New fanmade Star Fox demo works without Super FX chip

In the early ’90s, the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive and Super Nintendo Entertainment System were the head honchos of gaming that debuted iconic games like Star Fox, which benchmarked the ceiling of accelerated 3D gaming on SNES. Decades later, we have a new fan made technical demo that manages to port Star Fox to the SEGA Genesis without the integral Super FX chip that powered the incredible visuals and dogfighting within the game. 

Thanks to homebrew developer Gasega68k, who has ported other titles such as F-Zero and Wolfenstein 3D, fans got proof of Star Fox working on the Genesis. On the surface, this feat might seem small. But porting the game has been an issue because it couldn’t work correctly without the Super FX chip. Despite lacking AI collision and particle effects, the demo shows fully-functional gameplay identical to the SNES version:

Gasega68k TweetSo, what’s the Super FX chip?

Essentially, it’s a co-processor that buffed up select SNES consoles to advance the visual fidelity of 2D and 3D graphics. Argonaut Games designed the Super FX chip and ironically helped develop Star Fox with Nintendo to showcase polygon rendering capabilities. In the end, there weren’t enough Super FX-based games due to high manufacturing costs and increased development time. By matching their scarcity, Super FX games became higher-priced titles – unlike other SNES games.

While an older title, Star Fox kickstarted plenty of 3D success for gaming. It’s great to see it still being cherished and ported around – even if it’s a technical port to other systems.  

Via: Nintendo Wire

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