| PC-FX | |
 |
|
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | NEC |
| Type | Video game console |
| Generation | Fifth generation era |
| First available | JP December 23, 1994 |
| CPU | NEC V810 |
| Media | CD-ROM |
| Predecessor | PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 |
The PC-FX is a video game console released in Japan on December 23, 1994 by NEC Corporation. A console manufacturer is a company that manufactures and distributes Video game consoles It is also known as a first-party Video game publisher. is a Japanese multinational IT company headquartered in Minato Tokyo, Japan. Video games were introduced as a commercial entertainment medium in 1971, becoming the basis for an important entertainment industry in the late 1970s/early 1980s in the United The fifth-generation era (more commonly known as the 32 bit era and occasionally after the release of the Nintendo 64, the 64 bit era and more rarely For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Events 962 - Byzantine-Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city Year 1994 ( MCMXCIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar) CD-ROM (an initialism of "Compact Disc Read-Only Memory " is a pre-pressed Compact Disc that contains data accessible to but not writable The, known as TurboGrafx-16 in the USA is a Video game console developed by the Nippon Electric Company (NEC and released in Japan on October For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Events 962 - Byzantine-Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city Year 1994 ( MCMXCIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar) is a Japanese multinational IT company headquartered in Minato Tokyo, Japan. It is the 32-bit successor to NEC's PC Engine (US name:TurboGrafx-16). The range of Integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4294967295 or −2147483648 through 2147483647 using Two's complement encoding The, known as TurboGrafx-16 in the USA is a Video game console developed by the Nippon Electric Company (NEC and released in Japan on October
The PC-FX uses CD-ROMs as its storage medium, following on from the expansion released for its predecessor, which originally used HuCards. CD-ROM (an initialism of "Compact Disc Read-Only Memory " is a pre-pressed Compact Disc that contains data accessible to but not writable A HuCard is a Memory card developed by Hudson Soft. It is the size of a Credit card and is used with the NEC PC Engine and SuperGrafx The game controller resembles that of the Sega Genesis in shape, only with more buttons and it virtually identical to a DUO-RX controller except for the fact that the rapid fire switches have been changed into mode A/B switches. A game controller is an Input device used to control a Video game. The is a 16-bit Video game console released by Sega in Japan in 1988 North America in 1989 and the PAL region in 1990
The PC-FX's computer-like design was unusual for consoles at the time. It stands upright like a tower computer while other contemporary consoles lay flat. Another interesting feature is its three expansion ports, as expansion ports are relatively underused in consoles and therefore their inclusion increased the price without offering a great deal to the end user. However it was one of the first consoles to feature an optional mouse which made strategy games like Farland Story FX and Power Dolls FX more accessible to play on TV. is part of a long set of games popular in China Korea and Japan POWER DoLLS Detachment of Limited Line Service is a Turn-based tactics Video game.
Unlike nearly any other console in history, the PC-FX was also available as an internal PC card in PC-98 and DOS flavors. DOS, short for "Disk Operating System" is a shorthand term for several closely related Operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market This PC card came with 2 CDs of software to help you program games for the PC-FX. Which would have been a wonderful idea except for the fact that the PC card version included the never released 3D chip for the PC-FX, making it virtually impossible to use it to make a game that will actually run on the PC-FX. Although games created on it can still produce a 2D boot screen on the PC-FX, taunting users with what could have been.
Contents |
History
The PC-FX was designed based on a new 32-bit development kit by NEC called "Iron Man". Iron Man was designed in 1992, while the PC Engine was still quite popular in Japan. It was around the time of the first running demonstration units in mid 1992 that NEC started discussing an imminent release of an Iron Man based system with its many third party developers. Many PC Engine developers seemed upset and uninterested since the PC Engine market was still growing, and as a result NEC halted work on the Iron Man and continued making modifications to the PC Engine. By 1993 the 32-bit 3DO platform was released with much developer interest and Sega and Sony let it be known that the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation would be ready for the Japanese marketplace in late 1994, and Bandai was also readying the release of their 32-bit Playdia system. 3DO Interactive Multiplayer (often called simply 3DO) was a Video game console originally produced by Panasonic in. is a multinational Video game Software and Hardware development company and a former Home computer is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest Media conglomerates with The is a 32-bit Video game console that was first released on November 22 1994 in Japan, May 11 1995 in North America The PlayStation (abbreviated PS, PSone, PS1, or informally as PSX) is a 32-bit fifth generation Video game console is a Japanese Toy making company as well as the producer of a large number of Plastic model kits The is a 8-bit Video game console. It was released exclusively in Japan in 1994 at the initial price of ¥24800 Now in a rush to keep the large development base that made the PC Engine so successful, NEC had to make a decision. Rather than spending the time to develop a new, more powerful platform capable of standing up to their competitors, they decided to utilize the now dated 32-bit Iron Man architecture in the PC-FX. The result was that NEC wound up with a severely underpowered system that failed to impress either developers or consumers, failed to release the 3D expansion, and ultimately led to its demise.
The shining quality of the PC-FX however was the ability to decompress 30 JPEG pictures per second while playing digitally recorded audio. This resulted in the PC-FX having superior FMV quality over all other fifth generation consoles. In fact, at times while watching the intros to games or the movies during them, it is easy to find yourself forgetting just how underpowered the PC-FX is. It wasn't until 1998 that FMV on the PlayStation really pulled ahead of the PC-FX, and even then, the PC-FX probably still has superior motion quality. The PlayStation (abbreviated PS, PSone, PS1, or informally as PSX) is a 32-bit fifth generation Video game console
As the PC-FX struggled, NEC became far more liberal than most companies with regard to the titles that it allowed to be released for the platform in an attempt to get whatever development support they could. As a result, the PC-FX has gained quite a reputation for its abundance of hentai and dating simulation titles. is a Japanese word that in the West is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation particularly Japanese Anime, Dating sims (or dating simulations) are a Video game subgenre of Simulation games usually Japanese with romantic elements It also though has some standard action games and a good number of RPGs and strategy games as well, but most games require a fair amount of Japanese knowledge to play or patience. An action game is a game that challenges a player's speed dexterity and reaction time A Strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal, most often "winning However most games feature digital speech, for nearly all the dialog or all of it, which may make it easier for those with limited Japanese knowledge to enjoy the heaping doses of plot and humor contained in nearly every game.
Software
- See also: List of PC-FX games
There were 62 games released for the system. This is a complete list of all 62 games released for the NEC PC-FX Video game console The launch titles were Graduation 2: Neo Generation FX, Battle Heat and Team Innocent on December 23, 1994 and the final game released was First Kiss Story on April 24, 1998. Events 962 - Byzantine-Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city Year 1994 ( MCMXCIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar) First Kiss Story is a romance Visual novel developed by HuneX. Events 1479 BC - Thutmose III ascends to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifts to Hatshepsut (according to Year 1998 ( MCMXCVIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar) The system and all titles were only released in Japan. A number of demo discs were also released with publications which allowed the user to play the disc in a CD equipped PC-Engine or the PC-FX.
There was no copy protection on any of the PC-FX games because at the time the system was released, the several thousand dollars a CD-R burner cost and the ten to twenty dollars per blank CD made piracy prohibitive for most owners.
The game graphics are usually like high quality SNES games or average quality Playstation 2D games. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System or Super NES (also called SNES and Super Nintendo) is a 16-bit Video game console that was The PlayStation (abbreviated PS, PSone, PS1, or informally as PSX) is a 32-bit fifth generation Video game console The still pictures in the dating simulation and visual novel games are often better quality than later made Playstation ports. Dating sims (or dating simulations) are a Video game subgenre of Simulation games usually Japanese with romantic elements A is an Interactive fiction game featuring mostly static graphics usually with Anime -style art The PlayStation (abbreviated PS, PSone, PS1, or informally as PSX) is a 32-bit fifth generation Video game console The full motion fighting games might be the most responsive all FMV or LD like games that have ever been made. Nearly every game has hand animated FMV sequences and word for word speech to the text. The one 2D shooter and the one 2D action-fighter game have very large sprites which take up over half the screen, some graphical blurring effects and use FMV in the background at times! So while the PC-FX often gets branded as an underpowered system, the system does have games which take advantage of its qualities. The PC-FX also had a few action and shooting games.
Each game disc has a feature that when the PC-FX internal memory no longer has enough space to save one game or to create a save file at boot, a picture is displayed with a verbal and text error message telling you about this problem. Most of the companies made very custom message screens and it can be fun to fill up the memory and try out each game.
Technical specifications
- CPU
- 32-Bit NEC V810 RISC running at 21. 5 MHz, 15. 5 MIPS
- CD-ROM Drive
- 2X CD-ROM, 300KB / Sec
- Memory
- 2 MB main RAM
- 1 MB shared RAM (for background generators, CD-ROM DMA, motion decoder, and ADPCM)
- 256 KB dedicated VRAM (for HuC6270 chips)
- 1 MB OS ROM
- 256 KB CD Buffer
- 32 KB back-up RAM
- Video
- Maximum On-screen colors: 16,777,000
- Resolutions: 256x240p, 320x240p, 256x480i, 320x480i
- 6 background layers
- 2 sprite layers
- 1 motion decoder layer generated from RLE-encoded or JPEG-like data
- Video out: Composite and S-Video
- Sound
- 16-Bit Stereo CD-DA
2 ADPCM channels at up to ~31. Super Video or Separated Video abbreviated S-Video and also known as Y/C is an analog video signal that carries the video data as two separate Red Book is the standard for audio CDs ( Compact Disc Digital Audio system or CDDA) 5 kHz with left/right panning
6 5-bit sample channels with left/right panning - Audio out: × 2 RCA
- Expansion Ports
- SCSI IO Expansion Slot x 1(Rear), Backup RAM - FX-BMP Card Slot x 1 (Front), 3D VPU Expansion Slot x 1 (Bottom)
- Input Devices
- FX-PAD - 6 Button Controller , FX-MOU - 2 Button Mouse
- Accessories
- FX-BMP - 128KB+ Backup RAM Card with x 2 AAA batteries, FX-SCSI - Adaptor allows a PC to use the PC-FX as a 2X SCSI CD-ROM
References
See also
External links
- Pcenginefx PC-FX World - informational resource for the PC-FX
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic