DF Retro Extra: Sega's Blast Processing Was Real - But What Did It Actually Do?
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Published 2019-03-31
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To try out the Blast Processing demo put together by Gabriel Morales, grab it here: drive.google.com/file/d/1SO7cqlsaAB8Tw-_LvNPMB5Jqa…
All Comments (21)
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My brain needs Blast Processing to figure out half of what's being said in this video. I love it.
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I retroactively won a ton of 4th grade recess arguments
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I spent WEEKS trying to get this working, back in the day. I could never get the CPU synced right. This is a great solution. But my method just switched the 16 entries on the color palette giving 16 out of 512 per scanline. The image looked good, but I could never get it stable due to the exact timing issue mentioned. I worked on the Genesis at Iguana
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I watched this on a Game Gear with the TV Tuner. It uses Past Processing
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FUN FACT : Gabriel Morales is now just a brain and eyes bubbling away in jar and communicates via blast processing.....could you tell?
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Man, seeing a crispy clean OG Genesis is a rarity.
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This was such an awesome watch. I never get tired of learning more of the technical magic behind my favorite childhood console.
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2 DF Retro's in one day?! You spoil us, sir.
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Though it had a basis in fact, when used in marketing 'blast processing' just meant how fast the games were. They basically gave the faster CPU a nickname.
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After seeing some of the amazing possibilities of so many chipsets, it saddens me to see how little the Sega CD and 32X were properly utilized.
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My Genesis nostalgia is at peak right now! I preordered the Genesis mini yesterday--it looks like SEGA finally did it right for the 30th anniversary, and with M2 doing the game ports, it should be on par with the Nintendo minis. Great video!!!
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I was a teenager through this phase of the OG console war, and I clearly remember all this—but I’d never heard the details behind the scenes. This is awesome, Linneman
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20 years from now somebody will discover how to make xbox power of the cloud work.
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Sega: What's blast processing? Pfft, we don't know but it sounds cool doesn't it?
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I always thought Blast Processing was a burst of processing power, making the visuals / games run at a much faster rate. Such as sonic running beyond the screen and the game catching up.
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"The term "blast processing" was originally coined in reference to the Yamaha VDP graphics processor's DMA unit "blasting" data at high speeds" (cf. Sega Retro's page about Blast Processing) so this actually applies to many official Mega Drive games Sonic the Hedgehog 2 included. But then the term is also used for some specific tricks which are doable with the Mega Drive hardware. Youtube channel "GameHut" did some great videos about this.
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Whoa! The overscan junk is actually CRAM dots!? That’s so cool! And this can be used to draw images on a CRT!? That’s amazing! I love it! This blast processing thing looks way cooler than I could possibly image!
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I always thought "Blast Processing" was simply a way to say that the Sega Mega Drive had twice the CPU clock speed that the Super NES had. Never thought it is an actual feature that was never used.
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We didn't hear the slogan in Europe, was a US thing.
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Holy crap. Very impressive work by everyone figuring this stuff out. Sega might as well have used "Its so advanced that even we cant grasp the full extend of it greatness." Also mandatory pun that i had a blast processing all this information.
