Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: Shadow Hog - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

After an exceedingly long development period, SRB2 v2.1 has finally been released. An overview of the changes from 2.0.7:

General

• The collision detection has been improved and can now handle speeds beyond the previous limitations. Super Sneakers and spin dashing have been dramatically sped up as a result.
• Many bugs involving the controls beyond normal maximum speed have been fixed. This should make the controls feel more responsive when moving extremely fast.
• When holding back, the character now skids to visually and audibly demonstrate that simply letting go of forward doesn't slow the player down as much as reversing direction.
• Dropped rings now travel farther and become harder to recover when taking repetitive hits.
• Knuckles has been updated with lavish new sprites.
• Monitors have all-new sprites, and shields now all have individual sprites instead of being palette swaps of each other.
• You can now record Animated GIFs in-game.

Single Player

• Techno Hill Zone Act 1 and Castle Eggman Zone Act 2 have been dramatically updated.
• Techno Hill Zone Act 2 has been replaced with an all-new act.
• Castle Eggman Zone Act 3 has been added with an all-new boss.
• The special stages have been completely replaced with new stages based on NiGHTS into Dreams.
• All the rest of the stages have been given a fresh coat of polish.
• The final boss has been replaced with a new, actually fun design.
• The emblem system has been completely revamped, with hidden emblems accessible as all characters. Explore for emblems however you'd like.
• Record Attack, an expanded version of Time Attack, lets players set records in time, score, and rings for each act they've accessed in the main game and record a replay of the run. Beating the requirement in a category for a stage grants an emblem.
• Record Attack replays can now be raced as ghosts in Record Attack, allowing players to directly see the difference while playing. They can also be saved as a guest replay to send to a friend's copy of the game for them to race against.
• NiGHTS Mode allows players to set records on special stages similarly to Record Attack. Sadly, NiGHTS mode does not support replays and ghosts in this release.
• Sonic can now have Tails follow him around through the single player game like he can in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3.

Multiplayer

• A large amount of multiplayer stages have been added.
• In match and capture the flag modes, players now spawn with basic shields and losing players get free basic shields during the round.
• The grenade ring has been completely redesigned, and the infinity ring from older versions has been reintroduced.
• The old Classic Race gametype has been revamped and renamed to Competition. Similar to Sonic 2's versus mode, players race through single player stages and attempt to grab goodies in the stage before completing the stage. This gametype now actually functions well beyond two players.

Editing

• The software renderer now features skyboxes, allowing for complex, animated skies by rendering another section of the level as the sky.
• The system for adding custom textures has been changed to a very rudimentary implementation of ZDoom's TX_START/TX_END and TEXTURES lumps, so that two WADs with custom textures can be added to the game at the same time without issues.
• A rudimentary version of ANIMDEFS has been implemented for animating textures. Support for Boom-format ANIMATED lumps remains.
• Tall patches are now supported, allowing images larger than 255 pixels tall to be imported to the game as a single image.
• TypeOfLevel can now use gametype names instead of requiring numbers.
• Level headers for levels 100 and above can use letters instead of the decimal equivalent; eg Level A0, A1, AA, ZZ etc.
• SOC format (a DeHackEd variant) now supports internal thing names, other enumerations, and basic math. Porting mods to future versions of SRB2 will be easier, as these names rarely change.
• blarrg's Game Music Engine has been implemented, meaning you can now use rips of NES, SNES, Genesis, etc. soundtracks as music in-game.
• There are now 25 different skin color options for characters to use, including returning colors from older versions such as Dark Red and Black.
• Super forms for characters now glow like they did in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3&K, allowing yellow to be usable once again for match mode. Super Knuckles as a bonus flashes pink instead of yellow, but this is not available for custom characters.
• Multiple characters can now have the same displayed name; no more "Tails2" if you add a custom Tails character.
• All SOC actions and extra character abilities from SRB2Morphed have been imported, allowing SOC to be even more versatile.
• Colors, abilities, and spin items are set by name, as with SOCs, to enable forward compatibility. If the color numbers ever change again, the intended color will still be used.
• A scripting language based on Lua has been added to the engine exclusively for use by mods. It can be used to create entirely new console commands and thing behaviors in game, allowing a lot more flexibility for mod content without requiring editing SRB2's source code itself.

For now, 2.1 is only available via torrent. It will be made available on http://www.srb2.org/ at a later time. Source code is available here.

Showed up on eBay for $60. Can't say as I have any need for another set of speakers, and apparently these aren't very well shielded, but interesting to see. The auction's ending in like an hour, though, so it'll be over before most of you notice it.

According to some friends on NeoGAF who discovered this thing and were discussing it, you could get them for free when you bought a Genesis in the early 1990s (using a packed-in pamphlet, one of which also showed up on eBay coincidentally). A little surprised I couldn't find an article on the wiki about these (searched for "speakers" and "speaker", came up empty-handed).

This is the track "After Burner" as it appears in After Burner II. (Well, it's a little bit higher-pitched and features a still from the Famicom port for some reason, but I seriously can't find a better version on YouTube and it kinda works for my point, so whatever.) It definitely plays in Stages 4, 15 and 16. This is also the version of the song that the Genesis port and the 32X port used.


This is the same track, "After Burner", but suddenly there's a melody, starting around 39 seconds in. I notice it's missing from the VGM rip I have, and I can't say as I've heard the melody in use in the playthroughs I've watched. Nevertheless, it's a very real part of the song, considering the melody was present in the remixes in Bayonetta, Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed and After Burner Climax.

So, where exactly did this melody come from? What version first featured it? Obviously it wasn't the original arcade release... I do notice that the Master System version has it (PSG, FM - forgive that they're in-game, there isn't really a good just-music version of these on YouTube that I could tell) - is that where it originated from?

So not too long ago now, I upgraded my Saturn, SNES, N64 and PS2 to all use S-Video instead of composite (and my Wii to component, but that's neither here nor there). I'd been wanting to do the same to my old Genesis 2, the one I've had since at least 1994 or so (I got it with Sonic 3, among other games, if that helps date it any), but noticed that it only supported up to composite, and decided then wasn't the time. So, I've stuck with the RF connection (ugh) that I've used most of my life with this thing. Not like I've got a whole lot better to use at this time...

A couple of months ago I busted out some old games I'd bought at the local thrift store (X-Men and The Lion King) to see if they worked (they do), when I noticed just how muffled the audio was. Never noticed it before (probably because I'd never hooked it up to this TV before); I'd just chalked it up to the crappy RF connection I was using, and that if I upgraded to even composite, it'd go away.

So now, out of morbid curiosity, I was looking into the S-Video mod again, and noticed it doesn't apply to a good deal of Model 2s. Even worse, looking into it, I see the muffled audio is a problem with the circuitry itself, and not just the crappy connector I'm using (although I'm sure that doesn't help matters). So, out of curiosity (and thanks to this amazingly comprehensive guide on Genesis/Mega Drive variations), I cracked open that old Genesis this morning, and I can say fairly definitively that it's a VA1 mobo with a Sony CXA1145M video encoder. From the looks of things, that means the S-Video mod shouldn't be too difficult to do, although it also means I'll be wanting TmEE's "Crystal Clear Audio" mod (having listened to audio clips of both the unmodded and modded circuits which compare the outputs, the differences are pretty blatant).

Only thing is, I'm not an expert with a soldering iron. Hell, I haven't soldered anything since sophomore year of high school, and I'm two years out of college now (so about 8-9 years ago). Don't even think I was especially handy with the iron then, either; can't even remember what projects I was doing with the things anymore... As such, I'm not exactly feeling comfortable with the idea of soldering any new circuitry onto a Model 2, and was wondering what the best course of action was, here. I could suck it up and try the soldering iron anyway, probably saving myself a fair amount of dough in the long run at the risk of really screwing something up from my inexperience. Alternatively, I could try to find somebody who's willing and able to do both mods for me in one fell swoop, but figuring out who could do it is a bit of an issue, and I'm also concerned the asking prices would be too rich for my blood (I've seen at least one guy asking $160 plus S&H to install TmEE's CCA mod, which is frankly obscene; conversely, the S-Video mod could be done for $40 assuming this guy is reliable, although I have no idea if he'd be willing to do TmEE's CCA mod as well).

I'm also kind of concerned about the consequences of modding something like this; I don't believe the audio mod will impact any potential Sega CD or 32X purchases down the line (although frankly I'm interested in neither at this immediate moment; about all I'd get would be EWJ:Special Edition and Sonic CD on the former, both of which I already own elsewhere, and Chaotix on the latter), but I'm not so sure about an S-Video mod; I know the 32X has its own separate A/V output, and I'm honestly not sure how the Sega CD handles that kind of thing.

I'm not exactly committed to anything yet, if you hadn't noticed. I'm still exploring my options in this area. Kind of wanted opinions from those much more well-versed on this subject than I am before I go and do something really stupid. (And yes, I'm aware that an RGB video output mod, assuming one's even necessary, would be a better option, but I kind of like the idea of having all my older consoles using S-Video, so there we are.)

Also, if this topic would be better in Technical Discussion, by all means...

Basically, what it says in the topic description. I have a white NTSC-J Saturn now (in addition to my old black NTSC-U Saturn - I have no idea why I bought the NTSC-J one, but I did, so here we are). I know that Japan uses a 100V power source, while the US uses 110-120V. IIRC, people have said you can just plug in the NTSC-J Saturn into a US power source and you won't ever encounter any issues, but I'd rather not fry anything, so I want to double-check before I get ahead of myself.

Although, I should be able to play the games that came with it in my NTSC-U Saturn in the meantime, I'm sure (it has an AR 4-in-1). Hurray, X-Men vs. Street Fighter...

And yes, I'm aware this isn't even a vague question in PAL-land (you sure as hell have to use a transformer), but I haven't lived in PAL-land for over 12 years, so I'd rather stick to the NTSC-land question.

_{(ED: "vauge" -> "vague")}