MS3 uses only 30fps?

Usually I find MS3 with awesome animation... but i feel that something was wrong...
Compared with other games the movement (not the animation) look not as smooth... I believed that's fault of my TV...
Yesterday I've tried it in my new sony TV and i feel the same. While the animation is superb the sprite's movement was less smooth than other games.
Then I decided to download the rom and check this in my PC and I've find the problem.
Using the Shots Factory of NeorageX i've notice that the screen "changes" every 2 frames. So it actually simulates 30FPS instead 60FPS like the other games (Check out Aereo Fighters to see smooth movements compared with MS3 for example)
Is that a way to avoid the slowdown (If the scene don't change every frame it could free some CPU)

Don't understand this? Well. Here's an example. Imagine that a bullet must advanced at the same speed and it must reach the same target in a machine running under 60fps and other running at 30. With 60fps it will advance 2 pixels each frame. But with 30FPS it will advance 3 or 4 pixels each time so the movement is more rough... and the eyes notice it, believe me ("Hum... something look wrong" )

Sounds like a good idea to me... I don't really notice the difference in smoothness, but with the limited slowdown, I don't care at all. MS2 is sooooo good, but it was really plagued by slowdown and flicker... MS3, still some flicker issues, but man, they got it running so nice! If it takes cheating, oh well, I'll take it,

-Nick

Si,la animacion de los metal slug va a 30.Ten en cuenta que mover semejante cantidad de bloques graficos y sprites(para colmo tan detallados)es literalmente imposible.Aun me pregunto como pudieron hacer para mover esos scrolls en el metal 3.
Las ralentizaciones son algo intrinseco a esta saga...De todas formas el 3 es el mas suave de toda la saga,y,para mi,el mejor de los 5.

Sorruy, but if they are using the toolkbox correctly, then the Neo Geo *IS* doing a 30 frame per second animation. Since you said it's doing an animation every 2 frames, that means its doing a 15 fps, NOT 30. You simply CANNOT GET 60 fps out of the Neo Geo. It would also be fairly impossible for the TV system since it is running at 30 frames locked in for the arcade sytstem, and dropped down to 29.97 drop frame for NTSC compatibility.

Part of the toolbox is a low level call which updates the clock, checks and assigns I/O bits and works some video bits. This call is on the interrupt and is done 30 times a second.

That's really interesting cause to me MS3 looks like it's moving really smoothly. Does it actually use a lower framerate? It seems like 15 frames per second would be really low, at least by today's standards. Reviewers seem to go nuts if anything falls below 60 fps.

15... 30... 60...

Who cares?

The game is a beauty <img src="graemlins/drool2.gif" border="0" alt="[Drool 2]" />

It doesn't matter at all, I just thought it was interesting if that was one way they got rid of slowdown, because I can't even tell. It looks so good anyways.

The human eye only works with 24 fps. So 30 is still enough for smooth animation.

But compare the movements in the shooter part inside the spaceship with the scroll of any other vertical shooter in neo... then you'll notice that it's not as smoother than others...

The question is about same league as how many sprites phantasy star online on dreamcast uses. You can count framerates only on polygon based games ( usually 3d ). Each motion in 2d games are hand-drawn pictures and it varies almost all different moving objects while they are same time on screen ( bosses for example ). Scrolling smoothness is a bit different becouse often the faster background scrolls the jerkier it looks just like the level you said in slug 3. So forget all about framerates in neogeo games, its just how many pictures artists have drawn. Garou looks smoother than fatal fury 1, you bet !