SNES vs. GBA

[EmuChicken]

lol, just checking your site now... interesting...  I used to have that star trek machine!    - was pretty good

..  I'm a bit unsure on the rating system between how "powerful" the Psp is compared to the DS... sure the psp has 333 (when OVERCLOCKED- standard 266 I think) - then the DS has a 66mhz.....  seems crappy, but I'm pretty sure theres 2 chips in there ... somewhere

also the gba is nowhere near as powerful as the snes, the reason why it seems that way is cos the screens so bloody small....  no chance you can even try to compare some games (mario kart, f-zero etc)....  but hey, its a bloody good machine! :> ...  I'd say its kinda like a "watered down" snes you can fit in yer pocket... the same way a gameboy is a watered down NES ;-)

[Trekster]

The PSP standard is 333MZH thats its true clock speed, it is not overclocked. They only had it lowered to conserve the battery. If you look at PSP games like them or not when they take advantage of the hardware the PSP totally eats the DS for lunch when it comes to raw power.


Actually the GBA is more powerful

SNES is a 16bit system CPU: 16-bit 65816 (3.58MHz)
GBA is a 32 bit system CPU: 32bit RISC-CPU + 8bit CISC-CPU it was more powerful than the old SNES
here is a couple of links with more info
http://www.cyberiapc.com/vgg/nintendo_snes.htm
http://www.vgescape.com/features/55/gba-specs

I mean look at all the specs, the GBA has better specs all the way around. The SNES while had good specs for it's day still had an underpowered proc.

[EmuChicken]

ah yeah, underclocked that was it...

but also the snes (like the NES) had inbuilt chips into games...  remember the SuperFX chip? then the ones in the Megaman X games? - oh and then the ones in the Street Fighter alpha series?

saying things like "the gba kicks the arse off a snes" is pretty untrue imo though... its like saying the PC completely kills the Amiga in power comparison charts when in reality - it didnt....  (worms for example needed like a 66mhz cpu on the pc, and a 7mhz on the A500)...  comparing systems just off the cpu power ...  its kinda unfair you know.
- look at the resolution differences on the gba compared to the snes...  the screens so small on the gba that it doesnt even really need such a high res
gba : 240x160
snes : 512x448

I've got a feeling that the sound chip / outputs are much more clear on the the snes too

I think you'd have to agree that it doesnt matter how powerful the system is, just what games are actually created on them... and mostly original software beats hands down...  > as I said before the f-zeros etc...  I'd say even advance wars (if it ever had came out in europe) would be better on the snes... but as they included a story to the gba version- and it was the first to come out worldwide- it was an AMAZING release. - I even bought it! :>

would kinda say the same for final fantasy tactics too....  but imo it doesnt challenge the original psx version.....
that said we're going waaay off topic...  ermn, does a mod wanna change this somewhere appropriate?

[Trekster]

here is a page that makes a good comparison and supports my train of thought

http://www.gameboy-advance.net/emulated/snes_roms_on_gba.htm

SNES better sound and higher resolution (almost all the games did not use this resolution though due to the underpowered proc)

Ok look at colors
GBA 32k at once
SNES 256 colors at once

That alone takes a heck of a lot more power to render

GBA 32 bit proc and buspeed speed for proc/video and sound
Video: 512 color sprite/background mode, 32768 color mode for bitmap mode.  Contrary to popular belief, there is no embedded hardware for video playback.  Supports the following effects:

XY scrolling, rotational scrolling
Hardware Sprite scaling/distortion/rotation
Max 4096 sprites at one time, up to 256 on a line (sure beats the old 10 limit!)
Supports alpha blending
Hardware Transparencies
Multiple levels of Parallax
I would think this compares to the super fx chip and then some

SNES 16 bit prc fx chips still limited to 16bit bus speed
Super Fx Info
This invention from the people at Argonaut is a special chip that is implanted in a SNES cart, like the ones above and is called the Super FX chip. It was specialized to help the SNES to create 3D worlds made by shaded polygons and texture mapping and light source shading. The Super FX chip is a RISC type mathprocessor and a supplemental CPU to the real SNES CPU. With the FX chip in a game the SNES´s speed goes up from 3.58 Mhz to 10.5 Mhz. This is a truth with modifications though. The 'real' speed never exceded the SNES CPU's 3.58Mhz, but with the Super-FX certain difficult graphic calculations could be done faster.
    The FX-chip can also make ordinary 2D games better. It has been used in StarFox (StarWing) and Vortex (formerly known as Citadel) by Argonaut; a shoot 'em up where you can transform between being a walker, a boggie, a tank or a jetplane and Stunt Race FX (a.k.a. FX Trax and Wild Trax) a nice polygon racer made by Nintendo.

Cartridges with the Super FX chip has a number of additional pins at both sides of the original pins. But it still fits in the SNES's cartridde slot, but not in many NTSC to PAL converters and other such things

I dont think that makes the FX chip anywhere nearly as powerful as what the GBA can do.

Of course the resolution is smaller as the GBA screen is smaller so the need for the same resolution is moot

Aside from the low resolution the GBA it has widely been compared to  somewhere between SNES with the Super FX chip and the original Sony PlayStation falling somewhere in between

and yes Amiga blew the socks off of any conmparable PC but I think of that as apples an oranges compared to
SNES and GBA.

this is off topic but I am merely responding to your statments as my original posts was to show a couple of eboots.

maybe we can leave it to agree to disagree

[EmuChicken]

I dont quite understand your point really...  ... snes has more memory - and can do alreet 3d with the super fx chip... I've not seen any games come close to the PSX in 3D ability... or I've not seen any 3d on the GBA!

with the colours though- its like comparing Speedball 2 to Speedball 2 AGA...  most games dont even need that many colours onscreen at once... especially not any gba game on that small screen - saying that its more powerful is correct in someways, but its like heat...  so much wasted for no noticeable improvement.

AFAIK most, if not all snes games run in 512x resolution

If it wanted to be superior to the snes, the games needed to be BETTER than the snes - thats where it counts... and IMO it doesnt have a chance as most things on the snes were revolutionary... same thing went for the Amiga, and the Megadrive...  the only thing the gba did was get 2nd class snes games to fit into your pocket.
- ps: No other mario kart comes CLOSE to the SNES version! - word

[Hungry Horace]

it's on-topic now, since i've split this away from the other thread.


feel free to bitch away about this fanboyish topic to your hearts content guys

[EmuChicken]

lol- yey!  thanks bud

I think for the record- the most "powerful" would be the gba (cpuwise etc) - but the most "complete" system has to be the snes ...  I think thats what I'm trying to put across.. ie the gba is just a copy that you can fit in yer back pocket

[skateblind]

^^ what he said.

[Hungry Horace]

^^ what he said.

yah... lolz... ftw... and all that netspeak nonsense

only teasing - best i stay away from such Nintendo discussion - ive made vocal my opinion on both these systems many times - there's no need to go down that road again