Difference between revisions of "Blast processing"

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'''{{PAGENAME}}''' was a marketing term coined by [[Sega of America]] to promote the [[Sega Mega Drive]] (Sega Genesis in that region) video game console over its nearest rival, the [[Super Nintendo Entertainment System]] (SNES). The purpose of the term was to highlight the Genesis as the faster of the two machines. The term "blast processing" was originally coined in reference to the [[Yamaha]] [[VDP]] graphics processor's [[Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications|DMA unit]] "blasting" data at high speeds. While the campaign was short-lived, it was very successful in making the Genesis a more desirable product in 1992 and 1993, and remains a talking point among fans to this day.
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'''{{PAGENAME}}''' was a marketing term coined by [[Sega of America]] to promote the [[Sega Mega Drive]] (Sega Genesis in that region) video game console over its nearest rival, the [[Super Nintendo Entertainment System]] (SNES), in North America. "What makes the Genesis the superior machine?" It has "blast processing".
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While the Mega Drive is indeed capable of faster processing performance than the SNES, particularly due to the Mega Drive's [[Yamaha]] YM7101 [[VDP]] graphics processor having a faster [[wikipedia:DMA controller|DMA controller]] along with higher memory bandwidth (see ''[[Sega Mega Drive/Hardware comparison]]'' for a technical comparison with the SNES), the term "blast processing" itself was vague and unclear, due to a lack of technical explanation from Sega. The term is thus open to interpretation, and has been interpreted in different ways, as a reference to either the Mega Drive's faster performance, its higher CPU clock rate, its DMA controller, a specific DMA color technique (which is apparently what inspired the term), or just a meaningless marketing gimmick (as claimed by [[Nintendo]]). In more recent years, the term "blast processing" is occasionally used as a reference to the fast blitting capabilities of its DMA unit (see ''[[Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications]]'' for details).
  
 
==History==
 
==History==
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[[File:Blast Processing Commercial.mp4|thumb|right]]
 
[[File:Blast Processing Commercial.mp4|thumb|right]]
 
{{quote|The Sega Genesis has blast processing. Super Nintendo, doesn't.|US television advert|ref={{fileref|Blast Processing Commercial.mp4}}}}
 
{{quote|The Sega Genesis has blast processing. Super Nintendo, doesn't.|US television advert|ref={{fileref|Blast Processing Commercial.mp4}}}}
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While the term would be used several times across Sega's marketing output, "blast processing" is usually remembered in North America for appearing in a 30-second commercial by Sega's choice of marketing agency, [[Goodby Silverstein & Partners]]. A Genesis (linked up to a TV) is strapped to a high-speed drag racer, while a Super NES is strapped to an old van. A drag race occurs, with the Genesis speeding off, displaying footage from ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit)|Sonic the Hedgehog 2]]'', ''[[Ecco the Dolphin]]'' and ''[[Streets of Rage 2]]''. The Super NES, however, stutters while ''Super Mario Kart'' plays. Inevtiably the Genesis "wins".
 
While the term would be used several times across Sega's marketing output, "blast processing" is usually remembered in North America for appearing in a 30-second commercial by Sega's choice of marketing agency, [[Goodby Silverstein & Partners]]. A Genesis (linked up to a TV) is strapped to a high-speed drag racer, while a Super NES is strapped to an old van. A drag race occurs, with the Genesis speeding off, displaying footage from ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit)|Sonic the Hedgehog 2]]'', ''[[Ecco the Dolphin]]'' and ''[[Streets of Rage 2]]''. The Super NES, however, stutters while ''Super Mario Kart'' plays. Inevtiably the Genesis "wins".
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The advert wasn't designed to cause people to think about what was being said, just that Sega and the Genesis were "better" than Nintendo and the Super NES. These sorts of "attack ads" were commonplace in the US at the time - other countries with stricter advertising regulations would not be able to air it, not least because it is a difficult to prove the truthfulness of what was being said. The term was not officially used outside of North America, likely for this reason.
 
The advert wasn't designed to cause people to think about what was being said, just that Sega and the Genesis were "better" than Nintendo and the Super NES. These sorts of "attack ads" were commonplace in the US at the time - other countries with stricter advertising regulations would not be able to air it, not least because it is a difficult to prove the truthfulness of what was being said. The term was not officially used outside of North America, likely for this reason.
  
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In addition to provoking hardware comparisons, the advert also has a subtle dig at ''Super Mario Kart'' - Nintendo's flagship racing game which relies on the Super NES' hardware graphics mode, "[[wikipedia:Mode 7|Mode 7]]". Mode 7 allows the Super NES to scale and rotate background planes - something only achievable on the Mega Drive through software. The ''Mario Kart'' [[cartridge]] also had a built-in [[wikipedia:DSP (Nintendo)|DSP-1]] enhancement chip, a math co-processor that further improved the system's Mode 7 capabilities. It was not thought at the time that a game like ''Mario Kart'' could run on the Mega Drive with the same performance profile, yet Sega of America (perhaps ambitiously) chose to portray it as the "slower" game. The Mega Drive did have several games at the time demonstrating background scaling and rotation (e.g. [[Super Scaler]] [[arcade]] based titles such as ''[[Super Thunder Blade]]'', ''[[After Burner II]]'' and ''[[Super Monaco GP]]'') as well as true 3D polygon graphics (e.g. ''[[Star Cruiser]]'' and ''[[Hard Drivin']]''), but Sega of America did not include them in its "blast processing" ad. Instead, the ad highlighted 2D Genesis games with fast movement and scrolling, drawing a visual link between in-game movement speed and processing speed, despite the former not always being an indication of the latter (e.g. a game with slower on-screen movement could be more processor-intensive).
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In addition to provoking hardware comparisons, the advert also has a subtle dig at ''Super Mario Kart'' - Nintendo's flagship racing game which relies on the Super NES' hardware graphics mode, "[[wikipedia:Mode 7|Mode 7]]", as well as a built-in [[wikipedia:DSP (Nintendo)|DSP-1]] enhancement chip, a math co-processor that further improved the system's Mode 7 capabilities. Mode 7 allows the Super NES to scale and rotate background planes - something only achievable on the Mega Drive through software. It was not thought at the time that a game like ''Mario Kart'' could run on the Mega Drive with the same performance profile, yet Sega of America (perhaps ambitiously) chose to portray it as the "slower" game.
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"Blast processing" became a fixture of Sega's advertising campaigns throughout the 1992 holiday season and into 1993. The following year the [[Welcome to the Next Level]] campaign became the face of Sega of America's advertising, and the term was never used again.
  
 
===Origins===
 
===Origins===
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In the 2000s, former [[Sega]] staff revealed that "blast processing" originally referred to the [[Yamaha]] [[Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications|YM7101]] [[VDP]] graphics processor's [[wikipedia:DMA controller|DMA unit]], which was capable of high-speed [[wikipedia:Direct memory access|DMA]], [[Byte|bandwidth]] and [[fillrate]]. It was a reference to how the DMA unit could quickly "blast" data into the VDP graphics processor and the [[wikipedia:Digital-to-analog converter|DAC]] through high-speed DMA (direct memory access). However, due to a lack of explanation (or understanding) from Sega's marketing department, much of the gaming media in the 1990s had assumed it was referring to the [[68000]] CPU's higher clock rate. This misconception was widespread up until the 2000s, when former Sega staff eventually revealed that "Blast Processing" was originally a reference to the VDP's DMA unit:
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Misconceptions about what "blast processing" were rife until 2009, where in an interview [[Scot Bayless]] took responsibility for the phrase:
  
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{{quote|Sadly I have to take responsibility for that ghastly phrase. 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.
  
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{{quote|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.|[[Scot Bayless]]| ref={{ref|"Damien McFerran Retroinspection: Mega-CD", ''[[wikipedia:Retro Gamer|Retro Gamer]]'', issue 61 (2009), page 84}}}}
 
  
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One of the specific DMA programming techniques he was referring to was the mid-frame palette swap, where the color could be changed every scanline, increasing the colors displayed on screen, a technique that was used in ''[[Sonic 2]]'':
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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. Oy.|[[Scot Bayless]]| ref={{ref|"Damien McFerran Retroinspection: Mega-CD", ''[[wikipedia:Retro Gamer|Retro Gamer]]'', issue 61 (2009), page 84}}}}
  
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As it transpires, "blast processing" was originally a reference to a graphical technique mentioned by [[Marty Franz]], taking advantage of a hardware feature in the [[Yamaha]] YM7101 [[VDP]] graphics processor's [[wikipedia:DMA controller|DMA unit]]. On a Mega Drive, it is possible to change the colour [[palette]] during the [[Sega Mega Drive/Interrupts|H-blank interval]] by "DMA-ing" (a.k.a. "blasting") information into [[Sega Mega Drive/Palettes and CRAM|CRAM]] (Color [[RAM]]). However, doing so has the (usually) unwanted side effect of creating [[CRAM dots]] - rogue pixels which would corrupt the image if the trick was used too often.
  
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{{quote|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.|[[Scot Bayless]]|ref={{ref|[http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/11/the_man_responsible_for_segas_blast_processing_gimmick_is_sorry_for_creating_that_ghastly_phrase The Man Responsible For Sega's Blast Processing] ([[wikipedia:Nintendo Life|Nintendo Life]])}}}}
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Despite this, mid-frame colour palette changes were not unusual on the Mega Drive - ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (16-bit)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' uses this trick whenever it needs to display water in Labyrinth Zone, and masks the CRAM dots by drawing a flickering water surface sprite roughly where the palette changeover occurs.
  
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Many of these DMA programmable techniques were originally intended by the Mega Drive's original product designer [[Masami Ishikawa]]:
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However, if the programmer knew when these CRAM Dots were likely to appear, a screen could be drawn just by rapidly changing the palette (i.e. the whole image would be drawn with the CRAM dots glitch). Initially it was thought that this technique could be used to generate 256-colour images, however the likes of [[Traveller's Tales]]' [[Jon Burton]], who had also discovered the trick, managed to bump up the number to 512, simulating as many as 4096 by rapidly changing between two frames{{ref|1=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8qgArSqMsc}}.
  
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The downside to this technique is that it relies on perfect timing across the Mega Drive hardware, or the lines drawn would appear out of phase, and thus the image would be distorted. This, and the fact the technique was never well documented to begin with, meant that no commercial games made use of this so-called "blast processing" technique.
  
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{{quote|the sprite size could be changed to fill the whole display. It could also display the background screen behind the scrolling window and could change the color of each line. The number of available colors was limited compared to comparable arcade systems, but it could create shadows that matched each character's shape and was also capable of semi-transparency. | [[Masami Ishikawa]]|ref={{ref|[http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/2/3/7952705/sega-genesis-masami-ishikawa How Sega Built the Genesis: Masami Ishikawa Inteview] ([[wikipedia:Polygon (website)|Polygon]])}}}}
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It would not be until many years later when a perfectly synced blast processing technique would be achieved,{{ref|1=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvvL6S5Buiw}} but at the expense of fully utilising the Mega Drive's [[68000]] processor in order to display an image. The process also produces "chunky" pixels, meaning that while 512 colour images are technically possible, they do not make use of the full 320x224 screen resolution.
  
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The net result means the process is generally impractical for standard Mega Drive games outside of static screens, but becomes a more attractive prospect when a [[Sega Mega-CD]] is introduced. The Mega-CD, with its own 68000 processor, has been shown to be able to assist the Mega Drive in running games in this new graphics mode.
  
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As with many marketing buzzwords from the era, "blast processing" was a questionable term in the 1990s, up until these interviews in the 2000s eventually revealed that the term was originally referring to the DMA unit. It is also worth noting that, while the Mega Drive is able to process data more quickly than the Super NES, the quality of the software lies in the hands of individual developers. Only a handful of developers pushed the Mega Drive hardware to its limits, whereas most other developers only utilised a fraction of the hardware's potential.
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This technique is briefly mentioned among some features intended by the Mega Drive's original product designer [[Masami Ishikawa]]:
  
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===Response===
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{{quote|We were able to have two scrolling windows — with both vertical and horizontal line scrolling — and the sprite size could be changed to fill the whole display. It could also display the background screen behind the scrolling window and could change the color of each line. The number of available colors was limited compared to comparable arcade systems, but it could create shadows that matched each character's shape and was also capable of semi-transparency. | [[Masami Ishikawa]]|ref={{ref|[http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/2/3/7952705/sega-genesis-masami-ishikawa How Sega Built the Genesis: Masami Ishikawa Inteview] ([[wikipedia:Polygon (website)|Polygon]])}}
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{{float|[[File:GamePlayers US 0705.pdf|page=10|200px]][[File:GamePlayers US 0705.pdf|page=11|200px]]}}
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}}
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While the "blast processing" term went largely unchallenged for over a year, [[Nintendo]] eventually responded to it in a series of magazine campaigns in 1994. Most notably, they published an advertisement entitled "SMASHING The Myth About Speed and Power" in popular US video game magazines such as ''[[wikipedia:Electronic Gaming Monthly|Electronic Gaming Monthly]]'', ''[[wikipedia:GamePro|GamePro]]'' and ''[[wikipedia:Game Players|Game Players]]'' which aimed to counter Sega's narrative.{{magref|gameplayers|0705|10}}
 
  
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The advertisement was presented as a two-page, pseudo-editorial piece. While it had the word "advertisement" in very small writing, it was not made clear to readers that it was written by Nintendo, misleading many to believe it was a legitimate editorial piece written by the actual magazines. Nintendo's pseudo-editorial piece claimed that "Blast Processing" is a "Myth" and made a number of other claims intended to make the SNES look technically superior to the Genesis in every way other than the CPU clock rate. While some of the claims were accurate, there were a number of claims made in Nintedo's pseudo-editorial advertisement which were either inaccurate, uninformed or misleading:
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The DMA unit's ability to change the CRAM palette (as well as the [[VRAM]] and scrolling) during active display is also mentioned in Sega's technical manual.{{fileref|GenesisTechnicalOverview.pdf|page=36}}
  
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*It claimed that the Genesis did not have any hardware/technology that gave a "Blast" boost. However, the term "Blast Processing" was originally coined to refer to its [[VDP]]'s [[wikipedia:DMA controller|DMA unit]] "blasting" data at higher speeds than the SNES. But it's unlikely that Nintendo could've known this at the time, due to a lack of explanation from Sega's own marketing department in the 1990s.
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===Interpretations===
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*It claimed that the SNES was just as fast as the Genesis. To support this claim, it noted that, while the Super Nintendo's [[Ricoh]] [[wikipedia:Ricoh 5A22|5A22]] S-CPU has a slower clock rate, it has faster memory transfer per cycle, claiming that this gives it faster data transfer speed. However, the Mega Drive's [[68000]] CPU has a wider 16-bit external data bus, twice as wide as the S-CPU's 8-bit external data bus, which means the 68000 transfers 16-bit data per cycle, whereas the S-CPU transfers 8-bit data per cycle, giving the 68000 a faster data transfer speed.
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The technique of drawing an image through using DMA (direct memory access) was not understood by Sega of America's marketing department (or indeed by many developers, as again, it was never seen in commercial games). Nor did it seem like they understood what DMA was. Instead, the words "blast" and "processing" were picked up and ran with, and the media and general public was tasked with filling in the blanks.
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*It claimed the SNES's larger [[RAM]] gives it superiority in terms of speeding-up programs. However, RAM speed is largely determined by [[Byte|bandwidth]]. The Genesis has faster RAM bandwidth, making it faster for program access. Furthermore, it can read program data from the [[ROM]] [[cartridge]] at a higher speed than the SNES.
 
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*It claimed that the Genesis only had a 256-color palette. However, the Genesis has a 512-color palette, which can be increased to 1536 colors in shadow/highlight mode. With DMA, it can be further increased up to 4096 colors for static images. Nevertheless, the SNES did have a larger palette of up to 32,768 colors.
 
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*It claimed that the SNES is capable of scaling [[Sonic]]. However, [[wikipedia:Mode 7|Mode 7]] only scales backgrounds, not [[sprite]]s. The SNES usually required enhancement chips such as the SuperFX to achieve true [[wikia:w:c:gaming:2.5D|sprite-scaling]].
 
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*It suggested that the Genesis is not capable of scaling or rotation. However, the Genesis is capable of scaling and rotation through software programming, by relying on its CPU's fast arithmetic and the VDP's fast DMA unit.
 
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*It suggested that only the SNES has specialised [[wikipedia:Direct memory access|DMA]] hardware capable of high-speed DMA. However, the Genesis has a DMA unit with faster DMA transfer speeds than the SNES.
 
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*Its statement that the SNES has a higher sprite display limit is true, but misleading, as it can only reach its display limit when using small sprites. The Genesis displays more sprite tiles and has a higher sprite [[fillrate]], which allows the Genesis to display a higher number of large sprites, as well as a greater variety of sprites.
 
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*Its claim that the SNES produces sharper sound than the Genesis is not true, as the Mega Drive's [[Yamaha]] [[YM2612]] sound chip produces a higher 53 kHz output than the Super Nintendo's [[Sony]] chip which produces a 32 kHz output. It appears to be supporting the claim by referring to Gaussian filtering reducing noise, but this limits the frequency range, resulting in a more muffled sound on the SNES and sharper audio clarity on the Genesis.
 
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*Its implication that only the SNES has true digital sound is not true, as the Mega Drive's YM2612 chip is also capable of true digital sound. It can play [[PCM]] samples at up to 8-bit 32 kHz, slightly below the Super Nintendo's 16-bit 32 kHz limit. The Genesis can also stream PCM audio from the ROM cartridge at a comparable [[wikipedia:Bitrate|bitrate]] while using less of its bandwidth (due to the Genesis having greater bandwidth).
 
  
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Many of these misleading claims and inaccuracies eventually became widely accepted and went largely unchallenged up until the 2000s. Nintendo's pseudo-editorial advertisement helped create the misleading perception that Sega's marketing department were dishonest and that there was no basis for the "blast processing" label, eventually leading to backlash against the "blast processing" label and a general distrust of Sega's marketing department.
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For many years, it was assumed that the term was referring to the Mega Drive's CPU, the [[68000]], having a higher clock rate than the [[Ricoh]] [[wikipedia:Ricoh 5A22|5A22]] S-CPU found in the Super NES. At a time when technical details were hard to come by, it was widely assumed that bigger numbers were better, without taking into account what the two integrated circuits were actually doing with each clock cycle. Sega of America's marketing department may have also interpreted "blast processing" as simply a higher CPU clock rate.
  
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==Hardware comparison==
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Blast processing was also used in conjunction with ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit)|Sonic the Hedgehog 2]]'' advertising, to suggest that it made Sonic "faster than ever". One trick used was to have the ground speed cap removed, leading to a situation in Chemical Plant Zone where Sonic appears to out-run the camera. This was entirely the decision of the programming team behind the game, rather than a hardware trick.
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:''For more technical details on Mega Drive, see [[Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications|Mega Drive: Technical specifications]] and [[Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications#Blast processing|Mega Drive: Blast processing]]''
 
  
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===Main CPU===
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Separately, Sega stated that blast processing was "the total power dedication of the Genesis system to giving a character on screen a very quick blast of speed", a cited example being the spin dash manoeuvre in the game.{{magref|egm|44|12}}
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The Mega Drive's main CPU (central processing unit) is clocked over two times faster than the one in its rival product, the SNES. Sega's [[Motorola 68000]] processor is clocked at 7.67 MHz, compared to the 3.58 MHz clock speed of Nintendo's [[Ricoh]] [[wikipedia:Ricoh 5A22|5A22]] S-CPU. However, the idea of simply comparing CPU clock rates to determine performance, regardless of other characteristics, is commonly known as the [[wikipedia:Megahertz myth|megahertz myth]]. While the S-CPU did run slower in clock cycles per second, it required less clock cycles for most instructions, giving it an overall comparable [[wikipedia:Instructions per second|MIPS]] (million instructions per second) performance to the 68000. In other words, the 68000's higher clock rate is not the reason the 68000 performs faster than the S-CPU.
 
  
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The 68000's faster performance came from other advantages, such as a wider [[32-bit era|32-bit]] internal data bus (double the S-CPU's 16-bit internal data bus), wider 16-bit external data bus (double the S-CPU's 8-bit external data bus), faster memory bandwidth, more [[wikipedia:Processor register|registers]], a hybrid 16/32-bit [[wikipedia:Instruction set|instruction set]],{{ref|[http://trixter.oldskool.org/2008/12/05/blast-processing-101/ Blast Processing 101]}} and faster arithmetic calculations (with more precision). It also had a shared [[wikipedia:Codebase|codebase]] with [[arcade]] games, where the 68000 saw widespread use, allowing more efficient arcade conversions. Overall, the 68000 is only slightly faster than the S-CPU for most operations, but is significantly faster for some operations, such as multiplication (which in turn allows significantly faster calculation of 3D geometry, for example). On the other hand, the S-CPU has a DMA unit, which the 68000 lacks, though that is because the Mega Drive's DMA unit is located in its VDP graphics processor instead. In other words, the 68000 alone does not give the Mega Drive a significant performance advantage, but it's the combination of the 68000 with the VDP's DMA unit (along with faster memory) that gives the system a significant performance advantage over the SNES.
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A more likely reason why ''Sonic 2'' was chosen to demonstrate "blast processing" was its high-speed parallax scrolling, which was noticeably faster than what was seen in SNES games. While it is technically possible to match its scrolling speed on the SNES, it would require either significantly reducing the amount of graphics data on screen, or using enhancement chips. The Mega Drive's faster graphics DMA unit allows it to perform high-speed parallax scrolling with more graphics data on screen, which ''Sonic 2'' was able to demonstrate to great success. It even maintained its speed at a higher 320x448 resolution in 2-player mode (compared to its standard 320x224 resolution), whereas the SNES wouldn't be able to reach such a speed at resolutions above 256x224.
  
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{| class="wikitable" style="width: 950px;"
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In more recent years, the term "blast processing" is occasionally used as a reference to the [[Yamaha]] YM7101 [[VDP]] graphics processor's [[wikipedia:DMA controller|DMA unit]], due to its fast data blitting capabilities (see ''[[#Legacy|Legacy]]'' section below).
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|-
 
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! colspan=2 | Console
 
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! [[Sega Mega Drive]]{{intref|Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications}}
 
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! [[Super Nintendo]]{{ref|1=[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System_technical_specifications&oldid=684459832 Super Nintendo Entertainment System technical specifications]}}{{ref|[http://problemkaputt.de/fullsnes.htm SNES hardware specifications]}}{{ref|[http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/content/sega-genesis-vs-super-nintendo Sega Genesis vs Super Nintendo]}}{{ref|[http://www.romhacking.net/documents/196/ Anomie's Register Doc]}}
 
−
|-
 
−
! colspan=2 | Main [[wikipedia:Central processing unit|CPU]]
 
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! [[Motorola 68000]]
 
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! [[Ricoh]] [[wikipedia:Ricoh 5A22|5A22]] S-CPU
 
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|-
 
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! rowspan=2 | [[wikipedia:Clock rate|Clock rate]]
 
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! [[NTSC]]
 
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| 7.670454 MHz
 
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| 2.684658–3.579545 MHz
 
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|-
 
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! [[PAL]]
 
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| 7.600489 MHz
 
−
| 2.660171–3.546895 MHz
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | Bits
 
−
! [[wikipedia:Memory bus|Data bus]] width
 
−
| [[32-bit era|32-bit]] internal, 16-bit external
 
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| 16-bit internal, [[8-bit era|8-bit]] external
 
−
|-
 
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! [[wikipedia:Arithmetic logic unit|Arithmetic logic <br> units]]
 
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| 16-bit data ALU, <br> 32-bit address ALU (2x 16-bit ALU)
 
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| 16-bit ALU
 
−
|-
 
−
! [[wikipedia:Word length|Word length]]
 
−
| 16-bit
 
−
| 16-bit
 
−
|-
 
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! rowspan=3 | Internal <br> instructions
 
−
! [[wikipedia:Processor register|Registers]]
 
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| 16x 32-bit registers
 
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| 4x 16-bit registers, 4x 8-bit registers
 
−
|-
 
−
! [[wikipedia:Instruction set|Instruction set]]
 
−
| 16-bit, 32-bit
 
−
| 8-bit, 16-bit
 
−
|-
 
−
! [[wikipedia:Instructions per second|Instructions per <br> second]]
 
−
| 1.342329 [[wikipedia:Instructions per second|MIPS]] (NTSC), <br> 1.330085 MIPS (PAL)
 
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| 1.125–1.5 MIPS (NTSC), <br> 1.114738–1.486318 MIPS (PAL)
 
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|-
 
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! rowspan=4 | Work [[RAM]]
 
−
! Memory
 
−
| 64 KB [[SRAM|PSRAM]] <br> (16-bit, 5.263157 MHz)
 
−
| 128 KB [[wikipedia:Dynamic random-access memory|DRAM]] <br> (8-bit, 2.660171–2.684658 MHz)
 
−
|-
 
−
! [[Byte|Bandwidth]]
 
−
| 10.526314 [[Byte|MB/s]]
 
−
| 2.684658 MB/s (NTSC), 2.660171 MB/s (PAL)
 
−
|-
 
−
! CPU access (NTSC)
 
−
| 3.835226 MB/s,{{ref|16-bit data bus, 7.670454 MHz (NTSC), 4 cycles per word, 16-bit (2 bytes) per word, 2 cycles per byte|group=n}} 62 [[Byte|KB]] per frame
 
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| 2.684658 MB/s,{{ref|8-bit data bus, 2.684658 MHz (NTSC), 1 cycle per byte|group=n}} 43 KB per frame
 
−
|-
 
−
! CPU access (PAL)
 
−
| 3.800244 MB/s,{{ref|16-bit data bus, 7.600489 MHz (PAL), 4 cycles per word, 16-bit (2 bytes) per word, 2 cycles per byte|group=n}} 73 KB per frame
 
−
| 2.660171 MB/s,{{ref|8-bit data bus, 2.660171 MHz (PAL), 1 cycle per byte|group=n}} 51 KB per frame
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | [[Cartridge]] <br> [[ROM]]
 
−
! Memory
 
−
| 128 KB to 8 [[Byte|MB]]
 
−
| 128 KB to 6 MB
 
−
|-
 
−
! Bandwidth
 
−
| 10–15.340906 MB/s
 
−
| 2.5–3.579545 MB/s
 
−
|-
 
−
! CPU access
 
−
| 3.835226 MB/s (NTSC), <br> 3.800244 MB/s (PAL)
 
−
| 2.684658–3.579545 MB/s (NTSC), <br> 2.660171–3.546895 MB/s (PAL){{ref|8-bit data bus, 2.684658–3.579545 MHz (NTSC), 2.660171–3.546895 MHz (PAL), 1 cycle per byte|group=n}}
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | [[wikipedia:Fixed-point arithmetic|Fixed-point <br> arithmetic]]
 
−
! Additions
 
−
| 639,000 adds/sec{{ref|12 cycles per add{{ref|[http://oldwww.nvg.ntnu.no/amiga/MC680x0_Sections/timstandard.HTML Standard Instruction Execution Times]}}|group=n}}
 
−
| 596,000 adds/sec{{ref|6 cycles per add: 17 cycles per 3 adds (2 cycles LDA, 6 cycles CLC, 6 cycles ADC, 3 cycles STA){{ref|[https://wiki.superfamicom.org/general-advice SNES Development: General Advice]}}{{ref|[https://wiki.superfamicom.org/65816-reference SNES Development: 65816 Reference]}}|group=n}}
 
−
|-
 
−
! Multiplications
 
−
| 109,000 multiplies/sec (16×16){{ref|70 cycles per multiply{{ref|[http://oldwww.nvg.ntnu.no/amiga/MC680x0_Sections/timstandard.HTML Standard Instruction Execution Times]}}|group=n}}
 
−
| 65,000 multiplies/sec (16×8),{{ref|55 cycles per 16×8 multiply (3 cycles SEP, 6 cycles STA, 3 cycles STY, 12 cycles NOP, 2 cycles LDA, 4 cycles LDY, 6 cycles XBA, 2 cycles TYA, 2 cycles CLC, 2 cycles ADC, 2 cycles BCC, 2 cycles INY, 3 cycles REP, 6 cycles RTS){{ref|[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Super_NES_Programming/multiplication Super NES Programming: Multiplication]}}{{ref|[https://wiki.superfamicom.org/65816-reference SNES Development: 65816 Reference]}}|group=n}} <br> 32,000 multiplies/sec (16×16),{{ref|110 cycles per 16×16 multiply (2x 16×8 multiplies)|group=n}} <br> 94,000 multiplies/sec ([[wikipedia:Mode 7|Mode 7]]){{ref|38 cycles per Mode 7 multiply (3 cycles SEP, 7 cycles STA, 3 cycles XBA, 6 cycles STA, 6 cycles STY, 3 cycles REP, 2 cycles LDA, 2 cycles LDY, 6 cycles RTS){{ref|[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Super_NES_Programming/multiplication Super NES Programming: Multiplication]}}{{ref|[https://wiki.superfamicom.org/65816-reference SNES Development: 65816 Reference]}}|group=n}}
 
−
|-
 
−
! Divisions
 
−
| 54,000 divides/sec (16-bit){{ref|140 cycles per divide{{ref|[http://oldwww.nvg.ntnu.no/amiga/MC680x0_Sections/timstandard.HTML Standard Instruction Execution Times]}}|group=n}}
 
−
| 51,000 divides/sec (16-bit){{ref|70 cycles per divide (3 cycles STZ, 2 cycles LDY, 2 cycles ASL, 2 cycles BCS, 2 cycles INY, 2 cycles CPY, 4 cycles BNE, 7 cycles ROR, 3 cycles PHA, 2 cycles TXA, 2 cycles SEC, 7 cycles SBC, 4 cycles BCC, 2 cycles TAX, 7 cycles ROL, 4 cycles PLA, 7 cycles LSR, 2 cycles DEY, 6 cycles RTS){{ref|[http://apprize.info/programming/65816/17.html Programming the 65816 Including the 6502, 65C02, and 65802]}}{{ref|[https://wiki.superfamicom.org/65816-reference SNES Development: 65816 Reference]}}|group=n}}
 
−
|-
 
−
! colspan=2 | [[wikipedia:Polygonal modeling|3D polygon]] [[wikipedia:Geometry pipelines|geometry calculations]]
 
−
| 3300 [[wikipedia:Polygon mesh|polys/s]]
 
−
| 260 polys/s{{ref|1=SNES CPU geometry calculations: 13.32 kHz per polygon (80 adds, 111 multiplies, 9 divides){{ref|1=[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=iAvHt5RCHbMC&pg=PA95 ''Design of Digital Systems and Devices'' (pages 95-97)]}}|group=n}}
 
−
|}
 
  
−
===GPU and DMA===
+
Curiously, the Mega Drive had a hybrid 16/32-bit CPU whereas the SNES had a hybrid 8/16-bit CPU, as the Mega Drive CPU has a 32-bit internal data bus and 16-bit external data bus, compared to the SNES CPU having a 16-bit internal data bus and 8-bit external data bus (see ''[[Sega Mega Drive/Hardware comparison]]'' for technical details), yet Sega never capitalised on this in its marketing against Nintendo. Sega's marketing department had previously attacked the [https://necretro.org/TurboGrafx-16 TurboGrafx-16] as not being a true "16-bit" system, yet they didn't attempt similar "bit" marketing tactics against the SNES.
−
The Sega Mega Drive's [[Yamaha]] YM7101 [[VDP]] graphics processor has a powerful [[wikipedia:DMA controller|DMA unit]] that could handle [[wikipedia:Direct memory access|DMA]] (direct memory access) operations at significantly faster speeds than the SNES.{{ref|[http://trixter.oldskool.org/2008/12/05/blast-processing-101/ Blast Processing 101]}} The Mega Drive's DMA unit is part of the VDP, which is located on the same Yamaha IC6 integrated circuit as the sound chips.{{fileref|Sega Service Manual - Genesis II - Mega Drive II (PAL) - 001 - June 1993.pdf}} The combination of the VDP's high-speed DMA unit with the 68000 CPU as well as faster memory is essentially what gives the Mega Drive a significant performance advantage over the SNES. In comparison, the Super Nintendo's DMA unit is part of its [[Ricoh]] 5A22 S-CPU,{{ref|[http://problemkaputt.de/fullsnes.htm SNES hardware specifications]}} while its PPU graphics chips lack DMA. On the other hand, the PPU chips come with more built-in hardware graphics features, such as more colors on screen, larger [[sprite]]s, and background scaling ([[wikipedia:Mode 7|Mode 7]]), most of which the VDP is also capable of with its fast DMA, but requires developers to manually program these features.
 
  
−
The Mega Drive's DMA unit could write to [[VRAM]] during active display, [[wikipedia:Vertical blanking interval|VBlank]], and [[wikipedia:Horizontal blanking interval|HBlank]],{{fileref|GenesisTechnicalOverview.pdf}} whereas the SNES CPU's DMA unit could only do so during VBlank and HBlank. The Mega Drive has higher memory [[Byte|bandwidth]] and is capable of quicker DMA transfer rates, giving it a faster performance than the SNES,{{ref|[http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/content/sega-genesis-vs-super-nintendo Sega Genesis vs Super Nintendo]}} and helped give the Mega Drive a higher [[fillrate]], higher gameplay resolution, faster parallax scrolling, fast data [[wikipedia:Blitter|blitting]], and high frame-rate with many moving objects on screen, and allowed it to display more unique tiles (background and sprite tiles) and large [[sprite]]s (32×32 and higher) on screen, and quickly transfer more unique tiles and large sprites (16×16 and higher) on screen. The Mega Drive's graphics are also rendered with a [[wikipedia:Packed pixel|packed pixel]] format, which is more flexible and efficient than the Super Nintendo's [[wikipedia:Planar (computer graphics)|planar]] graphics format (except for Mode 7 which also uses packed pixels).
+
===Responses===
 +
The [[Nintendo]]-backed ''Nintendo Power'' magazine challenged Sega's customer service and PR firm about blast processing in the summer of 1993, claiming that in their view, it was marketing speak for the programmers "know[ing] what they're doing"{{magref|np|49|26}}. They would also commission evaulation company Booz-Allen & Hamilton to compare the Mega Drive and Super NES, predictably claiming that the SNES offered better equipment for building "faster, more complex games"{{magref|np|49|27}}.
  
−
The Mega Drive's DMA capabilities, higher bandwidth, and packed pixel format, give it more flexibility, allowing the hardware to be programmed in various different ways. Combining the CPU's fast arithmetic with the VDP's fast DMA, it could replicate some of the SNES PPU hardware features with software programming, such as larger 64×64 sprites (combining 32×32 sprites), the scaling and rotation of background planes (like the [[Sega X Board]] and Mode 7), and direct color (increasing colors on screen). Other programmable capabilities include mid-frame [[palette]] swaps (increasing colors per scanline), [[wikipedia:Bitmap|bitmap]] [[wikipedia:Framebuffer|framebuffers]], sprite scaling and rotation, and [https://www.giantbomb.com/ray-casting/3015-1517/ ray casting]. The Mega Drive could also playback [[full motion video]] (FMV) at a higher quality than the SNES. The base Mega Drive hardware (without needing any [[cartridge]] enhancement chips) could also render 3D polygon graphics with a performance almost approaching the SNES's optional [[wikipedia:Super FX|Super FX]] (SFX) cartridge enhancement chip,{{ref|[https://github.com/Stephane-D/SGDK/blob/master/inc/maths3D.h 3D math engine (SGDK)]}}{{ref|[http://www.sega-16.com/2008/05/interview-lee-actor/ Interview: Lee Actor (Sterling Software Programmer)]}}{{ref|[https://youtu.be/YUZpF2JLF4s Star Fox 3D Tech Demo on Sega Genesis]}}{{ref|[https://youtu.be/oHLc0AzD85g Star Fox 3D Tech Demo on Sega Genesis: Version 2 Using DMA]}} which itself was significantly outperformed by the Mega Drive's optional [[Sega Virtua Processor]] (SVP) cartridge enhancement chip.
+
{{float|[[File:GamePlayers US 0705.pdf|page=10|200px]][[File:GamePlayers US 0705.pdf|page=11|200px]]}}
 +
However, it was not until the middle of 1994 where Nintendo became more vocal about the subject. Most notably, they published an advertisement entitled "SMASHING The Myth About Speed and Power" in popular US video game magazines such as ''[[wikipedia:Electronic Gaming Monthly|Electronic Gaming Monthly]]'', ''[[wikipedia:GamePro|GamePro]]'' and ''[[wikipedia:Game Players|Game Players]]'' which aimed to counter Sega's narrative.{{magref|gameplayers|0705|10}}
  
−
One aspect of the SNES hardware that the Mega Drive cannot replicate with DMA is its color [[palette]]. While DMA programming techniques such as those mentioned above could allow the Mega Drive to match the 256 on-screen color display of the SNES, the Mega Drive cannot come close to the overall 32,768 selectable color palette of the SNES. But when in [[wikipedia:Direct color|direct color]] mode (required for certain types of three-dimensional graphics, such as ray casting and 3D polygons), the SNES and Mega Drive were both on-par in terms of colors, as the SNES cannot use its 32,768 color palette in direct color mode.
+
The advertisement was presented as a two-page, pseudo-editorial piece. While it had the word "advertisement" in very small writing, it was not made clear to readers that it was written by Nintendo, misleading many to believe it was a legitimate editorial piece written by the actual magazines. Nintendo's pseudo-editorial piece claimed that "blast processing" was a "myth" and made a number of other points intended to make the SNES look technically superior to the Genesis in every way other than the CPU clock rate. While some of the claims were accurate, there were a number of claims made in Nintedo's pseudo-editorial advertisement which were either inaccurate, uninformed or misleading:
  
−
{| class="wikitable" style="width: 1000px; align: center;"
+
*It claimed that the Genesis did not have any hardware or technology that gave a "Blast" boost. This is an incredibly vague statement to make, given that all part of the Mega Drive work in tandem to produce video games. It does, however, suggest that Nintendo were about as unaware of what blast processing really meant as most other people at the time.
−
|-
+
*It claimed that the SNES was just as fast as the Genesis. To support this claim, it noted that, while the Super Nintendo's [[Ricoh]] [[wikipedia:Ricoh 5A22|5A22]] S-CPU has a slower clock rate, it has faster memory transfer per cycle, claiming that this gives it faster data transfer speed. However, the Mega Drive's [[68000]] CPU has a wider 16-bit external data bus, twice as wide as the S-CPU's 8-bit external data bus, which means the 68000 transfers 16-bit data per cycle, whereas the S-CPU transfers 8-bit data per cycle, giving the 68000 a faster data transfer speed.
−
! colspan=2 | Console
+
*It claimed the SNES's larger [[RAM]] gives it superiority in terms of speeding-up programs. However, RAM speed is largely determined by [[Byte|bandwidth]]. The Genesis has faster RAM bandwidth, making it faster for program access. Furthermore, it can read program data from the [[ROM]] [[cartridge]] at a higher speed than the SNES.
−
! [[Sega Mega Drive]]{{intref|Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications}}
+
*It claimed that the Genesis only had a 256-color palette, when it actually has 512 colors (being increased to 1536 colors in shadow/highlight mode). Regardless the available palette is an acknowledged strength of the Super NES, as it has 32,768 colors at its disposal. The 256 number also contradicts Nintendo's own research the year prior{{magref|np|49|27}}.
−
! [[Super Nintendo]]{{ref|1=[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System_technical_specifications&oldid=684459832 Super Nintendo Entertainment System technical specifications]}}{{ref|[http://problemkaputt.de/fullsnes.htm SNES hardware specifications]}}{{ref|[http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/content/sega-genesis-vs-super-nintendo Sega Genesis vs Super Nintendo]}}{{ref|[http://www.romhacking.net/documents/196/ Anomie's Register Doc]}}{{ref|[http://www.romhacking.net/documents/196/ SNES Developer Manual] ([[Nintendo]])}}
+
*It claimed that the SNES is capable of scaling [[Sonic]]. However, [[wikipedia:Mode 7|Mode 7]] only scales backgrounds, not [[sprite]]s. The SNES usually required enhancement chips such as the SuperFX to achieve true [[wikia:w:c:gaming:2.5D|sprite-scaling]].
−
|-
+
*It suggested that the Genesis is not capable of scaling or rotation. This is true from a hardware perspective, but can be (and was) achieved through software programming. The Mega-CD also adds support for scaling and rotation.
−
! rowspan=2 | System <br> master <br> clock rate
+
*It suggested that only the SNES has specialised [[wikipedia:Direct memory access|DMA]] hardware capable of high-speed DMA. However, the Genesis has a DMA unit with faster DMA transfer speeds than the SNES.
−
! [[NTSC]]
+
*Its statement that the SNES has a higher sprite display limit is true, but misleading, as it can only reach its display limit when using small sprites. The Genesis displays more sprite tiles and has a higher sprite [[fillrate]], which allows the Genesis to display a higher number of large sprites, as well as a greater variety of sprites.
−
| 53.693175 MHz
+
*Its claim that the SNES produces sharper sound than the Genesis is not true, as the Mega Drive's [[Yamaha]] [[YM2612]] sound chip produces a higher 53 kHz output than the Super Nintendo's [[Sony]] chip which produces a 32 kHz output. It appears to be supporting the claim by referring to Gaussian filtering reducing noise, but this limits the frequency range, resulting in a more muffled sound on the SNES and sharper audio clarity on the Genesis.
−
| 21.47727 MHz
+
*Its implication that only the SNES has true digital sound is not true, as the Mega Drive's YM2612 chip is also capable of true digital sound. It can play [[PCM]] samples at up to 8-bit 32 kHz, slightly below the Super Nintendo's 16-bit 32 kHz limit. The Genesis can also stream PCM audio from the ROM cartridge at a comparable [[wikipedia:Bitrate|bitrate]] while using less of its bandwidth (due to the Genesis having greater bandwidth).
−
|-
 
−
! [[PAL]]
 
−
| 53.203424 MHz
 
−
| 21.28137 MHz
 
−
|-
 
−
! colspan=2 | [[wikia:w:c:gaming:Graphics processing unit|Graphics processing unit (GPU)]]
 
−
! [[Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications|Sega 315‑5313 VDP (Yamaha YM7101)]]
 
−
! [[Ricoh]] [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System_technical_specifications&oldid=684459832 S-PPU (PPU1 & PPU2)]
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | Clock rate
 
−
! NTSC
 
−
| 13.423294 MHz
 
−
| 5.579545 MHz (PPU1), 3.579545 MHz (PPU2)
 
−
|-
 
−
! PAL
 
−
| 13.300856 MHz
 
−
| 5.320343 MHz (PPU1), 3.546895 MHz (PPU2)
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | [[wikipedia:GPU cache|Internal <br> GPU cache]]
 
−
! Cache
 
−
| 232 [[byte]]s <br> (72 bytes [[Palette|CRAM]], 80 bytes [[Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications#Graphics|VSRAM]], 80 bytes [[sprite]] [[wikipedia:Data buffer|buffer]])
 
−
| 1056 bytes <br> (544 bytes PPU1 [[Sprite|OAM]], 512 bytes PPU2 [[Palette|CGRAM]])
 
−
|-
 
−
! [[Byte|Bandwidth]]
 
−
| 26.846588 [[Byte|MB/s]] (NTSC), 26.601712 MB/s (PAL)
 
−
| PPU1 OAM: <br> 11.15909 MB/s (NTSC), 10.640685 MB/s (PAL) <br> PPU2 CGRAM: <br> 7.15909 MB/s (NTSC), 7.09379 MB/s (PAL)
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | [[VRAM|Video RAM <br> (VRAM)]]
 
−
! Memory
 
−
| 64 KB [[VRAM]] ([[wikipedia:Dual-ported RAM|Dual-Port]]) <br> (64 KB [[wikipedia:FPM DRAM|FPM DRAM]], 256 bytes [[wikipedia:Sequential access memory|SAM]] buffer)
 
−
| 64 KB [[SRAM]] (PPU1 VRAM)
 
−
|-
 
−
! Bandwidth
 
−
| 13.423294 MB/s (NTSC), 13.300856 MB/s (PAL)
 
−
| 11.15909 MB/s (NTSC), 10.640685 MB/s (PAL)
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | [[Pixel]]s
 
−
! Pixel format
 
−
| [[wikipedia:Packed pixel|Packed pixel]]
 
−
| [[wikipedia:Planar (computer graphics)|Planar]] (Modes 1-6), packed pixel (Mode 7)
 
−
|-
 
−
! Read [[fillrate]]
 
−
| 6.650428–6.934358 [[Pixel|MPixels/s]] <br> (103,912–108,349 tiles/sec)
 
−
| 5.320342–5.369317 MPixels/s <br> (83,130–83,896 tiles/sec)
 
−
|-
 
−
! [[wikipedia:Tile-based video game|Tiles]] on screen
 
−
| 1808 tiles
 
−
| 1395 tiles (NTSC), 1536 tiles (PAL)
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | [[Resolution]]
 
−
! Overscan
 
−
| 427×262 (NTSC), 423×312 (PAL)
 
−
| 341×262 (NTSC), 341×312 (PAL)
 
−
|-
 
−
! Display <br> resolution
 
−
| Gameplay: 256×224 to 320×480 (default 320×224)
 
−
| Gameplay: 256×224 to 256×239 (default 256×224) <br> Pseudo-hires text: 512×448, 512×478 (half-pixels)
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=6 | [[Sprite]] <br> capabilities
 
−
! Sprite fillrate
 
−
| 4.90887 [[Texel|MTexels/s]] (76,701 sprites/sec), <br> 320 [[texel]]s per scanline
 
−
| 4.282881 MTexels/s (66,920 sprites/sec), <br> 272 texels per scanline
 
−
|-
 
−
! Sprite tiles <br> on screen
 
−
| 1280 sprite tiles (8×8)
 
−
| 512 sprite tiles (8×8)
 
−
|-
 
−
! Sprite sizes
 
−
| 16 sprites sizes (16 sizes on screen) <br> (8×8, 8×16, 8×24, 8×32, 16×8, 16×16, 16×24, 16×32, <br> 24×8, 24×16, 24×24, 24×32, <br> 32×8, 32×16, 32×24, 32×32)
 
−
| 4 sprites sizes (2 sizes on screen) <br> (8x8, 16x16, 32x32, 64x64)
 
−
|-
 
−
! Sprites per <br> scanline
 
−
| 20 sprites (8×8 to 16×16), 13 sprites (24×24), <br> 10 sprites (32×32), 5 sprites (64×64)
 
−
| 32 sprites (8×8), 17 sprites (16×16), <br> 8 sprites (32×32), 4 sprites (64×64)
 
−
|-
 
−
! Sprites on <br> screen
 
−
| 80 sprites (8×8 to 32×32), 20 sprites (64×64), <br> 5 sprites (128×128)
 
−
| 128 sprites (8×8, 16×16), 69 sprites (32×32), <br> 17 sprites (64×64), 4 sprites (128×128)
 
−
|-
 
−
! Unique sprites <br> on screen
 
−
| 80 sprites (8×8 to 32×32), 20 sprites (64×64), <br> 5 sprites (128×128)
 
−
| 128 sprites (8×8, 16×16), 32 sprites (32×32), <br> 8 sprites (64×64), 2 sprites (128×128)
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=4 | Background <br> [[plane]]s
 
−
! Background tiles <br> on screen
 
−
| 1344–1808 background tiles
 
−
| 256–1024 background tiles
 
−
|-
 
−
! [[wikipedia:Tile-based video game|Tilemap]] planes
 
−
| 2 scrolling planes (1344–1808 tiles), <br> 1 static window plane, <br> 20–32 overlapping scrolling layers per scrolling plane
 
−
| 1–4 planes (256–1024 tiles)
 
−
|-
 
−
! Tilemap <br> resolution
 
−
| 256×256 to 512×512 (2 planes, 1344–1808 tiles), <br> 1024×256 (2 planes, 1344–1424 tiles)
 
−
| 256×256 to 512×512 (1–4 planes, 256–1024 tiles), <br> 1024×1024 (1 plane, 256 tiles)
 
−
|-
 
−
! [[wikipedia:Scrolling|Scrolling]] <br> capabilities
 
−
| [[wikipedia:Parallax scrolling|Parallax scrolling]], line scrolling, tile scrolling, <br> row/column scrolling, overlapping scrolling layers
 
−
| Parallax scrolling, line scrolling, tile scrolling
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | [[Palette|Colors]] <br> (without DMA)
 
−
! Color [[palette]]
 
−
| 512 colors (default), <br> 1536 colors (Shadow/Highlight)
 
−
| 32,768 colors
 
−
|-
 
−
! Colors on screen
 
−
| 61–64 (default), 183–192 (Shadow/Highlight)
 
−
| 128–256 (1–2 planes), 128–160 (3 planes), <br> 128 (4 planes)
 
−
|-
 
−
! Colors per tile
 
−
| 16 colors (2 planes)
 
−
| 16 colors (1–2 planes), 8 colors (3 planes), <br> 4 colors (4 planes)
 
−
|-
 
−
! colspan=2 | [[wikipedia:DMA controller|DMA controller]]
 
−
! [[Sega]] 315‑5313 [[VDP]] ([[Yamaha]] YM7101) DMA unit
 
−
! [[Ricoh]] [[wikipedia:Ricoh 5A22|5A22 (CPU) DMA unit]]
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | Clock rate
 
−
! NTSC
 
−
| 13.423294 MHz
 
−
| 2.684658–3.579545 MHz
 
−
|-
 
−
! PAL
 
−
| 13.300856 MHz
 
−
| 2.660171–3.546895 MHz
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | [[wikipedia:Direct memory access|DMA]] [[wikipedia:Blitter|blitting]] <br> bandwidth
 
−
! [[wikipedia:Vertical blanking interval|VBlank]] <br> (inactive display)
 
−
| VRAM: 3.21845 MB/s, 205 bytes per [[wikipedia:Scan line|scanline]] <br> VDP cache: 6.4369 MB/s, 410 bytes per scanline
 
−
| NTSC: 2.684658 MB/s, 170.5 bytes per scanline <br> PAL: 2.660171 MB/s, 170.5 bytes per scanline
 
−
|-
 
−
! During active display <br> (VRAM)
 
−
| 320×224: 708.406 KB/s (NTSC), 1.09701 MB/s (PAL) <br> 320×160: 1.437846 MB/s (NTSC), 1.702026 MB/s (PAL)
 
−
| rowspan=2 | 256×224: 443.228 KB/s (NTSC), 795.11 KB/s (PAL) <br> 256×192: 763.435 KB/s (NTSC), 1.061548 MB/s (PAL)
 
−
|-
 
−
! During active display <br> (cache)
 
−
| 320×224: 1.416813 MB/s (NTSC), 2.194021 MB/s (PAL) <br> 320×160: 2.875692 MB/s (NTSC), 3.404052 MB/s (PAL)
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | DMA [[wikipedia:Bit blit|blitting]] <br> [[fillrate]]
 
−
! Write fillrate <br> (VBlank/inactive display)
 
−
| 6.4369 MPixels/s, <br> 410 [[pixel]]s (51 tiles) per scanline
 
−
| 5.320342–5.369317 MPixels/s, <br> 341 pixels (42 tiles) per scanline
 
−
|-
 
−
! Write fillrate <br> (during active display)
 
−
| 1.416813–2.875692 MPixels/s (NTSC), <br> 2.194021–3.404052 MPixels/s (PAL)
 
−
| 886,457 [[Pixel|pixels/s]] (NTSC), <br> 1.59022 MPixels/s (PAL)
 
−
|-
 
−
! [[wikipedia:Tile-based video game|Tile]] blitting per frame <br> (during active display)
 
−
| 369 tiles (NTSC), 1070 tiles (PAL)
 
−
| 230 tiles (NTSC), 496 tiles (PAL)
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | [[Sprite]] [[wikipedia:Bit blit|blitting]] <br> per frame
 
−
! NTSC
 
−
| 80 sprites (8×8 to 16×16), 41 sprites (24×24), <br> 23 sprites (32×32), 5 sprites (64×64)
 
−
| 128 sprites (8×8), 57 sprites (16×16), <br> 14 sprites (32×32), 3 sprites (64×64)
 
−
|-
 
−
! PAL
 
−
| 80 sprites (8×8 to 24×24), 66 sprites (32×32), <br> 16 sprites (64×64), 4 sprites (128×128)
 
−
| 128 sprites (8×8), 124 sprites (16×16), <br> 31 sprites (32×32), 7 sprites (64×64)
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | [[wikia:w:c:gaming:2.5D|Scaling and <br> rotation]]
 
−
! Background
 
−
| DMA software rendering
 
−
| Mode 7 hardware rendering
 
−
|-
 
−
! Sprites
 
−
| DMA software rendering
 
−
| SuperFX enhancement chip required
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | [[Palette|Color]] DMA
 
−
! Color [[palette]]
 
−
| Up to 4096 colors (bitmap image)
 
−
| 32,768 colors (default), <br> 256–4096 colors ([[wikipedia:Direct color|direct color]])
 
−
|-
 
−
! Colors <br> on screen
 
−
| 256–512 (direct color), 1536 (scrolling image), <br> 4096 (static image)
 
−
| 256-512 (direct color), 2723 (static image)
 
−
|-
 
−
! Colors per tile
 
−
| 16–256 colors (palette swap), <br> 64–512 colors (direct color)
 
−
| 16–256 colors (direct color)
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | [[Full motion video]] <br> (FMV)
 
−
! Maximum [[wikipedia:Bitrate|bitrate]]
 
−
| 4.608 [[Byte|Mbps]] (576 KB/s, 24 KB per frame)
 
−
| 1.773 Mbps (222 KB/s, 18 KB per frame){{ref|[https://multimedia.cx/eggs/snes-fmv/ SNES FMV]}}
 
−
|-
 
−
! Maximum quality
 
−
| 320×224 resolution, 8-bit color
 
−
| 256×224 resolution, 8-bit color{{ref|[https://multimedia.cx/eggs/snes-fmv/ SNES FMV]}}
 
−
|-
 
−
! colspan=2 | [[wikipedia:3D rendering|3D polygon rendering]]
 
−
| 1800 polys/s (flat), 1000 polys/s (textured)
 
−
| 190 polys/s (flat),{{ref|1=SNES CPU rendering:
 
−
*Framebuffer rendering: 256×160 framebuffer (double-buffered, 40 KB), 15 FPS (614.4 KB/s), 819.64 kHz framebuffer DMA (1.334 kHz per KB,{{ref|[https://wiki.superfamicom.org/dma-and-hdma SNES Development: DMA & HDMA]}} 30 cycles setup), 30 cycles per DMA setup (4 cycles LDX, 6 cycles STX, 8 cycles LDA, 12 cycles STA){{ref|[https://wiki.superfamicom.org/grog's-guide-to-dma-and-hdma-on-the-snes SNES Development: Grog's Guide to DMA and HDMA on the SNES]}}{{ref|[https://wiki.superfamicom.org/65816-reference SNES Development: 65816 Reference]}}
 
−
*Polygon rendering: 2.759905 MHz (15 FPS), 14.223 kHz per 8×8 pixel polygon
 
−
:*13.32 kHz geometry per polygon
 
−
:*361 Hz polygon rendering per polygon: 24 comparison cycles (12 comparisons,{{ref|1=[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yiVRHrxFj2wC&pg=PA33 ''Algorithms for Parallel Polygon Rendering'' (pages 33-34)]}} 2 cycles per CPY comparison),{{ref|[https://wiki.superfamicom.org/65816-reference SNES Development: 65816 Reference]}} 7 assignments (6 rasterization assignments,{{ref|1=[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yiVRHrxFj2wC&pg=PA33 ''Algorithms for Parallel Polygon Rendering'' (pages 33-34)]}} 1 flat shading assignment),{{ref|1=[http://sirkan.iit.bme.hu/~szirmay/abbas.pdf#page=53 Transformation Of Rendering Algorithms For Hardware Implementation (page 53)]}} 220 multiply cycles (2 multiplies), 24 add cycles (4 adds), 5 broadcasts,{{ref|1=[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yiVRHrxFj2wC&pg=PA36 ''Algorithms for Parallel Polygon Rendering'' (page 36)]}} 110 cycles DMA access (40 bytes per polygon, 2 cycles per byte, 30 cycles setup){{ref|1=[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EVhgAAAAQBAJ&pg=SL3-PA44 ''Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface'' (page C-44)]}}
 
−
:*542 Hz pixel rendering per 8×8 pixel polygon: 384 add cycles (1 add per pixel),{{ref|1=[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yiVRHrxFj2wC&pg=PA35 ''Algorithms for Parallel Polygon Rendering'' (page 35)]}} 158 cycles DMA (1 byte per pixel, 2 cycles per pixel, 30 cycles setup)
 
−
|group=n}} 140 polys/s (textured){{ref|1=SNES CPU texture mapping: 18.746 kHz per 8×8 texel polygon (5.426 kHz texture mapping per 8×8 texel polygon)
 
−
*316 cycles DMA per 8×8 texel texture: 2 block moves, 2 cycles per texel (1 byte per texel), 30 cycles setup
 
−
*5110 divide cycles per 8×8 texel polygon: 73 divides per 8×8 texel polygon, 630 vertex divide cycles per polygon (9 divides per polygon), 4480 texel divide cycles per 8×8 texel polygon (64 divides, 1 divide per texel){{ref|1=[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=teMHqC2BnuYC&pg=PA110 ''State of the Art in Computer Graphics: Visualization and Modeling'' (page 110)]}}
 
−
|group=n}}
 
−
|}
 
  
−
===Audio===
+
===Legacy===
−
The Mega Drive's audio hardware includes a sound CPU, the [[Zilog]] [[Z80]], along with two sound chips, the [[Yamaha YM2612]] and the [[SN76489|Sega PSG]], both located on the same [[Sega]]-[[Yamaha]] IC6 integrated circuit as the Yamaha [[VDP]] graphics processor, with the PSG located within the VDP itself. The Super Nintendo's audio processing unit, the [[Sony]] S-SMP, includes an audio CPU, the Sony SPC700, and a DSP sound chip, the S-DSP.
+
"Blast processing" was a term used only for a few years by Sega in one region of the world, North America. While a vague term not understood by most consumers (or even many developers), it achieved Sega's goal of generating recognition for their video game console in North America, while simultaneously causing people to challenge the credentials of its rival, the Super NES. "Blast processing" has since become synonymous with the Mega Drive console. In the years after the system was discontinued (and indeed when Sega left the video game console market entirely), "blast processing" has made its name in popular culture, appearing in Sega-related merchandise and even some video games (such as ''[[Sonic Mania]]'').
  
−
The Mega Drive's Z80 audio CPU has over three times the clock rate of the Super Nintendo's SPC700 audio CPU. However, the SPC700 requires less cycles per instruction, so the Z80 is only slightly faster for most operations. What gives the Z80 a significant performance advantage, however, is that it has direct memory access to the 68000 address space (in addition to its own internal 8 KB sound RAM), allowing it to stream data directly from the [[ROM]] [[cartridge]], whereas the SPC700 only has direct access its limited 64 KB internal sound [[RAM]] (where the main 5A22 S-CPU needs to transfer the audio data). This allows the Mega Drive to stream audio data from the ROM cartridge at a higher speed than the SNES, as well as giving the Z80 more flexibility to be used for non-audio purposes (such as [[Sega Master System]] emulation, for example).
+
In more recent years, the term "blast processing" is occasionally used as a reference to the [[Yamaha]] YM7101 [[VDP]] graphics processor's [[wikipedia:DMA controller|DMA unit]]. A year before the 2009 revelation that the term "blast processing" originally referred to a DMA color trick, the retro blogger Trixter anticipated this by identifying "blast processing" as the console's DMA unit in a 2008 blog post.{{ref|[http://trixter.oldskool.org/2008/12/05/blast-processing-101/ Blast Processing 101]}} Since then, the term "blast processing" has been occasionally used as a reference to the Mega Drive's DMA unit  (see ''[[Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications]]'' for details). The DMA blitting capabilities of the Mega Drive is comparable to the [[Amiga]], with the Mega Drive being capable of even faster blitting than the Amiga (see ''[[Sega Mega Drive/Hardware comparison]]'').
  
−
The Mega Drive's YM2612 sound chip has a sound output of 53 kHz, higher than the Super Nintendo's S-DSP which has a 32 kHz output, giving the YM2612 a wider frequency range. The S-DSP also uses Gaussian filtering, which eliminates noise by cutting-off the lowest and highest frequencies, at the expense of further limiting the frequency range, creating a muffled sound. The Mega Drive's greater frequency range, on the other hand, provides sharper audio clarity, but with more noise heard at at the highest frequencies, while a lowpass filter reduces noise at the lowest frequencies on both systems (with the Super Nintendo's Gaussian filter further reducing noise at the expense of muffling).
+
Homebrew programmers in recent years have utilized the fast blitting capabilities of the DMA unit to demonstrate various technical feats on stock Mega Drive hardware (without add-ons or enhancement chips), such as ''Star Fox'' demos showcasing 3D polygon graphics{{ref|1=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUZpF2JLF4s Star Fox 3D Tech Demo on Sega Genesis]}}{{ref|1=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHLc0AzD85g Star Fox 3D Tech Demo on Sega Genesis: Version 2 Using DMA]}} (also in commercial games such as ''[[Star Cruiser]]'', ''[[Hard Drivin']]'' and ''[[Race Drivin']]''), Mode 7 style scaling and rotation (such as the ''Sonic Team Racing'' demo),{{ref|1=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bPGh8TiP4c Sonic Team Racing Sega Genesis GASEGA68K Work in Progress]}} an accurate port of ''[[Wolfenstein 3D]]'' with full ray casting (also in commercial games such as ''[[Duke Nukem 3D]]''), software mixing allowing audio playback of multiple high-quality PCM sample channels (such as the ''Sonic: Next Level'' demo),{{ref|1=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xln0a0HIX5Y Sonic 1 The Next Level - Walkthrough]}} and FMV playback{{ref|1=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jHNu3eZvQQ Was Sega CD FMV really the best the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis Could do? Mike's Mega Drive FMV codec]}} (also in commercial games such as ''[[Sonic 3D Blast]]''). The Mega Drive's DMA unit is thus sometimes viewed as a "blast processor".
  
−
The Mega Drive's sound chips have more sound channels than the Super Nintendo's S-DSP. The S-DSP only supports [[PCM]] sampling, whereas the Mega Drive's YM2612 supports both [[wikia:w:c:electronicmusic:Frequency modulation|FM synthesis]] and PCM sampling while the PSG provides additional synthesized channels. In terms of PCM sampling capabilities, the S-SMP supports 8 PCM channels, higher than the YM2612 which supports up to 4 PCM channels with software mixing. The S-SMP's PCM sampling is limited to 16-bit 32 kHz quality, slightly higher than the YM2612's PCM sampling which is limited to 8-bit 32 kHz quality. Due to the Z80 having direct access to the ROM cartridge, the YM2612 can stream PCM audio directly from the ROM cartridge, whereas the S-SMP can only access samples from its limited 64 KB sound RAM, relying on the main S-CPU to transfer samples from the ROM cartridge. This allows the YM2612 to stream high-quality PCM audio at a high [[wikipedia:Bitrate|bitrate]] without straining the main 68000 CPU (saving most of its bandwidth for graphics or game logic), whereas streaming high-quality PCM audio on the SNES strains the main S-CPU (significantly reducing its bandwidth for graphics or game logic).
+
==Hardware comparison==
 +
:''See [[Sega Mega Drive/Hardware comparison (Super NES)]] for a detailed technical comparison with the SNES''
  
−
{| class="wikitable" style="width: 950px;"
+
:''See also [[Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications]]''
−
|-
 
−
! colspan=2 | Console
 
−
! [[Sega Mega Drive]]{{intref|Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications}}
 
−
! [[Super Nintendo]]{{ref|1=[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System_technical_specifications&oldid=684459832 Super Nintendo Entertainment System technical specifications]}}{{ref|[http://problemkaputt.de/fullsnes.htm SNES hardware specifications]}}{{ref|[http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/content/sega-genesis-vs-super-nintendo Sega Genesis vs Super Nintendo]}}
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | System master <br> clock rate
 
−
! NTSC
 
−
| 53.693175 MHz
 
−
| 24.576 MHz
 
−
|-
 
−
! PAL
 
−
| 53.203424 MHz
 
−
| 24.576 MHz
 
−
|-
 
−
! colspan=2 | Audio CPU
 
−
! [[Zilog]] [[Z80]]
 
−
! [[Sony]] SPC700
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | Clock rate
 
−
! NTSC
 
−
| 3.579545 MHz
 
−
| 1.024 MHz
 
−
|-
 
−
! PAL
 
−
| 3.546894 MHz
 
−
| 1.024 MHz
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | Bits
 
−
! Bus width
 
−
| 8-bit
 
−
| 8-bit
 
−
|-
 
−
! Word length
 
−
| 8-bit
 
−
| 8-bit
 
−
|-
 
−
! Instruction set
 
−
| 8-bit, 16-bit
 
−
| 8-bit, 16-bit
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | Instructions per <br> second
 
−
! NTSC
 
−
| 0.519034 MIPS
 
−
| 0.44032 MIPS{{ref|[https://drolez.com/retro/ Obsolete Microprocessors]}}
 
−
|-
 
−
! PAL
 
−
| 0.5143 MIPS
 
−
| 0.44032 MIPS
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | Sound RAM
 
−
! Memory
 
−
| 8 KB [[SRAM|SRAM/XRAM]] (8-bit, 3.030303 MHz)
 
−
| 64 KB [[SRAM]] (8-bit, 1.024 MHz)
 
−
|-
 
−
! Bandwidth
 
−
| 3.030303 MB/s
 
−
| 1.024 MB/s
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | Memory access
 
−
! Addressable memory
 
−
| 8 KB sound RAM, <br> 64 KB work RAM (32 KB banks), <br> 128 KB to 8 MB cartridge ROM (32 KB banks)
 
−
| 64 KB sound RAM
 
−
|-
 
−
! RAM access bandwidth
 
−
| 1.193182 MB/s (NTSC), <br> 1.182298 MB/s (PAL){{fileref|Zilog Z80 Programmer's Reference Manual.pdf|page=33}}
 
−
| 1.024 MB/s
 
−
|-
 
−
! Cartridge ROM <br> access bandwidth
 
−
| 1.191969 MB/s (NTSC), 1.181096 MB/s (PAL)
 
−
| 128 [[Byte|KB/s]] (S-CPU){{ref|1=[http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?t=6121 16-bit stereo 32 kHz streaming success]}}
 
−
|-
 
−
! colspan=2 | Sound chip(s)
 
−
! [[Yamaha YM2612]], [[Sega]] [[SN76489|PSG]]
 
−
! [[Sony]] S-DSP
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | Clock rate
 
−
! NTSC
 
−
| 7.670454 MHz (YM2612), 3.579545 MHz (PSG)
 
−
| 2.048 MHz
 
−
|-
 
−
! PAL
 
−
| 7.600489 MHz (YM2612), 3.546894 MHz (PSG)
 
−
| 2.048 MHz
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | Sound output
 
−
! Speakers
 
−
| Mono, stereo
 
−
| Mono, stereo, virtual surround sound
 
−
|-
 
−
! Frequency
 
−
| 53.267 kHz (NTSC), 52.781 kHz (PAL)
 
−
| 32 kHz
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | Sound channels
 
−
! Total channels
 
−
| 11 channels (hardware), <br> 12-14 channels (software mixing)
 
−
| 8 channels
 
−
|-
 
−
! Synthesis channels
 
−
| 11 channels <br> (6 [[wikia:w:c:electronicmusic:Frequency modulation|FM synthesis]], 1 [[wikipedia:Low-frequency oscillation|LFO]], 3 [[wikipedia:Square wave|square waves]], 1 noise)
 
−
| N/A
 
−
|-
 
−
! [[PCM]] sample channels
 
−
| 1 channel (hardware), 2-4 channels (software mixing)
 
−
| 8 channels
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | [[PCM]] sampling <br> capabilities
 
−
! File formats
 
−
| [[PCM]], [[PCM|DPCM]], [[PCM|ADPCM]], [[VGM]], XGM, [[Echo|TFM]], [[PCM|WAV]], [[wikipedia:MOD (file format)|MOD]]
 
−
| PCM, ADPCM, [[wikipedia:Bit Rate Reduction|BRR]]{{ref|[https://wiki.superfamicom.org/bit-rate-reduction-(brr) Bit Rate Reduction (BRR)]}}
 
−
|-
 
−
! Maximum sample <br> quality
 
−
| 8-bit depth, 32 kHz sample rate
 
−
| 16-bit depth, 32 kHz sample rate
 
−
|-
 
−
! Maximum [[wikipedia:Bitrate|bitrate]]
 
−
| 1024 [[Byte|Kbps]] (128 KB/s, 11% bandwidth)
 
−
| 1024 Kbps (128 KB/s, 99% bandwidth){{ref|1=[http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?t=6121 16-bit stereo 32 kHz streaming success]}}
 
−
|}
 
  
−
===Enhancement chips===
+
==External links==
−
{| class="wikitable" style="width: 950px;"
+
*''[https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/11/the_man_responsible_for_segas_blast_processing_gimmick_is_sorry_for_creating_that_ghastly_phrase The Man Responsible For Sega's Blast Processing Gimmick Is Sorry For Creating "That Ghastly Phrase"]'' article by Damien McFerran at ''[https://www.nintendolife.com Nintendo Life]''
−
|-
 
−
! colspan=2 | Console
 
−
! [[Sega Mega Drive]]{{intref|Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications}}
 
−
! colspan=3 | [[Super Nintendo Entertainment System]]
 
−
|-
 
−
! colspan=2 | [[Cartridge]] enhancement chip
 
−
! [[Sega Virtua Processor]]{{intref|Sega Virtua Processor}}
 
−
! [[wikipedia:DSP (Nintendo)|DSP-1]]{{ref|[http://problemkaputt.de/fullsnes.htm SNES hardware specifications]}}{{ref|[https://archive.org/stream/SNESDevManual/book2#page/n285/mode/2up SNES Development Manual: DSP1 Command Summary]}}
 
−
! [[wikipedia:Super FX|Super FX]]{{ref|[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Super_NES_Programming/Super_FX_tutorial Super NES Programming: Super FX tutorial]}}{{ref|1=[https://snescentral.com/pcbboards.php?chip=SHVC-1RA2B6S-01 SHVC-1RA2B6S-01 (PCB)]}}
 
−
! Super FX 2{{ref|[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Super_NES_Programming/Super_FX_tutorial Super NES Programming: Super FX tutorial]}}{{ref|1=[https://snescentral.com/pcbboards.php?chip=SHVC-1RA2B6S-01 SHVC-1RA2B6S-01 (PCB)]}}
 
−
|-
 
−
! colspan=2 | Co-processor
 
−
| [[Sega]] 315-5750 <br> ([[Samsung]] SSP1601)
 
−
| [[NEC]] [[wikipedia:NEC µPD77C25|µPD77C25]]
 
−
| [[Nintendo]] GSU-1
 
−
| Nintendo GSU-2
 
−
|-
 
−
! colspan=2 | Clock rate
 
−
| 23.01136 MHz
 
−
| 7.647059 MHz{{ref|3.4 microseconds per 26 cycles,{{ref|[https://archive.org/stream/SNESDevManual/book2#page/n285/mode/2up SNES Development Manual: DSP1 Command Summary]}} 2.136322× CPU clock rate|group=n}}
 
−
| 10.738635 MHz
 
−
| 21.47727 MHz
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | Cartridge [[RAM]]
 
−
! Memory
 
−
| 128 KB ([[wikipedia:FPM DRAM|FPM&nbsp;DRAM]])
 
−
| 2-32 KB ([[SRAM]]){{ref|1=[https://snescentral.com/pcbboards.php?chip=SHVC-2QW5B-X1 SHVC-2QW5B-X1 (PCB)]}}
 
−
| 40-72 KB (SRAM)
 
−
| 40-72 KB (SRAM)
 
−
|-
 
−
! Bandwidth
 
−
| 34.679066 MB/s <br> (16-bit, 18.181818 MHz)
 
−
| 6.666666 MB/s <br> (8-bit, 6.666666 MHz){{ref|1=[https://snescentral.com/pcbboards.php?chip=SHVC-2QW5B-X1 SHVC-2QW5B-X1 (PCB)]}}
 
−
| 10.738635 MB/s <br> (8-bit, 10.738635 MHz){{ref|[https://www.datasheets360.com/part/detail/km68512lg-7/7521320337035499905/ KM68512LG-7 Datasheet]}}
 
−
| 14.285714 MB/s <br> (8-bit, 14.285714 MHz){{ref|[https://www.datasheets360.com/part/detail/km68512lg-7/7521320337035499905/ KM68512LG-7 Datasheet]}}
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | [[wikipedia:Fixed-point arithmetic|Fixed-point <br> arithmetic]]
 
−
! Additions
 
−
| 23,011,360 adds/sec
 
−
| 596,000 adds/sec
 
−
| 10,738,635 adds/sec{{ref|1 cycle per add{{ref|[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Super_NES_Programming/Super_FX_tutorial Super NES Programming: Super FX tutorial]}}|group=n}}
 
−
| 21,477,270 adds/sec
 
−
|-
 
−
! Multiplications
 
−
| 23,011,360 multiplies/sec
 
−
| 294,117 multiplies/sec
 
−
| 2,147,727 multiplies/sec{{ref|5 cycles per 16×16 multiply{{ref|[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Super_NES_Programming/Super_FX_tutorial Super NES Programming: Super FX tutorial]}}|group=n}}
 
−
| 4,295,454 multiplies/sec
 
−
|-
 
−
! Divisions
 
−
| 719,105 divides/sec
 
−
| 77,519 divides/sec
 
−
| 335,582 divides/sec{{ref|32 cycles per 16-bit divide{{ref|[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Super_NES_Programming/Super_FX_tutorial Super NES Programming: Super FX tutorial]}}|group=n}}
 
−
| 671,164 divides/sec
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=2 | [[wikia:w:c:gaming:2.5D|Scaling and <br> rotation]]
 
−
! Background
 
−
| Hardware rendering
 
−
| Mode 7
 
−
| Mode 7
 
−
| Mode 7
 
−
|-
 
−
! [[Sprite]]s
 
−
| Hardware rendering
 
−
| N/A
 
−
| Hardware rendering
 
−
| Hardware rendering
 
−
|-
 
−
! rowspan=3 | [[wikipedia:Polygonal modeling|3D polygon]] <br> graphics
 
−
! [[wikipedia:Geometry pipelines|Geometry <br> calculations]]
 
−
| 50,000 polys/s
 
−
| 1,900 polys/s{{ref|DSP-1 geometry calculations: 3,939 cycles per polygon (80 adds, 111 multiplies, 9 divides),{{ref|1=[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=iAvHt5RCHbMC&pg=PA95 ''Design of Digital Systems and Devices'' (pages 95-97)]}} 2.136322 cycles (1 CPU cycle) per add, 26 cycles per 16-bit multiply, 98 cycles per divide{{ref|[https://archive.org/stream/SNESDevManual/book2#page/n285/mode/2up SNES Development Manual: DSP1 Command Summary]}}|group=n}}
 
−
| 10,000 polys/s{{ref|1=Super FX geometry calculations: 923 cycles per polygon (80 adds, 111 multiplies, 9 divides),{{ref|1=[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=iAvHt5RCHbMC&pg=PA95 ''Design of Digital Systems and Devices'' (pages 95-97)]}} 1 cycle per add, 5 cycles per 16×16 multiply, 32 cycles per 16-bit divide{{ref|[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Super_NES_Programming/Super_FX_tutorial Super NES Programming: Super FX tutorial]}}|group=n}}
 
−
| 20,000 polys/s
 
−
|-
 
−
! Flat-shaded <br> [[wikipedia:3D rendering|rendering]]
 
−
| 20,000 polys/s
 
−
| 940 polys/s{{ref|1=DSP-1 assisted rendering:
 
−
*CPU framebuffer rendering: 256×192 framebuffer (double-buffered, 48 KB), 15 FPS (737.28 KB/s), 983.562 kHz CPU framebuffer DMA (1.334 kHz per KB, 30 cycles setup), 2.101205 MHz DSP-1 cycles
 
−
*Polygon rendering: 5.545854 MHz (15 FPS) DSP-1 cycles available, 5.869 kHz per 8×8 pixel polygon
 
−
:*Geometry per polygon: 3,939 DSP-1 cycles
 
−
:*Polygon rendering per polygon: 772 DSP-1 cycles (361 CPU cycles)
 
−
:*Pixel rendering per 8×8 pixel polygon: 1,158 DSP-1 cycles (542 CPU cycles)
 
−
|group=n}}
 
−
| 2000 polys/s{{ref|1=Super FX rendering:
 
−
*Framebuffer rendering: 256×192 framebuffer (double-buffered, 48 KB), 15 FPS (737.28 KB/s), 983.562 kHz CPU framebuffer DMA (1.334 kHz per KB, 30 cycles setup), 2.950686 MHz Super FX cycles
 
−
*Polygon rendering: 7.787949 MHz (15 FPS) Super FX cycles available, 3.632 kHz per 8×8 pixel polygon
 
−
:*Geometry per polygon: 923 Super FX cycles
 
−
:*Polygon rendering per polygon: 1083 Super FX cycles (361 CPU cycles)
 
−
:*Pixel rendering per 8×8 pixel polygon: 1626 Super FX cycles (542 CPU cycles)
 
−
|group=n}}
 
−
| 4000 polys/s
 
−
|-
 
−
! Texture <br> mapping
 
−
| 3000 polys/s
 
−
| 660 polys/s{{ref|1=DSP-1 assisted texture mapping: 11.462 kHz per 8×8 texel polygon (7.83 kHz texture mapping per 8×8 texel polygon)
 
−
*676 DSP-1 cycles (316 CPU cycles) CPU DMA per 8×8 texel texture
 
−
*7154 divide cycles per 8×8 texel polygon: 73 divides per 8×8 texel polygon, 882 vertex divide cycles per polygon (9 divides per polygon), 6272 texel divide cycles per 8×8 texel polygon (64 divides, 1 divide per texel)
 
−
|group=n}}
 
−
| 1000 polys/s{{ref|1=Super FX texture mapping: 6.916 kHz per 8×8 texel polygon (3.284 kHz texture mapping per 8×8 texel polygon)
 
−
*948 Super FX cycles (316 CPU cycles) DMA per 8×8 texel texture
 
−
*2336 divide cycles per 8×8 texel polygon: 73 divides per 8×8 texel polygon, 288 vertex divide cycles per polygon (9 divides per polygon), 2048 texel divide cycles per 8×8 texel polygon (64 divides, 1 divide per texel)
 
−
|group=n}}
 
−
| 2000 polys/s
 
−
|}
 
−
 
 
−
==Notes==
 
−
<references group="n"/>
 
  
 
==References==
 
==References==
 
<references />
 
<references />
  
−
==External links==
 
−
*[http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3134008 1UP's Essential 50 - #28 Sonic The Hedgehog]
 
−
*[http://info.sonicretro.org/Image:GamesTMRetrospect.jpg gamesTM - Gaming News '92 "Hogging the World Stage"]
 
−
 
−
{{HardwareComparisons}}
 
 
{{MegaDrive}}
 
{{MegaDrive}}
  
 
[[Category:Sega Mega Drive]]
 
[[Category:Sega Mega Drive]]
−
[[Category:Mega Drive hardware]]
 

Latest revision as of 18:57, 30 December 2021

Blast processing was a marketing term coined by Sega of America to promote the Sega Mega Drive (Sega Genesis in that region) video game console over its nearest rival, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), in North America. "What makes the Genesis the superior machine?" It has "blast processing".

While the Mega Drive is indeed capable of faster processing performance than the SNES, particularly due to the Mega Drive's Yamaha YM7101 VDP graphics processor having a faster DMA controller along with higher memory bandwidth (see Sega Mega Drive/Hardware comparison for a technical comparison with the SNES), the term "blast processing" itself was vague and unclear, due to a lack of technical explanation from Sega. The term is thus open to interpretation, and has been interpreted in different ways, as a reference to either the Mega Drive's faster performance, its higher CPU clock rate, its DMA controller, a specific DMA color technique (which is apparently what inspired the term), or just a meaningless marketing gimmick (as claimed by Nintendo). In more recent years, the term "blast processing" is occasionally used as a reference to the fast blitting capabilities of its DMA unit (see Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications for details).

History

Advertising

Error creating thumbnail:


“ The Sega Genesis has blast processing. Super Nintendo, doesn't. „

— US television advert[1]


While the term would be used several times across Sega's marketing output, "blast processing" is usually remembered in North America for appearing in a 30-second commercial by Sega's choice of marketing agency, Goodby Silverstein & Partners. A Genesis (linked up to a TV) is strapped to a high-speed drag racer, while a Super NES is strapped to an old van. A drag race occurs, with the Genesis speeding off, displaying footage from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Ecco the Dolphin and Streets of Rage 2. The Super NES, however, stutters while Super Mario Kart plays. Inevtiably the Genesis "wins".

The advert wasn't designed to cause people to think about what was being said, just that Sega and the Genesis were "better" than Nintendo and the Super NES. These sorts of "attack ads" were commonplace in the US at the time - other countries with stricter advertising regulations would not be able to air it, not least because it is a difficult to prove the truthfulness of what was being said. The term was not officially used outside of North America, likely for this reason.

In addition to provoking hardware comparisons, the advert also has a subtle dig at Super Mario Kart - Nintendo's flagship racing game which relies on the Super NES' hardware graphics mode, "Mode 7", as well as a built-in DSP-1 enhancement chip, a math co-processor that further improved the system's Mode 7 capabilities. Mode 7 allows the Super NES to scale and rotate background planes - something only achievable on the Mega Drive through software. It was not thought at the time that a game like Mario Kart could run on the Mega Drive with the same performance profile, yet Sega of America (perhaps ambitiously) chose to portray it as the "slower" game.

"Blast processing" became a fixture of Sega's advertising campaigns throughout the 1992 holiday season and into 1993. The following year the Welcome to the Next Level campaign became the face of Sega of America's advertising, and the term was never used again.

Origins

Misconceptions about what "blast processing" were rife until 2009, where in an interview Scot Bayless took responsibility for the phrase:


“ Sadly I have to take responsibility for that ghastly phrase. 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. Oy.

„

— Scot Bayless[2]


As it transpires, "blast processing" was originally a reference to a graphical technique mentioned by Marty Franz, taking advantage of a hardware feature in the Yamaha YM7101 VDP graphics processor's DMA unit. On a Mega Drive, it is possible to change the colour palette during the H-blank interval by "DMA-ing" (a.k.a. "blasting") information into CRAM (Color RAM). However, doing so has the (usually) unwanted side effect of creating CRAM dots - rogue pixels which would corrupt the image if the trick was used too often.

Despite this, mid-frame colour palette changes were not unusual on the Mega Drive - Sonic the Hedgehog uses this trick whenever it needs to display water in Labyrinth Zone, and masks the CRAM dots by drawing a flickering water surface sprite roughly where the palette changeover occurs.

However, if the programmer knew when these CRAM Dots were likely to appear, a screen could be drawn just by rapidly changing the palette (i.e. the whole image would be drawn with the CRAM dots glitch). Initially it was thought that this technique could be used to generate 256-colour images, however the likes of Traveller's Tales' Jon Burton, who had also discovered the trick, managed to bump up the number to 512, simulating as many as 4096 by rapidly changing between two frames[3].

The downside to this technique is that it relies on perfect timing across the Mega Drive hardware, or the lines drawn would appear out of phase, and thus the image would be distorted. This, and the fact the technique was never well documented to begin with, meant that no commercial games made use of this so-called "blast processing" technique.

It would not be until many years later when a perfectly synced blast processing technique would be achieved,[4] but at the expense of fully utilising the Mega Drive's 68000 processor in order to display an image. The process also produces "chunky" pixels, meaning that while 512 colour images are technically possible, they do not make use of the full 320x224 screen resolution.

The net result means the process is generally impractical for standard Mega Drive games outside of static screens, but becomes a more attractive prospect when a Sega Mega-CD is introduced. The Mega-CD, with its own 68000 processor, has been shown to be able to assist the Mega Drive in running games in this new graphics mode.

This technique is briefly mentioned among some features intended by the Mega Drive's original product designer Masami Ishikawa:


“ We were able to have two scrolling windows — with both vertical and horizontal line scrolling — and the sprite size could be changed to fill the whole display. It could also display the background screen behind the scrolling window and could change the color of each line. The number of available colors was limited compared to comparable arcade systems, but it could create shadows that matched each character's shape and was also capable of semi-transparency. „

— Masami Ishikawa[5]


The DMA unit's ability to change the CRAM palette (as well as the VRAM and scrolling) during active display is also mentioned in Sega's technical manual.[6]

Interpretations

The technique of drawing an image through using DMA (direct memory access) was not understood by Sega of America's marketing department (or indeed by many developers, as again, it was never seen in commercial games). Nor did it seem like they understood what DMA was. Instead, the words "blast" and "processing" were picked up and ran with, and the media and general public was tasked with filling in the blanks.

For many years, it was assumed that the term was referring to the Mega Drive's CPU, the 68000, having a higher clock rate than the Ricoh 5A22 S-CPU found in the Super NES. At a time when technical details were hard to come by, it was widely assumed that bigger numbers were better, without taking into account what the two integrated circuits were actually doing with each clock cycle. Sega of America's marketing department may have also interpreted "blast processing" as simply a higher CPU clock rate.

Blast processing was also used in conjunction with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 advertising, to suggest that it made Sonic "faster than ever". One trick used was to have the ground speed cap removed, leading to a situation in Chemical Plant Zone where Sonic appears to out-run the camera. This was entirely the decision of the programming team behind the game, rather than a hardware trick.

Separately, Sega stated that blast processing was "the total power dedication of the Genesis system to giving a character on screen a very quick blast of speed", a cited example being the spin dash manoeuvre in the game.[7]

A more likely reason why Sonic 2 was chosen to demonstrate "blast processing" was its high-speed parallax scrolling, which was noticeably faster than what was seen in SNES games. While it is technically possible to match its scrolling speed on the SNES, it would require either significantly reducing the amount of graphics data on screen, or using enhancement chips. The Mega Drive's faster graphics DMA unit allows it to perform high-speed parallax scrolling with more graphics data on screen, which Sonic 2 was able to demonstrate to great success. It even maintained its speed at a higher 320x448 resolution in 2-player mode (compared to its standard 320x224 resolution), whereas the SNES wouldn't be able to reach such a speed at resolutions above 256x224.

In more recent years, the term "blast processing" is occasionally used as a reference to the Yamaha YM7101 VDP graphics processor's DMA unit, due to its fast data blitting capabilities (see Legacy section below).

Curiously, the Mega Drive had a hybrid 16/32-bit CPU whereas the SNES had a hybrid 8/16-bit CPU, as the Mega Drive CPU has a 32-bit internal data bus and 16-bit external data bus, compared to the SNES CPU having a 16-bit internal data bus and 8-bit external data bus (see Sega Mega Drive/Hardware comparison for technical details), yet Sega never capitalised on this in its marketing against Nintendo. Sega's marketing department had previously attacked the TurboGrafx-16 as not being a true "16-bit" system, yet they didn't attempt similar "bit" marketing tactics against the SNES.

Responses

The Nintendo-backed Nintendo Power magazine challenged Sega's customer service and PR firm about blast processing in the summer of 1993, claiming that in their view, it was marketing speak for the programmers "know[ing] what they're doing"[8]. They would also commission evaulation company Booz-Allen & Hamilton to compare the Mega Drive and Super NES, predictably claiming that the SNES offered better equipment for building "faster, more complex games"[9].

However, it was not until the middle of 1994 where Nintendo became more vocal about the subject. Most notably, they published an advertisement entitled "SMASHING The Myth About Speed and Power" in popular US video game magazines such as Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro and Game Players which aimed to counter Sega's narrative.[10]

The advertisement was presented as a two-page, pseudo-editorial piece. While it had the word "advertisement" in very small writing, it was not made clear to readers that it was written by Nintendo, misleading many to believe it was a legitimate editorial piece written by the actual magazines. Nintendo's pseudo-editorial piece claimed that "blast processing" was a "myth" and made a number of other points intended to make the SNES look technically superior to the Genesis in every way other than the CPU clock rate. While some of the claims were accurate, there were a number of claims made in Nintedo's pseudo-editorial advertisement which were either inaccurate, uninformed or misleading:

  • It claimed that the Genesis did not have any hardware or technology that gave a "Blast" boost. This is an incredibly vague statement to make, given that all part of the Mega Drive work in tandem to produce video games. It does, however, suggest that Nintendo were about as unaware of what blast processing really meant as most other people at the time.
  • It claimed that the SNES was just as fast as the Genesis. To support this claim, it noted that, while the Super Nintendo's Ricoh 5A22 S-CPU has a slower clock rate, it has faster memory transfer per cycle, claiming that this gives it faster data transfer speed. However, the Mega Drive's 68000 CPU has a wider 16-bit external data bus, twice as wide as the S-CPU's 8-bit external data bus, which means the 68000 transfers 16-bit data per cycle, whereas the S-CPU transfers 8-bit data per cycle, giving the 68000 a faster data transfer speed.
  • It claimed the SNES's larger RAM gives it superiority in terms of speeding-up programs. However, RAM speed is largely determined by bandwidth. The Genesis has faster RAM bandwidth, making it faster for program access. Furthermore, it can read program data from the ROM cartridge at a higher speed than the SNES.
  • It claimed that the Genesis only had a 256-color palette, when it actually has 512 colors (being increased to 1536 colors in shadow/highlight mode). Regardless the available palette is an acknowledged strength of the Super NES, as it has 32,768 colors at its disposal. The 256 number also contradicts Nintendo's own research the year prior[9].
  • It claimed that the SNES is capable of scaling Sonic. However, Mode 7 only scales backgrounds, not sprites. The SNES usually required enhancement chips such as the SuperFX to achieve true sprite-scaling.
  • It suggested that the Genesis is not capable of scaling or rotation. This is true from a hardware perspective, but can be (and was) achieved through software programming. The Mega-CD also adds support for scaling and rotation.
  • It suggested that only the SNES has specialised DMA hardware capable of high-speed DMA. However, the Genesis has a DMA unit with faster DMA transfer speeds than the SNES.
  • Its statement that the SNES has a higher sprite display limit is true, but misleading, as it can only reach its display limit when using small sprites. The Genesis displays more sprite tiles and has a higher sprite fillrate, which allows the Genesis to display a higher number of large sprites, as well as a greater variety of sprites.
  • Its claim that the SNES produces sharper sound than the Genesis is not true, as the Mega Drive's Yamaha YM2612 sound chip produces a higher 53 kHz output than the Super Nintendo's Sony chip which produces a 32 kHz output. It appears to be supporting the claim by referring to Gaussian filtering reducing noise, but this limits the frequency range, resulting in a more muffled sound on the SNES and sharper audio clarity on the Genesis.
  • Its implication that only the SNES has true digital sound is not true, as the Mega Drive's YM2612 chip is also capable of true digital sound. It can play PCM samples at up to 8-bit 32 kHz, slightly below the Super Nintendo's 16-bit 32 kHz limit. The Genesis can also stream PCM audio from the ROM cartridge at a comparable bitrate while using less of its bandwidth (due to the Genesis having greater bandwidth).

Legacy

"Blast processing" was a term used only for a few years by Sega in one region of the world, North America. While a vague term not understood by most consumers (or even many developers), it achieved Sega's goal of generating recognition for their video game console in North America, while simultaneously causing people to challenge the credentials of its rival, the Super NES. "Blast processing" has since become synonymous with the Mega Drive console. In the years after the system was discontinued (and indeed when Sega left the video game console market entirely), "blast processing" has made its name in popular culture, appearing in Sega-related merchandise and even some video games (such as Sonic Mania).

In more recent years, the term "blast processing" is occasionally used as a reference to the Yamaha YM7101 VDP graphics processor's DMA unit. A year before the 2009 revelation that the term "blast processing" originally referred to a DMA color trick, the retro blogger Trixter anticipated this by identifying "blast processing" as the console's DMA unit in a 2008 blog post.[11] Since then, the term "blast processing" has been occasionally used as a reference to the Mega Drive's DMA unit (see Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications for details). The DMA blitting capabilities of the Mega Drive is comparable to the Amiga, with the Mega Drive being capable of even faster blitting than the Amiga (see Sega Mega Drive/Hardware comparison).

Homebrew programmers in recent years have utilized the fast blitting capabilities of the DMA unit to demonstrate various technical feats on stock Mega Drive hardware (without add-ons or enhancement chips), such as Star Fox demos showcasing 3D polygon graphics[12][13] (also in commercial games such as Star Cruiser, Hard Drivin' and Race Drivin'), Mode 7 style scaling and rotation (such as the Sonic Team Racing demo),[14] an accurate port of Wolfenstein 3D with full ray casting (also in commercial games such as Duke Nukem 3D), software mixing allowing audio playback of multiple high-quality PCM sample channels (such as the Sonic: Next Level demo),[15] and FMV playback[16] (also in commercial games such as Sonic 3D Blast). The Mega Drive's DMA unit is thus sometimes viewed as a "blast processor".

Hardware comparison

See Sega Mega Drive/Hardware comparison (Super NES) for a detailed technical comparison with the SNES
See also Sega Mega Drive/Technical specifications

External links

References

  1. ↑ File:Blast Processing Commercial.mp4
  2. ↑ ["Damien McFerran Retroinspection: Mega-CD", Retro Gamer, issue 61 (2009), page 84 "Damien McFerran Retroinspection: Mega-CD", Retro Gamer, issue 61 (2009), page 84]
  3. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8qgArSqMsc
  4. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvvL6S5Buiw
  5. ↑ How Sega Built the Genesis: Masami Ishikawa Inteview (Polygon)
  6. ↑ File:GenesisTechnicalOverview.pdf, page 36
  7. ↑ Electronic Gaming Monthly, "March 1993" (US; 1993-xx-xx), page 12
  8. ↑ Nintendo Power, "June 1993" (US; 1993-0x-xx), page 26
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Nintendo Power, "June 1993" (US; 1993-0x-xx), page 27
  10. ↑ Game Players, "Vol. 7 No. 5 May 1994" (US; 1994-0x-xx), page 10
  11. ↑ Blast Processing 101
  12. ↑ Star Fox 3D Tech Demo on Sega Genesis
  13. ↑ Star Fox 3D Tech Demo on Sega Genesis: Version 2 Using DMA
  14. ↑ Sonic Team Racing Sega Genesis GASEGA68K Work in Progress
  15. ↑ Sonic 1 The Next Level - Walkthrough
  16. ↑ Was Sega CD FMV really the best the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis Could do? Mike's Mega Drive FMV codec


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