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The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by McGuirk, Jan 10, 2007.

  1. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

    no reverse gear Wiki Sysop
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    From what I recall, after the Dreamcast is powered off, the VMUs stay on for a short while (if they have a working battery). So it does technically drain the battery, just "indirectly".

    Also IIRC it's the Sega Saturn that loses save data if its internal battery dies, which is why it's better to save to cartridge when you can. For the Dreamcast it's just the clock, unless it also holds BIOS settings like the language.


    It's been decades since I've had working batteries in my consoles so take all this with a pinch of salt.
     
  2. GoldeMan

    GoldeMan

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    Yeah the Saturn loses its saves if the internal (back side) battery dies, which it does die shockingly fast. I remember only being able to save like a few games. I remember specifically losing my save file on "BUG!" at one point because the battery decided to die. There was also very little room too to my knowledge compared to the cartridge method.

    The Dreamcast battery loses the time / date for sure but idk about other bios settings as I have an NA Dreamcast so I'm not sure if that differs to the EU or JPN versions since I assume especially the EU has more bios language options. The Dreamcast battery is also a bigger pain in the butt to replace since it has a second piece to it that is required for the replacement to work instead of just popping it in like the Saturn and Computers do.. add on to that it is kind of hidden deep inside the Dreamcast as well.
     
  3. Londinium

    Londinium

    People actually read these? Member
    Sometimes I wonder how long this series will last. Where will we be in 100 years? 200?

    How will future writers keep up with all the lore? Will they even keep up? Even now we're debating what is canon and what isn't, so imagine the clusterfuck that it will be in 100 years.

    How long until it's damn near impossible to find an original cartridge of Sonic 2, or a Sonic Adventure disc? How long until more obscure Sonic games go under the radar forever?

    How long until the events of our mainline titles, like Unleashed, Colours, 06, etc. become distant memories?

    Imagine all the characters that will come and go.

    I can't believe I'm worrying over the future of a corporate mascot

    To the internet archaeologist who finds this post in the future, I must tell you one important thing,
    Sonic was never good LMAO
     
  4. Antheraea

    Antheraea

    Bug Hunter Member
    two weeks ago I was at the allergy clinic to get my shots and while I was waiting to be called up, a kid of about five or six ran past me with a Sonic shirt on. Which was so, so surreal!

    I'm experiencing a similar vertigo with Pokemon too. It is amazing seeing kids as old as I was when I got into the games getting into the new ones now too.
     
  5. OrionNavattan

    OrionNavattan

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    Disassembled a dump of this machine's EEPROM with IDA (attached below), and I think I found the sound driver! It doesn't have any resemblance to any of the Z80 Mega Drive drivers, but I'm pretty sure I found subroutines that write to the YM3438 (note the sequential IO port numbers):

    Code (ZiLOG Z80 Assembler):
    1.  
    2. sub_4561:
    3.                 ex      (sp),iy ; swap iy and the stack bottom repeatedly to burn time
    4.                 ex      (sp),iy
    5.                 ex      (sp),iy
    6.                 ex      (sp),iy
    7.                 out     (40h),a ; Port A0
    8.                 ex      (sp),iy
    9.                 ex      (sp),iy
    10.                 ld      a,c
    11.                 out     (41h),a ; D0
    12.                 ret
    13.                 ;...
    14.  
    15. sub_457D:
    16.                 ex      (sp),iy
    17.                 ex      (sp),iy
    18.                 ex      (sp),iy
    19.                 ex      (sp),iy
    20.                 out     (42h),a ; A1
    21.                 ex      (sp),iy
    22.                 ex      (sp),iy
    23.                 ld      a,c
    24.                 out     (43h),a ; D1
    25.                 ret
    26.  
    The driver itself starts at 4000h in the EEPROM, the location of an entry point that is called by a subroutine located at 38h, which, combined with IM mode being set to 1, would seem to suggest that the YM's timer interrupt is indeed being used here. There's even a subroutine at loc_402B that possibly sets the timer.

    Code (ZiLOG Z80 Assembler):
    1.  
    2. loc_402B:
    3.                 ld      a, (byte_F03F)
    4.                 or      15h
    5.                 ld      (byte_F03F), a
    6.                 ld      c, a
    7.                 ld      a, 27h ; register ID for timer control register
    8.                 call    sub_4561 ; subroutine that writes to the first register bank
    9.                 ;...
    10.  
     

    Attached Files:

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  6. LF222

    LF222

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    Fascinating, always been intruiged by sound driver stuff, especially with the many genesis drivers. Granted that isnt what this is.
     
  7. GoldeMan

    GoldeMan

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    Not sure if this has been mentioned here before, but I was perusing TCRF's Triple Trouble page and a user there, SWPlaysMC, pointed out that the first ring you see in Great Turquoise Act 1 actually uses the same sprite as the Hud ring instead of the regular ring graphic, this is the only time this appears in the game. Now that I've seen it I can't unsee it.

    [​IMG]

    It's much easier to see in action but if you look closely not only is the sprite of the first ring a different shade then the ones next to it, but it actually matches the Hud. Just weird, just another Aspect oddity I guess.
     
  8. Mastered Realm

    Mastered Realm

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    It's because that one is a sprite, the other two are animated BG tiles. They use different palette lines.

    Every once in a while they chose to use sprites rather than animated BG tiles in order to diminish the tile count. You can see the first ring overlaps the tree trunk, so they'd have to make a spinning ring with the trunk baked into the art. It wouldn't be feasible.

    And sprites being used as rings is actually a pretty common thing in Triple Trouble. For example, the ones inside loops are also sprites, so they also match the hud.

    [​IMG]
     
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  9. GoldeMan

    GoldeMan

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    Very interesting! Did not know that, thank you for the clarification on that. It really is novel how much they pushed the hardware to get the desired effects and performance.
     
  10. Bobblen

    Bobblen

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    If you were curious about just how many sprite rings there are, the Sonic Chaos object maps (which uses the same engine) distinguish them from standard 'background tile rings' by putting them in a red box. The devs used them anywhere where they wanted a ring that didn't just have a plain background behind it (so loops, ramps, tunnels etc as mentioned above). Kinda funny that they went to the trouble with that first ring when they could just have easily moved it to the right without anyone even noticing!
    Sonic Chaos/Maps - Sonic Retro
     
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  11. Rlan

    Rlan

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  12. Gestalt

    Gestalt

    Sphinx in Chains Member
    Ecco, Sonic and Tails! I'm so glad they met each other. <3
     
  13. Rlan

    Rlan

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    Someone also mentioned that the separate Sonic also had a mohawk design the final doesn't.

    [​IMG]
     
  14. shilz

    shilz

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    Sonic has his own television channel now!

    If you have a Roku device and go onto its live TV option, Channel #431 is a constant stream of Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog,
    Sonic The Hedgehog, And Sonic Underground.

    It's very barebones. It's just got a generic classic Sonic logo, All the episodes are out of order (which is the official way Wildbrain stores them) and it takes 80 second commercial breaks... Which don't seem to actually run commercials, so it's just a light blue screen telling you it's a commercial break, and when they do happen, they're not coordinated to be in the actual episode's breaks. (It'd creep me out if I was little and casually browsing TV late at night, not gonna lie...) At least everything is in 4:3!

    And, as is tradition for these shows, they use art with no regard for the source or if it even relates to the show.
    Examples of the shows on schedule: Untitled612.jpg Untitled612_1.jpg Untitled612_2.jpg

    I'm actually not sure how Roku gets channels like these, or who thought "Let's just make one where it's only the ~140 episodes of Sonic we own all of the time", and who's running it, but on some level I think it'd be really cool to have a channel like this and turn it into a genuine project with unique bumpers, correct episode orders, have playthroughs of the games on occasion, and possibly even just license out Sonic X and Sonic Boom too. And someone could organize Wildbrain's assets for them while they're at it. But that's probably asking a lot for a channel that doesn't even have any advertisers.
     
  15. MasterDreamcaster

    MasterDreamcaster

    Running Up That Green Hill Member
    also met here:
    [​IMG]
    By the way, Tails looks similar to Sonic 3 cover version of him.
     
  16. Prototype

    Prototype

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    Always interesting to see the design with the black bands around Tails' gloves, with the conceit that he's emulating Sonic's clothes but being smaller, the gloves are just too big to stay on!

    That idea is lessened these days, and it's best not to think too hard about the anatomy of Animal People.
     
  17. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    ...Where did the art for AOSTH and SU come from? Is that fanart?
     
  18. shilz

    shilz

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    It's pretty common at this point for the shows to have stuff like this applied to them, especially when they're thrown up onto streaming services. Unfortunately they're not really cared about as assets to the company so later DVDs often make similar mistakes, like having Underground artwork represent Adventures of Sonic while using Sonic the hedgehog's logo with the SATAM/Underground Robotnik design. Some DVDs at least got original artwork that actually represents the show being presented (A lot of Underground artwork seems to be from these methods) but that time is long passed and it doesn't seem like Wildbrain held onto them very well.
     
  19. Gestalt

    Gestalt

    Sphinx in Chains Member
    Nice! I like how they drew the animals back then. Ecco the Dolphin would make for a cool new Sonic character. Though I would miss his iconic look a bit...

    He should make a cameo in Sonic movie 3!
     
  20. RDNexus

    RDNexus

    Member
    Might be no news to many folks here, but I thought it could be a nice watch to anyone interested...