Turbo R poll down, emulator influence poll up

In the past few years, polls on MRC have been fairly random. As of now there will be a regular poll on the 14th of each month. Most polls will be related to development, aiming to provide developers with a bit of useful information for their projects. Of course, the final phase of a megapoll will have priority, as well as special polls related to unusual situations or events. If you have an idea for a interesting poll, send your idea to poll@msx.org and we will consider running your suggestion for a month.

The poll of the last few months was about the correct spelling of the MSX turbo R. After 801 votes, here are the final results:

Turbo-R 24.34%
turbo R 23.35%
Turbo R 14.11%
turboR 13.98%
TurboR 12.48%
turbo-R 11.74%

As we can see, people have very mixed opinions about the real name, although Turbo-R stood out slightly above the rest. The new poll is about how emulation has influenced usage of your real MSX hardware. Happy voting!

Relevant link: Poll results

Comments (22)

By ARTRAG

Prophet (3875)

14-09-2007, 19:48

next poll:
do you think that developing new HW for existing msx computers is:

1) hopeless, none will buy it
2) hopeless, none will never develop SW for that HW
3) hopeless, none will really use it (even once bought)
4) good, I would buy and use it even if I am the sole buyer and I have no SW for it
5) good, I would buy it and develop my SW by myself
6) good, I wouldn't buy it, but I'll use emulators that support that new cool HW
7) none of the above

By Google

By wolf_

Ambassador (9124)

14-09-2007, 20:03

not uninteresting, but here's a concern:

Remember the first posts in the SymbOS forumthreads? Skepticism, explanations of the limits of the VDP, but foremost: we are basic or dosprompt users, and otherwise a game/demo starts by itself... in a nutshell: we never needed a gfx-shell like Windos. And all that while keeping in mind that Ease, WiOS, Ease, Hibrid, younameit, never really took off. And here we are today: SymbOS works like a charm, and even on G9k! I'm not sure I'd ever use it on my old MSX, but I do think it makes very fine firmware for the 1CM.. What if prodatron would've listened to the nay-sayers?

What if such a poll would result in ppl not being interested in new HW? Would it stop HW developers, or would HW developers make their thing anyway?

I think HW has to be related to 'MSX' to be successful among sceners. A Geforce videocard with a converter so it works on MSX? It'd be a great trick, but chances are that ppl won't accept it as MSX hardware! Still a nice suggestion tho.. will discuss it internally..

By snout

Ambassador (13693)

14-09-2007, 20:21

How about turning it around and saying..

I'd like to have more software for...

GFX9000
Moonsound
turboR
Z380

By wolf_

Ambassador (9124)

14-09-2007, 20:25

Then everyone wishes to click every option, as everyone has that hardware anyway.. either real or emulated. (except the z380 perhaps, but how many ppl have that cpu in active use?)

By Sd-Snatcher

Hero (565)

14-09-2007, 20:47

I'd like more hardware like ... unapi ethernet cards

By Prodatron

Paragon (1214)

15-09-2007, 00:30

I like Snouts suggestion! Ok, people might wish to click on every hardware item, but this is the reason for a poll: If you already know the answer it doesn't make fun. But if there are so "difficult" questions like these ones (where you personally think you could vote everything), it makes a poll so interesting

By Prodatron

Paragon (1214)

15-09-2007, 00:39

@Artrag: Most of your answers sound so negative IMHO the answer for your poll would completely depend on the type of hardware, and so it's hard to answer. I wouldn't buy and support just another additional IDE interface, but it was so cool to get and support the MP3MSX card.

By ARTRAG

Prophet (3875)

15-09-2007, 12:05

Sorry, my poll looks negative but I really would have a VDU HW and, much more than that, many VDU games.
Maybe I was in a bad mood

Personally, I feel frustrating investing a lot of effort to develop SW on an new HW that has a potential user base of 3-4 people ...
But this applies to me naturally, who barely accept programming on MSX2

Maybe having VDU in emulators could promote someone to develop something for VDU (mainly because you can get almost effortless great scrolling effects) and spin its sells and diffusion. Who knows...

IMHO the main plus of VDU against G9K is the fact that for developers the learning curve of the new HW is almost zero, as its VDP's are well known by all MSX2/2+ users. on this side G9K is a separate world...

By wolf_

Ambassador (9124)

15-09-2007, 12:21

That VDU looks very interesting indeed, but it suffers from the same problems the G9k has:

the result could look very slick, but game programming is still tough. An advanced gfx card doesn't make an RPG, platformer, shooter etc. easy to make, they're still large games. The gfx might look more classy, and things could be smoother.. but game engines are still tough.
the scene still lacks active and quality designers
lack of tools, such as map editors, sprite editors, sprite animators etc. etc.

Imagine tomorrow an active hardware manufacturer would make hundreds and hundreds of new MSX videocard with these specs:
- 64 fullcolor sprites on a row
- 256x192, 512x384, 1024x768 resolutions, all with 32bit RGBA
- 256MB onboard VRAM
- advanced sprite collision functions
- extra 32MB memory onboard for custom usage, e.g. maps.
- 8 scrolling layers

Sounds nice eh? Esp. when it only costs 100 euros or something. Esp. when more than 500 MSX'ers buy this one..

Nothing will happen, because we still lack designers, tools, and games are still tough to make. Well, the only thing that will happen is that SymbOS will have a new driver again..

By Sama

Ambassador (2006)

15-09-2007, 12:59

But there remains to be only one right solution: turboR!!!!!!!!!!!!

By sunrise

Paragon (1090)

15-09-2007, 13:55

I can imagine artrag your request. But it is as a poll not workable. Second I find nothing of my choice.
If you have no sw at all if you want to supply hardware you donot produce. Never find a request of 3-4 by the way
Besides that hardware as gfx9000,cf/ide /moonsound were first before emulators and you need the roms for an emulator.
Snout, really forget the z380, since you must then give the one chip , a better chance which can operate at least at the same speed and you can reduce also the speed to keep compability.
I refuse to believe the gfx9000 and Moonsound has nothing of sw, that's nonsense can always better.
Better said people are promising to much. Arranger-3 well , if you try to contact them they are not at home.
Reading overhere that MOA made new songs and added to the list here somewhere and hearing that his moonsound was broken, well what do I have to think...

By wolf_

Ambassador (9124)

15-09-2007, 14:40

I think there's enough Moonsound software, at least 2 finished trackers (mbfm, mbwave), one under development (realfun, tho I'm not sure whether RF is a dead stick or not), another one under development (Meridian) and that mml-style parser from Japan. And perhaps I forgot one or two..
There's some support in demos, and individual tunes. (e.g. Italo challenge)

But G9k? Can you actually list all finished/spread/sold demos and games exclusively for G9k, sunrise (feel free to open a forumthread for that list, if you wish)? Because I've not the impression there's much. And the reasons would be some of those which I mentioned already + that the card was released at the first minor signs of the silent years. In the end I don't think that the early assumptions that the G9k was to be a turbo R card had much impact on the succes.

The G9k itself is not to blame, the scene is to support itself, so if the scene has a G9k and no software for the G9k, then the scene can only point its finger to that same scene.

By sunrise

Paragon (1090)

15-09-2007, 21:17

The GFX isnot developed in the silent years that's one. Almost together with the moonsound.
In that days we had a full scala of programming groups, with the fact that two people had bought that gfx( me and koen having a msx-2), the rest TR-FREAKS
is most certainly due to a bad promotion campaign. Further there were a lot of kits to speed up for 7 mhz, which was very popular together with the fact there were also good mappers from MK. So I guess if msx-2 programmers had the believe they could handle it we had most certainly quite a lot of programs
A list, well not exactly but we start we the discs you get, further there were mayhem demo's on the magazines of sunrise. All stuff except for wios are functioning quite well in Open MSX.
Recently prodatron added a driver for which many thanks.
And indeed what we miss is promised finishing of BLOX , XTAZY (Quite a discussions, but what do we see...), and donot forget the things eduardo mello from brazil promised( never heard again despite sending a few emails)

By konamiman

Paladin (675)

15-09-2007, 22:24

Artrag, my answer to your poll:

"Good, I would buy it provided that my wife allows me to spend our (few) money for a completely obsolete and useless machine (again), and I would develop my SW by myself provided that I can sleep even less time or otherwise grab, somehow, some more time out of my life in the Real World (TM)".

So you see, things are not so easy, and you need to add some new options to make the poll more realistic.

By Prodatron

Paragon (1214)

16-09-2007, 01:21

In any case there are 10 "new" apps available now for the G9K or so I see no reason why not to support any real good new or existing hardware.

By RobertVroemisse

Ambassador (1134)

17-09-2007, 11:03

In my opinion, the reason why the GFX9000 never was a huge succes is the price. The moonsound was cheaper so I bought that at first. Later, when the GFX9000 became cheaper I bought that as well. Another reason would be the "MSX-feel". The GFX9000 can produce photorealistic images which are IMHO not very MSX-like. MSX-like is 16 colors or less. That's why I think that a VDU card would succeed. Those graphics would still have the MSX-feel.

By wolf_

Ambassador (9124)

17-09-2007, 11:20

Lowres and 16 colors for each of the 2 scrolling planes and some extra colors for sprites is that far away from MSX2? It all depends on which mode you're using. Apart from that, the MSX-feel is something -I think- from recent years. Back then I don't think anyone would object to more possibilities..

By RobertVroemisse

Ambassador (1134)

17-09-2007, 12:34

True. I really believe the GFX9000 is a wonderful piece of hw but I noticed by myself that I like drawing in screen 5 more than with Photoshop (I use Photoshop for the Blox gfx.). I don't know if it has something to do with the colors, or the fact that it is not drawn on a real MSX, but it lacks a kind of "genuine" MSX-feel.

By SLotman

Paragon (1107)

17-09-2007, 16:58

If I get my hands on a VDU or on a GFX9000, I *will* make at least one game for them

The problem I see is there a lot of MSX1-developers now (compared to pre-MSXDev days), but just a few MSX2, 2+ or tR ones... and almost none for OCM

We need people to push MSX to it's limits, in HW, SW and everything!

So who's going to be the first to develop OCM-only game with self modyfing VHDL code?

Seriously: if people dont develop anything new for turbo-R, how can anyone expect lots of stuff for GFX9000, MP3 carts, etc...?

If you see the partial results of the current poll, fewer and fewer people have (or use) real MSXs...

By Prodatron

Paragon (1214)

18-09-2007, 00:09

About the MSX-feel: The TurboR is already so fast, that you would think, it's not an originally Z80 based machine, but even more powerful than an Amiga 500. So with a special point of view it doesn't have an MSX feeling at all!

You have to seperate it:
- do you like the retro MSX1 feeling?
- or do you like the scalability of the MSX? - which means adding existing (like TurboR and G9K) and new (like MP3MSX etc.) powerfull hardware

Some people like the first, some people like the second point of view, that's fine! But you shouldn't mix it, these are two completely separated topics.
This is just my own opinion: You should always keep the core of the hardware - a Z80 based machine. But you can put as much around it as you wish, as long, as you don't replace the CPU base itself.

By RobertVroemisse

Ambassador (1134)

24-09-2007, 13:10

So, in your opinion, A Z380 is "not done"?

By wolf_

Ambassador (9124)

24-09-2007, 14:56

"not done" -> "not popular and/or widespread"

How many ppl have one in active use?