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Did you grow up with PAL or NTSC Sonic?

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by VB.NET, Feb 22, 2010.

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  1. MDave

    MDave

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    Ahh ... fun memories playing through Labyrinth Zone on my PAL MD2. Slow ... even slower. :P
     
  2. Tom41

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    Not sure if it belongs here, but S&K did NOT have a speedup fix for PAL. I just timed them, literally.

    I timed the first demo you get after the title screen (Knuckles in Mushroom Hill Zone) from when you first switch on the game, in both 50hz and 60hz. Timing starts when the screen blacks out after the title screen, and finishes when it blacks out again at the end of the demo.

    Running at 60hz, the demo lasts 32 seconds.
    Running at 50hz, the demo lasts 39 seconds!

    All the PAL versions do is speed up the music to compensate for the lower system speed, so it sounds correct. There's no actual graphical enhancements for PAL/NTSC.

    Edit - PAL Master Systems also suffered from borders and slowdown, and most of the time there was no music speed fix. I had a PAL Master System 2, and a Game Gear (runs at 60hz in all regions) with a MS converter. On the GG, the games ran noticeably faster, including the music (though were a bit hard to play on the tiny screen).
    Oddly, the PAL MS games, run through the Game Gear, still had borders.
     
  3. Well, 39 / 32 = 1.21875, it's close to the NTSC/PAL ratio (60 / 50 = 1.2), so this is probably right.

    It's funny how people in this thread who used to play on PAL consoles have different opinions... some say Sonic 2 wasn't slow, others say Sonic 3 wasn't...

    AFAIK, only Sonic 3 has a different ROM for PAL regions. It's true that it's technically possible to have a single ROM play the same in both types of consoles, but that makes games harder to code and requires more CPU time, so that's probably why SEGA didn't do it. But for some reason Sonic 3 has a different ROM, so there must be a reason for it.
     
  4. fifthelephant

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    The music sounds much better in 50hz. Infact I am guessing that Sega have alienated a lot of their European fans who grew up with a slower Sonic than the speed junkie they're forcing down our throats now.
     
  5. Tiddles

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    The reason was for region locking - just one byte is changed to accomplish this. Everything else is identical.

    It's definitely true that S3 and S&K still have the slower gameplay speed at 50Hz, but there is at least one situation where the 50Hz version compensates - the ending credits in S[3]&K are retimed to ensure that they finish roughly at the right time to match the music, which of course stays the same speed while the framerate slows down. If you watch them side by side, the 50Hz credits start behind, and gradually catch up to be slightly ahead before Sonic jumps off the Tornado. I dare say there are other situations. It's worth noting that all the main series MD Sonics including Sonic 1 will behave very badly if you start them up in 50Hz mode and then flip over to 60Hz in the background, most visibly in areas with a water line, but also in other respects - this seems to be more or less what's happened in the Lava Reef megaglitch, if you've seen GoldS's Glitches and Oversights video series (though in this case it's probably caused by the glitch writing bad data to the RAM location where region data is held, and some more RAN data is also messed up to cause some of the other oddities.)

    Personally, I played all the MD games on a 50Hz system originally and the speed always seemed fine, but having been playing them at a faster speed for years now, it feels very strange to go back to that. In particular, when I was playing Sonic 3 on my old PAL MD a few months ago, I kept messing up the special stages to start with by turning too early, expecting the right corner to turn up more quickly.

    When I first played the games, I didn't know that Sonic 1 had slower-than-intended music in the PAL version, and I had just assumed that the recurring themes had been sped up for Sonic 2 to make them seem more dynamic or something.
     
  6. Pancake

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    PAL Sonic is the one I grew up with, but I pefer playing them at NTSC/60HZ PAL since it is faster and looks smoother.

    When I first started to play the old MD games full speed on an emulator I found it took a while to get used to the faster speed. I used to play the time attack mode on Sonic Jam (UK saturn at bordered 50HZ) and was able to get through a lot of stages in a quick time. But. When I tried it to get the same time on the emulator at full speed I found it harder.

    If a Sonic game (or any game) has 50/60HZ option I'll choose 60HZ over 50HZ.
     
  7. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    The Japan, US and Europe versions all differ in just the J, U and E in the header.
     
  8. Tom41

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    It just amazes me how SEGA didn't do any kind of speed optimization for the PAL versions of MD games. There are a few notable exceptions that I mentioned before, but 90% of the time they just stuck a PAL game label on a cart with the US/JP ROM inside it. Most games have code to detect the region though, and speed up the music if it's PAL. Also, raster effects (such as water in Sonic games) are optimized for PAL. If you switch from PAL to NTSC in mid-game on a water level, the graphics will corrupt, the water effect disappears and the game itself will slow down.

    I have both an EU and JP cartridge of Sonic 2. I dumped the two carts, did a comparison and they're byte-for-byte identical! Sonic 1, on the other hand, has many differences in the JP version (but I think we know that already)

    The SNES, on the other hand, many games WERE optimized for the PAL region. If run on a modded SNES in 60hz, they suffer from graphical glitches and even complete lockups! For example, Super Mario World has trouble with the level-end iris out effect on 60hz. Starwing (Starfox) has a huge black bar in the middle of the picture when run at 60hz! Mario Kart mostly works on 60hz, but the odd frame of garbage flashes occasionally.
     
  9. Eric Wright

    Eric Wright

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    There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about PAL/NTSC 50/60hz in this thread...

    I'm in the US, so I started with NTSC. Never played the PAL iterations until around 2001 and I loathe them.

    Also, anyone saying they can't discern any gameplay difference between the PAL and NTSC versions is:
    1) oblivious
    2) hopefully NOT in the Sonic 4 thread bitching about how the physics engine "looks" lol
     
  10. I grew up with the PAL version but I its been so long since I played a PAL version of Sonic the Hedgehog on a Mega Drive I can't remember the difference at all If I play on an emulator.
     
  11. Eviltaco64

    Eviltaco64

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    I'm from the US, so I obviously started out on NTSC. I didn't even try the PAL iterations of the MD games until 2005 or so, and I couldn't play them. They're too damn slow. :/
     
  12. JDAdams

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    PAL, but eventually I added a 50/60Hz switch to my MD. Of course, some games STILL don't work properly!
     
  13. Whackjood

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    Well, I was one of those PAL kiddies and so, I played the classic Sonic games in...

    SLOW MOTION BAYWATCH RUNNING MODE
     
  14. Neoblast

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    I grew up with the 50 HZ PAL MD2.
    Until I played them on an emulator I did not know how much the speed really changes.
    The music plays the same IIRC.

    I enjoyed them as hell even if they were slower than the NTSC.
     
  15. Chibisteven

    Chibisteven

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    NTSC, since I was born in the US. I tried once running the first Sonic game in PAL mode and thought that music was seriousily degraded. S2, S3K seemed fine though. I prefar 60Hz mode anyway, since that's what was originally intended to run at.
     
  16. Quickman

    Quickman

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    No it doesn't. You're thinking of revision 00 versus revision 01, which were both worldwide releases. (Qjimbo dumped a UK copy of Sonic 1 which was revision 01, it's listed on the Cartridge Dumper Workshop website.)

    I want to modify my Megadrive to output 60Hz (unlike Tiido, I'd like to play games at their native speed) but that would require me to also modify the 32X and MegaCD so they still work with it. Modifying the 32X isn't a problem, it's just changing a jumper, but modifying the MegaCD is rather more involved.
     
  17. Overlord

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    Wait, there were UK versions of 01 released? Didn't know that...
     
  18. Jayextee

    Jayextee

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    I DONE MAKED GAMES.
    I played 50Hz, and when I could finally (via emulation, then Sonic Mega Collection on GC) play the games at their native speed it was like playing a bunch of whole new, different games. Sort of. I enjoyed rediscovering it all.

    These days 50Hz is painful to play, but at least my timing on them has improved (as a result of playing 60Hz now).
     
  19. Overlord

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    Actually, if anything, my timing has got worse - I find it harder to do spindashes on the 50Hz game after playing at 60Hz for a while because I tend to do a tap of down, a press of C and then release both. Problem is, on 50Hz, he takes longer to bend down then he does on 60Hz so occasionally he'll just jump rather than do the spindash =P
     
  20. Malgra

    Malgra

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    Exactly this. After all those years of playing the Mega Drive originals I couldn't believe how.. fluid the Mega Collection versions were.

    While nothing will ever beat playing them on the original console, I do prefer playing the games at a faster pace.
     
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