Namco System 22

The Namco System 22 is the successor to the Namco System 21 arcade system board. It debuted in 1992 with Sim Drive in Japan, followed by a worldwide debut in 1993 with Ridge Racer.

Overview

The System 22 was designed by Namco with assistance from graphics & simulation company Evans & Sutherland. While the System 21 hardware design had the main CPU provide a scene description to a bank of DSP chips which perform all necessary 3D calculations, much of the graphics in the System 22 is now handled by the Evans & Sutherland 'TR3' (Texture Mapping, Real-Time, Real-Visual, Rendering System) GPU chipset.

It was the first arcade system board to feature texture mapping, and it could handle Gouraud shading, transparency effects, and depth cueing, as well as anti-aliasing.

According to Namco America, the twin seat Ridge Racer arcade unit sold to distribution for $11,995.00 in 1993, equivalent to $19,583 in 2014. In Europe, the Ridge Racer Full Scale deluxe unit cost £150,000 for arcade operators upon release, equivalent to £260,312 or $411,895 in 2014.

An improved version of the board, called the Super System 22, was released in 1995. Both were contemporaneous with rival Sega's Model 1 and Model 2 arcade boards.

System 22 Specifications

• Board composition: Motherboard, CPU board, DSP board, MROM board, Flash ROM board, Video board
• Main CPU: Motorola 68020 @ 24.576 MHz
  • Fixed-point arithmetic: 32-bit instructions @ 7.6 MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second)
  • Floating-point performance: 0.19 MFLOPS (Million Floating-point Operations Per Second)
• + Custom Namco chips

Graphics

• 2D GPU: Namco Custom Video chipset (C300, C304, C305 Palette, C335)
  • Display resolution: 640x480 pixels, 59.9042 Hz refresh rate, progressive scan
  • Color depth: 16,777,216 colors (24-bit true color)
  • 2D layers: Sprite layer with zooming, tilemap layer, character text layer
• 3D GPU: Evans & Sutherland TR3 (Texture Mapping, Real-Time, Real-Visual, Rendering System)
  • Performance: 400 MFLOPS
  • 3D capabilities: Texture mapping, Gouraud shading, translucency effects, depth-cueing, fog effects, tiled rendering, T&L (transform, clipping, lighting), Z-buffering, anti-aliasing, translucency effects, high-resolution textures
• 3D DSP: 2× Texas Instruments TMS32025 @ 49.152 MHz (exact number of DSPs may vary)
  • Fixed-point arithmetic: 16-bit & 32-bit instructions @ 49.152 MIPS (24.576 MIPS per DSP, 0.5 MIPS per MHz)
  • Floating-point arithmetic: 16-bit & 32-bit operations @ 504,103 FLOPS (252,051.5 FLOPS per DSP, 5128 FLOPS per MHz)
  • Note: Exact number of DSP processors may vary
• Geometric performance: More than 240,000 quad polygons per second (with texture mapping and Gouraud shading) (higher with Super System 22)

Sound

• Sound CPU:
  • System 22: 2× Namco C74 (16-bit Mitsubishi M37702) @ 16.4 MHz
  • Super System 22: Mitsubishi M37710 @ 16.4 MHz
• Sound chip: Namco C352 @ 16.4 MHz
  • Capabilities: 32 channels, 42 kHz sampling rate, 8-bit linear PCM, 8-bit muLaw PCM
• Audio output: Stereo (standard), 4-channel Bose surround (deluxe)

Super System 22 Specifications

The Namco Super System 22, released in 1995, includes the following upgrades:

• 3D capabilities: More special effects
• Geometric performance: More than 240,000 quad polygons per second (with texture mapping and Gouraud shading)
• 2D sprite layer: Zooming & rotation
• Sound CPU: Mitsubishi M37710 (16-bit MCU) @ 16.384 MHz

List of System 22 Games

• Sim Drive (1992, limited release)
• Ridge Racer (1993)
• Ace Driver (1994)
• Ridge Racer 2 (1994)
• Cyber Commando (1995)
• Rave Racer (1995)
• Ace Driver: Victory Lap (1996)

List of Super System 22 Games

• Air Combat 22 (1995)
• Alpine Racer (1995)
• Cyber Cycles (1995)
• Dirt Dash (1995)
• Time Crisis (1995)
• Alpine Racer 2 (1996)
• Alpine Surfer (1996)
• Aqua Jet (1996)
• Prop Cycle (1996)
• Tokyo Wars (1996)
• Armadillo Racing (1997)
• Downhill Bikers (1997)

External Links

• System 22 at System16 - The Arcade Museum