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DF Retro: Sonic The Hedgehog Ported To SNES: Tech Demo Analysis!
- Thread starter NANA
- Start date
Interesting ! Gonna watch this now, didn't know about this port.
I think he simply left the site when Dark1x did too.
I think he simply left the site when Dark1x did too.
This is, honestly, incredible.
I know there's been changes to make it work, but that's still incredible.
I know there's been changes to make it work, but that's still incredible.
Kind of wish Spring Yard Zone would have been chosen for the demo instead of Green Hill, since that'd be more of a litmus test for the physics. Like you have that spring at the start that sends you flying up the wall which then seamlessly transitions into running on the ceiling, bouncing on a bunch of bumpers, etc. So far everything in Green Hill checks out and the only discrepancy I noticed in footage outside of DF was that the breaking mechanic looked sort of janky with how you decelerate.
There's a semi recent hack based on the infamous Hummer Team bootleg Somari for NES that was turned into a very competent Sonic port.
S̵̡̛̹̼̝͉̰̺̠̣̼̒͌̿̔̀̀̒̕͜͠͠Ờ̵̺̝̠̻̠̫̯͍͕̟̟͒́̄̔́͆͐̓̒͝Ņ̶̢̼̜̮̼̭̹̺͂͘ͅÌ̸͔̮͇͗̕͠C̷̨̢̡͓͖̘̼̹̼̪̏̐͊̈́͐̋͂̄́̄ͅ ̶̛͉̲̘̤̞̭̳S̵̛̟̬̑̇̄͗͗̚Ơ̷̛͈̪̪̪̜̖͍̊̄͐̎͂̓͌̅͒̕̕N̸̛̯̱͇͎̏̂̅͆̆̄̐̄͘̕Ī̵̗̯͓̥̫̦͙̩̖̮̩̀͗͝͝ͅC̴̡̛̩̖͚̻̹̯̻̄̐̊̓͂͗̀̓͊̇̎̚
There's a semi recent hack based on the infamous Hummer Team bootleg Somari for NES that was turned into a very competent Sonic port.
S̵̡̛̹̼̝͉̰̺̠̣̼̒͌̿̔̀̀̒̕͜͠͠Ờ̵̺̝̠̻̠̫̯͍͕̟̟͒́̄̔́͆͐̓̒͝Ņ̶̢̼̜̮̼̭̹̺͂͘ͅÌ̸͔̮͇͗̕͠C̷̨̢̡͓͖̘̼̹̼̪̏̐͊̈́͐̋͂̄́̄ͅ ̶̛͉̲̘̤̞̭̳S̵̛̟̬̑̇̄͗͗̚Ơ̷̛͈̪̪̪̜̖͍̊̄͐̎͂̓͌̅͒̕̕N̸̛̯̱͇͎̏̂̅͆̆̄̐̄͘̕Ī̵̗̯͓̥̫̦͙̩̖̮̩̀͗͝͝ͅC̴̡̛̩̖͚̻̹̯̻̄̐̊̓͂͗̀̓͊̇̎̚
Yeah, the main issue with putting Sonic on the SNES was always the limited CPU speed, something we've known for a while and this project seems to confirm given the type of sacrifices that had to be made to get it to work. It's all pretty minor stuff though and the project is quite impressive.
Worth noting though that Sonic 1 is actually quite unoptimized, especially when compared to Sonic 3 and Knuckles which is almost obsessive in how heavily optimized it is to ensure there's absolutely zero slowdown anywhere. The idea of trying to make use of stuff like the SA-1 chip for a Sonic port sounds like a fun idea though.
Worth noting though that Sonic 1 is actually quite unoptimized, especially when compared to Sonic 3 and Knuckles which is almost obsessive in how heavily optimized it is to ensure there's absolutely zero slowdown anywhere. The idea of trying to make use of stuff like the SA-1 chip for a Sonic port sounds like a fun idea though.
From what they mentioned in the video (40-70% slower on SNES for some calculations, right?) the SA-1 chip would do the job, as it's clocked at 4x the speed of the base SNES CPU. Would feel a bit like cheating, but it's already impressive what this dev has done on the base SNES. They even added subtle bits of SNES-powered flair like the sky gradient.
the resolution would really hurt it on later levels i'm going to guess. even stuff like marble zone.
Man how the mighty have fallen. My nine year old Megadrive fanboy self would have cried at this.
He was always that colour, it's just more obvious when compared to the more saturated blue used in the SNES tech demo.
Sonic 1 was always kind of low on the color saturation when compared to the sequels.
Sure I will search it.
I think it was this thread.
Digital Foundry - Ion Fury - Every Console Tested - How An Ancient Engine Stresses Current-Gen CPUs
Ion Fury pushes the ancient Build engine - powering classics like Duke Nukem 3D - to its very limits, but fundamentally, how difficult can a port to current-gen consoles be? The answer turns out to be more complex than you might think. John Linnemans checks out the PS4, Xbox One and Switch...
www.resetera.com
Sonic 1 was always kind of low on the color saturation when compared to the sequels.
wow, you're right. I looked up more footage of the original Genesis game and you're right. It's so weird to finally notice this.
That's pretty cool and really looks on point with the physics and visuals, always awesome to see, but man you can really notice the smaller screen real estate with the lower SNES resolution, almost feels clastophobic in comparison if you played a lot of Sonic.
Impressive demo, fun video.
I wonder how much closer you could get with further development. I didn't expect to see it get so close to the Mega Drive original with all the scrolling.
The music sounded weird at first but I liked it after a few seconds.
I wonder how much closer you could get with further development. I didn't expect to see it get so close to the Mega Drive original with all the scrolling.
The music sounded weird at first but I liked it after a few seconds.
I also think the general tone and weaponising of Digital Foundry content in console warring by uninformed posters made DF threads very difficult to read and have positive discussions in. DF Retro threads are always much smaller and fun to read / take part in.
Yeah I agree. Most complained the video was published even the allegations against the developers were know by Digital Foundry.
Another great video. Would love to see Dark cover more stuff like this, such as Pyrons colour hacks on the Megadrive/Genesis, the hack that improves the voices samples in special championship edition or even that demo/test of the original Shinobi running on the MD/Genesis.
Yeah the physics is always an interesting part of the classic Sonic games. And what made them so fun. Was really impressive for the time.
But Green Hill Zone had the most advanced and multilayered parallax scrolling of all the zones in Sonic so it was definitely the right choice as a benchmark from a visual standpoint.
If you originally played it on a CRT then it probably would have looked a lot more vivid then on a LCD with more accurate color reproduction. And games back then were designed to look good on a CRT over RF/composite video so a lot of the techniques they used don't really look right on modern TVs (the waterfalls in Green Hill Zone were supposed to look semi translucent rather then a bunch of stripes for example):
Right there is probably the main reason why some companies chose to make cross-platform games with completely different assets between consoles. Konami's Sparkster comes to mind. Or make a new game in a celebrated franchise instead of just straight-porting a popular entry (Konami again, with Contra/Castlevania, and Capcom with Ghouls 'N' Ghosts).
They talk about that a bit at the start, apparently Sonic 1 never took advantage of it.
Some folks go too hard in the paint here. At least he's still on Twitter.
Here's a pretty comprehensive analysis of the differences in the port. The biggest discrepancies that aren't immediately apparent from casual observation is the max number of onscreen sprites which is cut almost in half, and also that both the SNES demo and the full original game are 512kb respectively.
The fact that the Green Hill Zone only demo is as big as the entire original game could be for a whole bunch of undisclosed reasons (like a bunch of unused data in the ROM? and AFAIK any game that doesn't precisely hit data blocks in multiples of 8 are always rounded up). But I did read an interesting comment on how part of what makes the Genesis original so remarkable technologically is that it fit all of that content into 512kb thanks to a very robust compression algorithm capable of rapidly unpacking all the data as the game is running.
Oof, those performance comparisons at the end were NOT kind to the SNES there.
And yeah the compression is something I hadn't even considered. Pretty much everything in all the Sonic games is compressed with fairly reasonably robust compression algorithms, and doing the same for a hypothetical SNES version would add some maybe-noticeable loading times in-between acts and such. Sonic 3 and Knuckles SNES would probably a nonstarter though on this front though, as that game is setup to decompress art and level assets during live gameplay with no slowdown.
And yeah the compression is something I hadn't even considered. Pretty much everything in all the Sonic games is compressed with fairly reasonably robust compression algorithms, and doing the same for a hypothetical SNES version would add some maybe-noticeable loading times in-between acts and such. Sonic 3 and Knuckles SNES would probably a nonstarter though on this front though, as that game is setup to decompress art and level assets during live gameplay with no slowdown.
Apparently this is based on an old build and sprite limit and damage rings number has already been updated.
Video is kinda fanboy stuff honestly? It has separate points for field of view and ratio both of which are exactly the same thing - resolution, ROM size is irrelevant for a literal demo and the '10st difference' is about 'blast processing' as if that is real thing?
Honestly for a fan coded project in a first demo release this thing runs like an absolute dream and looks and sounds superb. If he keeps working at it and it ends up a pretty much perfect port minus resolution? Crazy stuff.
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