multiple cpu machines Re: rogues galleries

 --- Adrian Burgess <classiccmpdiscordance.org.uk> 
wrote: 
> On Wed, Nov 29, 2006 at 09:22:02AM -0500, Bryan Po
pe
> wrote:
> > 
> > Speaking of game consoles, there are also quite 
a
> few arcade boards 
> > that use multiple CPUs.
> > 
> 
> As far as games consoles with multiple CPUs the Se
ga
> Saturn has quite a few -
> 2xHitachi SH2, 1xHitachi SH1 (CD controller),
> 1x68000 (sound controller),
> and a couple of DSPs (no idea how accessible to th
e
> developer these are) -
> this ended up in the arcades as the Sega ST-V boar
d.
> 

SH1 was the CD controller? I thought it handled
the sprites?

The SH2's handled the polygon output (250,000
each) of 500,000 polygons per second.

The board was nicknamed the "Titan" board
and was still used well into the late 90's
despite being superceded graphically by all
of Sega's Model 1 & 2 boards (and Model 3
board in 1998/9).
However, due to it's mastery of 2D and 3D
it was used on many arcade games (sorry,
can't name any now, been too long since I
last spoke about this board).


Regards,
Andrew B
aliensrcoolukyahoo.co.uk

On Wed, Nov 29, 2006 at 05:30:29PM -0600, aliensrcoolukyahoo.co.uk wrote:
> 
> SH1 was the CD controller? I thought it handled
> the sprites?
> 
> The SH2's handled the polygon output (250,000
> each) of 500,000 polygons per second.

The SH-1 was definitely in the CD-ROM subsystem - whether it
could also be
used for other purposes I don't know.  As far as the SH-2's
being used for
polygon output, wasn't that the job of the VDPs (the
videochips - again two
of them, but both were different, and given different tasks
- the VDP1 is
the main chip that does the polygons/sprites, and the VDP2
does
"backgrounds" and the video output itself ( I
think these are like the old
SNES Mode 7 type backgrounds)?  The SH-2's would obviously
have to do the
maths though, but I think they were somewhat limited by
being on a shared
bus so they had to take turns on accessing main memory or
the support chips.
There are PDFs of the official Saturn developer docs out
there - should be
easy to find via Google, and they explain stuff somewhat
better than me  

> 
> The board was nicknamed the "Titan" board
> and was still used well into the late 90's
> despite being superceded graphically by all
> of Sega's Model 1 & 2 boards (and Model 3
> board in 1998/9).
> However, due to it's mastery of 2D and 3D
> it was used on many arcade games (sorry,
> can't name any now, been too long since I
> last spoke about this board).

There's a list on this site : http://ww
w.system16.com/hardware.php?id=711
- it's also got information on a lot of other arcade boards.