My premise is simple, if we are going to make subjective qualitative statements about the games, then we need to consider what conditions the target audience was viewing the games under. If you can't see the logic in that we genuinely have no further basis for a discussion on the matter.
So subjective and *not* objective. Don't you think that conflicts with your "scientific method"?
Keep in mind, that I am not trying to declare the absolute superiority of one system over the other here, which seems to be where your bias lies. I am saying all of these systems have their own strengths and weaknesses.
I don't see any bias in motzilla's comments. If anything, he speaks specifically in absolute specs, facts, and knowns. Please point out where he's being bias? You're the one boasting small advantages of one system, and putting down fairly large advantages of the opposing system, on your site. That can't be construed as anything but biased. Or at minimum, as suspect.
I am also saying that developers back then didn't work from a reverse engineered perspective with VGA monitors and HDTVs as the target. Historically speaking, my approach is very relevant. From a developer's standpoint, at least one who wants a greater understanding of development during this era, my point is relevant. My data is consistent within an acceptable variance, which I will post in more detail today or tomorrow. How Composite affected the "pure" chip or emulated image is relevant to the discussion.
Reverse engineered perspective? What does that even mean? And why do you keep mentioning HDTVs? Is there some common method or gauge nowadays in which people are comparing the Genesis to the SNES that irritates you? You're pretty adamant to counter the fact.
Here's one of the problems you have. First, you mention on your site that everything on your site is relative to the US. I willing to bet the vast major of gamers ran
RF than composite BITD. If you're trying to directly compare what the majority used, why aren't you using RF?
Second, the composite captures you have don't represent REAL composite on an NTSC TV. Nor does using a 32x composite for Genesis, to get more saturation and a little clearer composite. Your captures also don't emulate the missing scanline gaps on a real SDTV too. You don't capture full 720 res and if you do, your scaling introduces additional anomalies not custom to SDTVs. Let alone additional filtering done on the capture card side, etc. There are *SO* many variables with composite (and RF) and that the signal needs to be interpreted on a few levels before you even get RGB to the CRT in the SDTV. You're making exceptions for your shots and think RGB captures is out of the question. That in itself is questionable. If anything, RGB captures (since you don't like emulation shots for whatever reason) would eliminate many of the variables and differences between composite captures and real SDTV output. You'd still be missing the "scanlines" of an SDTV, but at least you'd be closer.
And implying that the systems internal capability is not the end all and that "composite" is part of the final graphics - even though RGB was a perfectly valid output on both systems. You turn around and make exceptions to exclude things that don't fit your point of view (or to dismiss know facts/specs) or just outright ignore them. Nobody is saying you're making *one* system look better than the other, more like we're (well, MottZilla and I at least) are saying that you're making handicaps for a system to make the differences closer together - under some guise you label as "scientific method".
There's also the thing with your counting colors in the composite captures. What is that??? I mean, there are soooo many reason why that is just
wrong. I would think this wouldn't need *any* explanation as to why this is a bad idea. Just looking at the *two* color part of the image, white text on black background - shows up to 37 "colors" from one of your captures. And I use the term "color" very loosely.
It basically boils down to this; if you're just comparing some games between systems - that's fine. Even if you say,"You know what, I just want to make some comparisons between the system as how I played them as a kid/teen/whatever BITD". But when you start counting colors in composite captures (this makes my laugh each time I think about this) and you start listing systems specs, making judgments on the systems capabilities, etc. You're crossing the line between genuine observation and strictly technical comparison. Well, you're really blurring that line. To fit your agenda.
Much of the time, the reason games don't look better (or not much better) on other platforms comes down to the most basic of all reasons: money. A company is not going to spend money on the artists needed to make twelve versions of the same artwork. They'll aim at the lowest common denominator and leave it at that. So they'll pay some artists to convert an arcade game's graphics to the Genesis, and keep the same graphics for every other platform, even if they're capable of more. It has NOTHING to do with technical reasons. Just because a platform can show sixteen different palettes doesn't mean the company will pay for artwork that uses them, not when they already have "adequate" artwork that uses four palettes.
This generation seems to break that trend more. You could see that trend more in last generation and this. At least, going from memory of last generation.