Overclock the Sega Genesis

torindkflt · Jul 1, 2004

Earlier tonight on G4TechTV's "The Screen Savers" they showed how to overclock the 68K CPU on the Sega Genesis from about 8MHz to 13MHz to help avoid slowdowns in gameplay, WITHOUT replacing the CPU or any of the other components (Something most Genesis OC pages talk about), just by modding existing components.

A slowdown example they showed is the splitscreen two-player mode in Sonic 2. Anyone who's ever played two-player mode in S2 knows that the game slows to a literal crawl for a few seconds whenever one or both of the players happens to lose their rings, or in other situations where there is a large number of sprites on the screen. After enabling the overclock mod (Which they did via a pair of switches added to the back of the case), they showed one of the players losing their rings again, and there was no lag at all.

Although I realize many here already know how to do this, I just thought it would be something neat to share for those who may not know, or for those who knew about it but were wanting technical details. Here are a couple links regarding this project:

G4TechTV Article

Project Webpage

Epicenter · Jul 1, 2004

That was me. Thanks! I'm glad you liked it! I'm hoping to get an AVI of it online soon.

Rika Chou · Jul 1, 2004

Congratulations Epicenter.

Epicenter · Jul 1, 2004

Thanks!

Quickman · Jul 1, 2004

Stupid Sky Digital, why couldn't they have G4TechTV?

LocalH · Jul 1, 2004

There's an ASF floating around the BT trackers. I haven't watched it yet, but it's 161MB, which means it's probably shit quality, either resolution-wise or bitrate-wise.

They only repeat the fucking thing once a day, too, and since I missed the noon replay, I'm fucked for trying to watch this in good quality.

Edit: As I suspected, it's only 365kbps and looks to be 15fps. And the file is 1:00:08 long, which means IT STILL HAS FUCKING COMMERCIALS ARGH GOD DAMNED AMATEUR VIDEO PIRATES!%$@#%!#$%^#^

And it's also washed out as hell, the damned black level is way too high. If I had access to this in a good quality format, I could easily make a high-resolution, high-quality AVI from it. Of course, it'd be 700MB, but it'd be as close to the master as you could get with Divx 5.

Edit again: Sorry, Epi, but I gotta chuckle at this - "Motorola 6-8-0-0-0"? Heh. I always just said it like the number =P

Otherwise, good job, who was your favorite person to meet of the talent?

Epicenter · Jul 2, 2004

Oh, they were all pretty cool. I could relate to Yoshi a lot, but Patrick Norton was one of the smartest all around on the show when it came to all the things the show focuses on. Kevin Rose is cool, so I liked meeting him .. everyone there was really friendly, and it was great getting to hang out with them.

Kles · Jul 2, 2004

Kevin is very cool. I'd like to meet him :P

But yeah, grats.

SupperTails66 · Jul 2, 2004

Well, this certainly got off track fast. :P

Ultima · Jul 2, 2004

I can't believe he asked you about the girlfriend. He made a good recovery, but you kinda did look pretty embarassed there... Anyhow, good stuff.

GerbilSoft · Jul 3, 2004

Smashing conclusion. :P *shot for bad pun*

[For those who didn't watch, at the end of the episode Pat smashed a bad MD2 board with a sledgehammer, then Epicenter took over and started smashing it. :P]

LocalH · Jul 3, 2004

GerbilSoft said:

Smashing conclusion. :P *shot for bad pun*

[For those who didn't watch, at the end of the episode Pat smashed a bad MD2 board with a sledgehammer, then Epicenter took over and started smashing it. :P]
Click to expand...

I don't think it was bad, I think that with Kevin wanting it smashed, and Epi saying 'It probably won't work anymore' (hell, he probably just wanted to smash it, he said he hated working on that model due to physical constraints), then Pat finally decided 'what the hell' and beaned it. Plus, I love that bit where Epi is just smashing the absolute shit out of it, and right before they cut back to Kevin for the wrapup, Epi picks up a chip and says 'I think this is the graphics chip', or something like that.

Epicenter · Jul 6, 2004

You have very good ears, that is pretty much what I said. It was actually the 68000, but it was so smashed up you could barely tell! I was actually thinking of the MD1's VDP, which looks quite similar when hit with a sledgehammer.

tooncy · Jul 12, 2004

LMAO! I think I'll try this sometime.

Overclock the Sega Genesis

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