Install Raid for Free ✅ IOS/ANDROID/PC: clcr.me/Sharopolis_Apr23 and get a special starter pack with an Epic champion ⚡ Kellan the Shrike ⚡

The funny (or tragic?) thing about the Jaguar's 68k is that it was only there to read controller inputs. But developers who were unwilling or unable to get the most out of Tom and Jerry (the 32-bit chips) over-relied on the one familiar component they saw in the chaotic mess that was the system's architecture.

The SNES CPU breaks down 16 bit operations into two 8 bit ones. The advantage is that it doesn't have to fetch two instructions from memory... But the PC Engine's very similar CPU runs so much faster that it does 16 bit operations quicker anyway.

Back in the magazine days the PC-Engine (Turbographics 16) was called an 8 bit system by all the magazines (at least in my country). In fact, they frequently went on about how this little 8bit system had such good graphics (sometimes they called it a hybrid system, but never a flat out 16bit one).

Great video. What got me interested in how computers work was when I was 14 and my friend told me my Dreamcast wasn't 128bit but actually 32bit. My mind was blown and I refused to believe it. Sure enough he was right and I saw the world through clearer eyes ever since.

8-BIT CPU's weren't the first generation of CPU's. You're forgetting the very first CPU, the Intel 4004, which was 4-BIT.

I'm no stranger to nerding out on computers but this is the first video that finally made me understand what the hell the bits are really about! Wonderful video, cheers, mate!

IBM PC with 20-bit address bus, 16-bit data registers and 8-bit data bus: 16-bit computer Amiga with 24-bit address bus, 32-bit data registers and 16-bit data bus: 16-bit computer Either the IBM PC was an 8-bit computer or the Amiga was a 32-bit computer. It can't be both.

Basically, things started to get real complicated real fast as technology developed. In addition to data and address buses, you also have the internal processing structure: different registers holding different data sizes, and different logic/execution units and pipelines able to handle those and perform operations on them. So, you had processors doing things like 32-bit signed integer operations in one part, 64-bit floating point operations in another, SIMD operations on multiple pieces of 16-bit data, and so forth.

Seriously, your videos are some of the best tech videos I've ever seen. Every time your channel comes out with a new video, I have no choice but to at least see part of it. Keep up the good work!

Part of the reason SNK marketed the NEO-GEO as 24-bit is that in addition to the Motorola 68K it's also packing a Zilog Z80 as a coprocessor... Which is itself crazy to think about if you grew up in the era of 8-bit microcomputers. The reason for the 24-bit wide data bus and it's real claim to being a 24-bit console however is SNK's custom graphics chip.

Great explanation, thank you. All I knew growing up was 16 bit is double the bits, so that means it's good

I always enjoy the informative nature of your videos pal. I also enjoy a fellow Englishman's take on retro gaming as well. Thanks for the awesome content Sharopolis!

"This could take a while" Missed the chance to say "this could take a bit" 😂

The main differences between the various generations of game consoles really comes down the audio and video chips and what their capabilities are. The 8 bit systems were largely confined to 16 color (with rules) graphics and primitive sound chips limited to a few 8 bit "voices" The 16 bit machines were capable of displaying between 64 and hundreds of colors, often with rules. The 32 bit systems were capable of displaying hundreds of colors without rules and with primitive 3d capabilities.

Dreamcast and PS2 were the end of the "bit wars," as Dreamcast touted 128 bits, PS had to call theirs 128 because Sega did so with the DC. Though, once the DC failed, everyone seemed to forget about the bit-ness of systems, and for good reason. Bits was often associated with graphics and how good the games looked and by the time the PS2 and Xbox came around, the games looked so good, that graphics weren't leaving much of an impression on people as they once were in the 90s.

20:54 About the Neo-Geo being 24 bit: The 68000 has a 24 bit address space... And the MVS Also had an 8 bit Zilog Z80, along side the "16-bit" 68000. This is the same setup that the Sega Genesis had! The AES was basically a more powerful Sega Genesis, since the Genesis itself was just copying arcade hardware. The AES is for all intents and purposes the internals of an arcade cabinet crammed inside a console and its cartridges, which is why it resembles the Genesis. The Genesis was trying to bring the arcade into the home, and so was the AES. They both have the same design philosophy. Even funnier, is that the marketing at the time derived the 24 bit from combining the bits of the two CPUs... Which is what the Atari Jaguar got in hot water over, just some years later! The point of all this is that, even if the bits do actually matter to processing power and memory limits, how these systems were marketed was almost completely divorced from the actual specs of the machines.

Aw, you’re back! Fantastic! You’ve quickly turned into my favourite channel, um, person, mate. Brilliant how you explain all this stuff to us non-techies and make sense of it all.

I feel at least twice as educated (and confused) than before I fired up this video 🤣 Fantastic production! Thanks for putting in the research and time to whip up this masterpiece!

I believe that most n64 games executed in 32 bit mode to reduce the memory requirements. The system used unified RAMBUS memory that had high latency and the object of contention between all the various processors. Best to keep the data footprint as light as possible to keep things from choking.

Raid shadow legends only on its 4th year but it feels like 8 years of ads

Regarding the '8-bit computer' generation, there was one notable exception during then as the TI-99 had a 16-bit CPU; albeit a pitful one (TMS9900).

Unexpected Big Car cameo at 1:19! Love his videos. 😊 Also, that chirping noise in the background around 4:12 is driving me crazy... lol

Atari Jaguar fans are going to have strong words about this lol 🤣. It has some pretty good games though.

The 386sx CPU used in low cost PC's at the time was a 32bit CPU with a 16 bit bus. Effectively a souped up 286

18:30 It's very interesting point! HuС6280 is slower per cycle than 68000 in MegaDrive, but it is much much more efficient per clock and actually better in performance. And more - GPU of PC Engine slightly worse in capabilities that MegaDrive's GPU, but SuperGrafx version is much much better in capabilities than any "16 bit" system. It's actually amazing how HudsonSoft designed that system. It's very unique artifact of that era.

N64 was much more capable then playstation, but it got screwed over by how small texture cache was and by RAM latency. That meant, devs had to use much lower resolution textures and relly on antialiasing build in. Also it did not help that cartridges were limited in capacity in compare of CD.

The SNES' Ricoh 65C816 clone CPU is 8bit in the same way the Intel 8088 is 8bit, which is to say it isn't but with the caveat of being bottlenecked by the bus when performing 16bit operations. If it crunches 16bit numbers natively without having to write an emulator in software, it's a 16bit CPU, even if it has to spit out only half of that 16 bit value at a time.

What if in an alternate timeline, video games first came out in 1980? With 8-Bit as the 1st Gen. And every console Gen was 5-years long? Like 16-Bits in 1985, 32-Bits in 1990, and 64-Bits in 64-Bit in 1995, 128-Bit in 2000, and 256-Bit in 2005? And if game companies retired from consoles in 2010 in favor of mobile devices?

As always, a very informative video! Now I want to see how CPUs get produced... Interesting stuff!

Thank you for mentioning Intellivision! It’s almost always the forgotten 16-bit console.

This is really informative. Rather than being either on the side of just using the bit terminology or being on the side of saying that that terminology is all useless, you give some info about some of the things that it can refer to, and how these designations can be shorthand for the generations but most system architecture did not strictly fit into those definitions. Thanks!

"Bits" is generally just a marketing term. CPUs do fall into groups, but tend to share more in common with others by the same people or with related architectures than they do with others with the same number of bits. The NES and SNES, while one is "8/[21?/16]/8-bit" and the other "16/24/8-bit," are actually very closely related. Meanwhile the original Gameboy's CPU, an old "8/[25?/16]/8-bit" one is technically a very distant cousin to the "64/[39/48]/256-bit" beast that I play most games with nowadays. The question marks are because I wanted to include both the virtual and physical address busses of the x86_64 processor, which made me remember how mappers work rather similar to paging and so could be argued to act like an extended physical address bus, even if they're not within the CPUs themselves.

Came in confused. Left slightly less confused...

"Bit Wars, 64 bits, 32 bits, 16 bits, 8 bits, 4 bits, 2 bits, 1 bit, half bit, quarter bit, the WRIST GAME!" - AVGN

That's why it's more effective to make your own version of a processor ( custom design) and add operating and execution modes and memory addressing modes. That console has an 8-bit processor but it's specifically designed to handle all the functions of your video system. Any company can go out and find the best processor on the market and the best graphics card on the market and never take advantage of all the capabilities because neither the processor nor the video card were made to be one with the other. I just want to someone prove me that putting a 32 bits CPU with NES PPU will result on better graphics.

I enjoyed the video but was surprised that you didn't mention the Atari ST which, if memory serves, is so named because it has a 16/32 (ST) bit 68000 processor.

So many Computers and game consoles had so many variables and differences between the 80's up until now. You can have a 32 bit or 64 bit processor- but if the clock speed is slow, memory is shared, databus is limited, bus speed is slow- that wouldn't matter. I've had 486's with more memory, higher clock speed shorter databus and on a better board that would beat a Pentium chip at certain tasks like playing doom or duke nukem. Data rate, speed, interrupts, memory, storage, input and output matter.

Commodore 64 was the first 64 Bit computer. That's a fact.

The N64 is 100% driven by a 64-bit CPU. The software, on the other hand, was almost entirely written in 32-bit. Still, it was able to make games like Super Mario 64 and Zelda that the PS1 couldn't touch.

I'd like a documentary on why the PS2 seemed a rather lax system in the early days against the Dreamcast and how it ended up being the most amazing console and best selling console of all time. How did the PS2 go from a lame also ran console to something that suddenly brought us God of War 2, GTA V, MGS 2? When the PS2 came out I wasn't even that excited for it. It even got better games than the GC and Xbox for the most part, and then suddenly shrank to the slim profile. Running Burnout 2 or GOW2 on a console that is 1/8th the size of the Xbox is just amazing.

Even though I have a pretty well-rounded understanding of computer hardware I learned a lot from this video. I've always defined a system's class based on the size of it's Data Bus and just looking at the specs of the 65C816 it's really not all that different from the Z80 or 6509 except it's Address Bus is accessible via 24-Bits instead of 16. So knowing this now confirms something I heard the other day in that the SNES' design began back in early 1987 and was slated for release in 1989 but got delayed by 1 year due to chip shortages in 1988. So really by the time we got Super Nintendo in 1991, what we perceived as cutting edge technology at the time was almost outdated. Also makes sense why Nintendo teamed up with Argonaut to conceive of the Super FX chip to persue 3D Graphics. It's interesting how Co-Processors extended the life of the SNES just like how MMC's extended the life of the NES.

The PS5 is a 2048-bit console😅😅😅 Still remember when magazines hyped up the Dreamcast and PS2 as 128-bit systems. Those were the days!

Pretty sure most single core processors up to a certain point would all be classed as 32 bit at maximum anyway and probably the first console to use a 64 bit ones was the Xbox 360. Which is probably why it was dropped in marketing when things like the dreamcast came out.

Thank you for explaining so well how all the console war arm chair commentators and pundits trying to take a shot at the PC Engine are just talking nonsense.

@6:00 yes, it does. Unless you're doing bank switching on the memory side. The cpu literally has no way to know about any other memory unless it had a larger internal memory space, even if bank switching on the memory side you're just overwriting part of the existing 16bit space and you can't even overwrite all of it because you would crash and bank switching on the memory side means some sort of processor on the memory side that knows when to switch banks which is how it works in gaming carts generally when the game needs storage beyond available in the cpus address space or available address lines. and modern cpus actually only have like 48 bit for memory even if the virtual address space for everything is 64bit.

can't help but think of the AVGN bit (err) when he gets angry over bits (I think it was from the tiger electronics ep)

Nintendo 64 is quite a fun beast in terms of "bits", it use 1,4,8,9,15,16,18,32,64 and 128bits in it's hardware, with 64bit being the less useful of em.

My first computer was a Ti994a.. That was 16 bit.. With a huge frickin asterisk

Well, the z80 has a 4bit ALU. And no one calls it a 4bit processor. Like wise, the 68k has FULL 32bit support.. registers, operations, etc. FULL. And yet no one refers to it as a 32bit processor (for which is really is).

Ken vs. Earthquake!? WTF! (great video, as always)

7:12, wow, what model/revision of Mega Drive is that? I only know of Model 1 VA0-VA6.8 with the DIP 68000, and Model 1 VA7 and Model 2s with the QFP 68000.

Great informative video. Really made it clear to me how CPUs actually work in terms of bits :D

The whole video I thought someone was cracking granite with a pickaxe in the other room. Anyone else hear that in the left channel?

0:01 THE WRIST GAME, QUARTER BIT, HALF BIT, 1 BIT, 2 bits, 4 bits, 8 bits, 16 bits, 32 bits, 64 bits

There's a retro gaming festival in the US called '64bits or less' :)

21:50 It also had a special 32 bit CPU too.... but that's still 32 bit..... and I'm not entirely sure what the heck it was....

When it comes to retro style games I always felt being made now should be done as like it was being made on a 32 bit cartridge machine with some custom chips

Back when the Gamecube came out, it was common playground knowledge that it was a 128-bit system. It had to be. Anything else was going, backwards, right?

I tried fixing my C64, now it's 100 bits....in a box....in the loft.

Me in the early 90's school playground -'hey you 8 bit peasants,I've got an Amiga.who wants to come to my house and play shadow of the beast on my 16 bit monster and have your minds blown?'

I miss the old days where we used to play games on one bit computers. There was only one button and the interactions were in person. Now kids these days break windows and eat their neighbors pets with their pocket calculators. Too many damn bits, I say. I'd say the everything went to the devil when those little boxes started capturing souls and we knew it because anyone in them had the color drained from them. Now we have singing porcupines and angry birds that coax you into giving your banking information and reward you with tokens you can't even buy a dodo feather to wipe your ass with. Now plumbers are the rage but don't even honor a pinky swear cus they got three fingers and a thumb that they hide in gloves they stole from Mickey's hole. Times were simpler when you just did your business out the window and you didn't have to concern yourself with a couple plumbers burstin through your toilet to steal gloves, coins and fungi after they stomp on your pets and kidnap your daughter. Despite what the video games say, you got but one heart and there ain't enough bloodletting a man can do to get it back to normal after so much abuse. That's just my two bits on the consequential relationship society has with video games and the events they captured and distributed to youngsters like the baby boomers and beyond. After Charlie Chaplin had his soul stolen he can be quoted saying

My colloquial memory of this era regarding bits was that by the mid-late 90s, the Playstation which hadn't touted 32 or 64 bits or whatever, it just didn't matter anymore. And I think it was that the supposed 32-bit era was so underwhelming, the games weren't memorable.

Err: Ok, yes, you did mention that. My bad!

13:00 very brave to let that soundtrack play even in the background. CH is notorious for copyright on his Turrican stuff.

Never realized the NES and SNES both used 6502 designs. Funny how Nintendo considered one 8 and the other 16bit 😅

The "bit" thing really was only relevant during the NES/Genesis days (debatably the PS1/Saturn era). While it made sense to categorize hardware by bits back then, it has absolutely no relevance today as the data Bus on the CPU either doesn't even exist or isn't as important as other stuff. It was just a method to categorize a video game generation that really only took into account two generations of hardware, but incorrectly assumed how generations of hardware would improve in the future. The all mighty 128 bit emotion engine (it probably wasn't 128 bit anyway) in the PS2 sounded super powerful, but the Xbox with its puny 32bit processor was easily much more powerful.

Was the 8-bit question about the 16-bit console bait? 'Cause I totally fell for it.

The Intellivision is my favourite 16 bit machine ^_^

Lovely explaination, thanks!

Going by how Sony said the PS2 was 128 bit due to the EE's ability to use 128 bit SIMD instructions then modern PC's with an Intel Sandy Bridge (Core 2nd Gen) or newer CPU or AMD Bulldozer or Ryzen CPU are all 256 bit machines as they support AVX which can process 256 bit SIMD instructions. Some high end desktop and server class CPUs support AVX-512 which using that logic would make them 512 bit CPUs. Does anyone ever talk about them that way? No, cause it's a load of BS. But if it were up to gaming companies they probably would try to talk them up that way!

This is the best explanation on the subject I've ever seen

Another great video on the bit wars of the 90s

19:17 $uperChase HQ

What's the name of the game at 24:41? I have been looking for that game for years. I thought I had imagined it.

The term bits in game consoles is really just shorthand for generation. "Bits" as used by lay people just doesn't make any sense. Also, the "bits" doesn't double with the number of bits. Every bit doubles (9bit is double 8) . it doesn't help that all of the "8-bit" systems have 16 bit address buses.

Excellent 'Jargon' busting,,,,you did!

Another great video, keep them coming!!

Jagu-aaarrrr. Good video.

Doesn't matter how many bits you console had, as long as it had Blast Processing. ;-)

One thing that you can to this day tell by the BIT number is graphics cards(kindof). They usually have the BIT number listed in the speck sheet but its about memory bus width. How many bits can the GPU pull from the graphics ram in one clock cycle. The higher the number for a specific type of ram the faster the GPU can use the ram. It depends on the ram though. A 512bit gddr3 memory graphics card like a 260 is waaaaay slower then a 384bit GDDR6x card like a 3080. But if you compare 2 GDDR6 cards with 256 or 384(most top tier cards), the higher one will do better even if the other specs are similar. AMD and Nvidia can tweak these numbers along with the shader core count and ram type, to dial in the exact performance for price. These company's have shipped cards with gimped ram bitrates and sold crap preforming cards. TLDR; If your looking at two used 3060s and one has a higher bit memory, pick that one.

32 bits isn't really a category is because the number of CPU bits stopped being a limit, same with GPUs. However everyone has become Bit-brained, and we've grown to care too much about marketing buzz

prolly better to call things by generation like 4th gen and 5th gen

Nintendo said it's GameCube was a 128-bit system too, you may have already mentioned it though. My memory is dreadful these days!

This whole comment is 504-bit. It's more powerful than my PS2!

Oh God, the comment section is going to be fun. Personally I go with the most restricted main bus like memory. But I can see why some people go with the fastest internal cpu bus.

In conclusion: it's complicated.

They all lied to me, I feel betrayed. 😥

THE WRIST GAMES!

Does that mean that 16-bit console can easy play games from 8-bit console?

What's the space shooter at 24:55 called?

I thought the Nintendo 64 must have 64MB of ram when I was a kid.

Excellent overview, thank you for your work!

Love the cameo by big car

Well if games are programmed to use the AVX512 vector extensions you can call it a 512 bit game.

Wouldn't the highest number just be the same as the busrate of the gpu therefor the bit it gamesystem stands for the gpu 's bandwidth ?

Great video.

SNES wasnt 16bit ?! Im writing to nintendo right now - and demanding a refund.

11:15 what's the name of the game, please? I'm sure I played this as a wee boy. Thanks

15:00 name of the game is?