What seems to be the most important
indicator of
console generations was the amount of on screen or
simultaneous colors, rather than the palette. Then, would be the
resolution. The common height of gaming consoles
up to the
5th generation on here is rounded to the
standard height resolution of
240. By dropping the CPU in the processing speed from typical categorizations, only when CPU speed isn't the issue, the organization makes more sense.
Computer games often go between different equivalent console eras, because the upgrades vary and because of higher storage space. Graphics cards can be upgraded at different rates unlike console systems. A game may have one capability that's more advanced than the rest of the PC or the rest of the comparable era.
2nd generation typically has up to 16 simultaneous colors, and the games lacked graphics processing to have complex backgrounds. The most common resolution width of 2nd generation games was 160. 160x192 is one common resolution, if this
resolution were
scaled to a height of a standardly used height of 240, then it would
artificially come out to
200x240.
The Atari 2600 stands out as the resolution of playfields was far lower than the background sprites. At a playfield of 40x192 (of the full background resolution 160x192), the characters are large and depicted as clunky as they are. Modern made retrogames have more storage space to allow filling in more available colors to make the characters more identifiable and distinguishable. The Atari 5200 has a playfield that matches the background resolution. The resolution of both of these consoles (excluding the playfield of the Atari 2600) is 160x192. The Atari 2600 and Atari 5200, if including the multiple luminas for each color, had more simultaneous colors than other 2nd generation consoles.
The Bally Astrocade, ColecoVision and Atari 5800 are notable of the later 2nd generation.
Comparing to the 2nd generation of gaming console, the TI-99 computer series has a 16 bit CPU and uses 16 simultaneous colors from a palette of 16 colors. Without upgrades, gaming on the TI-99 series is of the 2nd generation.
The original GameBoy will be placed under 2nd generation games, based on its limitation to 4 colors and to its comparability to other games of the 2nd generation. GameBoy fits closer to the resolution of the 3rd generation, as it has the same resolution of GameBoy Color.
| 3rd generation (256x240) | Simultaneous Colors |
|---|
| Atari 7800 (160x200; 320x200) | 9 (25 at low res) |
| SG-1000 | 16 |
| EGA; C64; Atari ST (320x200) | 16 |
| Atari XEGS | 16 |
| NES | 25 |
| Master System | 32 |
| Game Boy Color (160x144) | 56 |
3rd generation of consoles, typically have up to 32 onscreen colors. The common resolution of 3rd generation consoles to modern standards is 256x240. Some computer games which typically run on PC's with EGA cards seem to be comparable to halfway between 2nd generation and 3rd generation gaming. EGA cards and the Atari 7800 have a resolution that includes 320x200. The Atari 7800 has 9 simultaneous colors for 320x200 resolution mode, and it has 25 colors for a resolution similar to that of the Atari 2800 and 5200. EGA also has a few higher resolutions of a width of 640. These listed are 8 bit CPU systems.
Game Boy Color will be compared to this generation or perhaps the 2nd generation, despite having a higher number of simultaneous colors than other games of this era. It's still lower than simultaneous colors of the next generation. When scaled, the resolution is close at 267x240. Game Boy Color and Game Boy have the same resolution. Also, the Game Gear plays the same games ported from the Master System, and has a lower resolution.
| 4th Generation (320x240) | Simultaneous Colors |
|---|
| Genesis | 192 including highlights (75 main) |
| Sega CD (for full motion video) | 256 (may include highlights or 32X) |
| 32X | 256 |
| SNES | 256 |
| Amiga CD32 | 256 |
| TurboGrafx | 482 |
| Laser Active (240i) | analog (compares from 192 to 482) |
| NeoGeo | 4,096 |
4th generation consoles typically go from 192 onscreen colors including highlights, to 256 simultaneous colors, with a few exceptions of higher resolutions being under 10,000 simultaneous colors. A common resolution for 4th generation gaming with the height rounded to modern standards is 320x240.
These gaming consoles have 16bit CPU's, except the TurboGrafx which has an 8bit CPU, and the Sega 32X which has a 32bit CPU. 32X is typically categorized as a 5th generation console, but it makes sense to lump it with 4th generation consoles, because its graphics match here. In addition, the 32X is used on top of a 16bit CPU console. Categorized this way, the 32X has more vivid colors than the standalone Sega Genesis (which most games use dull colors), and is comparable graphically to the SNES. The TurboGrafx has more onscreen colors than these two other systems, yet while having an 8 bit CPU. The NeoGeo and rare systems of this generation have even more simultaneous colors.
The Sega 32X has 50,000 polygons per second for 3D graphics. Very few specialized gaming cartridges of the 4th generation of consoles offer pseudo 3D rendered graphics, or authentic rudimentary 3D graphics. This may be a 5th generation quality.
Game Boy Advance will be comparable to here or 5th generation. It has 512 simultaneous colors in character mode, but 32,768 in bitmap mode. Its resolution is 240x160 which scales to 360x240 of the 5th generation.
| 5th Gen (360x240) | Simultaneous Colors | Polygons/sec
flat (textured) |
|---|
| CD-i | 32,768 | ? |
| Jaguar | 79,200 | 10.000 |
| 3D0 | 110,592 | 20,000 |
| PlayStation | 153,600 | 360,000 (90,000) |
| Saturn | 172,800 | 500,000 (140,000) |
| N64 | 207,360 | 600,000 (150,000) |
5th generation console gaming typically has over 32,000 simultaneous colors, and is lower than 250,000. The higher X resolution of 640 and 720 might be for split screens in 2 player mode. On these consoles, retro games for them typically use resolutions of their respective older generations.
The 3DO uses a single 32bit CPU. Jaguar emulation could possibly run on a single 32bit CPU, as the Tom and Jerry chips also have GPU capabilities. Other consoles of this list use multiple 32bit CPU's, while the N64 includes a 64bit CPU.
Of these systems, the Saturn has multiple background planes. The rest of these listed in this generation have a single background plane.
6th generation consoles are at a maximum of 480p, typically below 640x480, and are on the high end of analog through VGA, S-video, composite or component.
7th generation consoles have HDTV with the minimum of 480p.
8th generation consoles have HDTV with a minimum resolution of 720p, with few being 4K.
9th generation consoles have resolutions of 720p to 8K.
The main difference of console generations which use HDTV depend on obvious visual differences in graphic detail. It's difficult to quantify number of colors and other metrics of newer consoles. Use the maximum resolutions and the obvious visual differences in detail.
Vertical resolution games
Some arcade games relied on vertical screens, which didn't match available resolutions on their respective generation of home consoles. For similar quality resolution on comparable home consoles, scrolling was required, or a later home console generation with a higher vertical resolution was needed. 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th generation home consoles couldn't always match the vertical resolution of vertical screen arcade games comparable to the 2nd and 3rd generation. For gaming clones, the playing field doesn't have to be tall for games which don't need to be in a top down view, as it could instead be wide.
Certain game clones from tall playingfields, especially which the gameplay doesn't depend on seeing ahead vertically, don't have to copy the original to be on a tall playingfield, as those clones can be wide instead. Pacman ports and clones are a good example of this, as the original game is on a vertical screen, yet Pacman ported to Atari has a wide playing field, and the clone Munchman is also on a horizontal playing field.
224 is a common width for vertical screen arcade games comparable to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th generation consoles. The original resolution of 16 simultaneous color max arcade games on vertical monitors is 224x288. Some notations for vertical displays label the width as the height, but mark the orientation of the monitor as vertical.
Then, have two additional gaming categories for retro game clones that uses vertical screens, with varying heights. They would be for clones of games for widths of 224 which would be rounded up to 240. If a lower width resolution were needed, it would be automatically scaled down to 224. The first additional category would be for games below 32 simultaneous colors to cover for 2nd and 3rd generation gaming. The next category would be for games between 33 to 500,000 simultaneous colors for the equivalency to 4th and 5th generation gaming.
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