money for anyone who was going to upgrade eventually anyway. If they'd gone with a single SH-2 clocked at the same frequency as the Saturn's, maybe they could've made 32X games compatible. At very least, the system would've been easier for development. And if Sega was going to address the limited colours of the Genesis, I think they should've done it with the Sega CD.

[@ostiariusalpha]

If the 32X had come out 6-12 months earlier (and perhaps with some single-bus multiprocessing software ready to go), it would have been much more successful, but releasing at the end of '94 was a no go from the start. Sega had serious issues with Samsung's QC on the SVP, which drove up the cost per chip and is a big reason why they abandoned it. In hindsight, with no 32X coming out in late '93 or early '94, Sega would have been better off sticking with the SVP and letting Samsung work out their fabrication issues, so that the more affordable and convenient SVP Lock-On cart would be developed instead of the 32X.

[@GreyMatterShades]

@@ostiariusalpha I agree on all counts. I didn't know about the QC issues on the SVP, but that makes a bit of sense regarding the costs and cancellation of the lock-on cart. And yeah a lot of this is much easier to say in hindsight, but some of these things should've been obvious even at the time. From what I understand, the 32X had a fairly rushed product development cycle, including getting development kits out to companies really late. That means launching it earlier would never have been feasible and Sega knew it. As a result, it hit the market at almost the same time as the Saturn was launching in Japan, and it was too expensive for its purpose. There were probably a lot of people who couldn't afford to get into the next-gen consoles right when they launched, but those same people wouldn't be willing to spend hundreds on a stop-gap add-on and games for it; Especially when those games weren't be compatible with the Saturn. A cheaper SVP lock-on cart, with games like Virtua Fighter available for it (even if it wasn't as good as the 32X version), would've been a much better option imo.

[@loganjorgensen]

9:40 Much of the technical points of the GEN/MD expansion slot compare it to a disk drive IO in transfer speed so it had to overcome a certain amount of bottlenecking there. PCs had the advantage of motherboard revision around that time so they were able to include a faster IO port with CD drives becoming the new drive standard. In hindsight Sega did a hell of a good job getting such high performance from their CD add-on device. In retrospect it was largely ignored in Japan for other platforms I guess, with some EU and NA developers actually using the advanced graphics hardware more since there wasn't much like it in those regions at the time. Really the library and point of the added platform hardware would likely be lost to time if Core and Malibu Interactive hadn't made such great game engines for it. While often ridiculed the FMV on Sega CD is a technical feat when you actually learn how hard it was to implement it in both hardware and also the software codec aspect. Mostly a victim of development timing as full screen 256x224 FMV wasn't figured out till much later where the genre's relevance was already eroded by the time Power Rangers and Fahrenheit came out Eg. launching with FMV that wasn't FULL motion video but instead cropped. I guess people are spoiled for high quality FMV now since to me 32X FMV looks so much better than regular SCD FMV.🙂 I think Sega of Japan should have done coproduction games with Core or Malibu in the 90s, them handling the programming while they handle game design and graphics, would have been the best of both worlds likely producing some cool games.🤔

[@TurboXray]

Sega could have easily added transparency settings between the MD and 32x layers. It's a real shame they didn't because translucency was something that even Jag and 3DO didn't use often (for speed of pixel rendering reasons). Although, if were going that far - it's absolute ridiculous that not even a simple blitter wasn't available on the 32x. Seriously.. why?

[@WhitePointerGaming]

32X was pretty half-arsed at the end of the day... a scaled back and slower Saturn without any of the hardware features that made the Saturn good.

[@TurboXray]

@@WhitePointerGaming Yeah, but just a couple of tiny includes would have made it much more powerful than simple being a 100% software solution. Dunno. Maybe SOJ didn't want it anywhere near the Saturn's capability. It's just weird is all, because the latching of the original pixel output of the MD was no small feat!

[@Nodramallamagaming]

Just want to say your videos are incredibly informative :) I really enjoy looking back at how dev's managed to achieve the "impossible" :) I currently cover retro gaming myself and whilst i tuoch base on the technicals, I do not have the knowledge you have here! So yeh, thanks for sharing this wicked content!

[@ИгорьН-г3ф]

great job! very interesting, thank you)) i like technical moments you explain. greetings from the land of bears, vodka and balalaika))

[@WhitePointerGaming]

Welcome from the land of crocodiles, beer and didgeridoos :)

[@diebesgrab]

“the land of bears, vodka and balalaika” Canada?

[@ИгорьН-г3ф]

@@diebesgrab i doubt balalaikas are present in Canada) Russia, actually))

[@joshfacio9379]

Side note, this is what i miss about these old awesome systems and carts. Creative geniuses were able to make the base systems do things people hadnt seen before or thought possible. Or game carts would pack tech advancments and upgrades that pushed the system and games far beyond their 1st or 2nd gen games. You just dont see this anymore. Now you have to buy the new pro slightly improved system 2 years after the system launched and maybe im getting old but i cant see a damn difference! I miss the days when games went from mario 1 to mario 3, or mario world to super mario rpg, yoshi island and final fantasy 6.you cant do these on modern systems without buying a new model acouple years into the systems life.

[@Thewickedjon]

lunarn 1 & 2, shinning force cd, sonic cd, final fight cd, mickey mania, pitfall the mayan adventure, popful mail I mean, people keep saying the sega cd was a failure, i think it was great!! i wish they would have released MORE sega cd games , cuz I really liked it. Heck i even still have my sega cd hooked up to my genesis model 2 stored in my closet, and they still work!

[@WhitePointerGaming]

It wasn't as much of a commercial failure as the 32X was, but it only sold about 5% of the Genesis/Mega Drive's total install base. Sega would have been expecting a lot more than that.

[@joshfacio9379]

All right a new video! I love these, theyre informative and entertaining. Ive long wondered how my favorite system were able to do incredible effects and tho sometimes my brain doesnt get programming and math i still appreciate em.

[@joshfacio9379]

These videos remind me of info id read in the magazines of old and me and my lil brother would discuss which system could do what and how itd be pushed. Since my brother died acouple months back i hadnt had anyone to do these kinda things and your videos bring a smile to my face as it reminds me of better times. Thanks again.

[@WhitePointerGaming]

I'm sorry to hear about your brother, man. I'm happy I'm able to help you remember him in some way.

[@jimmy21584]

We’d already had Doom for a year when the 32x came out. In hindsight, Sega should have seen the writing on the wall and gone 100% 3D, instead of trying to cobble together 2D, FMV, and 3D elements. It’s still possible to do beautiful 2D and streaming video to texture with 3D hardware, but not the other way round.

[@8bvg300]

Nice video. I got so much use out of my mega CD. I love the console and its games. Can’t go wrong with Core Designs library on the system

[@DanielMonteiroNit]

9:33 Brazil as well

[@cireza_]

The video does a good job at explaining how the add-ons work, and we even managed to avoid hearing stuff like "the Mega-CD was a failure" (obviously it wasn't, not after a hardware revision and 6 years of support) so that's pretty good. However I have an issue with the conclusion about the MegaDrive being able to do pretty much every game of the Mega-CD with the exception of those using scaling. I mean, it is when you start listing exceptions that the argument totally falls flat. Sure, if you remove the redbook audio, the videos, the scaling, the 700 MB of memory, the MegaDrive can do any Mega-CD game ! The CD format was always an excellent format for RPG/Adventure games, and generally any game that can benefit from a ton of content, without the need to stream data directly from the ROM. This is why games like Dune, Eye of the Beholder, Lunar Eternal Blue, Popful Mail, Snatcher etc... could absolutely not exist on MegaDrive. They would be entirely different. But even games like Final Fight or Samurai Shodown/Fatal Fury Special would have to greatly compromise on the graphics, because ROM was so expensive back then.

[@jaysharpESQ]

I loved Silpheed

[@gtrzdaddy]

I remember looking forward to the Mega-CD when it was announced that it would support the scaling and rotation, but then not having any Sega super scalar games on it got me super disappointed Then when the 32X came out, I was blown away by the most arcade "perfect" Space Harrier and After Burner on it. While most people say that 32X was a failure, to me it was the greatest game console that I ever bought, just to be able to play the Space Harrier and After Burner.

[@johnjames7332]

Great video, thanks for explaining

[@OldsXCool]

Very interesting information not commonly talked about. My favorite Sega CD game is Battlecorps hands down. It's still one of the best mech games ever made.

[@rustymixer2886]

Great video yeah soul star core looks like early ps1 game imo

[@YNGBLD80]

Hey mate just came across your channel awesome stuff just what I'm needing I tinker around with old 6502 and 68k architecture old jamma boards and love to delve into how the binary info is rendered onto the screen. Any chance you can do a intermediate type breakdown how something like a basic 6502 or similar CPU interfaces with roms and a dedicated video chip to produce sprites and background layers on the screen. Maybe an extension of the Megadrive Content more geared around lookup tables and palette adoption. I guess simply put memory location X stores tile 1 load table 1 into vram lda tile 2 etc where I get lost is the color palette info how those pixels are then colored. I don't know how deep we can delve however it would be nice to understand how from a hardware perspective the hexadecimal and or binary rgb (voltage) values in a palette table are interpreted by the video chip to produce a particular pixel color. I started reading into how the nes ppu for example does its thing but still a little over my head atm Mate if you can all good if not all good again . Nice to see another Aussie with great content and ill be sussing out more of your vids for sure. Cheers Franky

[@WhitePointerGaming]

Glad to see another Aussie enjoying my content :) Not sure if I'll go this deep into the technical workings, but it's an interesting idea.

[@RicardoRamosRetrocomputacao]

We all love these accessories, but the truth is that it was a huge waste of resources and money. Sega would have done well if they had released something like the Sega Neptune, with a disc drive, they would have had the strength to compete with the early PlayStation until a successor arrived, and they would have crushed the SNES. I believe it would have been expensive, but not as expensive as assembling the Megazord, and considerably cheaper than a NeoGeo or 3DO. Sega of America had excellent ideas, but they were always under the thumb of Sega of Japan, which had ridiculous ideas (in fact, that's what brought Sega to the brink of bankruptcy). Saturn was an unnecessarily complex piece of crap, Dreamcast was just ok, but it would have been crushing and outlasted even the early days of the PlayStation 2 (as well as the GameCube) if it had been released as Sega of America's project, with the 3DFX chip. Thank God Microsoft was there to see all this at the time, and built the Xbox exactly the way it needed to be, and for that reason it became the best console of that generation in terms of cost and hardware.

[@WhitePointerGaming]

I disagree the Neptune would have been a good idea and Sega made the correct call to drop it. Why on earth would they release essentially a new console for a year or so as a stop-gap? It would have been too expensive with a game library too small, probably an even worse situation than the 32X. Sega of America are also not free of blame for the whole fiasco, as the 32X was actually almost entirely Sega of America's idea and was designed and produced by them.

[@pedromascarenas]

@@WhitePointerGaming Neptune could have been almost a Saturn, with the same two processors, but with a faster clock, and could have completely replaced Saturn until the arrival of DC. The 32x was limited by being just an accessory, and by a price limit. Sega wasted time with the 32x and Sega CD, but if they hadn't, they could have released the Neptune in late '93, where it would have had a large window for profit.

[@rars0n]

The problem with the Neptune is that it would have necessarily occupied an awkward middle ground. Neptune was supposed to be a cheap 32-bit alternative for people who didn't want to spend $400 on a Saturn, but had all the complexity and cost of having the entire Genesis base hardware plus 32X hardware inside. That pretty much necessitated it being a cartridge console for cost-saving, cartridge being an expensive but limited format that Sega themselves were already replacing with CD-ROM. From a developer perspective, who wants to spend the money developing for such a complex hardware setup when a fraction of a fraction of Genesis owners actually own the hardware required to play your game, and the media costs 10x as much per copy to produce with a fraction of the storage space compared to pressing a disc? Saturn would have been a competent (albeit rather complicated and expensive) console had Sega simply delayed the launch a bit instead of trying to get first out the door so that they could have provided better development tools and more time for devs to polish their software titles. I think if anything, Sega probably should have scrapped the 32X altogether, given the Saturn more development time, and focused on a hardware version of it that could have retained backwards compatibility with the Genesis, which would have been a huge deal in the transition to the 32-bit market (a limited library is much more forgivable if all your old games work on the new console). All the while continuing to support the Genesis in regions outside Japan through 1995, instead of abandoning the 16-bit market that still drove the majority of console game sales. Given what we know about the hardware that actually made it to release around the time, I am of the opinion that the 3dfx-based Dreamcast would have been faster than the PowerVR-based hardware, but without the image quality. The vivid colors and sharpness of the Dreamcast graphics remind me of Sega's arcade roots, and helps make the games stand out, especially when compared against the early PS2 titles. Sega was never going to match Sony on power given the timing of their hardware launch, so I don't think going with 3dfx would have helped Dreamcast sales at all. 3dfx was also rapidly losing ground and reputation in the PC accelerator space around the same time, which probably wouldn't have done Sega any favors.

[@axelprino]

If they had gone with the pass-through approach from the start and the Mega CD had it's own VDP and output they could have avoided the heavy color and framerate limitations on FMV and maybe even the 32X would have been made redundant and skipped in favor of just releasing a handful of Virtua titles on cartridges with the SVP chip, it would have made their whole hardware lineup a lot less confusing for the average consumer and only sacrificed the few titles that couldn't be done with the Genesis + CD combo or SVP. And if I allow myself to fully dive into retroactive design decisions only possible through hindsight, they should have added extra pins on that cartridge slot on the side for audio and video output from the get-go considering that they were already planning a CD drive add-on while designing the base console. Heck they could have even added pins for power, imagine if all you had to do was plug the various cables for power and AV into the Sega CD and then sliding the Genesis on top was enough to get the whole thing running, no multiple power-bricks needed.

[@slightlyevolved]

I could use some confirmation, but i seem to recall that one feature of the CD that wasn't used was that the extra PSG/FM sound channels, RAM and the scaling ASIC were accessible by the Genesis as well. So technically carts could take advantage of this, just not with the storage capacity and PCM streaming audio....

[@Phredreeke]

Yeah, but then you get the expense of making a cartridge game, while at the same time requiring the Sega CD addon. Btw I don't think the extra sound channels were PSG/FM but rather PCM

[@theevilmuppet]

Love your work fellow Australian - reckon you can enlighten the world as to why all of the chips in Sega consoles featured "315-" in the model number? If you do, I will buy you, an beer!

[@WhitePointerGaming]

Tempting!

[@theevilmuppet]

@@WhitePointerGaming you're the hero we need, even if we don't deserve you.

[@8bvg300]

Thunderhawk will always be my favourite

[@Steven-ph6pp]

Not if it matters or not, but Sega did release the Sega cdx/mega cdx which was a slim version of the Genesis/mega drive and the Sega CD/mega CD in one. It was 3/4 the size of the Genesis/mega drive and could be used as a CD player with two batteries placed in the back and taken on the go. I own one and it's amazing, hope you get around to it or update your video to include it some day

[@SirFragula]

I think they missed a trick by not using the S&K style connector approach bundled with a big name title. Same for Nintendo too, with the half dozen versions of the same chips doing nothing but add cost to every cartridge.

[@NoSuRReNDeR001]

I had virtua racing when it came out and cosmic carnage... yeah Virtua Racing on a CRT was INSANE at the time.

[@caseyhayes4590]

Virtua Racing should have been an SVP chip lock on cart, $90 game. Would not have been viewed as some huge "failure" if there were only 4-5 games for it. Virtua Racing was mind blowing at home at the time and easily worth $70 so you'd be paying just $20 for a system booster that didn't require a ton of cords. It's a hell of a lot more visually impressive than Star Fox. Star Fox is mostly great for the art direction and charm.

[@rars0n]

Cartridge chips are great because the hardware is self-contained and therefore doesn't need to be purchased separately. This ensures that everyone who has the base console can play. However, the SVP chip was not cheap, with the Genesis version of Virtua Racing retailing for $100. Every time you buy a new game with the same hardware in it, you're buying the hardware all over again. There are also limitations to the amount of data that can be pushed through the bus of the cartridge slot (the 32X gets around this a bit by using its own output). I would have liked to see more games that used the SVP, but unfortunately the cost made that prohibitive. Sega was overly ambitious with its hardware back in the 90's and seemed intent on upgrading or iterating on its consoles every 2-3 years or so. Add-on hardware is attractive in theory, but unfortunately adoption is always a problem. Developers are hesitant to support hardware that only a fraction of the userbase own, and gamers are hesitant to spend hundreds of dollars on devices when the majority of games are being released for the base console that they already own. The 32X configuration in was quite messy and somewhat impractical, especially when paired with the Sega CD, and included some caveats (for instance, it didn't work with the Sega CDX and some Genesis games wouldn't work with the 32X attached). Probably the worst aspect of the 32X was its timing. Had Sega developed and brought it to market a bit earlier (and delayed the Saturn, which should have happened regardless, at least in the US market), I think it would have been more successful. As it was, the 32X was a pretty hot seller for Christmas 1994, so sales were not the problem, at least not initially, but when gamers got them in their hands, the software lineup was a bit underwhelming. A more polished hardware design, with better development tools, and a lower price tag would have gone a long way to helping the 32X achieve the success that Sega was looking for, but ultimately it still would have been limited by virtue of its nature as another Genesis add-on. That said, Sega was probably the only company at the time who had the ambition to release such hardware, so I appreciate that they brought it to market at all.

[@harrymasonsm]

Well im curious about the sega cdx and how it did all that the sega cd did in the size of a portable cd player. Even had a slot for batteries. Though I never used it that way.

[@loganjorgensen]

I think its a bit reductive to phrase that the purpose of add-ons is to "extend the life of consoles" since it makes it sound like it was always on the verge of dying lol, really add-ons allow platforms to do things it otherwise couldn't do at all, or couldn't do very well Egs. optical storage capacity, rendering polygons, CD sound.😉 Sega's SVP did outdo the Super-FX in average polygonal rendering maintaining 15-fps mostly, but it was too expensive and didn't seem to do the other things the FX chip did like sprite scaling and rotation etc., maybe it could but they never used the SVP again.😒 No way, so they did have plans for a pass-through SVP solution, been talking about that for years for homebrew games. They should have sold Virtua Racing in that form immediately, might have got few more SVP titles that way. Probably my biggest complaint with 32X ports is how often they just used the Genesis graphics again recolored as that doesn't raise the on screen color count and visual fidelity much. Kolibri/Chaotix being actual new games show how you can put all 64 colors into the background layer since the 32X can handle the sprite color needs. Without that graphics remastering you get a clashing contrast of high color sprites against muted and dithered low color backgrounds in much of the game library. 32X platform was pretty lucky to get such an excellent Virtua Fighter port since it didn't exactly drown in polygonal titles. It didn't get enough 3D games but the ones it did certainly show the potential of the hardware to something akin to 3DO or Jaguar games. Kind of a partial texture mapping era, sprinkle in a few key ones as full texture mapping was too slow Eg. Darxide. 6:56 In hindsight it's amazing how few 32X/SS developers ever used the two chips efficiently in that manner.

[@pr1stvan]

With the tower of power, we could create a 3D platformer. The polygon walls ans enemies would be rendered by the 32x, one plane would be used for ceilings and floors rendered by the sega CD. The Genesis would do the skybox and scores/lives on plane A.

[@glenwaldrop8166]

Sega should have used the Sega CD as a dual system in the later years, include the 32x game data in the same game, you get Genesis quality without the 32x. They wasted CDROM capacity back in those days, they would literally look for things to fill the disc with in most cases...

[@darrenmontjar7168]

The 32x version of MK2 is the best home port of that game. It looked and played amazing. Audio was still kinda meh but at least the digitized voices were clear as a bell. Batman on the Sega CD was an absolute jaw dropper.

[@WhitePointerGaming]

I think MKII on the 32X only brings it about up to par with the SNES version and it still falls short of it in a couple of areas such as the music. It was a good port but by all rights the 32X version should have been pretty much arcade perfect. It seemed rushed and they just didn't quite nail it. I personally still prefer the SNES version.

[@darrenmontjar7168]

@@WhitePointerGaming The SNES version plays like crap. The 32x port is definitely a rush job.

[@BlackCloudBoss]

The 32x is interesting in how much people lack any deep thinking. I remember reading Gamefan magazine and thinking, this isn't a generational leap, I'm going to skip it. Sega definitely violated people's trust that they never won back. I am sure there's also some weird backroom deals for those Hitachi chips and envy/disdain that the US division was doing so well.

[@Kawa-oneechan]

For the Pitfall challenge: the middle one is the 32X. You can tell from the better sprite graphics.

[@jimbox114]

Nintendo made the better choice with their enhancement chips. If memory serves the games using those chips were not any more expensive than other games. Meanwhile Sega wanted you to either pay $100 for a game or spend $150 on a 32X and $150 for a Sega CD. And yea its a mess with all those plug ins. Even then outside of cd audio the SNES still had better sound using wavetable instead of FM.

[@scikoolaid]

Back in the day, all the prices for Sega stuff was insane compared to what you got for Nintendo stuff. And the quality of the games wasn't as easily determined so you had risk of getting a pretty poor value game for the prices. Once there were price deductions on Sega stuff, you knew what to actually avoid buying which was quite weird and not helpful for Sega.

[@diebesgrab]

You absolutely paid extra for SNES games with enhancement chips. A lot of late era SNES games were over $70 at launch, in 1990s money. Sega was actually trying to keep consumer costs down by releasing these add-ons, as the cost would theoretically be lower if you bought the enhancement hardware once, instead of putting it in every cart that needed it. They just kinda got carried away with the various ideas they had to implement those concepts, and publishers had little incentive to make games for them because the install bases were so much lower than the base hardware. A clearer vision, better first party support, and more incentives for third party publishers to embrace the hardware would have very likely made Sega add-ons much more successful.

[@dbnpoldermans4120]

your voice is sissing alot. Is that due to you being too close to the monitor? I'd try and find a solution for that. Interesting video!

[@freddiejohnson6137]

I would have loved to have seen games produced that used all three systems capabilities to their full potential rather than only small bits when all the systems were connected. Although I get why no developers and publishers ever bothered because they probably couldn't dedicate resources to 32X CD games as well as focus on the Saturn and PlayStation more so since it was DOA but i am still curious what could have been produced with everything working in tandem and just how close it could have been to the Saturn and PlayStation at least in terms of 2D.

[@WhitePointerGaming]

I think there was definitely more potential in the Mega CD 32X combo than just slightly better looking FMVs, but the 32X's short time on the market (and the looming launch of the fifth gen consoles) probably killed any chance of developers exploring it.

[@jayme69]

My favourite game on the Mega CD was Final Fight because it put the SNES version to shame ;-) But seriously I think Core Design made some great games for the platform including Thunderhawk and Jaguar XJ220 :-)

[@G.L.999]

The SVP Chip should've been a stand-alone cartridge for just $50. That way, ROM productions for it would've been cheaper to manufacture for it!

[@Tarquin23]

0:20 who tf thinks the CD and 32X are their own systems? 🤣

[@WhitePointerGaming]

Many do, due to the fact that they have their own libraries of games that were not playable on the base Mega Drive. If you are searching for 32X games, you're going to search for "32X", after all. So I just wanted to acknowledge that. However, as I say in the video, I've always considered them add-ons that enhanced the capabilities of the Mega Drive, and that's exactly how Sega saw them, too.

[@demonology2629]

None of these can be played without the GENESIS, If you look closer on expectation there is no controller ports on the 32X & SEGA . What about Mars? However it has GENESIS/ MEGA DRIVE chipson board so yeah. It can't work without the Genesis internals There's no way around it.

[@johneygd]

I personally don’t really count the 32X as an addon, but i do consider the genesis as an addon for the 32X,why??? Because the 32X has it’s own video output, it needs the sega genesis it mix it’s graphics with it, the mega CD addon will definitely transform your sega genesis/megadrive into the best 2D powerhouse. Althrough i am happy with my stock sega megadrive and sega nomad😁

[@Longlius]

For the Pitfall part, was the order Megadrive, 32X, MegaCD?

[@jaysharpESQ]

I thought it was backwards.

[@RichardCraig]

For real, how can he ask that and not give us the answers at the end?! Also that's the same order I came up with. Middle is 100% the 32X version... that slowdown!

[@WhitePointerGaming]

@@RichardCraig To encourage discussion in the comments :) I will say though that there's a pretty big clue once I stop talking and the in-game sound volume is turned up. It's only coming from one of them, and there's only one version that has music that sounds like that.

[@videogamebookreviews]

I spotted the 32X as the middle one because it has different colours on the crocodile, suggesting it's the machine with a different palette. But I can't separate the other two.

[@WhitePointerGaming]

@@videogamebookreviews Listen for the difference ;) The game sounds at the end are only coming from one of the 3 versions. Match those up and you'll be able to separate them, only one version has music that can sound like that.

[@jmalmsten]

Favourite SegaCD game? Snatcher. Hands down. Snatcher.

[@GamerGee]

9:03 32x ring loss. Nice

[@GamerGee]

1 11:06 imagine if it did what the satin did with a ram cart. We could have had a better mortal kombat cd port.

[@MrJamesshipman]

Sonic cd is my favorite game. Soul star cd Dark wizard!!!! Cd Shadow squadron 32x

[@pyronmasters]

We didn’t get the 32X cuz my brother was saving for the Saturn.

[@albertodiez4215]

I think that the 32x is in the center

[@Sinn0100]

Wait a minute... if a Sega CD game was like one giant cartridge for the Genesis, then what is its max read ceiling? Are we talking AES worthy cart sizes here?

[@WhitePointerGaming]

A CD could hold 650 megabytes, more data than even the largest Neo Geo cartridge. However, as I explained in the video, it only had a Word RAM size of 256KB. That's the maximum amount of data it could transfer at a time.

[@Phredreeke]

Think of it like the mapper chips on NES, while the cartridge could hold 512kb of PRG ROM (Kirby's Adventure), the NES could only see 32kb of it at a time. The difference being of course that while switching pages is pretty much instant on a mapper, in the case of the Sega CD it's certainly not

[@damin9913]

Sega Genesis SVP needs virtual fighter 2

[@erockbrox8484]

I like talking about kb and mb. Kilobytes and megabytes, but when people talk about MegaBit, I hate that.

[@WhitePointerGaming]

8 bits = 1 byte. Consoles of that generation worked more with bits rather than bytes. It could be confusing because a cartridge would often just refer to the shorthand of "megs", which meant megabit rather than megabyte.

[@MikAlexander]

Blast processing, ini't?

[@zalden2565]

@14:05 Man, the genesis needed an add on to do what the snes did on day 1? 😁

[@WhitePointerGaming]

To be fair, it was more advanced than mode 7 on the SNES.

[@zalden2565]

⁠@@WhitePointerGamingSega tried what Nintendid and it looked pretty good

[@TheRealJPhillips]

I always said, the 32x filed because it diddnt have enough games and life time

[@JohnWayne-bm1ty]

I really wanted to see this vid, there's barely no info on the 32X

[@stephenshelottiii3272]

Calling the Sega/Mega CD and 32X a console is ridiculous. Neither work without a Genesis/Mega Drive to attach it too. Yes they have their own libraries and power adapters but are completely useless without the base unit.

[@WhitePointerGaming]

I've always seen them as add-ons. Yes they have their own unique libraries that are not compatible with the base unit but I see it as the same kind of thing as buying a CD-ROM drive for a PC back then imo. You're buying games in a different format, but they are still PC games. The Sega add-ons were there to enhance the capabilities of the base unit and extend the life of the console. However I do understand why a large group of gamers consider them to essentially be their own platforms.

[@stephenshelottiii3272]

@@WhitePointerGaming platform yes. Console no.

[@ru55ells]

12:25 it's pronounced "all - be - it" fella

[@QuinnCsVideos]

2 32-bit processors? Atari would have called it 64-bit.

[@WhitePointerGaming]

That's actually a myth, Atari didn't get 64-bit by adding 32+32 together. The Jaguar actually did contain 64-bit components and that's where they got it from. I have a video all about it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nKqvq4mFnsxpgLM . Interestingly enough it was actually Sega that claimed the Saturn was 64-bit by adding 32+32 together when they first launched it in Japan (though they quickly dropped the idea).

[@777Eliyahu]

SVP > 32X (as a concept)

[@diebesgrab]

Robo Aleste.

[@LampHatScott]

Yet sega genedis games were so more impressive than SNES in every way. SNES is an overrated machine.

[@jmcclain8237]

I never understood the sega cd. Over priced and little benefit. Developers found amazing ways to make the Genesis do things it wasn't supposed to be able to do. Now, if the sega cd had been a 32 bit add on, then yeah, totally worth it .

[@WhitePointerGaming]

It seems opinions are kind of split on the Mega CD. While it's almost universally agreed the 32X was a disaster, it's not so clear with the Mega CD. Some like yourself believe it was pointless, while you can see other commenters here saying they loved it. I personally think it had a lot of untapped potential.

[@jmcclain8237]

@@WhitePointerGaming Potential, absolutely. However, the overall value, i.m.o. , just wasn't warranted. Sega was all over the place, as you know, at that time. IF they had just focused on the Genesis, things would have perhaps gone differently.

[@Phredreeke]

CDs were the hot new thing. In hindsight it was jumping on the format prematurely

[@scikoolaid]

@@Phredreeke They even jumped into internet connectivity with the SEGA channel and boy did you need money to have all the required bills paid to have something like that, and they kill it after not too long later. They were clearly good at trailblazing but maybe too good for their own capacity, if they had tons of devs working on their hardware ideas they would have done well no matter the prices but they kept splitting all their effort across new tech they were pioneering asap.

[@turbinegraphics16]

Pretty bad failures, almost as bad as the Famicom disc system, DD64 and GBA card reader. 😄

[@apollosungod2819]

The way you present these "Sega" devices is misleading to the people who were not of age to have existed as teenagers back then who were far more likely to either have an informed experience or just seen the chaos unfolding depending on their region. Unfortunately you're also in the U.K./Europe PAL/SECAM region where due to that technology difference and possible costs and resources limits, you were only able to officially get these devices years after the original Japanese retail release and even U.S./North American release... It's obvious that since the Sega MegaDrive launched in Japan in 1988 that they had fierce competition in their domestic market. Also since the U.S.A. based subsidiary branch started in 1986 also known as Sega of America began as a horribly managed subsidiary branch that let's face it.. was badly managed by the people who were hired to work there on top of the fact that all of a sudden Atari Corp sees Nintendo NES having successful profits and they bring out their mothballed Atari 7800 Pro system and the Atari 2600 Junior both in 1986 at lower prices to pretty much derail potential videogame system buyers from buying either the better NES or the brand new Sega Master System which is a fact because in 1986 total system sales the Atari systems secured second place with Sega in third. Then by 1988 Sega of America was a total mess being managed by Tonka Toys Corp and unable to be organized enough to launch the Sega MegaDrive in 1988 which in turn may have caused the further delay of launching the MegaDrive in the U.K./Europe due to the money Sega Enterprises LTD Japan had to bring forward just to reorganize the U.S. based subsidiary branch which remember was established officially for distribution, marketing, and Public relations no different from how Nintendo of America was established in 1984. Regardless the fact is the MegaCD launched in Japan in 1991 as a direct response to the NEC CD-ROM2 and Super CD-ROM2 effort which is why Sega headquarters in Japan added additional processing power and RAM. NEXT would be the official launches in North America in 1992 and then the U.K. Europe launch in 1993 which is why your region experienced a lot of frustration with the MegaCD especially because "Sega Europe" was not initially founded. It was some groups of U.K. and European companies that formed after they officially launched the Sega Master System and Sega MegaDrive because the major problem was they were initially managed and influenced by decisions made by Sega of America's management staff. Then by January 1993 you have the official announcement of the Project Saturn which was a response to 3DO's official declaration of war against Sega, NEC and Nintendo... after that you also have Nintendo's Project Reality announcement which became the Ultra 64 and later Nintendo 64 and by December 1993 is when Sony PlayStation as PS-X was officially announced in Japan... Meanwhile the Sega SVP processor is a reaction response to Nintendo's 1993 FX processor powered Star Fox and other games where Nintendo's marketing team in North America had no problem advertising in the official Nintendo Power Magazine... something that Sega of America's management staff just never bothered to match which again is the true reason why Virtua Racing failed to sell enough cartridges to be considered profitable and by now you can see that the Sega MegaCD and the Virtua Racing SVP MegaDrive game are NORMAL strategies for competitive means but then by June 1994 is when the Sega of America created 32X gets officially announced and that revealed not only that this wasn't a normal strategy but it wasn't even a Japanese strategy because the MegaCD was launched in 1991 as a true expansion of the MegaDrive and Virtua Racing as a reaction to Nintendo's FX processor... so what is 32X a response to if the Project Saturn and all other major Japanese companies made their declarations of war all in late 1992 and 1993? Not even Atari Jaguar makes sense here just looking at how the 32X works and official words of Tom Kalinske and Joe Miller wanting it to become an add-on device and why true Sega veterans see the 32X as a fiasco that really sabotaged and damaged the launch and transition from 16bit to 32bit generations. Seriously, you only have Sega of America's Tom Kalinske claiming that the "32X was going to outsell the Sony PlayStation" in an Edge magazine aka Next Generation magazine interview that took place in late December 1994 but was published in early 1995 AFTER the Sega Saturn had launched in Japan and was successfully outselling the Sony PlayStation simply ONLY because of Virtua Fighter released in 1994. I mean calling the 32X a "scaled down Saturn" is telling everyone that this was a Japanese idea when it never was... in Japan they never backtrack hardware like that and didn't have to... remember that even the Super FamiCom had zero backward compatibility as it was a new platform. Also the Sega Saturn contains custom engineered 2d, super scaler and 3d processors which is hardware and not the software required to make those games under 32X... remember again even the 2d games run at 30fps which is insane considering that in 1988 all MegaDrive launch games were 60fps.

[@davidnabbit]

Skipping the amazing Lunar games in this video is a crime. The cutscenes and voice acting in those games were well beyond anything that could be done on cartridge. I bought a used Sega CD around 1995 pretty much exclusively for those games and never regretted it for a second.