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But even if yes, still makes no sense.
NES (popular console for rpgs of this style) was 8-bit both in processor, and in color pallete - 256.
SNES was 16-bit both in processor and in color pallete.
RM2k/2k3 being 8-bit color and low rez (320x240) is fairly equivalent to NES graphic (8-bit, 256 x 240). Can be a tiny bit better, not really in ways most people would notice, and actaully worse in other ways.
RMXP can match SNES 16-bit graphics. (and supass it with a higher resolution)
Can't wait for RM MVs "crazy high rez!" SUPER VGA (800x600) graphics! lol. HD rpg maker will come out around 2055 at this rate.
About NES:
"The system has an available color palette of 48 colors and 6 grays. Up to 25 simultaneous colors may be used without writing new values mid-frame: a background color, four sets of three tile colors and four sets of three sprite colors. The NES palette is based on NTSC rather than RGB values. A total of 64 sprites may be displayed onscreen at a given time without reloading sprites mid-screen. The standard display resolution of the NES is 256 horizontal pixels by 240 vertical pixels."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System
RPG Maker 2k3 go into 256 colors on screen...
A theoretical experiment: 320x240 = 76800 pixels on the screen. We want to prove that we can really show 65536 colors on the screen. Let's display 273 vertical lines with 240 pixels each, and 1 vertical line with 16 pixels, makes 273*240+16=65536 You could theoretically go and create 274 different pictures, each of them using 240 different colors (except for the last which uses 16) out of the 16-bit RGB specture (5, 6, 5 bits for R, G, B), and then display them all on the screen. This way we would have proven that while each individual picture can have only 256 colors, we can have 65536 ones on the screen.
Also, the bitness of videogames is indeed ambigous. Usually you do mean processor architecture, because it is usually associated with a certain generation of video consoles. It has just became an abstract term for a specific era of consoles and games and the styles of graphics and music they used (which came from the limits the technical architecture set them).
8-bit: NES or GBC, for example. Sound usually chiptunes, graphics very low in colors (4-32 colors on screen out of a palette of <256 colors), screen size around 200x200, often using a fixed tile grid leading to square text, etc. as well. The 8-bit area is the 3rd generation of video games, I'd say (1983-1995). See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(third_generation)
16-bit: SNES, Mega Drive, ... Sound MIDI-like (note-based sounds but with richer, more realistic soundfonts, and more channels), <65536 colors, screen size around 350x350, multi-layer tilemaps and more complex graphics, sometimes even basic 3D. The 16-bit era is the 4th generation of video games (1987-1999). See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(fourth_generation)
As you can see, the RPG Maker belongs to this "era", feature-wise.
32-bit, 64-bit, 128-bit: This is where we get into more realstic 3D and sound, smooth hi-res graphics, ... from 2000s PC games to PS4 and Wii U.
=======
tl;dr: You have to differentiate between 4 uses of bitness:
* Number of colors concurrently used in a sprite and/or on screen. It doesn't say how big the palette is from which the colors can be chosen. The RPG Maker users indexed 8-bit sprites, i.e. the number of colors to choose from, per sprite, is 256 (8 bit). The RPG Maker allows 65536 colors (16 bit) on the screen concurrently (all displayed sprites together).
* Number of colors in a palette, i.e. number of colors to choose from to select those used in the first point. The RPG Maker theoretically uses a 24-bit spectrum for sprites, but the screen is limited to 16-bit, so it's effectively 16-bit (65536 colors).
* Processor word size: Defines the normal size of values with which a processor operates. It was 32 bit for a long time and shifted to 64 bits in the last years. This indirectly defines the amount of memory a processor can directly access. The RPG Maker is written for a 32-bit architecture (and 64-bit processors support a 32-bit mode as well).
* Eras of video games: This is an abstract definition which is actually used to refer to a certain set of consoles and the styles of music, graphics, etc. used on those. Therefore "8-bit music" doesn't really have anything to do with 8 bits per se, but it refers to chiptune-like music because that's what the 8-bit consoles such as the Game Boy supported back then. The RPG Maker's features and game style can be compared to video games of the 16-bit era, such as SNES.
But overall since the RPG is all 8-bit color, and each sprite/tile/etc can only be a maximum of 8-bit, and overall it looks most like the NES.. I'm pretty sure most people would agree it's 8-bit graphics.
Yes I understand from your explanation it can indeed display a lot more, but the fact is, in most case it just doesn't, and that's kind of hte bottom line.
I tested this too : Tooks several of the example screenshots on the store page - converted them down to 8-bit (256 colors) with paint shop pro and all of them looked identical. (For the game elements, the windows UI elements obviously lost some color)
And yes on the topics of the consoles - the SNES itself also couldn't actually display true 16-bit color, it was really 15-bit (32,768 colors)
And actually oddly enough the SNES mainly ran in a LOWER resolution then the NES. The main reason the games looked much better was the color count plus the higher processing power that allowed for more overall sprites on the screen (And more detailed sprites.)
EG:
NES Most NES games ran at 256x240
SNES: ~95% of games ran at 256x224 - and this includes all the big rpgs of the time like final fantasy. It did support a high rez mode of double that resolution, but the hardware really wasn't' fast enough to run games at that rez, so it was only used in a few weird games as the primary mode. Lots of other games used it, but just to show still images here and there while the game primarily ran in the low rez mode as the SNES could fairly seemlessly switch between modes.
So yea technically neither were 100% exactly 8 bit or 16 bit.. But the thing is, that's what nintendo told us, that's what they were advertised as, so thats what popular culture now refers to as 8 bit or 16 bit graphics. It may not be 100% technically correct, but in terms of our culture and cultural language, they are very much defined terms that will remain that way for history.
But ya were all smart nerds here fondly remembering the good old nes/snes days and reminiscing about there uber graphics and looking up the fun tech specs....
Ultimately bottom line is whatever the technical facts are, the fact is to your average joe the graphics RM2k3 includes/produces are very much of the 8bit variety.
So really unless you can produce screenshots that look more 16bit, and include those graphics in the rpt.. I think it's best to edit that store descript to 8 bit, and maybe mention the more technical details that it can handle more 16-bit ish graphics in a footnote. As ultimately most people will use the rtp, and the rtp is very 8bit.
Plus I think for the benefit of advertising and making the moneys - it makes more sense.
You said yourself in another thread one of the main reasons people will buy this is nostalgia - and having products that cater to nostalgia for each era (8/16 bit/etc) i think is wise.
And I think most people would agree RM2k/2k3 games most resemble the 8 bit era games, while RMXP resembles the 16bit era games (even tho yea i know it supports 24/32bit color and can handle running said graphics at a much higher resolution then the SNES/Genesis could, but the RTP and vast majority of games look very much like the SNES graphics)
My brain would like to think:
rm2k/2k3 - 8bit
RMXP - 16bit
RMVX/ace - 24bit, kinda sorta (games mostly look worse them rmxp so far imo, mainly due to the rtp but oh welll)
RM MV: omg SUPER VGA 32-bit GRAPHICS!
(Wonder if it will truly allow for HD games - as I see some ppl trying to do that with ace atm on steam, but ultimately the engine vomits and runs at a horribly laggy low fps when forced to do that)
(RM95: VGA! But like windows 95 VGA heh)
#2[www.retrogameguide.com] NES
#3 RMXP
#4 SNES
Are you telling me #1 and #2 are similar, and #3 and #4 are? I'd say #1 and #4 are.
Then cherry picked a RM2k3 game that doesn't appear to (mostly) use the RTP. I mean the RTP is what your advertising when you mention the graphics obviously, since otherwise it's just a program you're selling.
And no sorry Chrono Triggers look a ton better then anything i've ever seen on RM 2k/xp or even vx. And while im sure those engines can do better, it's just extremely hard to be matched/beat Akira Toriyama's art. So thats kinda a bad example too heh. Chrono Triggers just too awesome , unfair to compare it to indie rpgmakers games made by 1 or a few guys. Also kind of my favorite rpg of all time (got it for my 12th birthday and played the crap out it, so much so that I killed the internal battery in it and you could no longer save)
RMXP rpt reminds me mostly of games a bit older then chrono trigger, more so like Lufia and FF2us/FF6, tho ff6 looks better than most.
In fact speaking of Lufia, I played a RM2k game that uses sprites ripped directly from the game.. It looked a ton worse then it does on the SNES, if thats not an indication that the engine just can't handle as good graphics I dunno what is.
Plus yea if I didn't know what rpg maker was and I saw all of those screenshots, yea I would say sol brave is either an insanely good looking NES title, or fairly low/moderate quality sega genesis one, it doesn't have the kind of look/quality SNES rpgs had.
I mean even glancing at the reviews on the website u linked people seem to agree it (or a similar game) feels more like a NES game:
http://www.sol-brave.net/herosrealm.htm
Not sure if thats for the same game you linked, but it is for a rm2k3 game.
But thx for the link to that website, the games there look pretty cool, and been looking for a good rm2k/2k3 game to beat, as the others I played just weren't that great so couldnt get through them.
Is not the same a downgrade of graphics by a dev/maker ppl, that the specs on screen of RM2K3. And you're confusing them...
I'll have to find a nice RM2k3 game with good graphics so I can at least have a good impression of the engine in my head heh.
And also great to see the work you guys did updating this older engine. By the looks of the changelog its technically superior to XP and even VX ace in many ways now lol. (EG The fact fullscreen isn't reliant on ancient DX6/7 tech anymore is pretty sweet)
Now port those features to xp/vx ace! (OpenGL so they can support steam overlay would be sweet!)
Btw another technical aspect I just noticed and am curious about:
I know vx/ace runs at a solid 60fps - at least in games that don't go too overboard on events/scripts.. At least for the main engine, tho sadly animations are very low at 15 fps.
But just recently found out XP only does 40 fps (vast majority of games anyways, without advanced scripts to fix it). Which i really never noticed much playing the games back in the day, but now playing vx ace games i can definitely tell they are much smoother (the ones set up well anyways)
What kind of framerate is 2k/2k3 set up for? Feels like 60 the main engine, but the animations i imagine are lower?
About RM2k(3): Runs with 60 FPS, you can see the current render-FPS by pressing F5 ingame and enabling "Show FPS" (RM will use Frameskip if something gets too slow). Battle Animations use 30 FPS. It's possible to do your own animations at 60 FPS, though, for example using Move Picture (loading a very large sheet with different 320x240 animation frames, and moving it across/beyond the screen, or loading all the individual frames in individual pictures and then showing/hiding them using Move Pictures and 0/100% transparency, since using Show Picture every frame would be slow) and Wait 0.0s (which actually waits for the next frame). However, 30 FPS for animations are normally enough.
SNES also use 8bit (256 colour) graphics per layer, when a few layers was in one moment, this have more colours. In RM is this same - one graphics can have max 256 colours (I not include transparent...), but RM can have more this graphics and have more colour - 16bit.
RM2k3 RTP isn't nes style - NES max is 25 colour on screen and ~120 colour pallete, 2k3 rtp have more.
In the end: Bananen Joe make in destiny patch option 24bit on screen for 2k, maybe this is possible to make in official version?