[AxlRocks]

The Gameboy/Gameboy Color was a wonderful handheld with many games that many people, myself included and I'm sure many of you, have fond memories of. Megaman Xtreme of course was one of my favorites that comes to mind! Haha What we don't typically think of when we think of our Gameboys is a handheld with advanced hardware. In it's time, of course, but today it's hard to think of it as that in any shape or form. What I'm about to show you, however, may make it a tad bit easier to do so. I've been amazed by these tech demos ever since I discovered them. With a Gameboy being capable of things like this, now that the hardware is more fully understood and in turn clever, advanced programming tricks have been discovered, one has to truly wonder how efficiently we use hardware today. With complete understanding of current video game and PC hardware, imagine what could be done within the limits of said hardware. And with that thought in mind, grab your popcorn and enjoy the movies.



Disclaimer: Both of these are captured from emulators and videos exist for both on real Gameboys if you wish to watch those. These videos are linked instead simply for quality and clarity and these tech demos suffer very little to no bugs on a real Gameboy and none of the said bugs hinder any effects from working.

[Mac]

Pretty damn interesting. Now those images just aren't just highly compressed sprite videos are they? Like, it's all ran in real-time? Your philosophical view about the potential of current technology is right. We always seem to want things newer and better. Game systems especially. Though who really knows what the PS3 or 360 could be capable of if they were pushed to their technical limits in all aspects...then again, maybe they already have been with such titles as the Uncharted series or Metal Gear Solid 4. Even so. It's very cool what coders, modders, and hackers can get out of old soft and hardware.

[AxlRocks]

Mac, on 08 June 2012 - 04:29 PM, said:

Snip

Nope, almost all the effects are done real-time There isn't much graphic data in the demos if opened with a tile editor, and both demos are 256KB in size. For comparison, that's the same as Megaman I, II, and III, while Megaman Xtreme 1 and 2 are both 1,024KB. Even the effects that do use some graphics more are drawn so smoothly it's still pretty impressive, but the fact most of it is clever programming and out-of-the-box tricks amazes me. I never knew for a long time, but the GBC was capable of basic 3D, as shown in Mental Respirator, but there's also an official Nintendo promotional demo which contains an unused scene with 3D renders. Here is the scene:



Very amazing what went unused, isn't it? Going to your post, I agree, it's kind of like our hardware works harder so our software doesn't need to work smarter. It is forgivable really, because learning the Gameboy in and out took long enough as is, while tech today is 100 times more complicated, but at the same time, it's certainly a shame at the potential wasted. I would love to see what kind of homebrew tech demo could be produced for a 360 or PS3 20 years down the road lol But yeah, it's very cool to see how someone at home, with time and knowledge, can unlock so much potential in something thought obselete. Thanks for the interest and reply!

[ElectricFuneralPyre]

Very good stuff there! I was speechless at some of that stuff shown. Those could've lent themselves nicely to more SNES-like games...before the dawn of the GBA. The tech was there. The Resident Evil GBC port attested to that- it was a 100% port of a PSX game, save for graphics, running on an 8-bit handeld. Really thought provoking what under-powered hardware is capable of.