[Glisp]

tokumaru, on 17 June 2013 - 03:46 PM, said:

Compatibility with original carts is a rare thing these days, since most of these consoles are based on (bad) emulation, so that's a big plus. I'll take a bad hardware clone over bad emulation any day. I wonder if it works with the Everdrives, and whether it has support for Master System games.

Also, enjoy the fact that the Atgames hardware always has the YM2612 chip missing. Atgames is notorious for that. Hope you like your Genesis/Mega Drive music sounding like shit.

Edit: hmmm Interesting that it's able to play international games. If only the sound was better. I might actually buy one if not for the sound. But fuck that, if I really wanted to, I could region mod my Genesis.

This post has been edited by Glisp: 23 June 2013 - 07:44 AM

[Sodaholic]

I wish there were high quality hardware clones, made out of very good materials, even better than the MD1. It would be for enthusiasts, obviously, the average consumer wouldn't care. Still, some gold-plated MD with the 32x and CD built in with great sound and even digital video output, all using the real components and not knockoffs or emulation would be fucking amazing.

[KingofHarts]

I looked more into this thing on YouTube... even the games and graphics on some cartridge games is shit... not just sound...
Waste of $40 bucks, or however much they charge for this shit... amazing that they can legally charge money for this trash...

[Overlord]

Sodaholic, on 23 June 2013 - 06:30 AM, said:

SpeedStarTMQ, on 22 June 2013 - 05:37 PM, said:

There you go, sports fan />/>/> (27 seconds in).

Holy shit, that sounds horrifying. Like, literally horrifying.

Cinossu & myself did some experimenting with a copy of Sonic 1 and this soundchip - you wouldn't believe just how far out the instrumentation is.

[SpeedStarTMQ]

So what is this soundchip? Is it a different one from the Mega Drive? From what I can gather it's just a substitute which sounds crap.

[Overlord]

SpeedStarTMQ, on 23 June 2013 - 01:46 PM, said:

So what is this soundchip? Is it a different one from the Mega Drive? From what I can gather it's just a substitute which sounds crap.

Oh, yes, sorry - the onboard console-on-a-chip these things use emulates the YM2612, and it does it rather well - unfortunately the values it is using for notes are completely wrong, and as such it sounds atrocious. If you change some values around in a Mega Drive ROM to counteract them, the sound is all-but spot on. It's rather sad, really.

[DustArma]

So how expensive would it be to build a console that can actually accurately play Genesis games, be it either a hardware clone or emulation.

[Meat Miracle]

Sounds like it gets everything right but just at an octave lower or so. Someone record the intro of Spiderman Animated Series on it, see if it can handle the detune bug.

DustArma, on 23 June 2013 - 02:53 PM, said:

So how expensive would it be to build a console that can actually accurately play Genesis games, be it either a hardware clone or emulation.

As much as the cheapest hardware (PC or Android) that has enough horsepower to run an emulator.

edit: actually, if you can get a stock of sega 315-6123s from somewhere (China, etc), it would cost as much as that + ram + video encoder + some discrete components and a PCB design, to build a full Megadrive.

This post has been edited by Meat Miracle: 23 June 2013 - 03:05 PM

[SpeedStarTMQ]

Emulation is easier, because it's lazy, but to have all the actual components!? Do they even still create some components the Mega Drive uses? Y'know, it's more or less 24 years old now. It would have to be mass produced too, so that would cost a lot. If you're going to all that effort to build a one-off console that plays those games, then you should just buy a Mega Drive/Genesis.

[Black Squirrel]

Food for thought - a brand new Raspberry Pi costs less than a lot of those second-hand Mega Drive bundles. You could shove an emulator on that and plug in a cheapo keyboard and you'd be good to go (provided you had the necessary leads... can't even remember if the Pi comes with a power supply). I'm not sure why you'd do this but it's an option!



As for the quality of emulation here? Well... it does date back quite a number of years now (I get the feeling the technology is rooted in 2007/2008?). It wasn't too long ago when bog-standard Gens was often the emulator of choice, and that doesn't handle the 32X's audio that well. Taken on the idea that "official" vendors are always a few years behind, the sound emulation in this wouldn't have been outstandingly awful for its day. Can't remember if this is a step up (or a step to the side) from those plug-in-and-play things by Radica.

Sound quality has improved a bit since then in these sorts of clones. IIRC the RetroN 3 is more accurate - we're expecting the RetroN 5 to be better, and I have a feeling AtGames has moved aware from the Firecore OS/emualtor/whatever it is

This post has been edited by Black Squirrel: 23 June 2013 - 03:56 PM

[Ashura96]

Heh...well. I got one of these for Christmas. If only someone had a hardware mod to fix the sound emulation...

[SpeedStarTMQ]

Other than that, how are they?

[Ashura96]

The games built in all run fine. After seeing the videos linked here, there was a part 3 for the one review where his S&K would not lock on with S3...but it did with Sonic 2...
Guess I'll hit up my local store tomorrow and see if they have anything worth playing.

[Sith]

Nothing better than the real deal. Get one off eBay if you really want one.
Maybe you'll get lucky and get something which is still in a decent state.

And yes the sound on this thing is total shit. If what Overlord said is true, they should crawl away in a dark corner and be ashamed of themselves for messing that up.

[Techokami]

Meat Miracle, on 23 June 2013 - 03:03 PM, said:

edit: actually, if you can get a stock of sega 315-6123s from somewhere (China, etc), it would cost as much as that + ram + video encoder + some discrete components and a PCB design, to build a full Megadrive.

Here's your 315-6123