From: deweeset@ptolemy3.rdrc.rpi.edu (Thomas E. DeWeese)
Subject: Re: Street Fighter
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 01:08:11 GMT

In article <cshotton-250193124726@oac2.hsc.uth.tmc.edu> cshotton@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Chuck Shotton) writes:
>In article <1993Jan25.113208.10547@ac.dal.ca>, seanmcd@ac.dal.ca wrote:
>> 
>> Not a hardware problem? Explain how such games can be done on the genesis
>> when it has the identical processor to a mac plus. There are certain 
>> dedicated hardware features in such game consoles that allow you to do fast
>> rotation, scaling, and scrolling. How much do you know about Mac 
>> programming?
>> I'm not an expert, but I know that page flipping ability is limited, you 
>>can't change the pointer to video memory to get fast scrolling and there's no
>
>I would suggest that you spend some time learning about the Mac hardware
>and operating system before you make such broad, generalized statements. In
>the meantime, if you want all of the features of a SNES or Genesis, then go
>buy one. If you want a general purpose desktop computing system, then buy
>something like a Mac.

  Well I have spent some time learning about Mac hardware and I back up his
statements 100% (or really close anyway).  I agree that if you want a true
arcade game system buy a SNS of Genesis, or lynx or what ever looks good at
the time.  BUT DON'T TAKE HIS POST OUT OF CONTEXT!!!!!!
  His post was in reply to some one who obviously was unaware of the 
hardware limitations of the Mac.  (It is IMPOSSIBLE to do full screen scrolls
of a pixmap, on an LC class machine, @ 8bpp).  This would be a prerequisit
for a game such as Street Fighter TM (whoever).  The person he Followed up 
claimed that it was the simply the marketing types fault that there was
no Stree Fighter for the Mac.  It also would be very difficult to animate 
PixMaps the size that Street Fighter uses (that probably could be done 
though).  So while a Street Fighterish game could be done on the Mac I 
think the "look and feel" (we all know how important that is :) would be 
very different (not nessesarily worse just not Street Fighter).

>> Publishers can have the best of intentions, but that doesn't mean that they
>> can overcome the inherent speed limitations of hardware. It's not a question
>> of mind over matter...
>You have an overly simplistic view of what makes a video game work. Innate
>processor speed has little to do with the performance or realism or
>playability of the game. It may have something to do with the ease with
>which a game is implemented, but certainly doesn't preclude the
>implementation using software-based methods. 
  Well a full screen scroll is really a very nice thing to be able to do.
I for one am very dissapointed that I can't do them.  Yes, there are way's
around it, but I think that a full screen scroll adds alot to the smoothness
of a game.  There is no move from one screen to the next delay's, etc.
That was one of the things that really bothers me in alot of games I play on
the Mac, the "Dread of the Edge" where you don't want to get near the edge
of the screen because it means you need to sit there for a sec, while the
screen scrolls. (Oxyd's is an excellant example of this).
						FYI, the whole full-motion
>simulator used to train astronauts on the space shuttle uses an amount of
>processor power equivalent to only a couple of old '286 PCs. (without any
>custom graphics hardware, etc.) That is certainly a more complicated "video
>game" than anything you've played before.
  Yes, I also bet they used the mini camera "flying" over a miniture landscape
in order to do it.  No special graphics HW, but there is quite a bit of
extra display HW.  And even if they didn't use this "trick" the real thing
they are interested in was reality of the shuttle flight model.  This
represents a very small amount of the total CPU time.  The real CPU time is
spent drawing the Poliginal rep of the Goldengate bridge (right down to
the rivits).  All the "frills" that the Air force doesn't care about, but
that makes a game alot of fun to play.  

>While you're at it, how about explaining why the Mac game world should be
>limited to the lame resolution of PCs in the first place?
  The Lame resoultion of the PC is very handy because it cut's the amount
of data that needs to be moved by a factor of 4.  Thus you can move the same
stuff four times faster or move four times as much.  And in a relatively
fast paced game with a decently chosen pallet can completely mask the
limited resolution.  I will agree that 640x480 is MUCH NICER, for some
things (title screens, static backgrounds ...),  but for speed 320x200 isn't
that bad, and makes alot of sense.

>I'm sorry if this sounds flamish, but your intolerance of Mac
>hardware/software appears to be based on a lack of understanding and you
>really should learn a little bit more about it.
  Well I would suggest reading the history of a post before condeming it.
I also feel that most of what he had to say was extremly valid.  
							Thomas DeWeese
deweeset@rdrc.rpi.edu
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