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How the SNES Graphics System Works

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Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works

#11

Post by mmaniac »

k_sze wrote: post #5

Here is an interesting tidbit: the Japanese version of the SNES was called Super Famicom. There was a physical notch that prevented Japanese cartridges from being used in the North American SNES. But for people who knew, it was actually possible to just cut off the notch in the North American SNES, and then you could use Japanese cartridges. My cousin gave me a Japanese Star Fox cartridge back in the days and I could…

As other commentors have pointed out, Japan uses NTSC. PAL is mostly a European thing.

As far as the SNES is concerned, PAL consoles simply letterbox the video and run the game 16.6% slower. Occasionally the game speed is modified to account for the decreased framerate. Super Metroid's engine was sped up so that gameplay was faster frame-by-frame and approximately as fast in wall clock time, but this introduced a number of bugs.

It wasn't until framebuffer based consoles like the Playstation where using the extra lines of PAL signal became common. Game speed was still a common issue until the Dreamcast and PS2 where game speed ceased to be an issue and optional 60Hz support was also common.

Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works

#12

Post by 0xEF »

jader201 wrote: post #3

FWIW, this seems to get reposted a lot. I think this is the fourth submission in the past 10 days. Three recent submissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207608 (147 points, 8 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41210537 (18 points, 2 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207756 (2 points, 0 comments)

I don't mind reposts now and then, since the odds of two people independently finding the same link interesting over time are pretty good, given the way things tend to circulate on social media and other aggregate platforms.

I also worry that HN is slowly turning into a karma farm like Reddit did. The point of reposting on HN just to build Internet Points escapes me,. At least on Reddit there was a market for accounts with high karma, so I guess I could see the motivation there. But here?

Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works

#13

Post by redbell »

jader201 wrote: post #3

FWIW, this seems to get reposted a lot. I think this is the fourth submission in the past 10 days. Three recent submissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207608 (147 points, 8 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41210537 (18 points, 2 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207756 (2 points, 0 comments)

> I think this is the fourth submission in the past 10 days.

I just checked those submissions, and it turned out they were posted in a single day (August 10th) with an eleven-hour time frame! The first submission was at 05:48 AM, the second at 06:37 AM (within less than an hour from the first), and the third at 16:24 PM, which raises one of the weirdest behaviors of the HN system (at least for me): "How or why on earth some submissions got accepted as 'duplicates' where others did not? ". I encounter this a lot when I try to submit a story and it gets rejected because it was already submitted. Sometimes, even if the original story is a month old or more!!

Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works

#14

Post by rightbyte »

mmaniac wrote: post #11
k_sze wrote: post #5

Here is an interesting tidbit: the Japanese version of the SNES was called Super Famicom. There was a physical notch that prevented Japanese cartridges from being used in the North American SNES. But for people who knew, it was actually possible to just cut off the notch in the North American SNES, and then you could use Japanese cartridges. My cousin gave me a Japanese Star Fox cartridge back in the days and I could…

As other commentors have pointed out, Japan uses NTSC. PAL is mostly a European thing. As far as the SNES is concerned, PAL consoles simply letterbox the video and run the game 16.6% slower. Occasionally the game speed is modified to account for the decreased framerate. Super Metroid's engine was sped up so that gameplay was faster frame-by-frame and approximately as fast in wall clock time, but this introduced a num…

> As far as the SNES is concerned, PAL consoles simply letterbox the video and run the game 16.6% slower.

Oh. That should make uncompensated PAL games easier, right? 17% more time to time e.g. jumps in Mario is alot.

Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works

#15

Post by MrGilbert »

0xEF wrote: post #12
jader201 wrote: post #3

FWIW, this seems to get reposted a lot. I think this is the fourth submission in the past 10 days. Three recent submissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207608 (147 points, 8 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41210537 (18 points, 2 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207756 (2 points, 0 comments)

I don't mind reposts now and then, since the odds of two people independently finding the same link interesting over time are pretty good, given the way things tend to circulate on social media and other aggregate platforms. I also worry that HN is slowly turning into a karma farm like Reddit did. The point of reposting on HN just to build Internet Points escapes me,. At least on Reddit there was a market for account…

I'd argue that people try it every now and then, only to realize that points on HN are worthless. It took me a good amount of years to get some points. I couldn’t care less, because I never saw the benefit.

Who knows? Maybe there is a hidden club somewhere where your HN karma will open doors.

Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works

#16

Post by latexr »

redbell wrote: post #13
jader201 wrote: post #3

FWIW, this seems to get reposted a lot. I think this is the fourth submission in the past 10 days. Three recent submissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207608 (147 points, 8 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41210537 (18 points, 2 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207756 (2 points, 0 comments)

> I think this is the fourth submission in the past 10 days. I just checked those submissions, and it turned out they were posted in a single day (August 10th) with an eleven-hour time frame! The first submission was at 05:48 AM, the second at 06:37 AM (within less than an hour from the first), and the third at 16:24 PM, which raises one of the weirdest behaviors of the HN system (at least for me): " How or why on ea…

> which raises one of the weirdest behaviors of the HN system (at least for me)

I second that. Two months ago I tried to submit what I found to be a quite interesting video from 2018 and it was immediately marked as duplicate:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40798566

Checking past submissions, I saw that the last time it had been submitted was a year ago:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

But then, as you can see from that page, someone resubmitted the video a month ago and for some reason that one got through.

Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works

#17

Post by mmaniac »

rightbyte wrote: post #14
mmaniac wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other commentors have pointed out, Japan uses NTSC. PAL is mostly a European thing. As far as the SNES is concerned, PAL consoles simply letterbox the video and run the game 16.6% slower. Occasionally the game speed is modified to account for the decreased framerate. Super Metroid's engine was sped up so that gameplay was faster frame-by-frame and approximately as fast in wall clock time, but this introduced a num…

> As far as the SNES is concerned, PAL consoles simply letterbox the video and run the game 16.6% slower. Oh. That should make uncompensated PAL games easier, right? 17% more time to time e.g. jumps in Mario is alot.

That's right. Sonic the Hedgehog on the Mega Drive is the goto example, where even the music runs slower.

Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works

#18

Post by [deleted] »

jader201 wrote: post #3

FWIW, this seems to get reposted a lot. I think this is the fourth submission in the past 10 days. Three recent submissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207608 (147 points, 8 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41210537 (18 points, 2 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207756 (2 points, 0 comments)

[deleted]

Re: How the SNES Graphics System Works

#20

Post by pvg »

jader201 wrote: post #3

FWIW, this seems to get reposted a lot. I think this is the fourth submission in the past 10 days. Three recent submissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207608 (147 points, 8 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41210537 (18 points, 2 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207756 (2 points, 0 comments)

You can just flag it as a dupe or email hn@ycombinator.com if you think it's misranked.
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