They say this system wasn't really pushed, so do you guys think that the 7800 was able to handle a game like this? Oh using the pokey chip for sound and a nes/sms like controller for gameplay.
I see that the 7800 had a stronger CPU.
They say this system wasn't really pushed, so do you guys think that the 7800 was able to handle a game like this? Oh using the pokey chip for sound and a nes/sms like controller for gameplay.
I see that the 7800 had a stronger CPU.
No. The 7800 ProSystem is a great console that has some great exclusives but come on.
You mean like this?
Both systems used the 6502.I see that the 7800 had a stronger CPU.
Dude, the 7800 couldn't even handle the scrolling in SMB1, let alone a game that pushed the NES to its limits.
EDIT: Here's a thread I started two and a half years ago that sums up all the NES vs. 7800 questions you might have.
Last edited by boatofcar; 12-28-2007 at 11:48 PM.
Now hold on gentlemen- both platforms were conceived and manufactured around the same time frame. 82-84. Arguably the 7800 had an R&D advantage since it was developed a little later.
The NES looked rosy in comparison mostly because of its popularity. More companies worked on it, more technical tricks were figured out, it had a longer run.
Put that behind the 7800's hardware and an SMB3 facsimile surely would have followed.
I'd say the biggest question isn't if the 7800 is superior hardware wise, but if the 7800's cartridges could physically fit such things as the mappers many Nintendo games such as SMB3 used to enhance the NES's capabilities. Just looking at the specs of each system, I'd say most individuals would give the edge to the 7800.
If the 7800 could've benefited from such enhancements, I'd say it had a chance. But 7800 carts are much smaller than a NES cart, and you already have to have a Pokey in there if we're talking about matching the NES. So I'd say the biggest question would be if the 7800 can take advantage of such additions in the cartridge like the NES could after already having the addition of a Pokey sound chip in order to expand their memory capabilities.
Last edited by Leo_A; 12-19-2011 at 02:20 AM.
As an owner of booth systems, the nes is stronger then the 7800.
I have to say the nes was not capable of doing Super Mario 3 without the MMC3 chip. The Nes depended on extra chips in cartridges. Those chips made the nes better in capabilities then it is without the chips. The MMC chips helping the nes is like roids to professional athletes. The chips performance enhancers for nes games. Without the different types of MMC chips, the nes wouldn't be able to do 1024k games. That is the size of a 1991 genesis game. That is the roid analogy comes in.
The Atari 7800 didn't have much in extra chips for improving scrolling and other great stuff like the nes had. Sounds chips does not have much of an impact as graphic chips and increasing the size the cartridge capabilities at the same time.
The 7800 did backswitching to an extent with a games going 144k. The 7800 was capable of doing 512k games, but the owners of Atari were to cheap to do it.
The 7800's problem was the system was not built with enough rom and ram inside the system.
The Atari 7800 also was at a disadvantage of starting to have games released in 1986 instead of 1984. That is a big game of system that was only released due to the Tramiel family seeing how well the nes was selling. They prevented the 7800 to be realeased in 1984 despite being ready.
That is why there was 1984 games being released in 1986 for the 7800. Tramiel only care about making money without putting money into something. The 7800 would have been better in graphics due to the programmers being in middle of creating games for a system that is 2 years old.
The other problem was the Tramiel family had atari supporting 3 game consoles at the same time. The atari XEGS was a computer acting like a game console. Tramiel was putting money into the XEGS and the 2600 at time they should've been give the money for R&D to the 7800. The XEGS was weaker in graphics then the 7800 was.
The tramiel family was having Atari games competing against other Atari game systems. That does not make sense from a bussiness standpoint.
We don' know the entire capabilities over the 7800 since the Tramiel family was cheapskates and didn't have clue on how to run a video game company by having 3 systems compete against each other.
The chances are the 7800 is unlikely to pull of Super Mario with advanced technology coming from chips, but we don't know for sure. The 7800 might of have been able to pull of Super Mario Brothers due to how good Commando was for the 7800.
Sometimes, I think the Atari Fans are smoking some good stuff. I too, love the 7800, but of the three(SMS, NES, and 7800), the 7800 was by far the weakest on scrolling games. Dont get me wrong, on pure sprite based games, the 7800 could hold its own. I know that "on paper" it was a superior system, but on paper and reality are two different things. Mario 3 on the 7800 would look like shit and play like shit.
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While I fully agree with the idea that the Tramiel family was the primary reason for the 7800's failure (Since they decided to hold it, and therefore ensured Nintendo's market saturation in a way) we've also got to remember that the NES was technically released before the 7800 should have been. After all, the Famicom was released in 1983, and some of the 1983-84 games were among the first released for the NES in America.
I love Atari, and if you ask me from 1978 to 1982 they were king in my book, but I've got to wonder if by even 84 the magic was just gone in several ways.
Today I don't think we could see an SMB3 clone on the 7800 even with some really impressive homebrew. However, if the thing had just a little bit more time...
...well then we may have seen something to the quality of a later Master System game. Poor thing just didn't have much going for it. Still, I've got to say I do love my 7800, and nothing beats a good game of Food Fight.
Imagine if Atari had said yes to Nintendo's offer...
Welcome to Macintosh.
Double Post... Bah.
Last edited by MrRoboto19XX; 12-29-2007 at 10:21 AM.
Welcome to Macintosh.
You mean because it's the CMOS revision to the original 6502? They both run at the same speed and the same performance. The NES is faster in the sense that it doesn't halt the CPU while processing sprites on screen and such. Not to mention most 7800 games I've seen run in 160x240 mode.
It does look like the xegs version is closer to the arcade version in graphics.
I think Commando is a better comparision, since it one the better games from a graphic standpoint.
I own the 7800 version of Commando and it looks better then the Prototype of Commando for the XEGS. The XEGS proto was the final version. Here is the link: http://www.atariprotos.com/8bit/soft...o/commando.htm
Super Mario Bros. 3 wouldn't be possible on the 7800, but it wasn't possible on the NES either -- hence the need for a chip in the cartridge.
Originally Posted by TheShawn
With some kind of cartridge-chip enhancement, probably yes. Just like a number of NES games.
The single biggest problem with the 7800 was the way it was marketed. When it first appeared in the video game magazines around mid-1984 (I still have them), we were thrilled by the pictures of games like Joust and Desert Falcon. Xevious was a recent enough game, and so the initial lineup was pretty impressive...for 1984...especially if you didn't have the 5200 versions.
And that was the real problem. Ms. Pac-Man, Robotron: 2084, and a couple of others were better on the 7800, but absolutely NOT enough so to make you want to abandon the 5200 versions.
Worse yet, the 7800, even in the more heavily populated area I used to live in, didn't really appear until 1988. Those four years made a tremendous difference; even Xevious was aged. Most of the 5200 games were recent for the time, as were the ColecoVision and 2600 games. That was a tremendous plus in their favor. But the 7800? That "oh, man, cool, that great new(ish) arcade game is on that home system" just wasn't there.
As a result of this and several other things, the 7800 got off to a weak start. Those idiot Tramiels never properly supported the 7800, and so it never was really fully utilized. All of this, in such an industry, is interconnected.
Last edited by Aswald; 12-29-2007 at 02:11 PM.
Interesting stuff, here (COMPLETELY unbiased opinion, hehhehheh):
http://griswaldterrastone.deviantart.com/
With a extra chip , I also believe the 7800 could have pulled it off.
For one most of the games on the system were first generation and even those titles weren't pushed.
Really nothing was pushed. But we still like alot of the games on the system, so that says there, if the system was pushed, we would probably be talking about 7800 vs SMS and not 7800 vs Nes.
These Tramiels people really fucked up, heads all up in the computer world.
When people talk about the graphical abilities of the 7800, they always bring up Commando. Commando looks very good on the 7800. It's also one game. One game you're comparing to a proto of a XEGS game. Give me one more example of a 7800 game that's graphically superior to an XEGS game and then we'll talk.
What the heck, this is an interesting topic.
The 7800 is doing fairly well for its palette (25 of 256), and I think games like Midnight Mutants could have shown that off, but didn't for some reason (most of the time...did the game just use colors poorly? There's more colors onscreen when the Game Over logos show up).
Both games seem to have futzed around with the graphical system somewhat...I understand that the NES deals with the first number of scanlines differently, and looking at the 7800 MM game it's apparent that the text on the top of the screen is higher-res than the gameplay screen [link url=http://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-7800/midnight-mutants/screenshots/gameShotId,82911/](example)[/quote].
On the whole, I think the 7800 would've done much better with an expansion chip. Early NES games without any expansion chips (like Wild Gunman) are pretty laughable, after all. On the other hand, the 7800 was around at the same time as the NES, so you'd have thought some of the 6502 knowledge in the gaming market would've helped the system. I think unfamiliarity with or bottlenecks in the graphics CPU might've been a major factor (plus, who's going to develop for the 7800 anyway?).