From: andrewg@brtph346.BNR.CA 
Subject: Re: Genesis vs. SNES - processor speed  
Reply-To: andrewg@brtph346.BNR.CA 
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 22:22:15 GMT

In article <DRAND.93Jan6160541@spinner.osf.org>, drand@spinner.osf.org
(Douglas S. Rand) writes:
|>In article <1993Jan6.181122.12481@brtph560.bnr.ca>
andrewg@brtph346.BNR.CA (Krishna Kushwaha P205) writes:
|>
|>   In article <1993Jan06.044902.312248@sue.cc.uregina.ca>,
|>   keeler@hercules.cs.uregina.ca (Jason Keeler) writes:
|>   |>Hi;
|>   |>
|>   |>A friend of mine and I are having a dispute:
|>   |>
|>   |>He says the processor in Genesis is superior to SNES.  I've heard the
|>   opposite
|>   |>is true.
|>   |>
|>   |>Anybody know for sure?
|>   |>
|>   |>...Jason
|>
|>   Your friend is correct. The Genesis has a 8MHz 68000 which is a
32/16 bit CPU,
|>   the SNES has a 3.5 MHz 65816 which is a 16/8 bit CPU. The 68000 is
much faster.
|>
|>What is much faster?  What do you base this on?  You really cannot
|>compare such things in any straightforward fashion.  Mhz means
|>absolutly nothing.  Mind you,  I like 68Ks very much,  they are
    ^^^^^^
  NOT TRUE
|>very fine processors,  I own Macs,  but you just cannot make
|>blanket statements.  Even benchmarks can be quite misleading,  it
The 68000's data paths are twice as wide as the 65816's. Its clock 
speed is more than twice as fast, it also has many more internal 
registers. These are strong indications the the 68000 is much faster
than the 65816 (which was used in the II GS). 

|>depends on what you are doing with the processors.
|>
|>To give two extreme examples,  one processor might be blindly fast
|>at floating point,  while another is an ultra efficient data mover.
|>These will not be equally good in a video game system.
Neither CPU does floating point. the 68000 can move twice as much data
as the 65186. They are both general purpose CPU's 
|>
|>In any case,  I still find it dubious,  to say the least,  that
|>there is much significant difference in what the two can do at
|>the processor level for processing a video game.  Certainly the
|>proof is in the pudding,  and we have seen excellent games for
|>both systems and awful games for both system.
The original question was "is the processor in the Genesis superior to
the one in the SNES". The answer is clearly YES. The SNES may have
dedicated hardware which helps make up it's disadvantage in the CPU
department. However these chips will be less flexible and harder to
program than a fast general purpose CPU.

It is true that many games for the SNES do not suffer from slowdown
and that some Genesis games do. However, Genesis games generally 
feel faster than their SNES counterparts. The fact tht a good SNES 
programmer can produce better results than a bad Genesis programmer
do not prove that the SNES is as fast. 

The 68000 has another advantage over the 65816, It is easier to port
too. There are a large number of 'C' cross compilers available for it
that produce good code. The 68000 may be old but it is a mainstream 
CPU design. The 65186 is basically just a 6502 with 16 bit internal 
registers. 
|>
|>--
|>Douglas S. Rand <drand@osf.org>		OSF/Motif Dev.
|>Snail:         11 Cambridge Center,  Cambridge,  MA  02142
|>Disclaimer:    I don't know if OSF agrees with me... let's vote on it.
|>Amateur Radio: KC1KJ
                                           
Andrew D. Grant
Newsgroups: rec.games.video