Sega Master System

[proud bronze]

speaking of Micro Machines i get this weird flicker in the top portion of the screen

is it a common issue?

im using analogue output to a CRT

or is it a bios issue?

another issue if anyone can help me here. In some of the GG to SMS conversions the start button doesnt seem to function. Is there a solution for that?

[chilly dove]

If the game has a flicker at the top of the screen it’s usually because you’re playing a PAL game with NTSC settings. Go to the TV settings in the Core Video settings and switch from NTSC to PAL

[proud bronze]

thanks i will test it out

yeah that was the issue. Too bad PAL shrinks the viewing area

that's crap

[silver hare]

Well, PAL being higher resolution, but generally games of that era are not outputting more pixels in the PAL version.
Not crap though I'd say, that's the way I like it

There's always the higher resolution SMS2 modes

[proud bronze]

insnt micro machine a higher resolution game?

im just irritated at that the screen size shrinks when switching to PAL

and there doesnt seem to be a PAL to NTSC conversion of it

as is the case of many games on SNES and Mega drive

[silver hare]

Think of it another way if it helps, output to HDMI and it's basically wide-screen

I stick to the borders on a CRT, but great thing is, we can all play all sorts of ways on MiSTer

[proud bronze]

yeah im only outputting to CRT currently

the shift was more dramatic then I expected

were all higher resolution games in PAL territory?

[silver hare]

I believe so, only a few. They are all 224p games I think, which I believe NTSC SMS2 could also do.
There's also 240p mode, which is PAL only IIRC

[proud bronze]

damn I need to find a list of the different resolutions of all games on the SMS

[tight sorrel]

apparently only 4 Master System games use extra height mode (256×224 or 256x240)
https://www.smspower.org/Tags/Extra-Height
All the others use 256x192 resolution.

[obtuse prairie]

So I guess they all are SMS2 only??

[prime harbor]

only sms2

[proud bronze]

too bad not much of quality 😕

[silver hare]

Dizzy is alright, and micro machines is good fun. Never played cosmic spacehead

[prime harbor]

I dont need no one of these super resolution games

[proud bronze]

Then don’t

[sage hill]

I need them

[silver hare]

My SMS2 has some odd colours lately so I just really need to open it up, and see if it looks like a re-cap job I feel I can do

Was hoping to repair it, and a broken light phaser I have, to test the various cores for lightgun alignment too. Hopefully two relatively easy jobs!

[brazen bramble]

I’m curious - why not just use your MiSTer?

[silver hare]

It's probably the only console I would care for repairing, being my first and all.
But more practically, I believe between the SMS, Megadrive/Genesis cores there are light phaser issues, and I figured I might try some SMS homebrew to interrogate it on hardware a bit easier.
MiSTer also doesn't support the 240p PAL mode correctly yet, or borders for 224p iirc, something like that.
Wanted to mess around with that too

Also might get an SMS1 someday just to try the 3d glasses, so MiSTer support there would easily avoid that purchase 😄

[brazen bramble]

Gotcha. I understand. Thanks 🙂
(SMS2 was my first console too)

I’m still surprised how little attention the master system gets. Hardly anyone ever talks about it. It’s not like it’s crap and aged terribly like the 2600 either!

[silver hare]

Thinking SMS fun, if anyone wants a new demo to try, this is a very fun fast shooter in development, demo available. Naturally works great on MiSTer
https://helpcomputer.itch.io/frontier-force-alpha-demo
Gotta keep learning to code myself, making something for SMS would be the dream

[hallow wadi]

Homebrew scene for SMS is great

[prime harbor]

SMS is a Super MSX

[prime harbor]

I have the 3D glasses for the famicom, that are perfectly compatible with SMS. They can't be connected to the MiSTer, but if they could... should work.

[silver hare]

This is it. I think it would need a new SNAC for the 3D glasses. Would be very cool to see

[prime harbor]

it gives the effect

but it takes you vision progressively

can be harmful for your eyes I think

hehe

[errant ether]

Even better than MSX 2?

[visual summit]

You mean the SMS glasses can't be connected? The Famicom ones can be connected via SNAC in the NES core, there's even an option for them.

[prime harbor]

i didnt know

[proud bronze]

😮

[brazen bramble]

The master system core is so good

[worn spruce]

Is there is a master, who is the slave?

[obtuse prairie]

Do you mean the MegaDrive core which is Master System compatible? Or the standalone Master System core?

[worn spruce]

I like to keep my cores separate. That way I can have different profiles on the rt4k that auto load for each core.

[obtuse prairie]

But what core do you use for Master System and why?
I prefer the MegaDrive core because of the supposedly more accurate implementation.

[worn spruce]

The sms core. They work the same for me and the different names mean I can have different profiles. Also the overscan is different for both.

[brazen bramble]

I use the SMS core because it's supposed to be a SMS rather than a MegaDrive in BC mode

Also I have different configs (video presets etc)

While the SMS core doesn't get anywhere near as much love as many of the others, I haven't really encountered any problems or things which seemed inaccurate when I've played

But I'm not a hardcore tester, just a regular user that uses it a lot (one of my most played cores)

[worn spruce]

I only used it for phantasy star 🙈

[brazen bramble]

Alex Kidd in Miracle World!

[worn spruce]

What's the sega metroid clone?

[brazen bramble]

Turrican?

Master of Darkness is a nice castlevania ripoff 🙂

[worn spruce]

I'll try it. Sega games still seem like bizarro Nintendo games to me tbh

[oblique swallow]

Wonder Boy 3 is all ya need, the remake is excellent also tho

[worn spruce]

I heard there is a ultima 4 port for the master system that is supposed to be suprisingly good.

[brazen bramble]

The master system version of fantasy zone is pretty good 😎

(Although the PCE port is more faithful)

[proud bronze]

Master System got an excellent port of R-Type

[sage hill]

Master System ||got an|| excellent ||port of R-Type||

fixed that for you 😎

It’s such a cool system

[brazen bramble]

Yep. Although it does benefit from increasing the number of sprites

[worn spruce]

Sprite? Like the beverage? Yeah it's alright I guess.

[brazen bramble]

Sprite is awesome!

[worn spruce]

I heard soda tastes completely different in the usa. Because they put in high glucose corn syrup or something. So please differentiate which Sprite.

[final skiff]

With the canned and plastic bottle soda, yeah. The ones in the glass bottles still use cane sugar though. You can tell the difference immediately.

[worn spruce]

We only have the ones with cane sugar and CRAZY people still say it's not healthy. 🤣

[sage hill]

Every time I go overseas I realize just how much better quality cheap food is.

[brazen bramble]

I’m based in the UK, so UK Sprite

[worn spruce]

That's basically european sprite then

[brazen bramble]

Actually it’s Sprite that we’ve taken back control of

(A line from some of the Brexit campaigns 🤦‍♂️)

But yeah, I expect it’s exactly the same, or maybe only with minor variations

[worn spruce]

I've followed brexit extensively because it's so funny. But that's to political for anything but off topic. Hows your water doing anyway? 😋

[brazen bramble]

Probably. My bad! Our water? Umm… fine? Has something happened I should know about? 😄

[worn spruce]

Dmed you, too spicy for master system. 😅

[brazen bramble]

https://youtu.be/qYJkol00JCE

[fallow hull]

A connoisseur of music I see

[brazen bramble]

That game has such great music!

[fallow hull]

Well it is yuzo koshiro

[obtuse prairie]

That's my favorite Sonic song ever. I had Sonic 1 on the Game Gear and I could finish it with like 26 lives left and of course all emeralds! For some time, I did that in a weekly basis.
With such a design and music, I could only dream about Sonic 2 on the GG... I thought it was going to be even more imaginative and "strange", but what we got didn't live up to my expectations.

Now, that Bridge Zone song ALWAYS remembered me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW3mqNdw8BQ
So much so, that my friends called that zone "la pantalla de Mecano", which in spanish means "the Mecano course" since that's the name of the group.

I have no idea if Yuzo Koshiro copied Mecano or it was the other way around, but oh man, it was so awesome to find Mecano music on a Sonic game back in 1992!! 😄

[brazen bramble]

You’re doing far better than me. I never beat it as a kid (for some reason I used try to collect every single ring etc - no concept of risk vs reward) - I started replaying it the other day and can fairly consistently get to the final boss but can’t figure out the beam pattern during the second phase 😅 - I’m sure I’ll get there eventually though

Master System Sonic holds a special place in my heart though. I much prefer it over the Mega Drive version

[obtuse prairie]

It's easy, you'll do it. Simply take your time looking at the energy balls and the electric rays. You'll eventually see how easy it is once you know the trick 😉

[obtuse prairie]

Me too. I dream of a MegaDrive version of the Master System game, with the Master System musics converted to OPL audio and all 🙂

[brazen bramble]

The electric balls are easy, it’s just the pattern of when the ray comes back on during the second phase! 😄

[obtuse prairie]

I follow Sonic hacks just to see if something like that is ever made...

[brazen bramble]

Jungle zone always had my favourite music. Of all the bosses (except the final), it’s the only one that occasionally catches me out

[obtuse prairie]

Thing is, I have beaten it so many times in my life since I was 11 (and I am 43 now!) that I don't think about the pattern anymore, just use muscle memory to beat it 😄

[obtuse prairie]

Ah yes, I sometimes lose a life or two on the rolling balls of that boss 😄

I try to hit him too many times in a row and I get caught 😄

wow, such a good game...

[brazen bramble]

I was 2 when the game came out, which might explain why I wasn’t great at it as a kid (I played it when I was probably 5 or so)

So I can forgive myself for being terrible at it!

[obtuse prairie]

Yes, of course! I played it for the first time in 1992, being 11 years old it was "easily doable" with some practice.

But at 5 I wouldn't have been able to do much

WonderBoy III is also a perfect game on the system. I love that game SO much...

[brazen bramble]

I’ve taken it upon myself recently to beat many of the games that gave me trouble as a kid. They’re so much easier in your 30s 😂

[obtuse prairie]

I have such fond memories of those games, about the musics, about being in summer camp for 15 days whistling their music all day because I was SO eagerly wanting to play them when camp would end...

Magical times, maybe the best years of my life

[brazen bramble]

I can relate! 😅

[obtuse prairie]

What I love about those games is that they didn't take your whole life: they were designed to be fun and even somewhat deep (WB III), but they didn't absorb you like modern games do, they just required some hours once a week to be fun and imaginative between activities outside of home

Maybe that's why I go back to those instead of buying modern stuff (which I don't like or enjoy: give me Sonic 1 and WB III any day of the week over modern stuff)

[brazen bramble]

That’s definitely an appeal of a lot of retro games. You can play them for 30 mins and have a great time. I do still like modern games, but I definitely shy away from the big 100 hour long epics

Often life gets in the way and I have to put them down, and then I can’t remember where I was in the story or whatever, which kills the fun

[obtuse prairie]

For me, modern games are a no-no. Aesthetically they make me feel... uneasy. They give me bad vibes, so to say. Can't stand them. Saturn/PSX is the last generation for me.
So I save a lot of money on games nowadays since the MiSTer is all I need 😄

[brazen bramble]

I think I’m just a sucker for hype and FOMO

Especially given I love story driven games. I don’t want to miss out on a good story

But it’s a double edged sword due to the time investment

[sage hill]

You know what’s the greatest story of all? The story of life, starring you! You’re the hero of your very own grand adventure.

[worn spruce]

Tokyo Ghoul taught me otherwise.

[worn spruce]

Is there an ntsc version of ultima 4 on sms or just pal?

[brazen bramble]

No reply. It’s just a corpse.

[worn spruce]

Imagine getting extra lifes for gathering enough coins. Though the way people behave that's probably the case.

[brazen bramble]

I finally beat it!

(Although on the analogue pocket, so it doesn’t count. I’ll need to do it on the MiSTer for it to count)

[obtuse prairie]

I remember Yuzo Koshiro appears as "Lunarian" 😄

Whatever that means for him

Did he play FFIV and read about the "Lunarians" there? I think it's from the same year as Sonic 1...

[brazen bramble]

Ha, I didn’t notice. Sounds like an excuse to play it again! 😄

[obtuse prairie]

You got hold of the boss final attack pattern, eh? 😄

[brazen bramble]

Well, kinda. The second half is still a bit tricky, but I understand generally what I should be trying to do

[hallow wadi]

if you feel like replaying there's a version that apes the megadrive versions style but retains the gameplay on the sms version

i find it v cool

https://www.smspower.org/Hacks/SonicTheHedgehog-SMS-Genesis-Mod

[oblique swallow]

Gave it a go myself, haven't beaten it since I was a kid
Final robotnik fight gets ya with first 6 hits being super simple then taking more than the normal 8 to beat him 🙂

[oblique swallow]

That looks awesome, giving it a shot

[hallow wadi]

it is awesome

the superior vibes of megadrive sonic 1 and the superior gameplay of sms sonic 1

[brazen bramble]

That’s cool. Thanks for sharing! I’ll definitely give that a try 🙂

Only one bad thing: “The music has been replaced as well.” 😭

[obtuse prairie]

I totally agree... Master System music is FAR superior, so it's actually a downgrade 😦

[prime harbor]

I will try this patch

[hallow wadi]

There is that

Speaking of. The sonic sms patch that adds fm sound is pretty cool too

Def worth a go

https://www.smspower.org/Hacks/SonicTheHedgehog-SMS-FM-Mod

[obtuse prairie]

I don't quite like it, because it introduces some small "pauses" during the game scrolling (as if the game didn't slowdown enough as is...)

[hallow wadi]

I usually use the turbo option. Not sure if it works with the patch though

[brazen bramble]

The slowdown is usually a handy indicator of an enemy about to fly into the screen 😅

[hallow wadi]

Sonic 1 on sms really benefits from the turbo

To think I grew up playing a pal version with no turbo 😱

[sage hill]

What’s turbo do, just make it 60hz?

[hallow wadi]

You’re the mod you tell me lol

[sage hill]

mistakes were made

I’m serving time for some crime I don’t know I committed

[worn spruce]

You commit those crimes every day!

[brazen bramble]

Nothing wrong with that 😎

[brazen bramble]

Can’t tell if you’re trolling

I’ll take the bait - it overclocks the CPU to reduce slowdown. You’d still need to switch over to NTSC to get 60Hz

So NTSC + turbo would be the “optimal” output.

I go for NTSC (when it’s not a PAL exclusive, otherwise it just goes too fast) w/o turbo because I’m a purist but want to believe I grew up in ‘murica

[hallow wadi]

I don’t think he can tell when he’s trolling either

[brazen bramble]

It’s as automatic as breathing at this stage

[prime harbor]

good evening

today I feel like playing Master System

[brazen bramble]

I see you are a person of culture

[cedar fossil]

the retrotink can tell which core you're using and automatically change profiles?

[worn spruce]

Yes.

[cedar fossil]

That rules

How does it know

[worn spruce]

There was a framework update on mister that makes the core report metadata so the rt4k can correctly scale and crop the picture. Since it also reports the cores name it can also switch to the profile with the same name. Only works with dv1 though, which sends out the original resolution of the core, so the tink does all the scaling.

[cedar fossil]

Thank you for explaining! Very cool.

[twin vault]

I'm wantign to fix the PAL Analog video

I might post some stuffs here

[twin vault]

This is either up shifted or border is incorrect

But its 49.7hz and not 52.4

Someone with an SMS tell me which of the two is it

On 240p

[silver hare]

Definately gotta test this. Thanks so much for all the work @twin vault !

I've got a light phaser test ROM to run alongside my SNAC adapter too, gotta see how the alignment compares when I can setup MiSTer and the SMS at the same time

[twin vault]

Fun fact, I made the last change to the video file here too

[prime harbor]

Merry Christmas. Feliz Navidad!

[silver hare]

Merry Christmas all indeed. Going to get some SMS in with time off work!

[twin vault]

I'm still up for fixing the video so if you wanna compare to real hardware, am here

[smoky chasm]

Nobody with a real PAL SMS around in here?

To test Kasher 's proposed change?

[silver hare]

I will against a PAL SMS2. Don't have an SMS1 if that would be different

[twin vault]

I think this mode only exists on the PAL SMS2, so that would be ideal

Yeah I want a 315-5246 VDP

[prime harbor]

I don't have a PAL console

[storm bane]

ive got one, my console is just in need of new caps, and better output than just a composite mod

[twin vault]

I just wanna verify if the image is centered, shifted or something else

[storm bane]

ive only got a flash cart, not sure whats needed to test with

[twin vault]

240p games like Micro Machines

Cosmic Spacehead
Fantastic Dizzy
Micro Machines

...Huh, that's it?

[silver hare]

I think those are the 224p mode even. The 240p PAL mode is only used by homebrew I think, but I'll compare that too. Hopefully tonight

[silver hare]

Got to testing the SMS core update today. I made some composite captures taking both MiSTer (via composite from misteraddons active encoder board) or my PAL SMS2 (via RF), into a VCR. Then outputting composite from the VCR into a GV-USB2 capture device.
I compared that capture to a camcorder recording of the CRT screen, also showing the VCR display, and the shifts did indeed look the same (without the disadvantage of shaky cam and CRT flicker), so I think the results should be good.

(FYI the raw capture as presented will have incorrect aspect ratio. I'm capturing at 720x576 and would then crop to 704x576, then apply PAL PAR of 12/11 to turn that into a 4:3 image of 768x576. All the captures are equally incorrect though so hopefully that shouldn't matter)

When you noted the border might be incorrect, or there could be an "up" shift, I think what I've found is;

• Border is incorrect, but showing more than the current core.
• Image is shifted up, but no worse than the current core.

Other info that might help

• There is a 192/224/240 PAL test ROM (https://github.com/maxim-zhao/sms-240-tester), and it showed;
  • Rolling image for the 224p mode (not observed in Micro Machines for whatever reason.... It was stable in the game)
  • Similar level of "up shift" in the image in both 192 and 240 modes between SMS2 and MiSTer composite output
  • I've attached images from the camcorder recording of my CRT, named to clarify what's what. Easiest to save and alternate between images yourself to see the differences
• There is a test ROM for the light phaser that shows it is aiming left of original hardware (NOTE: My SMS2 output does not match the creators SMS1, so might need separate work to verify what SMS models are doing on that front). As this test ROM shows the phaser location live in a light pen type way, I would guess that is also down to subtle differences in the analog output you are trying to fix so figured I'd mention it, despite the apparent differences from SMS1/SMS2 yet to be understood

(Also, the borders having colour on MiSTer but not on the SMS2 is a completely separate oddity. Not sure which is correct, as the SMS everdrive is likely not setting the palette colours properly after using them for the everdrive GUI. Meanwhile the MiSTer border colour will change as you load different games before the test ROM so it doesn't seem to reset the palettes consistently either)

[twin vault]

Thank you very much, I will take a look today, the 224 rolling is odd

I sure hope my CRT will roll too haha

[silver hare]

Just noticed the GitHub doesn't have a built ROM in it, so I'll add this here so you don't have to dig out Master System assembly

[twin vault]

Thank you

[native ridge]

I have a PAL SMS 2.

Mine has Alex Kidd in Miracle World built in

[twin vault]

As long as it works with these 3 games Its what I'm looking for

[twin vault]

Is the rolling stopping if you toggle the Border setting?
Unfourtenatly can't replicate the rolling

[silver hare]

Could test tonight, I always have borders on in the core

The analog capture did show the offset is enough that some of the top of some frame can be seen in the bottom of the capture. I wondered if that might be part of it, that would improve if all the blanking is made to match

I should also compare like Megadrive the same way to confirm it should just align if all is correct

[twin vault]

Yes, that's why I asked, since if you toggle it the frame will shrink

Yeah I'm dumb its definitly that

[twin vault]

I think this is on point for 224p PAL

[twin vault]

I set the borders so the resolution would be 288p

[silver hare]

Will check soon. Did you do anything that might make the core more in line with original hardware for 192p and 240p too?

[twin vault]

Using the camera based images its really hard to tell the difference

For something like this, its perfect through, you can see a 4px difference quite clearly

[silver hare]

Of course. I'll get captures of 192p, 224p and 240p then with the updated core.
I wonder if that Vblank, Hblank offset shifts (or whatever they are from the FPGA coding side when you can shift the image!) will be the solution for the old light phaser inaccuracies too

[twin vault]

There's both vblank and vsync shifts I'm changing here

vblank is just where the picture is black (e.g so it wouldn't roll)
vsync is where the core sends the sync signal

[silver hare]

Captures for the core you updated today.
Certainly alot closer! 224p rolling is gone completely. Hopefully the image for each one will let you refine the adjustment to get the closer. Certainly vertical on 192p and 240p. Maybe a single pixel off in 224p? Didn't look to carefully at the horizontal.
Again, all at 720x576 output, aspect a little skewed

[twin vault]

Horizontal I didn't touch at all

[silver hare]

Got it. Just looking at what adjustment would make it line up perfectly. I'll try megadrive later (just to verify the method is sound. I think it should be though)

[twin vault]

I count 2px on 192, 1 in 224, 2 in 240 (but other way round)

Alrighty, all changed, 10 minutes I have a new version

Hsync seems 2 pixels offset, which is arguably an easier change lol

2 Pixels to the left

Does that register with light guns?

[twin vault]

Oh yeah by the way, the core shows no colored borders on my end

Are you using a specific bios?

[silver hare]

Alright, can test away quickly now if you can produce new versions so quickly! Got the toddler to bed so got a clear few hours.
I think my border colour is due to letting Alex Kidd boot every time I launch the core. I'll disable it for now to get a cleaner comparison this time

I noticed the border colour changes depending on what game was launched before hand.
Trying to read up on this earlier, I believe it is black border on my SMS2 due to an error of the everdrive not reseting a VDP register. I believe it should have a random colour as it is not set properly for this test ROM. Though, both being black works perfectly fine here!

[twin vault]

Ah, fair enough, than yeah don't boot it

Its basically me just changing a couple of numbers around and than building so its very quick

[silver hare]

Output for the updated core (I've labelled "20241230B", and correctly named the MiSTer screenshots this time).
Vertical looks bang on across the board!
The horizontal is off though....

All setup so I can try any horizontal shifts in seconds. Might be it was already at it's closest to start with....? If that is a 2 pixel horizontal change

I'll compare the next core for light phaser output. I need to do some SMS posting on that front as there may be something different in SMS1/SMS2.

[twin vault]

Yes, I didn't touch the horizontal yet, now I try

[silver hare]

Ah. I thought the horizontal looked different that the last core test

Still, the black borders in both makes it easier to see. I did find toggling border on/off on MiSTer kept the image content the same (other than border). Had to just turn border off as I found with the Alex Kidd auto-boot my border was white, not black

[twin vault]

Yes, it shouldn't affect the image output if the border is set to black, it should only affect it if its some other color (In which case, turning border off would set it to black)

@silver hare

This is just the horizontal 2px change

(In addition to last build)

[silver hare]

Looks like that is now off in the other direction, so 1 px rather than 2?

Recoding setup is not changing now, so the "SMS2" images are identical to the old, just copy-pasted and changed name to C to make the comparison image changing easier.

[twin vault]

I think I just thought it was 2px off while it was 1px off

Due to slight horizontal noise it can be hard to tell haha

Which means the next build will be def right (Unless sms isn't sending a 342px signal)

(A fact which is wildly documented)

[silver hare]

I'd say you've done it!

There is still a difference in the images, but then my SMS2 is going to have that extra layer of smeary RF output is all. Nice!

Onto some light phaser tests while I have everything hooked up

[twin vault]

Ah, its not modded?

[silver hare]

No, all stock. I do have 2 SMS2's, both as original so can at least confirm they do the same thing

[twin vault]

There's a pretty big if statement that chooses the borders, but since this is a tiny core I don't feel the need to fix it lol

[silver hare]

The border colour difference we discussed earlier is it?

Whatever the change you've made, it seems to go nicely with the borders.

Just sanity checking that latest core with Micro Machines now too. All looks perfect, once I put borders on it matches my SMS2

[twin vault]

Not color, just the borders themselves

They originally weren't in the if statement

[silver hare]

I see.

[twin vault]

That's why the option didn't do anything, it was litrally not wired to do anything

[silver hare]

Haha, well, at least now with it doing something, it is even doing the right thing! Calibrated up a bit since the origins of the core

I guess my composite capture has been nice to compare

[twin vault]

            else conv_std_logic_vector(254,9) when border = '1' and pal = '1' and smode_M1='1'
            else conv_std_logic_vector(260,9) when border = '1' and pal = '1' and smode_M3='1'
            else conv_std_logic_vector(238,9) when border = '1' and pal = '1'
            else conv_std_logic_vector(224,9) when smode_M1 = '1'
            else conv_std_logic_vector(240,9) when smode_M3 = '1'
            else conv_std_logic_vector(216,9) when border = '1'
            else conv_std_logic_vector(192,9) when ggres = '0'
            else conv_std_logic_vector(168,9);

It sure is ugly through hahahaha

[silver hare]

Just need to find my SNAC adapter....

[silver hare]

Light phaser is definitely still different from my SMS2. Will see if I can get some images to show it

[silver hare]

The core is aiming left compared to the SMS2. Might have to record images another day. In my current setup I can't get the light phaser to sit still somewhere where the cable can reach both the SMS2 and SNAC adapter to make comparisons

[twin vault]

Hmmm

[twin vault]

I think the light gun might need a delay

[silver hare]

Chatted a little with some SMS experts about the light phaser results I had not matching the original test ROM author's video.
Ultimately could only guess as to several potential reasons why, but at the end of the day those differences would likely be in my setup/CRT/cables whether I use my SMS2 or the MiSTer core.... So hopefully still good to work out some delay change to get them to agree?

I'll try to setup tonight, this time with the MiSTer sat beside the SMS2 so I can easily swap over the Light Phaser and capture both with the phaser pointed and held at the same spot, then capture the video output

[twin vault]

Alrighty

But unfourtenatly my terrible FPGA skills make me more unsure if I can do that haha

[silver hare]

Didn't get to it. Spent hours trying to make sense of aspect ratios coming out of a Rad2x instead. SMS related, but fell at the unrelated hurdle of trying to understand HDMI.

Might be good for someone else to check that latest core revision. The data output from the capture card was clear, and aligned it well.
Cycling between on the CRT though... It looked like the original standard horizontal shift (or lack thereof) was closer than that latest core you'd made....
I don't really know if that is true though, or maybe just the difference in the capture card, versus the CRT having to deal with a blurier RF signal or something. Very confused!

Any other SMS testers with original hardware might make for a good sanity check

[stone parcel]

I tried the light phaser on the SMS core about two years back, it seems the crosshair was slightly too high up and slightly to the left, maybe 4-8 pixels off in both directions.

[twin vault]

You can try my version here if you want to see if that changes anything

[silk hinge]

Something I just discovered: I think the mirror glitch in Ys: The Vanished Omens may behave differently on the MiSTer core compared to Ares. (I don't have access to original hardware, but I know the behavior I see in Ares is consistent with original hardware.)
I'm trying to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veZqon-4m48
I've been able to do this multiple times in Ares, but it never seems to work on the MiSTer core. Based on multiple videos I've seen - including some recorded on original hardware - and my testing in Ares, the position you have to scroll too isn't all that precise; there are a few pixels both horizontally and vertically that all work to get the credits warp. Nevertheless, I've spent dozens of attempts trying to replicate this on MiSTer, and haven't been able to get it to work once - it either crashes, resets, or warps somewhere in the game while displaying the line about the RODA trees.

[silver hare]

@twin vault Sorry for the delay in updating the light phaser images, I was trying to get my head around the analog captures better before following up.

I think I better understand that while the changes you made before lined up the viewable screen area on my analog capture, that can (and will) be different to how it appears on the CRT. I started to realise as I compared the light phaser test ROM with it's blue borders.

Looking at the changes from main core to your latest (KasherD in my tests) core (#1056020162391851009 message) ;

• Vertically; you can see the changed border region, and helpfully the analog vertical captures 1 single black line before to help establish a baseline.
• Horizontally; the border now goes further right, but the real SMS2 is one more pixel right again

To make the best sense of the output though, I'm now staring at the CRT screen and switching between channels to backup what I guess is the difference in adjusting the hblank and/or hsync at the same time;

• Vertically; Latest (KasherD) core and SMS2 match visibly (though the analog capture seems to have more bottom border.....)
• Horizontally; Latest (KasherD) core is 1 pixel too far right compared to SMS2. Turns out the main core is actually correct visibly on the CRT, but has that noticable error in borders

I did find some SMS VDP documentation that hopefully backups up the vertical change you made, hopefully clarifies the extra bottom border difference on the core, and might help with the horizontal screen values. https://www.smspower.org/uploads/Development/msvdp-20021112.txt.
The section "11.) Display timing" has all the border values for top/bottom and left/right (with authors caveat left/right was tested with an NTSC Genesis). Knowing the original core "looked" correct on the left, and having right border values, hopefully there's enough to confirm there too.

 ------------
 Lines  Description
 192    Active display
 48     Bottom border
 3      Bottom blanking
 3      Vertical blanking
 13     Top blanking
 54     Top border

Horizontal (NTSC Genesis values)
Pixels  H.Cnt    Description
  256 : 00-7F : Active display
   15 : 80-87 : Right border
    8 : 87-8B : Right blanking
   26 : 8B-ED : Horizontal sync
    2 : ED-EE : Left blanking
   14 : EE-F5 : Color burst
    8 : F5-F9 : Left blanking
   13 : F9-FF : Left border```
Images;
* 1 - Mister Main SMS core
* 2 - Your latest core (#1056020162391851009 message) 
* 3 - My PAL SMS2

[twin vault]

If I'm counting right, this matches with the hsync change I did

[silver hare]

Hopefully will not be so bad to make sense of now then.
Asking in the CRT channel, gamingdoyle rightly pointed out that not knowing how the capture device might buffer, sync, etc. It might be best not to use as an alignment reference.

It's still at least useful to see regions of overscan, like how MiSTer still has less lower border. All of this perhaps effecting the light phaser timing?

I guess for a change from your latest core;
Vertical is matching, Horizontal is 1 pixel too far right.
The various border/blanking values hopefully useful from that VDP document. The full bordered image for PAL being 284x294

The 224 and 240 PAL modes having the same full bordered size, same blanking values, just different reduced top/bottom borders

[twin vault]

The last few cores only moved the horizontal there and there, so I think the original values were right

[stone parcel]

I used to play with that glitch a ton when I was a kid, it was lots of fun to get fast level ups and such, but I never beat the game like that. Usually it would corrupt the SRAM completely so that all five save slots got wiped. 😛 Not sure that happens on the Mister actually.

I think there's a cycle accurate fpga SMS core but not on Mister (yet?) https://github.com/nukeykt/Nuked-SMS-FPGA

[thorny sierra]

yes for the moment this core is just for SMS 1 / SG-1000.
It doesn't support SMS 2 and Game Gear so it is because it is not ported for the moment I assume

[silver hare]

For those capable of doing the glitch, what about running Ys via the Megadrive core. Would that work as on SMS?

[silk hinge]

I can try that

[silk hinge]

So far it seems similar to the SMS core on MiSTer.
I'm almost tempted to script inputs so I can try a variety of different scroll offsets to empirically test the output, but you can't quite do it blindly - there's an NPC in the area that you walk through, so you end up talking to her sometimes.

[silk hinge]

Besides Ares, the only place I've been able to get the glitch to work is, strangely enough, the Analogue Pocket core - which is definitely not any more accurate than the MiSTer cores. And I don't really have the money to test on real hardware.
Well, I've been thoroughly nerd-sniped. Let's see if Ghidra knows how to deal with SMS roms...

[thorny sierra]

https://fxtwitter.com/Goriva/status/1883875109162926236?t=rbARpUqcUuHTkSSMAB66Zw&s=19

[hard canyon]

who ripped out a panel prop from the enterprise?

[smoky chasm]

Hmm. I am interested in the SG-1000 Lode Runner version. Should that be played on the ColecoVision core or the SMS core?

Which is more accurate?

[smoky chasm]

or recommended?

[sage hill]

I use the ColecoVision core for all my SMS shenanigans

[smoky chasm]

But is it "better" than using SMS?

I guess "in the real world" the SG-1000 myCard games would rather be played on a Sega Mark III.

[silver hare]

IIRC master system will display incorrect colours for SG-1000 games (just as real hardware does). Though I think ColecoVision is also off in either colours still, or maybe something else....

[smoky chasm]

@silver hare what do you use? If I play the mycards on a Japanese SMS the colours are "different" from a proper SG-1000. But the emulation of that scenario would be correct. I guess that there would be no proper way to play SG-1000 games on a ColecoVision even if the hardware is very similar.

[silver hare]

I've just used SMS. I do think this was discussed before, but I can't recall if any work around solution was found...

Maybe a custom gamma filter?

[smoky chasm]

I guess that in this day and age the "correct colors" were a rather relative term.

I guess that SG-1000 is probably considered still 2nd generation

[final skiff]

It was technically released on the same day as a Famicom, so the third generation.

Though dividing systems by generations can be arbitrary at times so idk.

[silver hare]

I refuse to ever think of consoles in generations, just gives a bad impression of anything meaningful. Tech, dates, regions. It's not remotely consistent enough, not like saying gens of only Playstation consoles or something 🙂

There are stated SG-1000 colours I think. Seperate for all the analog extras of the era, I think establishing a baseline for the colours of various SEGA consoles is at least not as difficult as NES or PC Engine

[obtuse echo]

Sorry if this has been answered before, but is there a way to get "Seeegaaa" BIOS to appear everytime I'm loading a Master System game? At the moment, there's just this jarring Sega logo that appears to fade in for a few moments and then the game loads with no real fanfare

It just doesn't feel the same without that iconic jingle

[supple canopy]

iirc the core would need some work to do alternative bios’s

currently unsupported

there’s a cycle accurate “nuked” software emulator coming together that will hopefully benefit the core we have

[oblique swallow]

The megadrive sonic 2 intro?

[smoky chasm]

https://github.com/nukeykt/Nuked-SMS-FPGA ?

Last activity in Nov. 2023?

[supple canopy]

commits say 12 months ago

[silver hare]

I wonder is there any plan to additional check the SMS2 chips

[smoky chasm]

I guess that it doesn't matter. Version 1.0 was already released in October 2023. And Gyurco ported it to MIST already.

Thus it is probably already finished and cycle accurate. Just not ported to MiSTer

https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-binaries/tree/master/cores/sms-nuked

[smoky chasm]

What do you mean? Reverse engineering them?

[silver hare]

The nuked work was done on an SMS1 and some software requires aspects that are unique to the alternative VDP used in SMS2

To be fair, it isn't exactly a hard cut from the SMS models. Some original EU model SMS have the revised VDP

But, if that were absent from a core implementation, you'd not get 100% compatibility with SMS software

I think ideally you want a few options on an SMS core;

• Region: JP or other
• Frequency: PAL or NTSC
• VDP: 1 or 2
• BIOS: Selectable (Can effect hardware registers, in addition to looking nice as original hardware)
• FM: on/off
• Etc....

[smoky chasm]

In the MiSTer forums I found a link that compares SMS vs ColecoVision a bit: https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=5671

[vivid rampart]

It would amazing if the SMS nuked core with additional SMS2 could be ported to MiSTer.

SMS was my childhood console. Love it so much 😀

[errant ether]

Why was MiSTer-port skipped over...

[smoky chasm]

It is the same as the Sega System 2 core.
Maybe to keep MiST relevant? MiST can do what MISTer don't.

[thorny sierra]

This core (nuke one) only support Sega Master System 1 and SG1000

[smoky chasm]

But what is NOT covered?

[prime harbor]

i always hated SMS2

but now I hate it more...

[smoky chasm]

But do we need SMS2 emulation? Any perceivable benefit?

[thorny sierra]

Game Gear uses SMS 2

[smoky chasm]

Can still be two cores: one for SMS1 + SG-1000, one for Game Gear (+SMS2 if one wants to play SMS games on his Game Gear)

But a cycle perfect core would be the too nice. That's why FPGAs are around.

[smoky chasm]

Thanks for pointing that out. I was socialized without a contact to Game Gears and my brain obviously pretends that they didn't exist (and I am 48)

Hopefully someone will volunteer to port those MIST nuggets (SMS1 and Sega System 2) to MiSTer proper.

[final skiff]

How can you forget the Game Gear? It has Coco-Cola Kid and a Coco-Cola themed model!

[thorny sierra]

other possibility is to buy a MiST until it is ported 😅

[supple canopy]

tried it as a paddle controller for compatible sms games

no luck so far

[patent stone]

It's possible to use ms games on the nuked MD core, so...

[errant ether]

Not sure if Nuked MD core includes a nuked SMS

[patent stone]

I'm quite sure i loaded some MS games on that core.

[smoky chasm]

Yes, that basically works (if it works). I tested Wonderboy with it. You can even enable Composite Blend this way.

But not for all SMS cartridges according to the readme.md

Thus it's just basic support. No fancy mappers, no SG-1000 I guess

(might be wrong though, tested just one game, Wonder Boy). Advisable just for the composite blend alone.

[buoyant imp]

sms2 video modes and game gear and all of the msx2sms mappers. it would be a lot of effort for a core that doesn't have as many features and it's a question mark if it would fix any of the outstanding issues with the current core (all of which are very minor, the current core works very well overall)

with the megadrive core we knew that nuked-md-fpga would fix the bus arbitration problems that had been a difficult thorn in the side of that older core for a long time

[buoyant imp]

you can load sms games on the megadrive core, yes

because this functionality was possible on the real megadrive/genesis with only a pinout adapter pretty much

[buoyant imp]

let me phrase this another way...

What advantage comes from the nuked-sms-fpga core that would make it worth a few hundred hours of developer time to port over?

Not a gotcha question, I am just making sure I'm not missing something is all.

however since gyurco has ported it to MiST it would take a lot less time now to port to MiSTer.

[errant ether]

I know that but, is smz-functionality in it nuked

[smoky chasm]

Cycle accurate SG-1000 games probably? But certainly not worth hundreds of development hours

[buoyant imp]

SG-1000 emulation in the current mister core is not cycle accurate?

I think the only issue I remember from SG-1000 is like a couple mappers missing

[smoky chasm]

I don't know.. maybe it is. 🤔

[buoyant imp]

I don't know either. 😛

[silver hare]

To add to the admittedly very niche things missing for a theoretical SMS core upgrade;

• SMS2 video modes (224/240p), game gear, mappers, etc as mentioned
• BIOS support. Current BIOS toggle needs to be one of either on/off for certain games to work, though many games boot with either setting. Would be nice to get the boot to show as original. Imagine PSX boot without the logo 😄
• There's a very minor blue palette difference on SMS2....
• Some way to connect 3D glasses? 😄 I'm thinking outside the box here

• SMS core is missing CRAM dots too (but Mega Drive core does support them)
• Sprite flicker accuracy?
• Light gun adjustments to match hardware (I should test that some more, seems to be adjustable on existing cores but was still off last I checked)

On this topic, also wanted to ask if HDMI output for Game Gear could have a special toggle to handle the oddities of that screen. Like the SMS mode sub-pixel mapping that improves legibility in a few games like Castle of Illusion. Takes 3 "SMS Pixels" and forces them into 2 via; [RGB]1 [RGB]2 [RGB]3 = [RG1B2] [R2GB3]
https://www.smspower.org/Development/GGLCD

[sage hill]

I just want someone to bless a core so we can get an MGL added to main distribution so people know there’s an SMS core lol

Or was that SG-1000

[fallow hull]

always demanding, never providing 😔

[sage hill]

I made the other MGLs! 😤

[fallow hull]

but that was a long time ago

[long rapids]

The current SMS core fails a couple of accuracy tests (that pass on the Analogue/Kevtris core incidentally).

BIOS loading from the menu would be nice. Support for keyboard that is used for a few games would be nice also.

The SG-1000 issue is a funny one as some games work on the Colecovision core but not the SMS, and vice versa. It was suggested awhile back that the best solution might be a ground up SC-3000 core that would also support SG-1000 and get support perfected in that core. SC-3000 is basically a computerised SG-1000 (extra ram, keyboard support and tape loading, and disk loading via SF-7000 add-on support)

[charred turtle]

Someone send a Mister to Omar Cornut and let him decide 😂

[silver hare]

Brilliant new SMS game just dropped. Figure it's worth mentioning here, but I'll leave the game post in the #share-media message

Got to playtest, it's a tough but fair one

[silver hare]

Also just remembered, it's another case of the odd BIOS handling on the core being an issue. Game won't boot if BIOS setting is on for the core

I've seen that a few times, even on retail games. Golden Axe Warrior needs it off, but PAL Krustys Fun House needs it on. You've got to just try both sometimes. At least so far I've not found anything that doesn't work with one or other setting

[brazen bramble]

Feels weird that bios on would break things. I’d have assumed the opposite

[silver hare]

It's very bizarre

I'm pretty sure it is an off spec custom BIOS. Could be the way some flags and VDP initialisation is set or something.
Thinking how Golden Axe Warrior also doesn't work, it is one of those games that does a check so music tempo is corrected for both 50Hz and 60Hz

[vivid rampart]

Wish we could get a nuked SMS/SMS2 core someday (soon I hope)🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

I tought SMS was huge in Europe just like it was in Brazil

[charred turtle]

It was huge in my city (Northwest Spain)

[long rapids]

Just curious, what does the current core not do, or do well, that a Nuked SMS core would?

[supple canopy]

can’t use popular rotary controls for one

i’ve got several different types of paddle controller and it just can’t see it

the lack of the glorious bios is a big sad too

[long rapids]

Huh, is there a feature request for support in the current core already in GitHub? If not then please log one, that can presumably be added

BIOS loading from OSD we have a ticket in for years now and I am disappointed that hasn't been added in and I don't know why. Not sure if there is something weird about doing it but that is a glaring omission at this point.

[supple canopy]

oh and the usb lightguns are messed up iirc

woah, finally had a look at the git

it has more issue tickets than Saturn

[long rapids]

If there is anything you spot that isn't in there already then please log an issue

Maybe someone will come and give the core a long overdue big of polish

[supple canopy]

light up the bat signal, but it’s a Brazilian flag

don’t get me wrong, my hometown loves the Master System too

[long rapids]

If you can log any of the issues you have mentioned that aren't in there then that is a good first step, maybe someone will get round to looking at it soon...

[supple canopy]

all issues exist already

but

i did add details to one opened 2 years ago by our own @sage hill

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SMS_MiSTer/issues/165#issuecomment-2829128433

[long rapids]

I know @unique gulch added spinner support to Jaguar recently, maybe of interest to him

[vivid rampart]

@silver hare made a great list here #1056020162391851009 message

I would add full/perfect SG-1000 support or a separate SG-1000 core

[vivid rampart]

That would be great too

[errant ether]

Do we need to get bounty for the MiSTer-port

[unique gulch]

if i remember right after doing the nuked megadrive sorg was not exactly excited about doing it again for this

[errant ether]

Not Sorg, I meant porting the SMS Nuked Core from MiST

https://github.com/nukeykt/Nuked-SMS-FPGA

Unless like, he needs to be involved with the process

[unique gulch]

well ultimately he'll have to decide if he wants another genesis/nuked-genesis situation in the repos

like how many features do you lose by using the nuked version vs the effort required

[smoky chasm]

But maybe a MiST to MISTer port is kind of a low hanging fruit considering that those nukeyd emulations will be as close to the real thing as you can ever get?

[twin vault]

Nuked-SMS-FPGA currently targets US SMS model 1, thus SMS2/GG VDP extensions are not supported.

Those GG extensions are pretty important

We'll definitly have another genesis situation, in fact even worse here

[errant ether]

So basically it's be a hassle restructuring everything to accomodate the transitions + we'd lose some features on top of it?

[twin vault]

Also, is that even on MiST?

It'll be a bit annoying and there's pretty important features that are gonna be lost

[errant ether]

https://github.com/gyurco/SMS-Nuked

[twin vault]

Ah there we go

[errant ether]

Well at least we can add another "non-fully accurate to real hardware" core to the list of ones in MiSTer everytime people talk about how more accurate it is vs software emulation

[unique gulch]

the only reason we didn't lose more genesis features was sorg went through the pain of adding them

[silver hare]

I've remembered another one, a few odd custom wrappers (think that's what they are called?). I think GitHub has the issues list.

The main thing is the core as is, is still a great way to play and enjoy lots of SMS games. Virtually everything works near perfectly! These minor things are all you are left to highlight 😂

[obtuse prairie]

It was big in Salamanca (Castilla y León) too 🙂

[charred turtle]

Yeah, I mention regions/cities instead of whole countries because I have a feeling at that time some guy in s big department store with a preference for a system and good selling skills could have a pretty big impact on a city having more users of one system or the other

[long rapids]

It would probably be better to improve the core we have, maybe taking some elements from Nuked if they fix the issues causing those two tests to fail, rather than porting over the whole thing.

[vivid rampart]

That would be great too. SMS deserves the same treatment that Neo Geo and Turbo Grafx Core had

[long rapids]

There are a lot of small odds and sods niche features that could be added if someone with the skills were so inclined. Keyboard support would be cool, as although it is only used by a few SMS games it would be a big stepping stone to getting full SC-3000 support.

[visual summit]

I found a SMS at a yard sale when I first got mine and the person selling it threw in Fantasy Zone becuase he wanted to include an RPG. It did come with Ys and Miracle Warriors IIRC.

[valid gyro]

Can’t you save the video settings for the Master System core?

[silver hare]

Should be yeah, same as all cores in that respect. Is something not working?

[summer lagoon]

is there a cache of SMS games with enhanced palettes when run the GG anywhere? has anyone dived deep into this that can explain why/how it's easier/harder than adding specific layer palettes to GB games on GBC?

[silver hare]

Do some emulators do this? Running GG games at SMS resolutions you can open up sure (but likely to just get garbage outside the viewed GG res screen size)

Naturally an SMS game played on a GG won't get any increased colour bit depth. I'm not aware of any homebrew that does it, but I suppose it would be possible (I think)

Outside emulation though, there's no way to get the best of both worlds, like and SMS game with GG colours and stereo sound. I vaguely recall someone thinking if the unreleased Lemmings 2 could be rebuilt from source code that way when the game was unearth but I don't think the code was released.

I don't think MiSTer can merge those capabilites for a SMS+GG Hybrid. Can it?

[summer lagoon]

maybe an emulator could do this manually, but it seems like it would need a person with some aesthetic to know which 32 color palette to pull out of the 4096 GG palette

for instance, getting the SMS version of Altered Beast closer to the Genesis palette

or improving SMS greats like Ghostbusters

[pale hound]

The Razing Core 1-Level demo is really good. Very Aleste, but less hectic.

[sage hill]

The name of that homebrew confuses me every time lol

[pale hound]

Yeah, confusing for Mister fans. Hehe. It's not a core!

[visual summit]

When I first saw that name, I thought, "Why is a Raizing Core on itch.io", then I realized it was a SMS game named Razing Core.

[queen swallow]

"What's this 0 mhz stuff? How can it run at 0 mhz?"

[wicked patrol]

Crazy that the SMS (with FM) is the best version of Rampage 1.

[bronze lark]

anyone else unable to get the game "Heroes Against Demons" working on the mister core?

[smoky chasm]

Is that undisputed? Just best port or best version all around?

[wicked patrol]

It actually has music and an ending unlike the original. Most other ports are also heavily downgraded

Only issue is the positioning to climb buildings is slightly off

[smoky chasm]

I read that the whole game has just one tune that starts over every 60 seconds and can get annoying pretty soon.

So it can probably be debated if "music" is really a bonus

But I will give it a try, thanks for the heads up

[true flower]

I didn't find the music to be too offensive tbh

[silver hare]

I've not got it to work before either. I kept meaning to test it on my Power Base Converter to compare if even the newer Mega Drive core "should" be able to run it.
IIRC that game has some unique anti-piracy protection in how it runs. Rans just fine on my everdrive on PAL SMS2

[bronze lark]

Yeah it worked fine on my analogue pocket. I went to play on my mister and no go

[silver hare]

Could probably be fixed if it was understood, but it for sure does something a little odd

There are bigger problems really, like some games needing BIOS to be exactly one of either on/off and you don't know which without trying

[bronze lark]

Brutal, i’ll try some bios testing

Kinda makes me curious why it works on the pocket and not mister though

[silver hare]

I just mean the BIOS enable setting on the SMS core. IIRC Krusty's fun house needs it off?

No, PAL Krusty's fun house needs it on. Golden Axe Warrior needs it off though 😄

[bronze lark]

Seriously!? Hahhaha ughh

Kk thanks for the insight i’m gonna test it

[silver hare]

As for Heroes against Demons, it has protections such that the game would work on everdrives and emulators like say MEKA or Emulicious, but the protections are such that the ROM flashed to a repro cart would not work. Something in how that is done obviously trips up MiSTer too

[bronze lark]

I would imagine the rom loading on analogue pocket is similar though no?

To that of MiSTer i mean?

[silver hare]

No clue....

[bronze lark]

Very strange

[tight sorrel]

Where did you read that because that does not make much sense to me ? I think there is no real way to detect repro cart besides relying on cartridge hardware (mapper, backup ram,...) missing in said repro cart. If the game works on emulators and everdrives without any modifications of emulation code or flashcart firmware required then it means there is no specific protection and it uses standard cartridge hardware so it looks more like some unemulated stuff on Mister side.

[silver hare]

From the creator. There are clever tricks you can do on real hardware. If the core was 100% accurate, presumably the game would work....

[tight sorrel]

Well, it is curious the game works on emulators and other fpga consoles then 🤔

[silver hare]

Can't speak to other emulators, but at least one obvious potential source is the BIOS. As I was noting above, some games only work with it on or off. If it were an accurate representation of the SMS BIOS, that should work all the time

Should be said the BIOS loading and memory registers and such do not have a definitive version either I don't think.
Certainly SMS boots differently to a Power Base Converter, but even across SMS you have different responses that can detect if the console is Japanese for example

(not to mention all the BIOS games that you'd like to be able to play naturally if you "load" in a 0KB blank ROM say)

[tight sorrel]

Sure but that's not really a protection but more an emulation flaw. It could also be flawed mapper detection ? I know there is an option in Mister FPGA core that let you disable mapper detection and force use of most common Sega mapper, did you tried it ?

So far, the only mention of "protection" i found for this game is that it will fail if you try to "fix" the checksum. See https://www.smspower.org/forums/17877-CodingCompetition2020HeroesAgainstDemonsByIchigobankaiPolariaPoyon#124594

[bronze lark]

Just to follow up on this

I have it working

had to disable the mapper in the menu

and then it loaded

Bios was Enabled

disable mapper set to yes

[silver hare]

Replying to the message that was lodged in the back of my mind as I played this one. Just arrived recently in the last batch of 2minds sales.
Just searched back the chat now, but all I had was the hazy memory "I need to get lots of money for some reason" 😄

[pearl briar]

Congratulations beating the game and also getting the real nice 2Minds version of the game. Does it still come with poster and stickers?

Also how hard was it for you to beat the game with enough of money for the good ending?

[silver hare]

Poster and manual. Don't think there were any stickers in there...

Great fun! Difficult enough, when I read back chat of you thinking it's one of the easier hacks 😅
I've played no end of Alex Kidd in Miracle World but not tried any full KiddEd games until now. I'm really looking forward to playing some more.
I suppose... Not far of Miracle World. I could go easier or harder depending on the moment.
I did try to conserve money. No shop purchases. Paid to continue when I lost all lives maybe... 4 times?
Seemed very fair

Glad I missed the bad ending. Honestly if it wasn't for the uh loose language say 😆 it would pass for an official SEGA title. Really great fun. Very creative. Fairly quickly forgot the Alex Kidd equivalent enemy logic and just got stuck in!

What part of the team were you?

[brazen bramble]

Alex Kidd in Miracle World is one of the greatest games of all time

[pearl briar]

I did the level design and some of the simpler parts of the art. Also I kept bugging the rest of the team to continue with their work 😄

If you were able to buy 4 continues, I guess you were VERY dilligent on collecting everything you could see, right? 😄

[silver hare]

I sure tried to be! 🤣
I did figure out my way into a few hidden spots of extras. There were a few I'd miss but realise afterwards I could probably get if I approached differently with new knowledge.

I'm guessing some areas do need the flying potion to get to? Read about that one in the manual, but never had it as I didn't buy anything lol

[pearl briar]

There are exactly two instances where you need the flying potion to get the extras. All other areas are reachable with jumping, even though sometimes it's very diffucult 😄

[fallow hull]

bad memories…

[silver hare]

I really want to get a Game Gear. Played Sonic 1 on one recently and I loved it! In the hand screen wasn't so small really, still a great game.
I do love the changes too from the SMS games, they really are unique versions, if very very similar

[fallow hull]

Sonic 1, definitly, sonic 2 however really has issues with the viewport size...

[prime harbor]

el sistema maestro de sega.

[hallow wadi]

i like mine a lot. mister is great for playing on a modern tv but the game gear just looks and sounds much more nostalgic to me and is quite a comfy device. idk if it's the old speakers or the recreation of the sound via fpga but it feels different

[silver hare]

Was very nice in the hands alright, had never seen one before. The original screen was grand enough too.
Just got to work out if I one day pay for a fixed up Game Gear, or feel confident enough to attempt to fix one with degraded visuals/sound that I guess is by and large just a recap away from working again

[weak garden]

does anyone know if its possible to use a mouse or trackball as a paddle controller on the SMS core?

[thorny sierra]

yes it is implemented

[weak garden]

thanks- i think i just need to set the spinner_vid=0xFFFF
spinner_pid=0xFFFF in the ini, gonna try again.

[thorny sierra]

with mouse (that I have tested) it works

[weak garden]

yep it worked with those changes to the ini. going to do a SMS paddle control game for the next #game-challenge , just wanted to check options to make sure its accessible to a wide group of people, and not just folks with proper paddles

[weak garden]

Okay, our challenge for Megumi Rescue is up. Scoreboard open until October 12th for anyone who wants to join in!

[weak garden]

Was playing Phantasy Star tonight and noticed some issues with the aspect ratio in the core

Between the video options to show/hide the border and mask the left column, only two of the 4 possible options in those settings yield the correct aspect ratio (compared to my CRT)

Correct aspect ratio:
Border on
Border off, Mask left: Cut

The other two Mask left options have a squished aspect ratio

You can see this in the startiong town when walkiing around

if you go into a first person scene like inside a house, the mask option doesnt do anything, perhaps because its a different video mode?

this is in 1920x1440p integer. interestingly, if you change scaling to "normal" instead of integer, you get another incorrect aspect ratio that is too far stretched..

[smoky chasm]

Maybe file a bug for either fixing our removing those options?

[long rapids]

Hmm, outside chance it could do with a .sys update, has been well over a year

Have you tried it on the Mega Drive core? Same issues?

[weak garden]

no, only tried the sms core. ive never played a master system game on the mega drive core

[long rapids]

May be worth a check there and see if it is the same, should be incredibly accurate

[vivid rampart]

Do you guys enable the border option to play Master System games? When the border option is disabled, the image seems stretched.

[weak garden]

if border is disabled, "cut" needs to be selected for the left crop op6ion, otherwise the aspect ratio is incorrect. I found that in phantasy star, but strangely only in the overworld view. first-person/combat views are unaffected

[flat sierra]

oh, interesting…so which setting is the most “correct”…border enabled or disabled with the cut option?

[true flower]

As far as I'm aware, is the "bg" or "black" option

Not all games used the full 256px width of the master system. Some, like phantasy star, used both horizontal resolutions.

[weak garden]

authentic would be border enabled, where mask column doesnt apply

[vivid rampart]

If I enable the cut option, the image seens more scratches to me

[weak garden]

it only matches what i see with the output on a CRT with that option enabled. the other two options squish it

[silver hare]

I'm pretty sure I raised an issue on this one for SMS core to go with increased resolutions, but aspect ratio oddities are very frequent if you turn off the borders. Especially for PAL games on most cores

[gentle saddle]

Hi there does anyone know how to run Astro Climber ? My mister is stuck at "Sega" logo when I try to run it

[thorny sierra]

you need to disable the bios on the OSD

[gentle saddle]

Thank you man

I guess that bios is the sms bios right ? Why does turn it off make it works ?

[thorny sierra]

It seems some homebrew games couldn't pass this bios but I don't know the technical reason

[silver hare]

The "BIOS" that we have on MiSTer is not really a proper BIOS at all is the issue as I understand

Since we can't import and load different official BIOS, that setting enables/disables a sort of fake BIOS that is supposed to simulate some approximation of the official BIOS in order to set certain registers games need to load, etc.

We are just seeing some games fall through the cracks for its inaccuracies. FYI even some official games will work ONLY with the BIOS setting enabled, others only work ONLY for the BIOS disabled option. Most games work with both so I guess it's just been a longstanding issue

There is a GitHub issue requesting BIOS https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SMS_MiSTer/issues/77
Might be worth adding those game cases where it is bugged.....

[long rapids]

Disappointingly nobody has implemented BIOS loading from OSD, despite it being requested quite a lot over the years and the ticket being realised on GitHub

Maybe you can if you rename it to boot.rom? But even so it isn't ideal

[silver hare]

Boot.rom can give the illusion that Alex Kidd launches before I put a cartridge in, but it doesn't really simulate anything to acting as an actual BIOS as far as I'm aware

[unique gulch]

someone would have to port it, and I don't think Sorg is interested after his experience with the megadrive

also you lose a number of features with it

[unique gulch]

and the whole GG thing. also I think the current SMS core supports some SMS based arcade games

[thorny sierra]

Yes sega system E

[long rapids]

It is a shame no developers seem interested in the SMS core as it probably wouldn't take much for someone with the skills to get it polished

[buoyant imp]

It's already significantly polished and plenty of devs have worked on it. The stuff remaining are a couple obscure hard to fix bugs and the sc3000 support right?

Maybe I'm misremembering, but I feel like the core is super solid atm

[smoky quartz]

I'm more interested to fix some issues on the Mega CD core at the moment.

[long rapids]

It is fine, and has been "fine" for many years now, but even Kevtris went back to his and fixed the test rom fails in his core after we looked into that, and nobody did here. There are missing sounds from games, missing Mappers for some foreign titles, obviously no BIOS loading, or SC-3000 support. SG-1000 support is also not of parity of the Coleco core.

It is "fine" but at any point over the past few years it could have been made better and is one core where Analogue beat it on multiple fronts.

[long rapids]

Had a quick look at the GitHub, apart from .sys update nothing has been touched in over three years on the core

[vivid rampart]

Both SMS and Mega CD core should get a rework or update . They are amazing game console! SMS was huge in Brazil and is my childhood console . So much great games

SMS > NES

[long rapids]

Well Mega CD core is out of space to even run signal tap on it, making it very difficult to update, so one assumption is srg320 will wait until the next board to work on it and then port updates back.

With SMS, it also outsold NES in Korea, Australia, NZ, and Europe. It was the biggest console of its generation in a large part of the world, it was no joke.

[vivid rampart]

Hope he can fix some Mega CD like spiderman

[vivid rampart]

I agree with every word

[visual summit]

And Brazil? I heard SMS was big in Brazil.

[long rapids]

Yeah, I was replying to Fabrisco who mentioned Brazil, it is probably still the biggest console there they seem to still be making clones

[visual summit]

oh yeah, should have looked a few posts back. lol

Odd thing is that one country where SMS didn't do too well was Japan.

[brazen bramble]

SMS is a fantastic console. Doesn’t get talked about as much because the internet is very America-centric and they love their NES

Can confirm that, at least in my childhood friendship group, more people had a SMS than a NES

[visual summit]

I didn't get SMS until later, but I have a good lineup of games now, including some NTSC friendly EU exclusives and the JP SMS. I have a handful of SG-1000 games too.

[sage hill]

Master System has a lot of cool games, didn’t really play this console until the MiSTer and it’s got a great lobrary

[supple sapphire]

what is wrong with spiderman? Is it not playable? I was actually hoping to start playing thru that soon

[vivid rampart]

The game freezes from time to time.

[supple sapphire]

Ah damn that sucks

[vivid rampart]

The Master System is still sold here in Brazil and was one of the biggest consoles for many years. Today, the Playstation dominates.

For me, the curious thing is that since the Master System was also very successful in Europe, I imagined it would be one of the better cores on the MiSTer.

[supple sapphire]

What made the Master System such a monster hit in Brazil? Did the Genesis do well there as well or any other Sega consoles?

[long rapids]

Fabrisco can give a proper Brazilian take, but looks like Nintendo ignored Brazil initially, and a local company struck a deal with Sega to make SMS consoles within Brazil and heavily promote them. This combined with really high import taxes, which meant only the very wealthy could afford consoles and games made outside of Brazil (i.e. everything else) so they were way cheaper than anything else. There were also Portuguese translations of games released for the Brazilian market Nintendo didn't do.

[long rapids]

Do you mean the original Playstation? Is that partly due to CDs being cheap to make/bootleg?

I know the 360 is the biggest console today in India, Pakistan and parts of Africa because they can be easily modded to play burnt discs and people can bootleg games and sell them really cheaply so is an affordable console.

[vivid rampart]

Several factors, the main ones in my opinion:
1 - The market for imports was extremely closed in Brazil, and a Brazilian company, Tec Toy, made an official partnership with Sega and launched the Master System officially here. Until then, the market was full of Atari 2600 and NES clones.
2 - The biggest marketing campaign that a video game console has ever had in Brazil to this day: ads on TV commercials, the console appeared on Brazilian audience shows and also appeared in the main soap opera (Novela) of the time, which aired in prime time called Tieta.
3 - Perfect communication with the public.

[supple sapphire]

interesting

You think seeing that success that Sega would've wanted to work with Tec Toy to get the Genesis/Mega Drive rocking over there as well

[vivid rampart]

PlayStation 1, PS2, and Xbox 360 were very successful here because of their great games and piracy too. Today, I think PS5 and Nintendo Switch rule here. The Xbox Series is dying because of the loss of its exclusive games and the increased Game Pass value.

[vivid rampart]

They did! Tec toy released the Mega Drive here too and was a big success. The thing is: it was more expansive than SMS and after a few time of the Mega Drive release in Brazil, a brazilian company company called Gradiente joint forces with Nintendo and released the Nes and SuperNes here, and the the SuperNes won the 16-bit war here too (not with a great difference from MD)

[supple sapphire]

Interesting!!

[vivid rampart]

TecToy has a very successful partnership with Sega, they released Sega Saturn and the Dreamcast here too

[true flower]

I do wonder just how far the SMS could have been pushed if it had the level of support the NES did

I think Deep Duck Trouble is a good example of how the devs were really getting the hang of the graphics. Shame about all the slowdown though.

[supple sapphire]

Absolutely, it's a shame the Master Syste, didn't get the 3rd party support the NES did, but back then Nintendo was pretty aggressive in now allowing 3rd party devs to work on other platforms etc

[vivid rampart]

The ports of Altered Beast, Space Harrier, Golden Axe, Shinobi and choplifter were amazing for a 8 bot console

[long rapids]

The Sonic games are also fun (and hard), very different from the MD versions to the point where they are their own games rather than ports

I do wonder if the code is especially un-fun for someone to work with, or people don't realise there are so many different outstanding issues, or really just that nobody with the skills to work on it is at all interested.

There are so many different aspects that could be worked on as well.

Want to pass test ROMs? It fails a couple.

Want to support obscure games adding mappers? There are several not supported.

Sound issues? Some of those.

Eeprom chips? Several games not loading because we don't have those.

Visual accuracy? Issues there around correct aspect ratio.

Light gun fan? Issues with drift there.

Peripherals your thing? Issues with spinners and no keyboard support.

I to Japanese PCs? Full SG-3000 and SF-7000 could be added (BIOS loading, keyboard, extra ram, cassette and disk support)

Could probably add support for more arcade games as well.

[delicate fossil]

Maybe you can try to learn how to fix all these issues like other users did with other cores 😅

[long rapids]

That's not going to happen, but I did go to the effort of buying an SMS flash cart for the sole reason of running the test ROMs on actual hardware to compare against the MiSTer and logged those issues (did Mega SG as well, which led to the issues there being fixed). Results are on the GitHub tickets.

I also tested and documented the SG-1000 library on the SMS and Colecovision cores to see what played where.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1L9LGqkR_la9N-GRMErXm0mpsR6U0jeuzRbqnKb-_xiw/edit?usp=drivesdk

[true flower]

I actually think Sonic 1 SMS is better than the 16-bit version

[vivid rampart]

Castle of Illusion is better on Master System too

[tight sorrel]

And Asterix too 😍

[visual summit]

SMS has also been getting some nice homebrew lately. I didn't expect that Pac-Man port to get Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man added to it.

Castle of Illusion is one of the GG games that runs in SMS mode. It's similar, but the font and some graphics were changed in an attempt to make them more visible on the smaller screen. Land of Illusion is native GG, but does a better job of adjusting the game for the lower resolution and some other games (or maybe the SMS version is the port). Interesting that the GG/SMS games got their own sequels. I also like Land of Illusion quite a bit.

[supple sapphire]

This is likely generally true, but I gotta say I prefer Dragon Crystal on the game gear over the master system version by a wide margin

[silver hare]

Those were really interesting too. The screen did an interesting RGB pixel blending across adjacent pixels.
Very unique certainly. Would be great to see it implementes over HDMI.
Not sure of any emulator that does that correctly

Usually just for playing SMS games on GG using the adapter (maybe for TV Tuner too?), but then are are the few cases where the GG cart just gives the "I'm an SMS cartridge" signal anyway, like Castle of Illusion

[visual summit]

The new Pac-Man port isn't to be confused with the port of the GG version. It's SMS native and has the full maze on screen (aside from Jr. Pac-Man for obvious reasons).

It also has the option to play all the games in Pac-Man plus style

https://www.smspower.org/Homebrew/Pac-ManMasterMuseum-SMS

[pale hound]

I really like Bruce Lee on the Master System. A great port of the 8bit computer classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoErKEPQ0SE

[worthy field]

im having issues with the 32x core

getting grids around certain elements

i think it was something to do with "button/key remap"

working now

[unique gulch]

how was it related to button/key remap?

[worthy field]

It was wierd. I think I pressed my keyboard and it was bound to that… I just went to that setting and made sure it was bound to the controller and those boxes stopped showing up

Weird

[flat sierra]

kinda seems more likely to be a coincidence…but I guess ya never know

[supple sapphire]

I wonder if he had HDR on

One time when I enabled HDR on my RetroTink 4K the fonts looks all whacky similar to that and when I turned HDR off it looked normal again. Flipped HDR back on and it all looked fine.

[cedar fossil]

Sounds like an easy enough fix

[silver hare]

But what does it mean....

[smoky chasm]

A normal sys update. Taki probably needs it for the soon to be shipped Superstation

[buoyant imp]

Just a framework update. No biggie

[buoyant imp]

@young kiln Can you tell me more about this controller you have that has a left+right pause? I'm trying to implement your feature request now since it seems simple to do, was just curious if I missed something.

Like is it a modified controller or is it some kind of arcade controller? etc...

does the pause work in all games (same as hardware pause button on us SMS) or is it software dependent?

This should work for ya @young kiln try it out for me.

[supple sapphire]

I freaking LOVE Master of Darkness

[shadow fern]

it's pretty cool. kinda like castlevania without the castlevania

[true flower]

I'm assuming it could be something like this?

https://www.consolesunleashed.com/product/sega-master-system-dual-controller-pause-button-mod-kit/

[buoyant imp]

thanks, i wonder if people wire it for up + down as well, i can easily add that as another option

so yeah you could wire an external button to that on the controller i guess is how it's being done for this user

which will register left+right in their case

[buoyant imp]

@flat spruce this shouldn't cause any issues, right?

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SMS_MiSTer/compare/master...birdybro:SMS_MiSTer:snac-pause

i hope i understood pause in the sms core right for SNAC, it's using joyser[6] right?

[flat spruce]

that might work, did you test it? Why have L+R or U+D as one of the combinations since normal controllers couldn't do that

oh i didn't read the link yet 🙂

[silver hare]

Apparently some games can react to left+right simultaneously in odd ways.
Not to discount up+down wouldn't either in some other game. I think that is why there might be some specific interest in one or the other method

[buoyant imp]

yeah https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SMS_MiSTer/issues/171

[flat spruce]

after I scrolled up and backtracked I found the request in the issues.

[brazen bramble]

What’s the best master system game and why is it Alex Kidd in Miracle World?

[vivid rampart]

I love Alex Kidd but for me Phantasy Star is the best Master System game

[hallow wadi]

alex kidd is pretty great but i think it's dragons trap

[brazen bramble]

[true flower]

I hate Miracle World, it was one of my 3 master system games

Alex Kidd in Shinobi World however... That game is awesome

[silver hare]

Miracle World is amazing. Shinobi World too.
I'm gonna say Ultima IV though!

[hallow wadi]

miracle world is the best dragon ball game

[pale hound]

Don't forget Golden Axe Warrior. Pretty good Zelda Klon, with better graphics.

[shadow fern]

miracle world is good. high-tech world is maybe one of the worst things ever though

there's a lot to enjoy on the master system outside of alex kidd, though. aleste, golvellius, kenseidan, master of darkness, ninja gaiden, phantasy star, psychic world, the sonic games, and more

the ports of r-type and ys are quite good too

[silver hare]

Loads. Asterisk too... Space Invaders I love.

[pale hound]

Asterix, Land of Illussion

And of course Wonder Boy in Monster Land, Wonder Boy III - Dragon's Trap and Wonder Boy in Monster World. Though i prefer ML on the PC Engine.

[smoky chasm]

The original Wonder Boy isn't that good though. The NES Adventure Island is more playable

[smoky chasm]

If you compare both ports to the original arcade version. The controls are more tight on the NES

My statement was a bit confusing. Should have rephrased: the SMS port of the original Wonder Boy...

[vivid rampart]

The best Master System games:

kenseiden
Alex Kidd in Miracle World
Phantasy Star
Castle of Illusion
Wonder Boy
wonder Boy III
psycho fox
Double Dragon
Shinobi
Asterix
R-Type
Sonic 1
Spider-man
California Games
Black Belt
psychic world
dynamite dux
Alex Kidd in Shinobi World
lucky dime caper starring donald duck
Golden Axe
Golden Axe Warrior
golvellius
Vigilante
Y’s

[smoky chasm]

"The Sega Master System version of Wonder Boy has to be one of the most overrated ports in gaming history. Of the three “major” versions of Wonder Boy, it controls the worst, EASILY. " https://indiegamerchick.com/2025/06/26/island/

[shadow fern]

good list ftmp but i can't agree with golden axe. shit's a slideshow lol

i'd add ashura, final bubble bobble, master of darkness, ninja gaiden, rastan, sonic 2, sonic chaos, spellcaster, streets of rage and zillion, among others

[brazen bramble]

It’s not a good game, but I have fond memories of Tom and Jerry the movie

Probably cos it was very easy so the only game I got far in as a kid

Master system fantasy zone is pretty good too

Though not as good as the PCE version

Although I think master system version has better colours

Worst master system game I had as a kid: the flintstones

[hallow wadi]

I think the worst one I had was captain silver

What a turd

[brazen bramble]

I loved smash tv back in the day, but my god it’s awful now

Playing that with a regular controller

[shadow fern]

putt & putter is pretty fun if you enjoy (mini)golf games

[brazen bramble]

I’m amazed at how little the master system seems to get discussed online

[shadow fern]

shame really. the NES library is a lot bigger and more diverse, but master system definitely doesn't get enough credit

[brazen bramble]

America/NES dominating online culture

[shadow fern]

indeed

[brazen bramble]

I think it outsold the NES in the UK

[hallow wadi]

Great console

Even cooler is that it got a portable version

That’s what I have now no idea where my childhood master system ended up

[visual summit]

The US version of that game cut out half the content!

[hallow wadi]

for the best

[visual summit]

I forgot there was a master system version. Looks like it's actually different from the GG version, though the gameplay is similar. The SMS version looks somewhat unfinished with the final "boss" being glitched, though the stage can be beaten by catching Jerry early.

[vivid rampart]

Sure, it chugs a bit in the big enemy piles—SMS pushing those massive sprites to the limit—but the animation’s smooth, levels are detailed, and it’s one of the best arcade ports on the system.

[shadow fern]

the reason the game looks as choppy as it does is because it doesn't use sprites for player characters and enemies; it uses background tiles. it's a cool approach, and it allows the game to display some large, detailed graphics with no flicker, but the tradeoff is that everything moves in chunks, and it really hurts the gameplay more than it helps

[final skiff]

One of those classic examples of just because you could, doesn't mean you should.

[languid anchor]

Lord of the Sword, Master of Darkness are also good...

[silver hare]

Lord of the Sword 👍
https://youtu.be/l8HaOwAClQs?si=DRqC_jFgFymvKgfE

[languid anchor]

I am also one of the only people that actually enjoyed Miracle Warriors. The map that came with it was cool! The music was also really good! Just took a moment to figure out how to play it. Its an acquired taste that was probably picked up from old PC games that came before it.

[silver hare]

Just got that recently with the map as I've wanted to play that one too. I love the old RPGs. Just gotta get in the mindset and go in blind 😂

[hallow wadi]

https://tenor.com/view/john-cena-dance-music-happy-listening-gif-17019750582504384160

[languid anchor]

It’s not much to look at… but once you figure out how to play it, I found it enjoyable.

I was stuck with PSG in the US. 🤓

[charred turtle]

I loved Lord of the Sword as a kid, but it was so frustrating because there was a path that wasn’t unlocking and I couldn’t figure out why. In any case it felt soooo atmospheric

[smoky dock]

This is a first attempt to support BIOS files in the Master System core.

The BIOS option now has 3 values: "Disable", "Internal", and "Ext. File." This last one is to be combined with "Load Ext. BIOS" to load a BIOS file.
To run the BIOS internal games one have to load the BIOS and reset, without loading any ROM.
I also added a menu item "Eject ROM" for convenience. It will unload any loaded ROM so the BIOS internal games can be played without reloading the core.

Most common BIOS are working in my earlier tests.
The following BIOS are not working in this build:

[BIOS] Alex Kidd in Miracle World (BIOS Version) (World) (Sega Ages)
[BIOS] Alex Kidd in Miracle World (Korea) (Unl)
[BIOS] Hang On (USA, Europe) (v3.4)
[BIOS] Sega Master System (USA) (Store Display Unit)

Please let me know if there are any other issues.

[dawn bone]

Holy shit someone alert @long rapids

[bold brook]

Does this change anything that the average user would notice?

[vivid rampart]

Thank you so much for this update 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[pale hound]

So, you can now load bios files (like a ROM) with included games? Because, using a Master System bios (which is mandatory for some games to run at all) was already there.

[smoky dock]

Not really. The average user probably never had a SMS. The BIOS is for those missing the SEGA logo and tune from the real hardware. I also like to play the BIOS version of Alex Kidd in Miracle World because it swaps the buttons (punch on 1, jump on 2).

[bold brook]

Thanks for the info!

[pale hound]

Right now i'm trying the prototype of NBA Jam. Unbelievable how good it is. A really competent down converted port of a classic.

[smoky dock]

Yep, this build can load the BIOS files and handle them properly, to play the built in games, for intro screens or whatever reason.

[supple canopy]

have you fired up the JP “Space Harrier” bios?

[silver hare]

Had to be done. 🎵

[silver hare]

Lovely core update! Thank you so much for giving the SMS some love ❤️
The old internal BIOS implementation is a bit bugged, had issues with some official games, and a lot of homebrew.
No issues so far after a quick test with my old reliable Alex Kidd PAL BIOS.
Both Krusty's Fun House and Golden Axe Warrior boot perfectly (with old BIOS setting you could pick enable/disable and one or the other would break).
No issues at all, and avoids the need to hack on the BIOS ROMs to try to play the games.
Fantastic stuff!

If you're looking at the core, the BIOS change reminds me of a semi-related one. Proper region detection.
https://www.smspower.org/Development/RegionDetection

I'm not really sure what the hardware level changes are, that link notes a way to test in software on original hardware if you are on a Japanese console or an export console.
Apart from the increasing the accuracy and some rare compatibility aspects, the main thing we miss out on are the cool variable Japanese "BIOS" splash screens.
Even setting the JPN v2.1 BIOS in the new core you still don't get those (which is the same as almost all emulators too, only MEKA does the region setting properly as far as I know...)

Would probably need another core setting separate from the PAL/NTSC output, setting "Hardware region" or something....
Just to note it as a wishlist! What you've done is absolutely incredible as is! Very very grateful SMS fan here!

[supple canopy]

s u b l i m e

[brazen bramble]

Woah, bios files supported?! 🤯

Finally I can play the best version of Alex Kidd!

[thorny sierra]

working great 🙂

[vivid rampart]

I think a tear is falling from my eye

[vivid rampart]

Is there a away to save the bios settings? I am trying save settings, autosave on/off but every time I reboot the core it’s loose the bios I selected

[smoky dock]

I'm not on my MiSTer now to check. But there is an option to set Region to Japan. If you set Region to Japan, does it still not show the Sega Mark III screen?
From what I remember, the Mark III screen is on the ROMs, not the BIOS. The games will show it when they detect a Japanese system. Not all games do that, though.

[silver hare]

I'll have to double check that region setting already then....
Your right though yeah, those are in the ROMs

[smoky dock]

There isn't. The framework does not support that. I think that would require changes on the Linux side.

[silver hare]

Thanks for that reminder. That setting seems to get those to show already alright. I must have completely forgotten!

[vivid rampart]

Thank you so much for this great update. I missed this feature since day one! I just love all Master System Bios.😀

I tried to rename the bios to boot.rom to see what happens but it didn’t work either.

[long rapids]

Great to see the SMS core getting some long deserved love

[supple canopy]

literally everything outsold the Mattel Entertainment System at all times it was on the market.
it briefly stopped being last place when it came bundled with a turtles game - then fell back down when everyone realized the game sucked

[long rapids]

SMS certainly seemed more popular, I didn't know anyone with a NES

-in the UK

[supple canopy]

folks who’s only exposure to electronic entertainment was from Boots ltd

[silver hare]

Boots and Sonic the Comic (or just Sonic the Comic for me in Ireland actually 😄 )

[long rapids]

I still have my old Sonic The Comics, even have the first issue. Not sure if they are worth anything these days. I think they were drawn by a kid, very crude artwork if I remember

[vivid rampart]

I hope to see Super Boy I and Super Boy II support. I know those games are terrible but they are part of sms history

https://segaretro.org/Super_Boy_I

[long rapids]

Does those not work on the core? Do they have a weird pirate mapper?

[brazen bramble]

The only person I knew who had one was a cousin who seemed to have all the consoles. I think he also had a Jaguar at one point too

But the Americanisation of the internet makes it seem like everyone had fond memories of the NES and that nobody played the SMS 😆

Maybe by total number of consoles, sure - but the world was also a different place then - things were more regional

Similarly back then, I think a lot of people gamed using computers rather than consoles in the UK. I grew up calling them “computer games” rather than “video games”

[thorny sierra]

it is specific mapper not implemented and shows graphical issues currently not playable

[long rapids]

There a feature request issue for adding it?

[supple canopy]

huh?

[thorny sierra]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SMS_MiSTer/issues/154

[silver hare]

Sonic the Comic art got really great very fast after the first few issues. As shown!

[brazen bramble]

I had that comic. Core memory unlocked

Thanks! 😅

[long rapids]

We had our own Sonic The Comic in the UK, I think there was a different one in the US?

https://retronauts.com/article/458/remembering-sonic-the-comic-the-british-version

[brazen bramble]

I was a huge sonic fan when I was a kid. Had the SMS game (and game gear game), sonic comic and a video from the TV show that I watched over and over 😅

[silver hare]

Had mostly Mega Drive and later game reviews and cheats and such, but some SMS and Game Gear in there....

[brazen bramble]

I feel like one of the sonic the comic things got released as an actual hardback book

I remember there being an actual story that seemed like it had some decent lore

But I didn’t have all the editions so I missed a lot of information

[supple canopy]

multiple metal sonic’s? what is this a movie reference?!

https://tenor.com/view/metal-sonic-dreamcast-mommys-sonic-sonic-the-hedgehog-sonic-movie-gif-9431951249302352854

[vivid rampart]

It works on Mega SG SMS core

[thorny sierra]

I trying also Megadrive Core (mister) the behavior is different only black screen with sound

[long rapids]

Mapper must be documented somewhere, if that is linked to issue maybe someone can look at it

[chilly dove]

I know that 4 Pak All Action doesn’t work on the SMS core and there’s 2 baseball games on the Game Gear they don’t work due to an unsupported mapper

I opened a ticket years ago to get the baseball games supported and sorg told me no one cares about those games lol

[brazen bramble]

Maybe the SMS will get more polish when people run out of new cores 😅

Not that I’m complaining about anything

[charred turtle]

Can I play the snail maze game with BIOS support? I liked that game way more than it is reasonable

[hallow wadi]

i wish i still kept mine

and old gaming magazines, had lots of guitar magazines too but they were mostly just like wow john frusciante wow

[visual summit]

ugh. The Majors is a fun baseball game. I liked WSB 95, as well.

[vivid rampart]

Check out what ChatGPT said:

“Super Boy I (SMS) mapper info

As far as we know, Super Boy I (Zemina, 1989) does not use any custom or unique mapper.

The ROM is very small (~32–48KB depending on the dump), so it most likely runs as:
• a linear ROM (no bankswitching), or
• using the standard Sega mapper (0xFFFC–0xFFFF paging) without actually needing to switch banks.

There’s no dedicated mapper documentation for this game in sources like MAME or SMSPower, which usually means there’s nothing special going on.

Also worth noting:
• It’s a bootleg port from MSX, and some Zemina titles behave more like SG-1000-style layouts than “true” SMS cartridges.
• So it’s possible the ROM is just mapped in a very simple, compatible way rather than using any advanced SMS banking scheme.

TL;DR: no known custom mapper — just standard/simple mapping.”

[long rapids]

That's curious, maybe is it more an SG-1000 ROM?

[unique gulch]

can't wait for this to be another instance of AI lying to moondandy, except this time by proxy

[long rapids]

You can't say AI isn't learning... It is finding new ways to lie to me

[buoyant imp]

I trust smspower frequently. Should double check there

[tight sorrel]

https://github.com/ocornut/meka/blob/master/meka/meka.nam#L659

So yes, no unusual mapper for this one

[ember dawn]

SMS bf5a994a 8DF09E55615029B6   Super Boy I/COUNTRY=KR

[tight sorrel]

Games with unusual mapper have EMU_MAPPER=xx in meka.nam

[long rapids]

Good find. Strange it doesn't work, or nobody has got it to work if there isn't some obscure mapper that needs supported

As an aside, it may be useful to get information on what mappers the core doesn't support

[vivid rampart]

It’s also curious why this game doesn’t work on the Mega Drive Nuked core.

[tight sorrel]

That game uses SG-1000 legacy video modes, which were kept in Master System VDP but not in MD VDP

[long rapids]

So maybe the issue is in SG-1000 support within the SMS core. You could try get them in a format that Colecovision can load (that core supports SG-1000 and some games load on that but not on SMS core) and see what happens. A long shot but maybe worth a punt.

[tight sorrel]

I think it won't work as it is still a Master System only game, in the sense it needs Master System RAM size, which is much larger than SG-1000 or Colecovision

[vivid rampart]

I tested it — it doesn’t work.

[long rapids]

Got you, thanks for testing

Guess it will take a curious Dev to dig into this one

[vivid rampart]

Does it work on SMS core?

[vivid rampart]

Yeah, it’s working

Very cool feature

That’s true. I hope it gets implemented someday, just like support for Super Boy 1 and 2.

But to be fair, the implementation of BIOS support by @smoky dock has been the best news in a long time! He managed to implement it when I had already lost hope.

[long rapids]

If the hardware is documented, it could probably be wired up to the iO like other cores with link cables, so in theory two MiSTers could be connected together

We have keyboard support now

[vivid rampart]

Has anyone managed to play the snake game with the Hang-On & Safari Hunt BIOS (v2.4)? 😅 I’m pressing Up + A + B but nothing happens… maybe I’m doing it wrong or forgot how to trigger it lol

[tight sorrel]

Afaik the snake game is only in the first BIOS, the one without bundled game

Nope, you are right, the game is also in Hang-On BIOS
https://www.smspower.org/Development/BIOSes

[silver hare]

I had wondered before, could support for the Game Gear BIOS be added too?
A lot less impactfull that one, you'd just get the little splash screen I guess.
Suppose it might help with compatibility aspects, but I'm not aware of the built in internal setup for GG having the same issues the older SMS version has, failing to boot some games and such. Being able to use an official BIOS is always nice

[pale hound]

This Snail maze game was extracted as bootable rom, no need to break your fingers.

[vivid rampart]

One cool thing about BIOS support now is being able to use the code to unlock the game, just like on real hardware 😄

[smoky dock]

This new test version has the following changes:

• automatically resets after BIOS change to avoid glitches.
• [BIOS] Alex Kidd in Miracle World (Korea) (Unl) supported.
• [BIOS] Hang On (USA, Europe) (v3.4) supported.

[vivid rampart]

Thank you!!

[thorny sierra]

Is it normal if I load a bios on Load Ext. Bios, the same bios is selected on Load *.SMS, *.SG on the osd ?

[sage hill]

PEEEEEEENS

[smoky dock]

It shouldn't be.

Try this one just in case.

[thorny sierra]

ok will test 🙂

It is fixed ^^ thanks !

[sage hill]

Should I pin that one instead?

[smoky dock]

Yes, please. This will be the pull request candidate for now.

[thorny sierra]

Great we can play also snail maze without using rom hack ^^

[vivid rampart]

Been trying but still can’t get the code right to play the game lol

[hallow wadi]

https://tenor.com/view/sus-rock-gif-23559354

[thorny sierra]

It is up + 1 +2

It works on some bios

Usa/eur 1.3

[vivid rampart]

The problem is that I am not fast enough 🤣

[thorny sierra]

Ah 😅

[vivid rampart]

The SMS has the best BIOS ever, followed by the Dreamcast, PSX, PS2, Xbox 360, and Xbox Classic

[shadow fern]

i like the dreamcast katana dev kit BIOS startup more than the stock one 🙃

sonic 1 seems like the obvious choice for me

but wonder boy would work too

[vivid rampart]

Psycho Fox

I think Sonic 1 is twice the size

[charred turtle]

Wonderboy 3 for sure

How can Wonderboy 3 fit in 256KB? It is crazy

Like, I know it is a 256KB game and even then I went to see the size again because my brain cannot process the fact

[delicate fossil]

This is great! SMS was the console of my childhood. In Spain was quite popular

[thorny sierra]

Anyone tried to reproduce the "$2 range bug" with the bioses having the case ?

[smoky dock]

This test build fix lightgun position calculation for vertical aim offset in Master System core.

[sage hill]

I have peeeeeeeeeeeen’d this

[silver hare]

Amazing to see this one! I'd lined up my SMS with the CRT before and tried to compare. Been meaning to go back to it, will definately give this one a try

[obtuse prairie]

Wow!! After those fixes, what remains on the SMS core to be considered 100% good / compatible with games?

I think these latest changes make the core more or less into a "complete" state?

[vivid rampart]

I think compatibility with some SMS and SG-1000 games is still missing, like Super Boy I & II and The Castle. I also remember there were some issues related to certain SMS2 features (colors?). I think @silver hare can probably go into more detail.

[thorny sierra]

The SG-1000 vdp palettte is implemented on the core

[chilly dove]

SG-1000 support is still pretty spotty. It’s much more compatible on the Coleco core. 4 Pak All Action doesn’t work on the Master System and there’s a missing mapper for 2 baseball games on the Game Gear

It’d be preferable to have SG-1000 support be stronger on the SMS core, not just because it’s a Sega console and it’s more appropriate to be on the Master System core, but the Master System core also has cheat support that already works with the SG-1000 games whereas the Coleco core doesn’t

There’s also the other pirate games mentioned above but I’m no subject matter expert on them

[long rapids]

I have SG-1000 support across SMS and Colecovision cores tracked on a sheet here, Birdy and I put in a shift testing this a few years back. You can see some games work on Coleco and not SMS and vice versa.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1L9LGqkR_la9N-GRMErXm0mpsR6U0jeuzRbqnKb-_xiw/edit?usp=drivesdk

I don't think anything has been done in either core since we checked them that would have changed the results, but we do have Keyboard support and BIOS swapping in the SMS core now which paves the way for SC-3000 support there. Not sure if anyone has tried loading the SC-3000 BIOS to see if it boots. It may still need the extra ram expansion, which may not be that difficult to add...

[buoyant imp]

yeah that was one of my earlier contributions, was fun

the color palette being wrong in sg-1000 drove me nuts lol

[long rapids]

Is it correct in Colecovision core?

[buoyant imp]

i believe so, last i checked anyways

if not, it's because that's a colecovision core and not an sg-1000 core, sg-1000 is just basically identical hardware pretty much so it was easy to add on support

[long rapids]

May be worth someone checking it and the Adam core

[buoyant imp]

Before

after

old screenshots

that's the easiest way to test, look at the trees stacked ont he right

the dark green and light green were swapped in the sms kinda

and a few other subtle differences

            -- How an SMS VDP handles Legacy TMS Modes to produce these values
            x"000" when   out_color="0000" or out_color="0001" else -- Transparent or Black
            X"4A2" when (out_color="0010" and palettemode='0') else -- Medium Green
            X"7E6" when (out_color="0011" and palettemode='0') else -- Light Green
            X"F55" when (out_color="0100" and palettemode='0') else -- Dark Blue
            X"F88" when (out_color="0101" and palettemode='0') else -- Light Blue
            X"55D" when (out_color="0110" and palettemode='0') else -- Dark red
            X"FF4" when (out_color="0111" and palettemode='0') else -- Cyan
            X"55F" when (out_color="1000" and palettemode='0') else -- Medium Red
            X"88F" when (out_color="1001" and palettemode='0') else -- Light Red
            X"5DD" when (out_color="1010" and palettemode='0') else -- Dark Yellow
            X"8DE" when (out_color="1011" and palettemode='0') else -- Light Yellow
            X"4B2" when (out_color="1100" and palettemode='0') else -- Dark Green
            X"A6B" when (out_color="1101" and palettemode='0') else -- Magenta
            X"BBB" when (out_color="1110" and palettemode='0') else -- Gray
            -- Equivalent values to original TMS chip output from SG-1000
            x"4C2" when (out_color="0010" and palettemode='1') else -- Medium Green
            x"7D5" when (out_color="0011" and palettemode='1') else -- Light Green
            x"E55" when (out_color="0100" and palettemode='1') else -- Dark Blue
            x"F77" when (out_color="0101" and palettemode='1') else -- Light Blue
            x"45D" when (out_color="0110" and palettemode='1') else -- Dark red
            x"FE4" when (out_color="0111" and palettemode='1') else -- Cyan
            x"55F" when (out_color="1000" and palettemode='1') else -- Medium Red
            x"77F" when (out_color="1001" and palettemode='1') else -- Light Red
            x"5CD" when (out_color="1010" and palettemode='1') else -- Dark Yellow
            x"8CE" when (out_color="1011" and palettemode='1') else -- Light Yellow
            x"3B2" when (out_color="1100" and palettemode='1') else -- Dark Green
            x"B5C" when (out_color="1101" and palettemode='1') else -- Magenta
            x"CCC" when (out_color="1110" and palettemode='1') else -- Gray
            x"FFF";                                                 -- White

[lament stirrup]

Bummer The Castle doesn't work, that game is cool. I tried it not too long ago and was surprised it didn't work. Guess you could always play the MSX version but still.

[severe raptor]

I would still love to see savestates on SMS and SMD, but don’t know if that’s possible or even a priority

[flat sierra]

yeah that’s also top of my wishlist…savestates for SMS/GG/MD

[smoky dock]

This test build implements Soft Reset (Console Reset Button) via OSD and Controller

It is the same behavior of the reset button that some hardware versions have.

It is a flag the games check and reset themselves. It will not clear RAM like the hard reset option, so it won't show the BIOS screen again and it won't clear best scores and other game states.

Some earlier Japanese games won't soft reset because they don't check the reset button (Mark III don't have one)

SG-1000 games won't reset either. SG-1000 doesn't have a reset button.

US/European SMS games and GG games should all work (I guess).

[thorny sierra]

[vivid rampart]

It’s so great to see the SMS core getting new updates! Thanks for the fantastic work @smoky dock

[visual summit]

Tried my working lightgun and it works great. I had issues with my other one, but that one is kind of broken and shoots off center on real hardware.

[visual summit]

I have the JP SMS and it has a turbo fire button instead of reset

[visual summit]

The GG Baseball games use EEPROM, similar to some Genesis games.

[smoky dock]

My update is for USB lightguns. The Light Phaser through SNAC was already working fine.

[smoky dock]

Indeed. The Japanese systems don't have the reset button. But most games released after the US Master System will react to it.

[visual summit]

ok. I was confused because I tested the MD core and the good lightgun was off center on that core via snac, but perfect on the SMS core.

[smoky dock]

I have the same issue, my lightgun is off center on my real SMS, it always was. It has different offsets with the SMS and MD cores.

[visual summit]

I like playing Rescue Mission with FM sound on MiSTer. Not something I can usually do on the actual hardware since the gun is disabled in the JP region.

[supple canopy]

do i have to drop the jp bios anywhere specific to have it autoboot on a core restart?

[smoky dock]

AFAIK, it is not possible without changes in the framework

I don't remember of any other core saving paths and files.

It can probably be done, they are two small BIOS'es. But it is beyond my reach.

[vivid rampart]

Saturn and PSX cores save the selected BIOS as boot.rom. Would it be possible to do the same for the SMS core?

[smoky dock]

In the PSX core you have to manually rename and put the bios as boot.rom, right?

I think this already works with the SMS core, I never tried though.

Maybe only with the smaller BIOS, I had to add the bank switching calls to support larger BIOS

[vivid rampart]

I tried this but it didn’t work. The bios don’t work properly

[smoky dock]

I think what you want can be achieved with a .mgl file

[sage hill]

Oh yeah it would

Just use <setname>

[unique gulch]

someone said mgl Robby is here

[sage hill]

I use MGL btw

[thorny sierra]

tested it works
"<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_3 Tests Cores/cores/SMS</rbf>
<setname>MarkIII</setname>
<file delay="1" type="f" index="3" path="#Bioses/[BIOS] Sega Master System (Japan) (v2.1).sms"/>
</mistergamedescription>"

The bios is launch at the startup using mgl file

[vivid rampart]

I wish I knew how to create an MGL file

[unique gulch]

Robby will do it for you

[chilly dove]

It's not that hard. Just copy and paste an existing MGL file and change the path to load the proper game

[vivid rampart]

Thanks! I will try

[vivid rampart]

What would be : file delay="1" type="f" index="3" ?

[vivid rampart]

Can you help me figure out what I did wrong? My MGL isn’t finding the BIOS folder. My BIOS file is in /media/fat/BIOS/SMS.

[chilly dove]

This is an example of an MGL I use for the SMS:
<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_Console/SMS</rbf>
<file delay="1" type="f" index="1" path="../../../../media/fat/games/SMS/1986_Master System/S/Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (E).sms"/>
</mistergamedescription>

I don't typically use set names and keep it pretty basic, but the path should start with "path="../../../../media/fat/games/SMS/"

One trick I like to do is put the latest unstable in the Consoles folder and the MGL picks up the most recent core by the date so It'll use the unstable vs the last official release if you do this

Hope that helps

[vivid rampart]

Yeah, no luck so far. I can’t get it working

[thorny sierra]

<file delay="1" type="f" index="3" path="../../../../media/fat/games/SMS/BIOS/[BIOS] Hang On & Safari Hunt (USA, Europe, Brazil) (v2.4).sms"/>

You need to change by index 3

[vivid rampart]

It worked!! Thanks everyone for the help and patience!!! This community is amazing!!

[smoky dock]

Sorgelig didn't like the Soft Reset controller button. Any reason to keep it? I think it is ok to have it just on the menu.

When I was implementing it, I thought about whether it should be in the OSD or the controller.

Cons of the controller:

• Could be pressed by accident.

Pros of the controller:

• Matches the treatment of the Pause button, which is also in the controller, but in the real hardware is in the console, just next to the reset button.
• There are other cores with a reset on the controller (Atari 2600/7800).
• One can always skip mapping it (that's why there is also an OSD option).

With that said, I'm ok of leaving it in the OSD only.

[bold brook]

I like controller because a few games use it, correct? That said, whatever needs to be done. Appreciate your work!

[charred turtle]

I remember having to go to the console to press it, so you couldn’t press it on error or do a rage quit. So maybe menu is more “faithful” to the original experience?

[bold brook]

Probably but I think a few use it to pull up a menu?

[charred turtle]

Can’t recall any game that do that, but my comment was more of a “feeling” thing than anything, so don’t take it too seriously

[silver hare]

I don't think the Masters System has any Mega Drive X-Men levels of button usage.
Not least because unless it was an earlier game, you wouldn't know if everyone even had the hardware to even use a reset button at all

[charred turtle]

Probably Omar Cornut knows by heart if any SMS game does something weird with the reset button, but I’m too shy to ask him on social networks 😅

[bold brook]

You know what? I'm thinking of the pause button.. oops.

[charred turtle]

You don’t tell your parents there is a pause button, if you do they will make you pause your games and do boring stuff - 10-year old me

[silver hare]

Pause button is on NMI
https://www.smspower.org/forums/19617-ThePauseButtonDoesWHAT
Reset is just a regular button on a hardware level that could do anything. I think....

Yeah, referenced here too
https://nicole.express/2021/i-am-the-mark-iii.html
Reset can't save a crashed game. Main use is keeping high scores intact (until you need to turn everything off at night )

There we go. A use for the reset button, cheating in Black Belt 🤣
https://www.smspower.org/Cheats/BlackBelt-SMS
Sadly turns out we need to be able to HOLD the reset button, not just press it.......

On topic of other things absent from the core so far.....
224/240p support?

[pale hound]

I don't get it. The Master System has way more native PAL games than NTSC. Why did they it exclusively for the US console? Strange.

[vivid rampart]

I think in the latest N64 test core you can map soft reset directly to the controller. Could that be used as an argument for Sorgelig?

[vivid rampart]

That’s true! I remember using that trick — brings back good memories!! When I had a Master System, I only had that cartridge and Double Dragon, besides Alex Kidd built into the BIOS. Back then in Brazil, cartridges were really expensive at launch, so I mostly played other games by borrowing from friends or renting them from video game stores

[smoky dock]

That seems like a good argument in favor of reset in the controller. Though it seems more like a glitch than something Sega intended.

Sorgelig will probably say we can get unlimited lives with a cheat code instead of this.

[pale hound]

Ah, ok. Thought they did their own decappings.

Usually NTSC folks don't care about some native PAL games. It's mostly "typical Euro shit" for them.

This strange edited Wonder Boy games are really odd.

Tectoy released that officially in Brasil?

[silver hare]

Street Fighter says hello

[visual summit]

Dynamite Headdy is actually a real SMS port and not a quickie port like most of the others. I heard Earthworm Jim SMS is especially bad. It's missing levels from the GG version, which was already missing stuff from the original.

[visual summit]

Some of the Codemasters games were on other platforms in the US and a couple of their GG games made it here. I like Micro Machines quite a bit. I also imported the MD Psycho Pinball, which is playable on US systems.

[visual summit]

Yes, Dynamite Headdy is a GG port, but actually uses the SMS resolution and was from the same developers as the GG version. My point with Earthworm Jim is that it's missing stuff from the GG version it's ported from. I was saying the Dynamite Headdy had more effort put in to it than most of TecToy's other late GG ports and that Earthworm Jim had less effort put into it.

[charred turtle]

Here in Spain a key factor to choose sms or nintendo was how many friends/classmates had one. A single kid had not many games, but a full class of primary school kids together had a pretty decent catalog 😅

I think I still have one that didn’t go to the museum, if you know of any decapper that wants one for free

[silver hare]

The funny thing about the extended resolutions is that NTSC does actually support 224 line mode.
https://www.smspower.org/uploads/Development/msvdp-20021112.txt
NTSC can't do the larger 240 mode, but those games that used the increased size didn't go as far as 240 either

It's funny though. Even at 224 NTSC is effectively full screen on a CRT with overscan given the Pixel Aspect Ratio.
Even 240 PAL doesn't get fully full screen

Probably the main problem is the vblank time for the game to run. PAL is favourable that way. Wouldn't be surprised if 224 PAL still has more computation time than 192 NTSC. Not quite sure...

[hallow wadi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn8OmVdN3vo

sega does what nintendon't!

[bronze lark]

where do i put these to get them to auto boot in the core?

this is something i've wanted for a while

[vivid rampart]

I just put it in the _console folder. But you’ll need to edit the MGLs to point to the right BIOS path and update the filename to match yours

[smoky dock]

This build fixes Super Boy I and Super Boy II.
I know no one will play these for more than a few minutes, but more important than checking Super Boy I and II is checking if there are no regressions (any game that was working before and it is not working anymore).

[long rapids]

You are on fire Scooter! Really nice to see someone show some love to the SMS core after a good few years

[thorny sierra]

The scrolling of Super Boy I is really bad 🤣

[thorny sierra]

The gamegear is broken

[smoky dock]

Thanks, I'll look into it.

[thorny sierra]

Thanks (tested some SMS and SG-1000 games and see no issue with little tests)

[vivid rampart]

What’s the name of this game?

[thorny sierra]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fray_in_Magical_Adventure
It is release firstly on MSX2, it is a port made on Gamegear

[vivid ledge]

Adds support for the Sega SC-3000 and Sega SK-1100
Fixes some SG-1000 software

Please let me know if there are any regressions. This branch is in sync with main as of right now.

[shadow fern]

i don't want ai on my mister sorry

[vivid rampart]

I made some tests and everything seens to be working. The Castle for SG-1000 isn’t working

[thorny sierra]

@vivid ledge normally Loretta is compatible with SC-3000
<!-- Notes: optional SK-1100 keyboard support -->
<!-- This is actually compatible with SG-1000 and SG-1000 Mark II (and SC-3000) -->
<software name="loretta">
<description>Loretta no Shouzou (Japan)</description>

It works on SG-1000 mode but on SC-3000 mode it shows the logo and having sound but black screen after the logo

[vivid ledge]

It works with SC-3000 On here.

[vivid rampart]

Do I need to change anything on OSD for it to work?

[thorny sierra]

Confirmed it works on SC-3000 mode but SG-1000 mode has graphical issues for the Castle.sg

[vivid rampart]

How do I changes the settings for SC-3000 Mode?

[thorny sierra]

input section on the OSD

[smoky chasm]

Yeah, the Castle only works on the Coleco core. My main reason to have preferred that to the SMS core. I cannot remember 100% but I think that Pifall II once had problems as well.

(I guess that the wrong colours of SG-1000 games on the SMS are not an issue anymore, but those were an issue even on real HW)

[thorny sierra]

Yes now SG-1000 games are detected and right palette (SG-1000 one) is set

[vivid rampart]

Thanks! It worked in SC-3000 mode, but only after I changed the SC Main RAM to 32KB. Will it break other games if I save those settings?

[thorny sierra]

The best way is to use a MGL to separate SC-3000, SG-1000 etc ...

[vivid rampart]

Sorry to bother, but I’m really bad at editing MGLs 😅 Do you happen to have a template you could share?

[thorny sierra]

<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_3 Tests Cores/cores/SMS</rbf>
<setname>SC-3000</setname>
</mistergamedescription>

RBF you need to set where the RBF is on your SD card

setname => is the new name of the RBF

so you will have a SC-3000 directory for games and SC-3000.cfg

you applied the same for SG-1000, Gamegear and Master System 🙂

[vivid ledge]

I forgot to add a core reset when changing the cart ram. I would reset after changing.

[smoky chasm]

But strange that it would run on the SC-3000 mode without being sc-3000 specific in any way, isn't it?

[thorny sierra]

Konger for Loretta if I set 2KB for Main RAM, some part are shown after the sega logo but it is not right (graphical issues) other values for main ram it is black screen

[vivid rampart]

Is there a way to keep the setname as SG-3000 but make the MGL load the games from the SMS folder instead?

[thorny sierra]

I'm using symlink to share folders on my SC-3000 folder I added symlink of SC-1000 folder.

[tight sorrel]

Afaik, this will only break games that are larger than 32KB (not sure if there are that many). The Castle requires extra 8KB RAM (originally present in the cartridge) mirrored after the 32KB ROM area so by forcing system RAM to 32KB, you somehow allow access to this extra RAM (even if not 100% accurate to original system memory limitations)

[thorny sierra]

I have tested SC3000SurvivorsMegacart_v2_31 and SC3000SurvivorsMkIIMulticart_v2_31 both start directly on Bank Panic game for information.
Normally it is "The Survivors logo will display, followed by the Boot Menu"

[thorny sierra]

With new SC-3000 core on Gamegear Mode, Mickey Mouse no Castle Illusion (Japan) (En) of GameGear set shows issues on Text screens see screenshots below

[thorny sierra]

With SC-3000 core, For SG-1000 game this PR (SG-1000's correct palette) is not applied anymore.
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SMS_MiSTer/pull/142
here the screenshot,

[vivid ledge]

Changes:
Uses file extension .sc instead of .bin for SC-3000 carts; when a .sc file is loaded, SC-3000 is enabled.
The cart RAM option is independent of the SC-3000 option now
Fixes Mickey Mouse no Castle Illusion
Fixes SG palette selection on SG/SC load

[thorny sierra]

[thorny sierra]

Testing new core SC3000 - SG game Gulkave shows very briefly the red Sega logo normally it tooks more time.

On SC3000 mode, Loreta games is black screen after sega logo screen even with 2KB Cart Rom mode.

[thorny sierra]

Forcing SC3000 mode, the red sega logo is shown normally (not briefly)

On the game Sega Flipper (SG Game), Flipper Bat on the right is stuck like it is shows on the screenshot. The button 2 doesn't do anything regarding this issue. If I set SK-1100 to "on", the case is fixed.

[vivid ledge]

Is this a regression?

[thorny sierra]

On the previous sc3000 core it shows graphical issues with 2kb cart ram

[vivid ledge]

Sorry, I mean against the non-SC3000 core

[thorny sierra]

It works on non sc3000 core and also on sc3000 core if sc3000 mode is not set to on

But normally it works also on sc3000 mode and it is just to inform the behaviour change with last test core 👍

[visual summit]

Load Runner has some odd behavior on the new core. Goes straight to gameplay and I'm not able to move. Does work in SC-3000 mode, but I thought the edit mode was supposed to show up?

[vivid ledge]

This is the same bug as Flipper and Gulcave. I have it fixed locally.

[vivid ledge]

Changes:
Fixed stuck button 2
Support for both SC-3000 Megacarts