Current Events > Why did console sprites never get as shiny as in the arcade?

(+) Yeah! (+)

It was just shinier on arcades. And its not screen size, even on youtube they look better. In general it looks like this.

https://images.app.goo.gl/pU4j3ZNcLMKqJSQE8

See how the ARC is just bigger and shinier? What's the deal?

---

Arcades traditionally had custom hardware that well outperformed consoles because they were tuned to the specific type of game. You didn't get truly "arcade equal" games until, like, the Sega Saturn. That's why they often looked better than console versions.

As for the characters being smaller, that was probably a design decision made either to better support a wider range of TV types and aspect ratios, or to hide the sprites being shittier by making them smaller.

---

Higher spec hardware able to push higher resolutions

Did SNES games ever get as graphically impressive as N64?

s0nicfan posted...

custom hardware that well outperformed consoles

Which made sense when the console was NES. Like in that pic I posted, I think that's current gen. So there has to be some reason you don't get the whole thing on console, even though it has the power.

---

The_Office_pwnz posted...

Which made sense when the console was NES. Like in that pic I posted, I think that's current gen. So there has to be some reason you don't get the whole thing on console, even though it has the power.

Well if it's current gen that's probably a port of an old game where they just took the old ROM and emulated it on disk. They would have had to rebuild the game from the ground up to get an "arcade perfect" port if that particular game looked different like that in the original console release.

EDIT: According to that image, the console screencap is from the Neo Geo CD, which came out in 1994.

---

I actually looked into this one, seems particular to the game in this case. The neo geo CD had horrendous load times so people seem to speculate they did things like this and cut frames to decrease load times

---

Not even the N64 could have an arcade perfect port of mortal Kombat trilogy (compare with ultimate mortal kombat 3 arcade graphics).

chalk it up to memory limitations and home screen and home console resolution limitations

---

Always figured it was an size issue. You can only pack so much processing power into the compact size of a console. Arcade cabinets are huge, and can fit a lot of hardware in there. That was always my reasoning anyway.

---

TopKekBro posted...

Not even the N64 could have an arcade perfect port of mortal Kombat trilogy (compare with ultimate mortal kombat 3 arcade graphics).

chalk it up to memory limitations and home screen and home console resolution limitations

Null_Mime posted...

Always figured it was an size issue. You can only pack so much processing power into the compact size of a console. Arcade cabinets are huge, and can fit a lot of hardware in there. That was always my reasoning anyway.

The neo geo is an exception to this rule generally speaking. The MVS and AES are almost the same thing and the home version (AES) was released in 1991 iirc

---

Balrog0 posted...

The neo geo is an exception to this rule generally speaking. The MVS and AES are almost the same thing and the home version (AES) was released in 1991 iirc

was the screen resolution the same, though?

like, in theory the N64 should have no issue with mortal kombat trilogy, the thing was 64bits and ran at 93mhz...

---

Balrog0 posted...

The neo geo is an exception to this rule generally speaking. The MVS and AES are almost the same thing and the home version (AES) was released in 1991 iirc

True. But the cartridges for the Neo Geo were MASSIVE.




---

TopKekBro posted...

was the screen resolution the same, though?

like, in theory the N64 should have no issue with mortal kombat trilogy, the thing was 64bits and ran at 93mhz...

I'm not as familiar with later arcade games but I expect the difference is due to the size of the cartridge? Like the amount of space on them was the limiting factor rather than the ability of the hardware to do the work?

I think the neo geo had the same resolution as the Genesis, whether arcade or home

---