What was the best console of all time

My point is, the Amiga was a brand of PCs by Commodore, not a gaming console. As for the fact that it could output to a TV? The Apple 1 could output to a television. The C64 could output to a television. Both were personal computers. The fact that it was easy to use does not make it a console, it just means that IBM PCs were difficult to use. And for the day, it was a powerful computer, but Commodore mishandled it. And yes, I understand the NES was a "Family Computer", hence it being called Famicom, but the usage outside of games pretty much disappeared quickly, especially when it came over to the USA. The Amiga was treated as a computer at trade shows, and plenty of computer game software was released on it.
 
J3RK said:
Amiga
640x400 (NTSC without additional graphics hardware)
Click to expand...

At 16 colors. No game I ever saw for the Amiga ran at that mode for obvious color reasons. It's there for applications.

The 4096 color palette only mattered when you were viewing artwork. For color selection 512 was plenty, which is why you couldn't tell the difference between games available for both platforms.


Genesis
No hardware graphic features. It was all done with software on the 68000.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid you're going to have to prove that claim. I can't believe that System 16 arcade hardware wouldn't have a blittter. And it definitely has DMA.

And I found this:

VDP - MegaDrive Wiki

DMA
The VDP has a feature called DMA, or Direct Memory Access, something it has in common with almost all computers and other devices. DMA allows these devices to move data faster without requiring the CPU to do it. As explained in the registers section above, the VDP has the capability of doing 3 different DMA types - M68k to VRAM, VRAM Fill and VRAM copy. Something important to note is that during M68k to VRAM transfers, as the VDP will have the bus, the M68k will be frozen by the VDP for the duration of the DMA transfer. However, the speed advantage of DMA over manually writing art in a tight loop on the 68k is worth the lost execution time, as long as the DMA is done during VBlank or when the display is enabled. During HBlank, the speed of DMA is about the same as the speed of a art loading loop running on the M68k. Do note that the Z80 will keep running during DMA, unless it attempts to access the bus, at which point it will also be frozen for the duration of the DMA transfer.
  • 0x: VDP will copy data at the specified M68K source address to the destination target specified in the command word. Only DMD1 is significant here; DMD0 becomes the high bit of the source address. (Note that in this mode, the source address is divided by two; DMA source of $7F0000 corresponds to M68K address $FE0000.)
  • 10: DMA FILL. VDP will fill the specified destination address with the next word written to the data port.
  • 11: DMA COPY. VDP will copy a block of VRAM from the source address to the destination address.
Last time I checked the very definition of Blitter = hardware-accelerated block copies.

Blitter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A blitter is capable of copying large quantities of data from one memory area to another relatively quickly, and in parallel with the CPU, while freeing up the CPU's more complex ISA for more general operations.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:

Interesting. I'd be interested in reading more about the differences. Obviously the Amiga and Genesis use the same CPU, so same capability there, but I'm curious about how the custom chips went about this off-68000 on the Amiga. (Agnes and Denise if I remember correctly handled this sort of thing...) Thanks for posting that. Didn't have time to look everything up while at work. My posts were all from memory.
 
J3RK said:
Interesting. I'd be interested in reading more about the differences. Obviously the Amiga and Genesis use the same CPU, so same capability there, but I'm curious about how the custom chips went about this off-68000 on the Amiga. (Agnes and Denise if I remember correctly handled this sort of thing...) Thanks for posting that. Didn't have time to look everything up while at work. My posts were all from memory.
Click to expand...

Sound was definitely better on the Amiga if you like samples, but that's a judgement call. There's a whole generation who fell in love with FM Synth (C64, Genesis, Adlib), and there's a whole generation who fell in love with sample synth (Amiga, SNES, Ensoniq Soundscape).

As thew cost of capturing quality sounds plummeted and storage space grew, samples beat out FM Synth. But in 1988 I could understand Sega leaving it out.
 
Last edited:
defaultluser said:
Sound was definitely better on the Amiga if you like samples, but that's a judgement call. There's a whole generation who fell in love with FM Synth (C64, Genesis, Adlib), and there's a whole generation who fell in love with sample synth (Amiga, SNES, Ensoniq Soundscape).

As thew cost of capturing quality sounds plummeted and storage space grew, samples beat out FM Synth. But in 1988 I could understand Sega leaving it out.
Click to expand...

That's why I left out sound. I design synthesizers as a second job/hobby (analog and now digital as well.) That's too easy for me create walls of text on. :D I personally love the sound of the YM and OPL FM/PM chips. Also the hybrid analog digital synthesis of the SID chip in the C64. When I first got my Amiga, I absolutely loved the sampled audio, and then into the PC time period later with Gravis cards, etc. It all started sounding a little too homogenous though as people went to General MIDI implementations in the 90s. I could listen to FM, SID, and other types of chip-tunes all day. Even the PWM stuff like the TG-16. The sampled stuff less so. There's still some good music, and a lot of people sampled synthesized (or used DDS style techniques) sounds with those digital implementations, and in those cases they're still interesting to me. Some of the "orchestral" music from that time period that I thought sounded so impressive back then though, kinda grates on me now. (other than being nostalgic in some cases... Actraiser for example was one of the more memorable ones, and maybe Chrono Trigger and Secret of Evermore)
 
N64 - Awesome games and a bitching multiplayer system. Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Mario Party, Smash Brothers, DKR, tons and tons of awesome 4-player games which made a party out of any get-together.

PS2 - Needs no introduction. True classics were born and nurtured here. Armored Core, Final Fantasty, Metal Gear, Xenosaga, Gran Turismo, Tekken... So many amazing games reached their peak on this console.

Xbox360 - Pretty much defined EVERYTHING we consider a modern console to be: Wireless controllers, a fully-functioning dashboard, integrated digital marketplace, robust online functionality including voice chat, video chat, party system and user profiles, Achievements, being able to turn on and power down the console without getting up and pressing a button, a 'home' button on the controller with player number indicator... all of this started with the Xbox 360.
 
Subjective, but for me:

SNES

That console basically defined my youth: Super Mario World / Mario Kart / Legend of Zelda: ALTtP / FFII (IV) / FFIII (VI) / Earthbound / Battletoads / Sim City / Breath of Fire / Earthworm Jim / and the list goes on.......

Coming in second would be:

N64

I have three brothers so pretty much every single day was filled with 4 player Mario Kart 64 / Goldeneye / Perfect Dark
 
for me its a toss up between master system and Saturn, prob the saturn. still have both and they work. my family was a sega family! haven't seen anyone else mention it but one of the coolest consoles I ever touched was the neogeo. I had a friend in high school that had one and a few games. like playing with a unicorn, so rare here, so sweet! it was the one and only that I ever saw. several places around town had NG arcade games and it was a perfect recreation on your own tv! the kicker was he wasn't even a gamer. it just collected dust unless I was around.
 
KazeoHin said:
OG Playstation.

/thread
Click to expand...

Yep, most of my all time favorite games are PS1 games. Loved the controllers, loved many many of the games and the coolest power up jingle ever.



Oh and don't forget link mode. Had a blast playing Doom co-op with me on one TV and my partner on another TV. Same with the original Need for Speed.

The Dooms, Duke Nukems, Parasite Eves, Resident Evils, Dino Crisis, the original and still best ever Silent Hill. Yep, still have and still occasionally play my old PS1.
 
NES for crying out loud!!!! We wouldn't even have half the games we do today if it wasn't for it (So to speak). Nearly every game except for the Commodore 64 that I remember as a kid was NES. Sure SNES was great, I sure enjoyed Bonk on NeoGeo and so on, but.. I don't even think PS3 Slim/Xbox qualifies in this question.

NES.
 
Atari 2600 probably had the biggest impact on me, mostly due to the memories of playing games with my little brother. I remember the day we got it, the games we got and all of my friends borrowing each others games.

Fav console ever was probably the NES with Sega Genesis being a close second. Still have an NES, N64, Super NES, Sega Genesis, Xbox, PS1, PS2, Gamecube and XB1
 
defaultluser said:
Except that it was still $700, so it was far beyond the price of your average game console. And if you wanted to use it as a computer, you still needed to buy a monitor.

The Genesis has virtually the same specifications (besides the computer part). It was $189 at launch, and included Altered Beast.

Same number of colors. Same resolution. Same processor. Slightly less hardware display planes, but that didn't really matter.
Click to expand...
It wasnt always $700 and even then it was incredibly popular.
Everyone either had one or wanted one.
All the Atari ST owners were seeing flames or they bought one as well.
It could be used on a TV without any problems btw.

The Genesis wasnt even on the radar.
It wasnt a genesis here.
 
Nenu said:
It wasnt always $700 and even then it was incredibly popular.
Everyone either had one or wanted one.
All the Atari ST owners were seeing flames or they bought one as well.
It could be used on a TV without any problems btw.

The Genesis wasnt even on the radar.
It wasnt a genesis here.
Click to expand...

Hey, whatever you say dude. I live in the US, where Amiga sold under a million TOTAL. Commodore was always stronger in the UK.

They sold tens of millions of SNES and Genesis systems in the US. About 40 million split between the two! These two are THE REASON the Amiga 500 price dropped to $300, because they weren't any faster.

I knew several friends with SNES and Genesis systems. I only knew one friend with an Amiga. And believe me, it didn't make me jealous. The load times were atrocious compared to cart games, and the quality of the content was just as high. The only graphical advantage the Amiga had were those Copper rainbow color effects, and those get boring fast.

I enjoyed my Genesis so much more.
 
Last edited:
I haven't even owned one in decades, but the last one was a Sega Genesis with many games in the late 80's.

Had a C64 at the time also, I sold both to buy a 386 at the time.

Have always built my rigs since then.
 
Absolutely loved my Amiga. I wouldn't have traded it for any console of that generation. And graphically speaking, specs aside, the games generally looked better. Compare the Amiga versions of Psygnosis games with any other platform that had them. Even when they used a 5 bit palette, they still seemed to look better. I live in the US as well, and knew plenty of people with Amigas.

I'm not saying the consoles of that gen were bad. I loved them too. (especially the TG16) but I don't look back on them the same way I do my Amiga.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nenu
like this
HardUp4HardWare said:
So I was thinking about this thing and then another and it just popped into my head, the best console I have owned is....

The PS3 Slim.

As far as hardware and software, usability and quality, noise and reliability I have to say, for me, the PS3 Slim is the cats pajamas.

Now I know that some consoles have a special place in history and our hearts, like the DC. But I am talking about the big package.

What console, which version of the console has been the most used and beloved of your life?
Not getting into XBOX vs PSX I am just talking about your overall LOVE of a certain console and why it became superlative in your mind.
Click to expand...

OP, I would have to go with the original launch PS3. I bought the 20gb model at launch for $499 and was floored by it. Plays every PS1, PS2, and obviously PS3 game ever. The later PS3s lost PS2 playback compatiblity but the original PS3 was a incredibly piece of technology. Played PS1, PS2, and PS3 games. My first blu-ray player and most affordable one at the time. It was also the best media server player I ever had. Loaded my PS3 Media Server on my computer and streamed all my movies without issue. That was a great feature. The 60GB PS3 was even slightly better because it had that little door with the memory card slots in it. Was very cool. Very expensive and overly complicated, but man if it wasn't a amazing piece of tech. I also loved the design and look of it. It was beefy and heavy too. Really felt like a premium product.

Such a sexy machine:

ps3_fat.jpg



ps4-vs-ps3-640x343.jpg
 
zamardii12 said:
OP, I would have to go with the original launch PS3. I bought the 20gb model at launch for $499 and was floored by it. Plays every PS1, PS2, and obviously PS3 game ever. The later PS3s lost PS2 playback compatiblity but the original PS3 was a incredibly piece of technology. Played PS1, PS2, and PS3 games. My first blu-ray player and most affordable one at the time. It was also the best media server player I ever had. Loaded my PS3 Media Server on my computer and streamed all my movies without issue. That was a great feature. The 60GB PS3 was even slightly better because it had that little door with the memory card slots in it. Was very cool. Very expensive and overly complicated, but man if it wasn't a amazing piece of tech. I also loved the design and look of it. It was beefy and heavy too. Really felt like a premium product.

Such a sexy machine:

ps3_fat.jpg



ps4-vs-ps3-640x343.jpg
Click to expand...

I totally agree. I don't care much about ps2 playback because I have a ps2 on standby. For me the ps3 slim wins. Nice tight and reliable. Sony loaded the ps3 with functionality and Blu-ray playback. Just a machine that kept on delivering year after year.
 
NES, and Sega Genesis close behind. NES really started it for me. We had an Atari and a commodore 64 before the NES, but that got me hooked bad. I spent so much time playing Mortal Kombat on the Genesis.
 
MISMCSA said:
NES, and Sega Genesis close behind. NES really started it for me. We had an Atari and a commodore 64 before the NES, but that got me hooked bad. I spent so much time playing Mortal Kombat on the Genesis.
Click to expand...
Mortal Kombat on the Genesis was pretty awesome. As was Street Fighter 2 CE with 6 button controller.
I would have to say NES first, Genesis/SNES second, Dreamcast third for me.
 
deaedius said:
Mortal Kombat on the Genesis was pretty awesome. As was Street Fighter 2 CE with 6 button controller.
I would have to say NES first, Genesis/SNES second, Dreamcast third for me.
Click to expand...

I remember when MK came out for the genesis. That was a really big deal.
they did a really great job porting that game to the Genesis considering its capabilities.

SF2 on SNES was awesome as well.
 
While I got hooked to NES for first time in 1990, I would have to say that SNES is my favorite console simply because of many RPG games. Second favorite console is GameCube. I have no idea why I gave up the console and games because they are really expensive to buy now, which is mind boggling.

I have owned consoles and liked PlayStation 1, 2 and 3 because they offered good games too. I have gotten older and don't have enough money to buy a latest generation console such as Xbox 1, PS4 or WiiU.
 
Original Nintendo 8 bit. :) That thing had a ton of good, fun games to play. My thumb always took a beating on the control pad though.
 
i grew up in the NES/SNES era but i'd have to say the console that blew my mind the first time i played it was the N64

there wasn't anything else like mario64 on any other system including PC at that time, truly open world 3d platformer with that kinda graphic quality
 
thebeephaha said:
N64 was my console of choice growing up and still holds a special place in my heart.
Click to expand...

Although I will say the N64 definitely was the more-played console in my house, especially games like DKR, Perfect Dark, Smash Brothers... As I get older and the times change, I don't REALLY have the same tingly nostalgia when I go back to play the N64 through emulator or otherwise. But when I go back and play OG Playstation titles, I literally get shivers down my back when I hear the intro fanfare. The affine texture mapping, the gritty, sharp, trebble-heavy audio... There is just something unique and long lost that was perfectly captured in the OG Playstation....
 
In terms of what I played the most, I would say the SNES. I think the SNES really was a continuation on the house that the NES built. WIthout the NES, console gaming probably would have died. Nintendo proved that it was possible to have a system be more than a novelty.
The SNES basically was the NES at 200% (not literally, but it the concept that it continued with a lot of the same titles but bigger, bolder, more fleshed out, etc). It was the system that I think really solidified a lot of franchises, and was one of the first to bring arcade games into the home (arguably the first console to do it well and on scale).
The SNES made competition at home truly possible, while expanding quite a few genres and bringing quite a few genres into the home. RPGs got their roots and became artform. Fighting games became possible to play at home. 2D platforming was never better. The system broke a lot of conventions on what was thought possible for its time.
It is also the system that had the greatest impact on me as an early gamer. No other console hit me like that. I played SMW, FFIV, FFVI, Zelda, DK, DK2, DK3, Earthworm Jim, Contra, SF II/Turbo, Mario Kart, Top Gear 2, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and many others endlessly. It probably affected me the most because it was the time of my youth, a condition that I think colors our perceptions a lot, but even objectively the SNES changed a lot in its day.

I love the N64, I think it also altered gaming history a lot in terms of making true 3 dimensional gaming a thing. No other system at the time could push the polygons as well for an immersive experience. And the load times were welcomed at a time in which all of its competitors were disc based. It definitely changed gaming, but it didn't have an impact on general society the way the SNES and NES did. When I first played it, it really blew my mind. Mario 64 was a revelation. 2D to 3D at that time couldn't be minimized (and neither can that analog stick, the first of its kind). And the PS1 wasn't capable of making games like the N64 could. Still, the PS1 was probably more relevant due to sales and apparently people's preferences for pre-generated backgrounds and the infamous pre-rendered CGI cutscene. It also continued on in a lot of the SNES' footsteps in terms of being the modern console for arcade gaming. Every important Arcade franchise more or less moved to Sony that generation which hurt Nintendo's ability to compete. Still I would say, for me, the N64 is the best 3D platform game system of all time. No other console dominated that specific market before or since really.
 
Last edited:
For those impressed with N64... were you at all into PC gaming at the time? To me this was the dark ages of consoles, where they were trying to do 3D but it just looked too chunky and lacking of detail compared to PC and of course 2D... it felt like a step backwards to me for sure, like the only time console generation didn't at last least match a medium-spec'ed PC at launch... of course there were good games for that generation but I feel really alone with my feelings here...
 
Youn said:
For those impressed with N64... were you at all into PC gaming at the time? To me this was the dark ages of consoles, where they were trying to do 3D but it just looked too chunky and lacking of detail compared to PC and of course 2D... it felt like a step backwards to me for sure, like the only time console generation didn't at last least match a medium-spec'ed PC at launch... of course there were good games for that generation but I feel really alone with my feelings here...
Click to expand...

I played both and I kind of disagree with what you're saying.
The N64 was true 3D with great models and an extremely smooth framerate for its time. To contrast in 96' we were still on Windows 95 and the height of PC gaming was Duke Nukem 3D versus Quake. Final Doom (which also came out in 96) and Duke 3D weren't even truly 3D games. Neither was Diablo as an example.

For what the N64 did, it was unmatched in the PC world. The only thing that the N64 failed at in terms of graphical fidelity was not being able to process (relatively) high resolution textures. If it had, combined with its poly count, it probably would have been more impressive to you. As a result, most of the time to save space and increase speed, the polys were simply (solid) colored but not textured. But even back then I saw it for what it was: a true 3D game system that would've taken a huge amount of cost and processing power to match in a PC. Not to mention that the controls were perfectly matched for the games that Nintendo wanted to create.

By the time a game that truly showed up in 97' while running Windows 98' showed up and showed the PCs dominance again, it was so punishingly video card intensive (keep in mind that GPU's also didn't exist until the original Geforce in 1999) that kids like me (at the time) couldn't afford the video card(s) necessary to play it at a reasonable framerate. That game of course was Quake II. The heyday of id software's forward thinking game engines and good gameplay. It would be quite literally years later before being able to play Q2 as it was intended: speedy and with all of the graphics cranked.

And that was a big part of the problem. It wasn't just "the games" it was the power necessary to play them. Unless you had $600-$700 for dual Voodoo 2 12MB's back in 98' (not even including the rest of the cost of your machine and monitor etc), the bleeding edge was out of reach. Meaning also that the Voodoo 2 didn't even exist at the launch of the N64. The Voodoo 1 was the pinnacle in 96'. Otherwise you were stuck on a far inferior ATi Rage 128 or a Matrox Mystique (like me). Graphics card(s) were not massive powerhouses at that time. If you've never tried to optimize graphics in Quake II on a Matrox Mystique than you don't know how frustrating slow framerates on a big title can be. And those were the days of having to research and fiddle with .ini files for hours in addition to running the game at 640x480 or below.

PC gaming still remained a staple for me however, but I'd argue the greatest games that came out at the time weren't even the most graphically intensive (turning your idea of great gaming requiring great visuals on its head). Fallout came out in 97 as an example. And the following year: Balder's Gate. Both pinnacles of RPG's but requiring nothing more than a 2D accelerator with 2-4MB of RAM. Games that I would argue from a graphics fidelity angle were lower than that of the N64. Stylized and beautiful to be sure, but requiring little to no video processing power in comparison to what the N64 was doing in any 3D rendered title.

So, to reiterate I would say that the N64 allowed the masses to play true 3D games at an excellent framerate affordably. A value proposition at that time which nothing else could touch. The games were beautiful, well crafted, had excellent gameplay, and novel controls. Mario 64 would have never been as fun on a KB/M, especially at that time. Neither would've Ocarina of Time or even Mario Kart. This post probably won't change your mind about that time. But I lived through it and remember it very well. Like I said before Mario 64 blew my mind when I first saw it and rotated that analog stick around. It felt so natural and yet so different than anything I had experienced before. As much as I loved Duke 3D and ROTT as an example, they just didn't spark that magic that the N64 captured so incredibly well. It's still a shame to me how few people appreciated all of those facts in its time.
 
Last edited:
UnknownSouljer said:
I played both and I kind of disagree with what you're saying.
The N64 was true 3D with great models and an extremely smooth framerate for its time. To contrast in 96' we were still on Windows 95 and the height of PC gaming was Duke Nukem 3D versus Quake. Final Doom (which also came out in 96) and Duke 3D weren't even truly 3D games. Neither was Diablo as an example.

For what the N64 did, it was unmatched in the PC world. The only thing that the N64 failed at in terms of graphical fidelity was not being able to process (relatively) high resolution textures. If it had, combined with its poly count, it probably would have been more impressive to you. As a result, most of the time to save space and increase speed, the polys were simply (solid) colored but not textured. But even back then I saw it for what it was: a true 3D game system that would've taken a huge amount of cost and processing power to match in a PC. Not to mention that the controls were perfectly matched for the games that Nintendo wanted to create.

By the time a game that truly showed up in 97' while running Windows 98' showed up and showed the PCs dominance again, it was so punishingly video card intensive (keep in mind that GPU's also didn't exist until the original Geforce in 1999) that kids like me (at the time) couldn't afford the video card(s) necessary to play it at a reasonable framerate. That game of course was Quake II. The heyday of id software's forward thinking game engines and good gameplay. It would be quite literally years later before being able to play Q2 as it was intended: speedy and with all of the graphics cranked.

PC gaming still remained a staple for me however, but I'd argue the greatest games that came out at the time weren't even the most graphically intensive (turning your idea of great gaming requiring great visuals on its head). Fallout came out in 97 as an example. And the following year: Balder's Gate. Both pinnacles of RGP's but requiring nothing more than a 2D accelerator with 2-4MB of RAM.

So, to reiterate I would say that the N64 allowed the masses to play true 3D games at an excellent framerate affordably. A value proposition at that time which nothing else could touch. The games were beautiful, well crafted, had excellent gameplay, and novel controls. Mario 64 would have never been as fun on a KB/M, especially at that time. Neither would've Ocarina of Time or even Mario Kart. If you don't feel that way, I probably can't change your mind, but unless you had $600-$700 for dual Voodoo 2 12MB's back in 98' (not even including the rest of the cost of your machine and monitors etc), the bleeding edge was out of reach. Meaning that they weren't even available at the launch of the N64. The Voodoo 1 was the pinnacle in 96'. Otherwise you were stuck on a far inferior ATi Rage 128 or a Matrox Mystique (like me).
Click to expand...


PC gaming changed a LOT in 1997. That is when Unreal, Quake 2 and Half-life entered the scenes and solidified the 3D FPS genre. When the N64 launched, it was far superior in 3D processing power, and games like Super Mario 64 were mind-blowing on launch. I remember my dad (an avid PC gamer) watching me play Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and being BLOWN AWAY by the visuals. They visuals got better as carts could hold more data, and personally, I believe the pinnacle of graphics for the system was Perfect Dark, unfortunately it was too little too late as the PS2 was right on the horizon with (at the time) unbelievably realistic visuals.

Perfect Dark in 2000
gfs_27982_2_6.jpg



MGS2 in 2001
GamingAdvance-MetalGearSolid2_SonsOfLiberty-Screenshot-001.jpg
 
UnknownSouljer said:
Unless you had $600-$700 for dual Voodoo 2 12MB's back in 98' (not even including the rest of the cost of your machine and monitor etc), the bleeding edge was out of reach.
Click to expand...
You're taking into account final output resolution? Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me but I seem to recall playing Quake at a higher resolution than 256x224
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top