Kamille The PC Engine ran on two separate 8-bit processors. While this allowed the system to put typical NES or Famicom games to shame, it didn't really add up to 16-bit processing. Atari tried to market the Jaguar as a 64-bit console when it used two 32-bit processors, asking consumers to "do the math." It too, failed. It's because of this reason that the late release of Turbografx 16 (PC Engine's counterpart) failed stateside, as it wasn't quite up to snuff with SNES and Genesis (or Megadrive) by that point. NEC waited too long to launch a console with outdated tech outside of Japan. It's still a great system in my opinion, though.
SyKoSyMaTiK the gpu was 16 bit and thats why it pumped out more colors than the genesis .... the video out put was also better than the genesis .... cpu wise it ran faster than the snes and didnt suffer massive slowdown with shooters like the snes did .... i have all 3 systems so i know .... getting info off wikipedia only goes so far
Kamille it's because it has a very powerful 8 bit 7.14 mz CPU which was twice as fast as the 16 bit CPU in the SNES! But where it really shine's is the two 16 bit graphics processers which made it just as powerful as the Genesis and super NES! Awesome machine!
Kamille it's because it's cpu was 8 bit but it ran at 7.16 MHz and the 16 bit cpu in the SNES ran at 3.98 MHz so even though the cpu was 8 bit it was blazing fast! And it had a comparable 16 bit GPU! For comparison the SNES had a pallet of 32768 colors with 256 on screen! And the TurboGrafx had a pallet of 512 colors with 482 on screen! All in all it was capable of 16 bit quality graphics! I used to love this machine, to bad I was the only one who had one of all my friends! Lol
One thing I love about the TurboGrafx-16 and the PC Engine is its gritty, tinny music coming from the HuC6280 CPU/Sound processor. I love the music from that system. I just wish I could make my own music without the hassle of using trackers or using the MML programming language.
I remember playing this at an amusement park when it first came out, great system. I wanted Altered Beat which was available for the Sega Genesis, so I got that system instead.
Ok that thing seriously looks awesome. Now I have to go on the hunt to find one. Thats the only downside to watching this channel, You have to go and spend lots of money to get all the cool stuff he has.
Also, it was tiny, had small hucards for games and it had built in turbo functions in the controllers. The NES, SNES and Mega Drive were all a LOT bigger and bulkier, their games were a lot bigger and bulkier and the standard controllers didn't have built in turbo functions, though the Mega Drive and SNES did have more buttons on theirs so at least they did something better. It was also early using CDs with the CD add-on.
I used sega cables on my turbografx 16 untill I found a turbografx 16 rf adapter. The colours were drasticly improved. Bonks adventure for example finally had that bright colouring I remember as akid. Fuller colour pallet used on the TG 16
"The PC Engine Core Grafx - it's good! Not as good as the Vectrex, but ya know, not everything can be perfect" That pretty much sums up my thoughts on both as well. I make sure I play my Vectrex at least a few times a week, every week just to remind me how amazing it is, and no emulation can ever match the real hardware.
With all this positive feedback and affordable price advice you surely must be buying your own or get a converter for your turbo , so many awesome games and this is the shows only weak spot and you love shooters
Funny how the American version was much bigger. With the extra space i reckon they could have had a compartment for your gaming gloves. PC Engine is so cool! This many years on i still love it.
Way ahead of its time. I wish I had one but WiiWare and regular (read: inferior) PC emulation does a good enough job that hunting an original down here in Europe is thankfully not a must.
One of the big problems with the Turbo was lack of advertising. NEC only felt the need to broadcast TV ads in big cities. Also the lack of third party support due to Nintendo's unfair stanglehold on developers was also yet another factor. It did extremely well in Japan, but cultural interests usually don't cross pacific divides, especially when it comes to video games
Mark - I thought Core Grafx was the SUCCESSOR to the PC Engine? It supposedly had a library of just a handful of games, and only added a couple of parallax scrolling layers?
Eu tive algumas boas experiencias com o Turbo Graphix 16. e recentemente comprei o PC-engine (só falta comprar alguns games clássicos). Como colecionador, ele foi um console excelente, mas o jeito como ele foi lançado no ocidente, foi muito desleixado. Infelizmente a má campanha de marketing acabou com o sucesso dele, o que causou seu isolamento no Oriente. Se tivesse sido melhor planejado, teria sido um grande concorrente com a Nintendo e a Sega. Ah sim, adoro seus videos Saudações do Brasil.
It's 8-bit alright, but it's sporting one hellova GPU and some serious sound capability since it came out some time after the FC/ NES and MKIII/ Master System. It was released just about 1 year before the mega drive would enter the market, so sound and video used very similar hardware.
no the GPU AKA graphics chip was 16 bit thats why it looks so great but the CPU AKA main chip was 8 bit hence TURBO (the controller setup) GRAFX 16 (the 16 bit GPU)
Great system. What really killed the Turbo is that there were tons of great games that they never brought over from Japan. There was even a version of Street Fighter II Champion Edition on the PC Engine that honestly feels better then the Genesis version, if they brought more titles like that over at the time it could have done so much better.
I'm thinking about importing one of these one day, but I have a few questions... Do I need an adapter to plug it in? Will it work in an American outlet? Will it blow up if I leave it in the outlet for too long? Someone please give me answers!!! I just want to play my Bonk!!!
Just put in 6-7V at 700mA and you are good to go. You can feed higher voltages, the built in 7805 will bake it away, but if you want to keep it cool, just keep the extra above 5V to a minimum.
1987??? This tiny kickass machine was 2 years before super nintendo? Truly ahead of its time. I can only imagine nintendo nes games like mario bros 3 and contra running on a pc engine. Wth is up with the bigger-is-not-better american version? Did they want to block off shelf space to prevent snes and genesis from sitting next to Turbografx 16?
It competed with the Mega Drive! (not the master system) thats why sega made a CD addon to keep up with it. Also explain: How is ist 8 bit, when you said it was the first 16-bit console?
