[Kurosan]

60Hz with Blast Processing!

[Flygon]

I started with the Sonic and Knuckles Collection.

My first console game was Sonic 1 SMS... so... yeah, I am a 50hz guy.

[Animemaster]

I'm from england so I grew up with pal, I never even knew about ntsc til I was much older.

[Vinchenz]

Didn't even know that the PAL version of Sonic 1 was slower.

That's pretty interesting though.

[Adamis]

Same here, I grew up with PAL.

[djdocsonic]

Being here in the UK I had a PAL Mega Drive so played all the Sonic Games in PAL. I've noticed a Gameplay Speed difference in all the Sonic games for Megadrive (that might be down to the Emulators nowadays though)....Both Music tempo and gameplay speed.

This post has been edited by djdocsonic: 22 February 2010 - 06:14 AM

[Black Squirrel]

Technically both because though I had Sonic Jam for the PAL Sega Saturn, the speeds were altered to bring it up to spec with the 60Hz NTSC version of the games.

Also NTSC isn't always the best way to play. Towards the end of the Mega Drive's lifespan games started to take advangtage of those extra 16 rows of pixels (Ristar I think did this, and 32X games such as Chaotix)

[Chaos Knux]

NTSC, I live in America!

[tokumaru]

IIRC, Sonic 1 is slow with slow music, Sonic 2 is the correct speed, but with slow music, and S3K is the same.

I just checked using emulators and it seems you got Sonic 2 backwards: it plays slow, but the music is normal.

Now, as a programmer, I have to wonder what they did to fix S3K. Does anybody know what they did? Did they tweak the values used for physics so that everything would move slightly more every frame? Or does the game process an extra logic frame every 5 frames?

BTW, I always played the NTSC versions, and was shocked to discover how sluggish the PAL versions were. It even makes me laugh now when I read European magazines saying that Sonic is fast.

This post has been edited by tokumaru: 22 February 2010 - 06:41 AM

[Shadow Fire]

Sonic 2 is the correct speed, but with slow music

I just checked using emulators and it seems you got Sonic 2 backwards: it plays slow, but the music is normal.

I played Sonic 2 on official hardware, and it ran with close to full speed, but with slow music. Living in Australia, I grew up with PAL, and when first introduced to emulation, I was wowed by the faster music (although I still prefer PAL format).

[Uberham]

Sonic 2 is the correct speed, but with slow music

I just checked using emulators and it seems you got Sonic 2 backwards: it plays slow, but the music is normal.

I played Sonic 2 on official hardware, and it ran with close to full speed, but with slow music. Living in Australia, I grew up with PAL, and when first introduced to emulation, I was wowed by the faster music (although I still prefer PAL format).

I get fine music and slow gameplay on my PAL MD2

[Runner]

I grew up with Brazilian PAL-M Sonic

It is basically the PAL system with NTSC's 60Hz

[tokumaru]

I played Sonic 2 on official hardware, and it ran with close to full speed, but with slow music. Living in Australia, I grew up with PAL, and when first introduced to emulation, I was wowed by the faster music (although I still prefer PAL format).

I get fine music and slow gameplay on my PAL MD2

Maybe different revisions of the game behave differently?

I grew up with Brazilian PAL-M Sonic

It is basically the PAL system with NTSC's 60Hz

Exactly. From the point of view of the software it makes no difference, it's the same as NTSC.

[Tom41]

I grew up with the PAL versions, and when playing them on a PC noticed that they seemed to be too fast. Sonic 1 in particular, since I was used to the slow music, the correct-speed music just sounded... wrong!

I was under the impression that PAL games always run with borders and slightly slower than NTSC, at least on the MD. Sonic 2, 3, and S&K have a code that detects the region, and if it's E, speeds up the music tempo to compensate. Sonic 1 didn't have this, hence the music runs slow on PAL systems.

Now that I've got a modded MD2 that I can run at 60hz, I always prefer playing games in 60hz - even if I have to bypass the region lockout with a Game Genie! There are a couple of PAL games that just don't run at 60hz though - Virtua Racing (major graphic glitches) and Toejam & Earl 2 (picture rolling).

Someone should run S&K in 50hz and 60hz side by side, sync them up, and see if they truly have fixed the speed (or if it's just as slow as Sonic 2)...

This post has been edited by Tom41: 22 February 2010 - 07:48 AM

[Mr. Mash]

I didn't even realise there was a speed difference, the only NTSC games I've played have been hacks.
Although I put it to you that Scrap Brain's music sounds better and scarier slow.