To summarise, my favourite SMS/GG emulator in the past - Meka - has in recent years become unbearably crap, mainly in the sound department (crackly, glitchy sound which still has yet to be fixed). Of course back in my Win95/98 years I could just run the DOS version without a problem. In today's XP world however, attempting to run it under DOSBox results in an annoyingly slow emulator, a file selector which crashes the program very easily, and still pretty dodgy sound in parts. The Windows version I never seemed to greatly get along with, particularly with its (initial?) insistence on using an 8-bit display, which meant having to refresh the screen in 256-colour mode and making all my open windows reset, causing me to lose ground of any files or folders I was working on at the time. So I thought for a long while that Kega Fusion would be the best at it, but trying an SMS game out lately (using v3.63), I couldn't help but notice how - well - slow everything moved, particularly in comparison to, say, SMSAdvance and S8DS. It also appears to display SMS graphics in the same resolution as a Mega Drive, making everything look a bit dodgy in the edges and not as nice-looking as usual. Seems like 16-bit emulation is its obvious strong point. So can anyone recommend another emulator out there if possible? I don't know which ones still get regularly updated nowadays.
I don't believe I've heard of the SG-2000 before. Is it an obscure Sega console? :P And I did mention Fusion in my post and cited its notable weakness in SMS/GG emulation. Are we sure nothing else emulates it better?
Kega is slow? Never heard that one about its' 8-bit emulation, you sure you didn't set the hardware region to EUR by accident? As for the resolution, it's supposed to be like that on the original hardware. To get 1:1 pixel resolution, open Kega.ini and set ForceCompatibleGraphics to 1 (which it tells you the first time you start up the thing). You'll lose some display options in the exchange since the mode isn't supported anymore.
Regen supports SMS/GG and other Sega 8-bit systems, so try that out. Gens/GS will hopefully support SMS/GG sometime in the future. (I'm not implementing the hackish method that Gens+ uses, which is essentially a totally separate emulator contained within the same program.)
I like DEGA for SMS and Game Gear emulation better as you can run Game Gear games at full screen with no border, and you can enhance the audio of every game instead of just the ones that Kega does that to by default. Makes the 8-bit music that much more bearable.
I shouldn't say this because I am a proud Dega user too (and I don't feel like changing), but it's one of the most inaccurate emulators nowadays. Now, to actually help you with your question, I think you'd have better luck asking that on the Smspower forums, you don't even need an account to post there so you can just ask as a guest. I can also point you to a thread in particular: http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11927. That is the thread where PoorAussie released the latest beta version of RetroCopy, which is supposedly the most accurate SMS emulator out there right now. However you must be warned that apparently it has ridiculous system requirements because of poor programming choices which make it as bad as Vista in that department. I never tried it though so I can't know if it's true. I'll just stick with Dega.
Hmmm. While it emulates it okay, it can't seem to handle more than one SMS rom per session without crashing immediately.
Re: Kega Fusion - curiously, in ForceGFXCompatibility mode, the SMS screen is stretched in Double (default) or Scanlines mode, but in Normal or plugin mode (hq2x here), the screen isn't stretched, and indeed looks like a more appropriate resolution. It's a shame I can't achieve this effect outside of ForceGFXCompatibility (which refreshes my monitor on both startup and exit, which is pretty annoying), really. As for slowness, well I don't know if it's the games I tested at the time (Sonic Chaos and R-Type), but R-Type seems to run and look better under SMSAdvance and S8DS for one thing (no sprite flickering for instance, plus it feels a bit faster than under Fusion. And is Sonic Chaos really that much slower than Sonic 1? I always thought it was a bit faster than at on my Game Gear.
Tiny handheld resolution tends to have that effect. It's more playable on SMS, or should I say tolerable, since you can see most of the cheap hits coming.
SADX uses an emulator. I was able to decompress one of the prs files and run it in Gens+, but the colors were all messed up... Edit: Okay, that was probably just Gens+, which couldn't run Sonic 1 properly. I tried it in Meka and it worked fine.
The stretched version is more accurate, since on a TV, the image fills the entire screen. (It's still 256px wide, but the pixel clock is slower, so each pixel takes more space on the screen.) Probably the reason why it's disabled in Normal or Plugin mode is due to DirectDraw weirdness. (Kega uses DirectDraw in Compatible graphics mode and Direct3D in regular mode.) Gens/GS had similar weirdness, but I think it's (mostly) fixed for Release 7. If not, it'll be fixed in Release 7.1 (after I completely rewrite the DirectDraw renderer).
Meka was pretty damn sweet for DOS. Extremely fun times on a 486. But I don't see a problem with Kega personally... even older pcs run Kega SMS/GG fine..
You're probably using an older version. Try the 0.972 version. It won't crash . Also, enable SuperHQ and SMS NTSC plugin with 12% scanlines for added realism . Also, if it helps, Regen's SMS/GG emulation passes all of the VDP tests by FluBBa (RetroCopy is the only other emulator that does this but has very high requirements as nineko said) which require very strict and accurate timings so Regen should be VERY accurate in the SMS/GG department .
