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[A Black Falcon]

Ah I thought the Megadrive was in a top position along with SNES then.

What do you mean, you thought the MD did well in Japan? Uh, no, it did quite badly. As I said, it finished third, far behind the PCE, which in turn by the end was far behind the SFC. In fact, some people speculate that Sega of Japan's jealousy that the Western divisions were successful while they were not might have spurred them into making some of their worst decisions, most notably the disaster that was the Saturn's design and Western launch... "design a system that will do better in the home market and ignore overseas, even though almost all of our sales are overseas" was not a good strategy, and it backfired badly. Of course though they made a bunch of other mistakes too, but that was one of them.

Oh yeah, and the idea to make a 32X also came from Japan first. Sega of America approved of the idea, unfortunately, and helped design the system, but the idea that the Genesis needed another addon came from there first.

On that note, this interview, one of Sega-16's more recent ones, is pretty interesting... you can almost hear Joe Miller's tortured defenses of the 32X, because he just doesn't quite want to admit that this system he designed was a bad idea and should never have been released... http://www.sega-16.com/2013/02/interview-joe-miller/

(Oh, if anyone wants to know more about Western Genesis development... uh, go read Sega-16's interviews, like, yesterday! For instance, the most recent one, with Kevin Seghetti (just done a few days ago; this is an ongoing thing) is quite detail-heavy. He worked on bad (Genesis) games like Technocop and Ballz 3D, but has a lot of interesting stuff to say... http://www.sega-16.com/2013/03/interview-kevin-seghetti/ They have dozens of interviews now. http://www.sega-16.com/features-2/?pgno=4#char_49 )

Definitely going to go after Gleylancer, Eliminate Down, and others at some point.

Gleylancer at least you can get on Wii VC... it's the only import shmup for the system that's there, but it is, and that's a lot cheaper than getting the cart. Of course it's in Japanese, unfortunately (there is a translation patch, but they didn't include that fan patch here), but still, better than nothing.

As for Eliminate Down, it's a great, great game; it's probably my second favorite shmup for the system, after only Lightening Force... it's really too bad that it's so rare and expensive.

There are some other import-only shmups too, though. Those two are the best, but they aren't the only ones.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

What do you mean, you thought the MD did well in Japan? Uh, no, it did quite badly. As I said, it finished third, far behind the PCE, which in turn by the end was far behind the SFC. In fact, some people speculate that Sega of Japan's jealousy that the Western divisions were successful while they were not might have spurred them into making some of their worst decisions, most notably the disaster that was the Saturn's design and Western launch... "design a system that will do better in the home market and ignore overseas, even though almost all of our sales are overseas" was not a good strategy, and it backfired badly. Of course though they made a bunch of other mistakes too, but that was one of them.

No 32-bit Sonic definitely didn't help either.

 

[A Black Falcon]

No 32-bit Sonic definitely didn't help either.

That's true, though that wouldn't have mattered much in Japan, where Sonic never had been as popular. That's likely one reason why they allowed there to be no new Japanese-developed Sonic game that generation, it wasn't a big deal at home so they didn't care enough or something, even though it was the #1 biggest deal worldwide for why the Genesis had succeeded, I would say...

I mean, NiGHTS and Burning Rangers are great, and I actually think Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R (both Western-developed remember) are decently good games, but 3D Blast is really a Genesis game, and R is a racing game, and those others aren't Sonic. Oh, and that whole Sonic X-Treme debacle was about a Western-developed game too. I know that there had been two major Sonic games in 1994 (3 and Knuckles), and one spinoff in '95 (Knuckles Chaotix for 32X), but they needed Sonic on the Saturn too.

(On the note of X-Treme, that of course is another case where horrendously bad mismanagement by the higher-ups killed what could have been a good game. It wouldn't have saved the Saturn, but it could have been a good game, anyway.)

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

That's true, though that wouldn't have mattered much in Japan, where Sonic never had been as popular. That's likely one reason why they allowed there to be no new Japanese-developed Sonic game that generation, it wasn't a big deal at home so they didn't care enough or something, even though it was the #1 biggest deal worldwide for why the system had succeeded, I would say...

I mean, NiGHTS and Burning Rangers are great, and I actually think Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R (both Western-developed remember) are decently good games, but 3D Blast is really a Genesis game, and R is a racing game, and those others aren't Sonic. Oh, and that whole Sonic X-Treme debacle was about a Western-developed game too. I know that there had been two major Sonic games in 1994 (3 and Knuckles), and one spinoff in '95 (Knuckles Chaotix for 32X), but they needed Sonic on the Saturn too.

(On the note of X-Treme, that of course is another case where horrendously bad mismanagement by the higher-ups killed what could have been a good game. It wouldn't have saved the Saturn, but it could have been a good game, anyway.)

Yup. It wouldn't have mattered in Japan, where the Saturn enjoyed some good success anyway. But it would have helped immensely here in the States and in Europe.

 

[BocoDragon]

Yup. It wouldn't have mattered in Japan, where the Saturn enjoyed some good success anyway. But it would have helped immensely here in the States and in Europe.

I was a huge Genesis fan of Sonic, and as I drifted into the worlds of PlayStation and N64, I felt like i was waiting for Sonic to turn my attention back to Sega. It never happened.

 

[A Black Falcon]

Yup. It wouldn't have mattered in Japan, where the Saturn enjoyed some good success anyway. But it would have helped immensely here in the States and in Europe.

The difference really is that in Japan, Virtua Fighter was a system seller. That was not the case in the West.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

I was a huge Genesis fan of Sonic, and as I drifted into the worlds of PlayStation and N64, I felt like i was waiting for Sonic to turn my attention back to Sega. It never happened.

I paid over 400 dollars for my Saturn, mostly based on the promise of a new Sonic game.

Of course, Saturn still ended up being one of my favorite consoles of all-time anyway, but still. Sega knew people were waiting for it.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

The difference really is that in Japan, Virtua Fighter was a system seller. That was not the case in the West.

Nope. I think Tekken manged to hit the mainstream harder than VF ever did.

VF was just never that big of a deal here. It's strange. I guess it was just too plain, aesthetically for a lot of people's tastes. Plus, arcades were lingering on life support when the game was first released, so it never had the chance to really resonate with western audiences like it did with the Japanese, where arcades were still healthy.

 

[BocoDragon]

Nope. I think Tekken manged to hit the mainstream harder than VF ever did.

VF was just never that big of a deal here. It's strange. I guess it was just too plain, aesthetically for a lot of people's tastes. Plus, arcades were lingering on life support when the game was first released, so it never had the chance to really resonate with western audiences like it did with the Japanese, where arcades were still healthy.

I don't know if I'd say arcades were on life support in the mid to late 90s... The ones i went to were packed. Post-2000, yes.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

I don't know if I'd say arcades were on life support in the mid to late 90s... The ones i went to were packed. Post-2000, yes.

Oh, they definitely were around here. There were still a couple of them around, lingering, but compared to how they were in the 80's? Definitely dying out.

 

[BocoDragon]

Oh, they definitely were around here. There were still a couple of them around, lingering, but compared to how they were in the 80's? Definitely dying out.

Maybe not as big, but I'd call it a second wave. From Street Fighter II to Crazy Taxi

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

Maybe not as big, but I'd call it a second wave. From Street Fighter II to Crazy Taxi

Crazy Taxi? Man, I wish. The last true arcade near me closed shop around '95 or '96. I remember Marvel Super Heroes being the last arcade machine I was able to play with any sort of regularity.

We have a Dave and Busters near here that still has a couple machines, but it's mostly just DDR or a racing game or two and not much else.

On a different note, I was saddened on my last trip to Florida to find that the huge Sega arcade had closed up shop. That was a huge highlight of my trip down there back in the late 90's. Anybody know what happened there?

Edit: Ah man, I'm still remembering, they had working set-ups for all sorts of classic Sega games, even a fully-functioning Space Harrier, OutRun, and AfterBurner. The place was like a museum. They even had this huge display case filled with Sonic merchandise that I'd never seen before. memories T_T

 

[Teknoman]

Done, went ahead and ordered one of these:

Reviews are all pretty great, and aside from possibly having to open it and adjust some knobs for the colors, looks like the way to go if you dont want to drop like 300 bucks or so on an XRB mini/ you're connecting it to a CRT that has component and supports 240p.

 

[A Black Falcon]

Nope. I think Tekken manged to hit the mainstream harder than VF ever did.

VF was just never that big of a deal here. It's strange. I guess it was just too plain, aesthetically for a lot of people's tastes. Plus, arcades were lingering on life support when the game was first released, so it never had the chance to really resonate with western audiences like it did with the Japanese, where arcades were still healthy.

Tekken? I guess so, though I remember more hype about Toshinden in 1995 than I do Tekken. Toshinden faded fast after that year, and Tekken became more popular, but at first, wasn't Toshinden the popular one?

Toshinden did get a Saturn port the next year of course, while Tekken naturally didn't (with how Namco was almost a Sony second party at that point), but as I said Toshinden's popularity faded fast, so it didn't matter as much... and anyway, the Saturn failed from the beginning, so those PS1 ports, which the system did get in its first few years, only helped so much.

But seriously, I know it's all been said, but it's really amazing that between the combined efforts of the Japanese and American sides of the company, Sega managed to blow it so badly that they went from being a profitable company that finished second place worldwide, and first in Europe and Brazil, to third place everywhere and so deeply in debt that they had to abandon the industry early on the generation after that. It took a lot of effort to fail that spectacularly, but unfortunately Sega was up to the task!

 

[Spectral Glider]

Tekken? I guess so, though I remember more hype about Toshinden in 1995 than I do Tekken. Toshinden faded fast after that year, and Tekken became more popular, but at first, wasn't Toshinden the popular one?

Well, Sony pushed the first Toshinden to try and sell the PS1 to the 20 something crowd with a heavy emphasis on the Sofia character, which kind of worked I guess. But Tekken was the one that garnered a serious fanbase while Toshinden basically just became a bit of a sideshow. Sony then didn't even have an interest in publishing the Toshinden sequels.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

Tekken? I guess so, though I remember more hype about Toshinden in 1995 than I do Tekken. Toshinden faded fast after that year, and Tekken became more popular, but at first, wasn't Toshinden the popular one?

Toshinden did get a Saturn port the next year of course, while Tekken naturally didn't (with how Namco was almost a Sony second party at that point), but as I said Toshinden's popularity faded fast, so it didn't matter as much... and anyway, the Saturn failed from the beginning, so those PS1 ports, which the system did get in its first few years, only helped so much.

But seriously, I know it's all been said, but it's really amazing that between the combined efforts of the Japanese and American sides of the company, Sega managed to blow it so badly that they went from being a profitable company that finished second place worldwide, and first in Europe and Brazil, to third place everywhere and so deeply in debt that they had to abandon the industry early on the generation after that. It took a lot of effort to fail that spectacularly, but unfortunately Sega was up to the task!

Oh god, Toshinden.

I'm gonna blame GameFan for that one. I remember how much they gushed over that piece of doo-doo.

 

[Teknoman]

At least the soundtrack was pretty cool

 

[Mzo]

I finally beat Genesis Battletoads after messing with it for a few nights. What a terrible, terrible port of a great game.

I'm going to have to think long and hard about keeping something this offensive in my home.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

I finally beat Genesis Battletoads after messing with it for a few nights. What a terrible, terrible port of a great game.

I'm going to have to think long and hard about keeping something this offensive in my home.

Yeah, I still have a copy of that. Very disappointing after being so accustomed to the magnificent NES version.

 

[Gunstarheroes]

I finally beat Genesis Battletoads after messing with it for a few nights. What a terrible, terrible port of a great game.

I'm going to have to think long and hard about keeping something this offensive in my home.

Wait, whats wrong with it? I have it, and its non-offense to me.

 

[HolyBaikal]

Just thought I'd share a little bit of my playthrough of the Amy Rose romhack of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Perhaps almost like a Let's Play, if that's okay. If not, I'm sorry. And please go ahead and tell me where to put it. Just figured it would be the best place to contribute.

As I've just mentioned, I've been recently playing Sonic the Hedgehog. In particular with the Amy Rose romhack. It's been helping me relive some memories anew. Rediscovering Sonic the Hedgehog, if you will. I like it, a very refreshing way to play the game. Makes me kind of wish the original game was called Amy the Hedgehog and not Sonic the Hedgehog.

Nice intro screen.

Dynamic action falling!

158 rings isn't bad.

A trademark Sonic hedgehog tunnel.

I never did understand why the boxes in Sonic games looked like TVs. Were they trying to teach children to smash their parent's television sets?

I managed to capture an image where she isn't simply a ball in the bonus stage.
I love this stage so much, I may be an SNES person, but this was undeniably one of the best pieces of video game fun I ever had a child. The mechanics were addictive, and the area was dreamlike and had mysterious music.

Molten lava below. Not dangerous.

Well, if you say so.

Hammering. Hammering all day. For I am a hedgehog berserker.

The labyrinth. The first place I would ragequit as a kid on this game. The mixture of having to constantly grab air bubbles and dodge foes like these drew me crazy.

Even underwater I am quick with a hammer. Don't you see my arm muscles?

I could stop by and see the beauty of the stars. But then I would be bombarded by obnoxious bombs all around.

You're not going to get me little fireball.

Oh hey, thanks Eggman. Always kind to animals.

Just what I enjoy. A twice as unforgiving water labyrinth. Where you're always a hairs breadth from being a poor little drowning hedgehog.

All right, it's time for revenge egg shaped human!

Pow pow bang boom! That'll teach you to try to drown me.

The elements of harmony are reacting to the woodland creatures?

I used chaos control to make myself giant. And also to make text float in the air. It's obviously a love message. Don't judge me.

And that concludes me little minature Let's Play of the Amy Rose Sonic the Hedgehog romhack. I tried to keep it a bit on the small side and not flood pictures. I'll be playing and sharing more of these in the future if welcome at all.

 

[IrishNinja]

On a different note, I was saddened on my last trip to Florida to find that the huge Sega arcade had closed up shop. That was a huge highlight of my trip down there back in the late 90's. Anybody know what happened there?

Edit: Ah man, I'm still remembering, they had working set-ups for all sorts of classic Sega games, even a fully-functioning Space Harrier, OutRun, and AfterBurner. The place was like a museum. They even had this huge display case filled with Sonic merchandise that I'd never seen before. memories T_T

WAT

this is more upsetting than learning about sega land or whatever in australia in the day, cause this is my home state and never knew this was here...aww man. links & pics!

 

[Chiaroscuro]

Hey guys, I am starting a small Genesis cart collection. Is there a site where I can get information about game releases? Particularly I am looking to find out what exactly came in each game box (flyers, posters, etc) besides the game manual.

 

[BriBri]

Done, went ahead and ordered one of these:

Reviews are all pretty great, and aside from possibly having to open it and adjust some knobs for the colors, looks like the way to go if you dont want to drop like 300 bucks or so on an XRB mini/ you're connecting it to a CRT that has component and supports 240p.

Please review when you have the chance. Thanks.

 

[dark10x]

Please review when you have the chance. Thanks.

I've owned one of these for almost two years now.

I'm using an XRGB Mini these days as I have had to consolidate my setup but that transcoder has been solid.

For the price, the results are incredible and, when paired with a CRT, produces very good results. You get proper 240p output with clean, stable results. It is possible to improve upon this with more expensive hardware but the differences are so subtle that you would only ever notice in a side by side comparison. There is no video processing in this unit so the results are lag free but unfriendly for modern flat panels (which tend to handle 240p content very poorly).

You should keep in mind that it expects a specific type of Euro SCART cable and there are definitely cables out there that won't work with it out by default (will need to be modified). It also definitely does not support Japanese 21-pin cables.

Also, as is clearly visible, the unit does not support any audio. It outputs component video only. In order to obtain audio you will need additional hardware. In my case, I actually purchased a simple SCART switcher with independent audio output leads which I then send to the audio system. There are also SCART cables available with in-line RCA outs available. The switcher method is definitely preferred, however, as you only need to run one set of audio cables for multiple systems.

That brings me to an important point for those tackling this project in the US. Audio sucks when using SCART cables as a result of a low level buzz. Some cables exacerbate the issue but there is no way to completely eliminate the problem that I've found. What's strange is, in the case of the Model 1 Genesis, even the 3.5in audio output on the front of the console is impacted by this. When SCART is in use, this output also buzzes suggesting that the problem stems from within the system.

Fortunately, with good cables, the effect is minimized and only distracting in silence (or with very quiet musical pieces). Still, I was surprised when I ran into this and a friend and I have both looked into it quite a bit.

I've heard of people having issues with these transcoders as well, unfortunately. The problem will almost always involve the SCART cable in use. If the pin-out doesn't deliver what the transcoder is looking for you will receive no picture (or a corrupted picture). There are also some modern displays which do not properly support 240p and will either produce a blank screen or corruption.

You can also adjust the video quality slightly by popping the top of the transcoder off and adjusting some small screws. With two of these units I have seen a very slight red push out of the box which could be easily corrected but, in general, you shouldn't have to do much. You'll want to calibrate your CRT first before messing with the transcoder.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

WAT

this is more upsetting than learning about sega land or whatever in australia in the day, cause this is my home state and never knew this was here...aww man. links & pics!

Yeah! It was called Sega GameWorks, I believe. I didn't know about it either until 1997 or so when I came to visit and just stumbled onto it. Talk about a goldmine.

But when I went in 2010, it had closed up. Sad.

I did take some pics but I'd have to really dig those up.

edit: a quick YouTube search reveals there's still one up in Las Vegas.

edit 2: Found some mumblings that talk about it. Apparently it didn't close up entirely, they just modded it, took out all the cool Sega stuff, and filled it with generic Disney stuff.

 

[gryz]

Yeah! It was called Sega GameWorks, I believe. I didn't know about it either until 1997 or so when I came to visit and just stumbled onto it. Talk about a goldmine.

But when I went in 2010, it had closed up. Sad.

I did take some pics but I'd have to really dig those up.

edit: a quick YouTube search reveals there's still one up in Las Vegas.

edit 2: Found some mumblings that talk about it. Apparently it didn't close up entirely, they just modded it, took out all the cool Sega stuff, and filled it with generic Disney stuff.

the las vegas gameworks is pretty run down and depressing, last time i was there 2 guys were having sex in the bathroom. the one in downtown seattle is fairly nice still though.

 

[dark10x]

There's still a Gameworks in the Cincinnati, OH area and it's not in bad shape. I used to play a lot of VF4 there, actually. They still have that machine, as far as I know.

 

[sixteen-bit]

So aside from Pulseman, Alien Soldier, Bare Knuckle 3, Golden Axe 3, what are some japanese mega drive games that either never made it over and are worth playing, or are just cheaper than english versions (excluding RPGs or games with alot of text crucial to the game).

Puyo Puyo Tsu (also known as Puyo Puyo 2) is a great Japanese puzzle game, and it's cheap. AFAIK North America only got the first one, which was turned into Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine.

 

[Mzo]

Wait, whats wrong with it? I have it, and its non-offense to me.

Oh man, where to start?

It's missing the intro and the ending. They're just gone.

The game overall has pretty good graphics, but there are a lot of questionable changes in the art style. Some of it is just plain ugly.

Controls feel looser than the NES game, and it really matters here. Jumps are way floatier. Smash attacks are nowhere near as meaty or satisfying. The enemies lazily glide off screen. Hit detection is off for a lot of actions. The feel in general is way off.

The game runs way slower through many of the levels. It feels like you're wading through molasses.

The AI for many of the enemy types is completely busted. How they react to your attacks is weird as well, especially in the sewer level. This is really one of the worst parts.

The bosses were never really that great to start but they're way more busted here. Robo-Manus especially is hacked together and broken. You can't really fight him the same as in the NES version, and even better he can pancake you if you jump and touch him in midair. Sounds legit.

I could detail out every single thing that's wrong but it would take way too long. The NES game is one of my favorites so I find a poor, half-assed port especially offensive.

 

[Gunstarheroes]

Oh man, where to start?

It's missing the intro and the ending. They're just gone.

The game overall has pretty good graphics, but there are a lot of questionable changes in the art style. Some of it is just plain ugly.

Controls feel looser than the NES game, and it really matters here. Jumps are way floatier. Smash attacks are nowhere near as meaty or satisfying. The enemies lazily glide off screen. Hit detection is off for a lot of actions. The feel in general is way off.

The game runs way slower through many of the levels. It feels like you're wading through molasses.

The AI for many of the enemy types is completely busted. How they react to your attacks is weird as well, especially in the sewer level. This is really one of the worst parts.

The bosses were never really that great to start but they're way more busted here. Robo-Manus especially is hacked together and broken. You can't really fight him the same as in the NES version, and even better he can pancake you if you jump and touch him in midair. Sounds legit.

I could detail out every single thing that's wrong but it would take way too long. The NES game is one of my favorites so I find a poor, half-assed port especially offensive.

I guess when that's the version you are use to, you don't think about it as much. I never beat the NES version.

 

[IrishNinja]

Yeah! It was called Sega GameWorks, I believe. I didn't know about it either until 1997 or so when I came to visit and just stumbled onto it. Talk about a goldmine.

But when I went in 2010, it had closed up. Sad.

I did take some pics but I'd have to really dig those up.

edit: a quick YouTube search reveals there's still one up in Las Vegas.

edit 2: Found some mumblings that talk about it. Apparently it didn't close up entirely, they just modded it, took out all the cool Sega stuff, and filled it with generic Disney stuff.

holy shit, that kills me. so sad i missed this, also sad that dude is saying the other spot is like a bathouse - there's a gameworks out there too, but you're referring to a specific sega one...gonna have to look that up, might finally be time to see vegas!

ps man i wish there was a way to tell which version of revenge of shinobi is the first one, i had mine with rambo, godzilla, batman etc in the day and this newer copy i have now is missing all 3

 

[televator]

Review

I love these retro threads. Only GAF can consolidate experiences from enthusiasts into a single thread. So good. Now, I feel confident in jumping on one of these YUV boxes myself.

 

[Teknoman]

I love these retro threads. Only GAF can consolidate experiences from enthusiasts into a single thread. So good. Now, I feel confident in jumping on one of these YUV boxes myself.

Same here (even though its already on the way...i'm glad its got multiple GAF seal of approvals).

 

[BocoDragon]

You should keep in mind that it expects a specific type of Euro SCART cable and there are definitely cables out there that won't work with it out by default (will need to be modified). It also definitely does not support Japanese 21-pin cables.

Personally, I've found it easier to go all-SCART rather than all-Japanese 21. I can easily find SCART for all consoles, but not J21.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I finally beat Genesis Battletoads after messing with it for a few nights. What a terrible, terrible port of a great game.

I'm going to have to think long and hard about keeping something this offensive in my home.

I find the suggestion that Battletoads was any good in the first place to be somewhat more offensive.

Last time I tried to beat that game (NES), I ended up glitching through a platform more than halfway through the game and getting myself permanently stuck. Fuck Battletoads.

Just thought I'd share a little bit of my playthrough of the Amy Rose romhack of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Perhaps almost like a Let's Play, if that's okay. If not, I'm sorry. And please go ahead and tell me where to put it. Just figured it would be the best place to contribute.

As I've just mentioned, I've been recently playing Sonic the Hedgehog. In particular with the Amy Rose romhack. It's been helping me relive some memories anew. Rediscovering Sonic the Hedgehog, if you will. I like it, a very refreshing way to play the game. Makes me kind of wish the original game was called Amy the Hedgehog and not Sonic the Hedgehog.



And that concludes me little minature Let's Play of the Amy Rose Sonic the Hedgehog romhack. I tried to keep it a bit on the small side and not flood pictures. I'll be playing and sharing more of these in the future if welcome at all.

These hacks were pretty fun. You probably wouldn't expect a Sonic game without rolling to be playable, let alone good, so it was kind of surprising.

I played through all 3 of these and put them on Youtube a couple months ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZFiaYyrX8s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVUnB58DKLc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j99MxYARlMU

 

[gryz]

Honestly after going right from snes with svideo to genesis with composite, i saw an immediate difference, so now im kinda on the bandwagon. Similar to not...being able to play current gen stuff on non hd tvs. Honestly, the converter is like 5 bucks, so if my tv can support 240p over component just fine...probably be out of like 20 bucks total.

hmm i guess i somewhat take back what I said as the genesis composite output does seem to be a bit crappy.. for some reason the PC Engine actually looks way better on composite than genesis does.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

I find the suggestion that Battletoads was any good in the first place to be somewhat more offensive.

Last time I tried to beat that game (NES), I ended up glitching through a platform more than halfway through the game and getting myself permanently stuck. Fuck Battletoads.

I beat that game's ass on a regular basis just go keep my skills up.

It's good shit.

 

[CrashPrime]

This talk of signal processors and what not leads me to a question; if I have given up all hope of using a CRT to play Genesis games, what's my best alternative for displaying on a HD display?

I would imagine there -MUST- be some sort of scaler that doesn't do a horrible job at preserving some image quality.

I know I have had access to buy some Sony 32" Trinitron's at the local thrift shop, but the size and weight is just out of hand.

 

[gryz]

This talk of signal processors and what not leads me to a question; if I have given up all hope of using a CRT to play Genesis games, what's my best alternative for displaying on a HD display?

I would imagine there -MUST- be some sort of scaler that doesn't do a horrible job at preserving some image quality.

I know I have had access to buy some Sony 32" Trinitron's at the local thrift shop, but the size and weight is just out of hand.

I've heard that "Framemeister" thing is good but it's super expensive. there's also all the scart/rgb converters previously mentioned here.

I just recently picked up a 14" CRT at a thrift store and the size and weight are not too bad.

 

[Teknoman]

Yeah i'd say max it at 23 or so inches.

 

[Evenball]

Surprisingly, my 8 year old DLP TV does a fine job upscaling a majority of older game systems. I don't see any of the horrible quality issues my newer LCD tv has. For some reason though, all Sega Genesis systems cause it to lose vertical hold. I have 3 different revisions of model 1 genesis and a few model 2's and all of them do it. My old trinitron is the only thing I can hook a genesis up to. :/

 

[CrashPrime]

I've heard that "Framemeister" thing is good but it's super expensive. there's also all the scart/rgb converters previously mentioned here.

I just recently picked up a 14" CRT at a thrift store and the size and weight are not too bad.

Holllllllyyyyyyyyyyy shit. $500 for that "Framemeister". Anything in the sub-$100 range?

 

[Teknoman]

hmm i guess i somewhat take back what I said as the genesis composite output does seem to be a bit crappy.. for some reason the PC Engine actually looks way better on composite than genesis does.

Yeah PC engine looks great using composite. Not sure why/how but its pretty clean looking.

 

[dark10x]

Holllllllyyyyyyyyyyy shit. $500 for that "Framemeister". Anything in the sub-$100 range?

Scalers are EXPENSIVE. There's nothing you can buy that will do a good job for under $100.

Honestly, if you look at the market for such devices, you'll find that the Framemeister isn't actually that unreasonable. I own one myself and absolutely love it but I can definitely agree that it was rather pricey (I got mine for $430, though).

 

[sixteen-bit]

Holllllllyyyyyyyyyyy shit. $500 for that "Framemeister". Anything in the sub-$100 range?

It retails for like 38,000 yen so whoever is reselling it is pocketing that extra $100

Cheap alternative? Buy a CRT.

Yeah PC engine looks great using composite. Not sure why/how but its pretty clean looking.

The SNES 2/Jr also has a real clean composite image.

 

[Shadow Hog]

The SNES 2/Jr also has a real clean composite image.

IIRC it lacks S-Video/RGB out, though, so you can't get any cleaner.

 

[sixteen-bit]

IIRC it lacks S-Video/RGB out, though, so you can't get any cleaner.

Correct. You'll have to mod it for those. Though after modding they apparently have better RGB than original SNESes because they don't suffer as extensively from that center vertical line issue or audio hum.

 

[Scavenger]

Holllllllyyyyyyyyyyy shit. $500 for that "Framemeister". Anything in the sub-$100 range?

In the sub 100 dollar range you can build a DIY RGB to VGA scaler unit. You'll need a sync-strike, a CGA to VGA scaler like the gbs-8220, and for scanlines you can either pick up a SLG3000 or the much cheaper RetroVGA.

 

[CrashPrime]

Holllllllyyyyyyyyyyy shit. $500 for that "Framemeister". Anything in the sub-$100 range?

I wanted to respond to my own post because I couldn't believe this was the price of entry to get this up and running.

After about 4+ hours of research I have found this alternative: SLG-in-a-box

It's about $220 + shipping (which I didn't investigate).

It scales to 640x480,800x600,1024x768,1360x768 ... so not ideal I suppose for 1080p displays (altho I am pretty sure modern TV's do an acceptable job with 720p->1080p.

Apparently the way to get this done is using a $15 SCART RGB.

Still not "cheap" but at under $300 it's an alternative none the less.

What I seem to have figured out is the only way to get the "crt vibe" is to:

1) Get a 300lbs CRT and pray it doesn't die.

2) Use a computer with filters to emulate.

The 2nd option actually can end up producing some pretty favorable results.

CRT Emulation Filters

I'm not entirely convinced of the need for the screen curvature, but the results of using a combination of these magical filters can't be denied. They look pretty convincing.

(click to make bigger)

Interesting read here (the source of a lot of my filtering education) that discusses some of the ins-and-outs of CRT emulation.