Sega Mega Drive/CD/32X

[snow orchid]

Is this possible to play 32X CD games on Mister

[old sierra]

No

[shut aspen]

would a new core have to be made for 32X CD games?

[old sierra]

One big issue is space, you basically need to bundle the Mega CD and 32x cores together and make those work together. Both those cores are big already.

Maybe on the next core it might be a possibility, but not possible on the DE-10 Nano

Would still be a lot of work for just those games as well

[shut aspen]

sounds like a pain for just a handful of games yeah

[fading hare]

Yeah, finding someone who is willing to put in the work for it is just as much, if not more, of an issue than the hardware side of things.

[plain quiver]

Fixing the last Mega CD issues should be a better solution.

[ivory shale]

Or maybe optimizing the current nuked core to see if we can fit the 32x or cd on it

[stone plinth]

Can it even be optimised based on it being a recreation?

replication... or whatever we're calling it

[old sierra]

No, it can't.

That core is massive, and the idea of optimising it doesn't make sense. At that point you would be better going back to the old Genesis core and increasing the accuracy there. Even then you wouldn't be able to fit the Mega CD and 32x parts into it, both those cores are at the upper limits for the DE-10 Nano on their own. Mega CD is so full that you can't run signal tap on it, so it is painful to work on. It sounds like it doesn't make sense for Srg to even try optimise it until there is the new board that has more room for him to play with, then maybe port it back to the DE-10 Nano.

The Nuked core is a blessing and a curse.

[warm carbon]

the monkey's paw

[old sierra]

Yeah, it seems so.

If anyone tries to support Mega LD then I don't expect them to use the Nuked core

[elder briar]

i still think the old genesis core is better. personally i would prefer to see more optimizations/accuracy fixes on that core instead of continued support for the nuked core

[old sierra]

I do wonder if srg does refactor the Mega CD and 32x, then it makes sense to improve accuracy in the Genesis core and ultimately move back to a new version of that. A lot of "if" and "maybes" in there though.

[night cape]

I wouldn't say better, they're very different approaches.

One is more accurate and the other have more goodies. I can't compare them.

[warm carbon]

I think that, if you're stating an opinion, "better" is just fine

but that's just my opinion

[warm carbon]

It's just a bummer that all work on genesis/md cores has stopped because the nuked core is hyper accurate and impossible to work with.

" No sense in adding this feature to the genesis core because the mega drive core is more accurate"

"Can't add this feature to the mega drive core because it's too unruly. It would work in the genesis core"

Goto 1

[old sierra]

Yeah, exactly

Also kind of kills fixing the SMS core too, which really needs some love

"Just play SMS on the Nuked MD core"

[elder briar]

definitely, sms core is amazing but could use some buttoning up

[void eagle]

Not to mention that the Nuked MD core will never support SG-1000, though the CV core supports it too.

[old sierra]

I still dream of a bespoke SC-3000 core that plays all the SG-1000 games flawlessly, and we can end the frustration of having two cores that play most, but not all, the SG-1000 library (SMS and Colecovision)

At that point we could maybe retire the Colecovision core in favour of the Adam

[void eagle]

Did something break in the latest Adam core? Last time I tried it, CV games reset when I tried to play them.

[drowsy hemlock]

What’s “wrong” with the SMS core? It really doesn’t get talked about much - nobody seems to mention accuracy issues much. Is it just about playing games from non-SMS consoles, or something else?

[stone plinth]

Since following all the accuracy updates on the NES core, I too think the way forward might be the old Genesis core.

[drowsy hemlock]

SMS is one of my favourite cores, but I only play SMS/GG games - not colecovision or SG-anything

[stone plinth]

The NES core is a great example of being able to achieve extreme accuracy without being wire for wire

[drowsy hemlock]

Devil’s advocate: but we already have that level of accuracy with the Nuked core

[stone plinth]

There's the audio issues I guess

Or rather, the After Burner II issue

[drowsy hemlock]

I thought that was a filtering issue, or something like that

[stone plinth]

Yeah something to do with analog components in the chain

But it seems like fixing the issue is a real challenge

[drowsy hemlock]

I have faith

[old sierra]

There are a couple of accuracy tests it fails there are issues on GitHub for

There are also small issues, and a lot of QOL features that could be added

[drowsy hemlock]

Ah, so most likely just things that don’t affect retail games at this stage?

(Not saying they’re not good to have ticked off, but maybe less noticeable to the majority of users)

[old sierra]

I think there may be issues that impact retail games, and I don't know how these test fails manifest themselves within games. However, the vast majority of people would use the SMS core without noticing any bugs/issues, same with pretty much all MiSTer console cores these days.

[drowsy hemlock]

Looking down the GitHub issues, it seems to be in a pretty good place generally

[old sierra]

Probably worth a read through Tue GitHub issues

[drowsy hemlock]

Snap 😄

[old sierra]

I actually don't know much about SMS support in the Nuked MD core. Does it support SNAC and virtual lightguns for example?

Is there a list anywhere of what it does/doesn't do? That feels like a useful thing for us to have

[drowsy hemlock]

I don’t even know what the benchmark would be there – at the time, I didn’t even know the Mega Drive could play SMS games. I don’t know if its BC is perfect or lacking in some ways. But I agree it would be good to know what it supports

[old sierra]

I will make up a sheet when I get back from vacation, if only because I want to know what can be done where, and will be useful for when this conversation inevitably comes up again

Would be good to hear from any SMS power users who have used both cores what they prefer about each, and what (if anything) you can't do SMS wise in the Nuked MD core

[drowsy hemlock]

The SMS gets very little love over here. I usually just end up talking to @livid spire about it 😄

[glass shale]

Do you have a link for these?

[old sierra]

If you skim the GitHub issues you can find them

I posted them here not long back, but on my phone right now

[edgy ruin]

There is this compatibility thread on SMS Power which lists Master System games that have issue on Mega Drive hardware (with PBC), which should give you an idea of Megadrive core compatibility with these games (no idea if this list is complete though)

https://www.smspower.org/forums/12093-ListOfIncompatibilitiesAmongSMSGamesHardware

[old sierra]

The tests don't run on MD core though if I recall

[glass shale]

Didn’t dig deeper but the ones I saw were mostly game related (mapper?), audio and video related? Curious to see accuracy tests failing in the MegaDrive core.

[old sierra]

It isn't that they fail, but because the tests are built to test actual SMS hardware they don't run on a MD

[drowsy hemlock]

MiSTer wins again?

Too early?

[old sierra]

Maybe since I tested a few years ago the tests were adapted to be run on a Mega Drive, I have no idea

[drowsy hemlock]

Someone @ me when MiSTer wins plz

[glass shale]

@drowsy hemlock it always does!

[elder briar]

i recall seeing quite a few graphical glitches in virtua fighter animation on the sms core. if that's anything to go by, then the core definitely still needs some love

[stone plinth]

I'd love to see these classic sega consoles get some more love. Saying that, I just spent some time with the older Genesis core and forgot it was less accurate.

It's interesting watching the MLiG 2022 MiSTer video where they were extremely positive about the Genesis core.

[drowsy halo]

I never had any issues

[stone plinth]

Only thing I've seen is that the CRAM dots aren't accurate. And it doesn't do the border thing in the Overdrive2 demo. Outside of that, I feel like it's fine.

[drowsy halo]

Got any pics

[old sierra]

I thought the CRAM dots were fixed a few years ago?

[stone plinth]

Not at this moment. Really easy place to check is the first level in Sonic 3

If you get to a point where theres a mid screen water transition, CRAM dots are visible across the the waterline. In Sonic 3, they'd done something where they'd been able to shove all the CRAM dots into the border area.

So there shouldn't be any CRAM dots in the drawn area.

Also I think the intro to Aero the Acrobat 2 also has some out of place CRAM dots where the text is

[old sierra]

Hmm, might be worth checking old GitHub ticket, was so sure that was fixed

Not that it would be fixed now anyway

I assume the Nuked core is fine

[pale plover]

I was about to ask if this was the retired core or the newer "nuked" core.

[stone plinth]

Yeah Nuked is fune

and fine

Nuked on left, Genesis core on right

I don't know if it makes any difference but this is via DV1 with the RetroTINK 4K

[old sierra]

Shouldn't impact those

[past magnet]

People want cram dots? Just adjust height on your crt 😉

[thorny pivot]

Are there tests ROMs for Genesis like there are for NES or even Saturn? Seems the Genesis cores could be pitted against each other in a cage battle. Black Box Genny vs. Net Code Mega.

[shut aspen]

is it just called the Nuked core or something else?

[drowsy hemlock]

If you’re run update all recently, it’s just the mega drive core

[shut aspen]

sweet, okay then

[drowsy hemlock]

The old one won’t be there unless you enable one of the addon repos

[old sierra]

You can get the old Genesis core if you run update all with Alt Cores turned on

[drowsy hemlock]

unless you like sonic spinball, I wouldn’t bother 😅

(For the turbo)

[pale plover]

Playing the Road Rash games with turbo was nice.

[elder briar]

playing curse with turbo enabled was fun too but only because i'm insane

[stone plinth]

I can't see any issues raised as the github has been archived now; I saw a commit to add CRAM dots but nothing about them being incorrect

[pale plover]

I remember Landstalker having the CRAM dots in the middle of the screen during the area transitions, but I believe that is normal. Just looks weird since games normally keep the dots on the bottom.

[stone plinth]

Yeah there are a few examples. I know I could just turn CRAM dots off altogether but it's a reminder that it's hardware accurate.

When I first dug out my Megadrive and played it, I thought it was broken/failing due to the CRAM dots on the waterline in Sonic 2. Years of emulation had made me forget about them.

Also I grew up playing my Megadrive over RF 😄

[drowsy halo]

These both look like they should be in composite 😎

But thank you for sharing the pics. Very helpful-i get it now.

[drowsy halo]

Haha. I have the horizontal bowing on my flat sony but i just use the overscan to hide it and everything is good.

[fading hare]

Road Rash is the best reason for it!

[drowsy hemlock]

I’d just play that on… not the Mega Drive

[lethal prairie]

The correct choice is the 3DO version

[drowsy hemlock]

Yeah, I play it on the 3DO core!

[lethal prairie]

https://tenor.com/view/if-i-had-one-angry-yelling-fairly-odd-parents-mr-turner-gif-16322274

[sudden barn]

Anyone try the link cable that lets you system link doom 32x resurrection and zero instinct? Does it work with snax?

[drowsy halo]

Genesis road rash is great

So good they made a second one

So good that Panasonic wanted it on 3do

But with load times

[void eagle]

and everyone forgets Skitchin' exists. 🙁

[astral merlin]

Sega CD in its native habitat! https://bsky.app/profile/limitedrunjosh.bsky.social/post/3m3hyxfiysk2j

Josh Fairhurst (@limitedrunjosh.bsky.social)

Extremely rare b-roll footage of an Electronics Boutique in late 1994 or early 1995. Enjoy it!

I found this among 40TB of files from Digital Pictures' archive.

Likes

300

▶ Play video

Bluesky · Oct 18, 2025, 2:33 PM

[ivory shale]

And it feels like this in turn is making people feel the same towards the CD and 32X cores. "Well, they are based off the old inaccurate genesis core, and we can't put them new accurate core on them"

[drowsy hemlock]

I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t think we have enough developers to conclude that. A lot of cores seem only to have their original/main authors making most of the contributions, with the odd thing from other people over the years. The CD and 32X cores were developed by srg320 afaik and he’s been… busy… fixing up bugs in SNES, PCE, all the work on the Saturn, and now the 3DO core. Maybe he’ll come back around to the CD/32X cores, or maybe they’re not fun for him to work on for whatever reason

And if he doesn’t, they work fine for the vast majority of the library and are still a great experience

And they’re all open source so… be the change you want to see in the world

But on the genesis core point - what’s the point in fixing it up? What “new features” do we really need?

[stone plinth]

It's only a matter of time before an accuracy rom is created that shakes up the FPGA world like the one for NES

In all seriousness, I don't think new features are necessarily needed. It's just that the nuked core seems to be extremely difficult to work with and I've heard many people say that the older core wasn't really too far off in terms of being brilliant.

It's at least more accurate than the MegaSG if I understand right

[drowsy hemlock]

But if it really is a “perfect” replication of a Mega Drive, then it kinda doesn’t matter how hard it is to work with (barring fixing bugs) - because it does everything we need it to do 🙂

I’m playing devil’s advocate here really, but it’s not like the old genesis core was a hotbed of developer activity due to how easy it was to work with. Most likely because we’re developer constrained - and developers want to work on things they find interesting/fun too

Best case scenario, people work away for hundreds or thousands of hours and the old genesis core is as accurate as the Nuked one… great?

[glad aurora]

Sometimes I think some people worry more about imperceptible things instead of just enjoying the games

[old sierra]

I have no idea how many hours it would be, but I imagine that with the Nuked core as a reference it would presumably be a lot more straightforward to improve the accuracy of the Genesis core than it was before.

As an aside, it is quite telling that after the painful porting over of the Nuked core, Sorg is not entertaining porting over the Nuked SMS one.

[jade turret]

I think that's the problem with netlists though, you can't really use it as reference to understand or improve something else. Could well be misinformed on that though.

[old sierra]

I think you are largely right, they are not easy to read. But I am sure as a reference to compared how it works compared with how the Genesis core work I suspect it would be if some use. This is all academic though as nobody is going to look at the old core, and if they did I can't see us swapping back to it.

[jade turret]

Had this bookmarked where Jotego talks about the subject.

"The second problem is that these netlists per-se do not teach you anything about the system. If you look at the file you will only see thousands of cryptic names connected in a very low level way. The function of the device cannot be inferred from just reading the file. This is the opposite to regular design files where functionality is easy to grasp for expert eyes. So you may have a black box that does what it is supposed to do, albeit transcription errors, but you have learnt nothing about the system. It is like a Rosetta stone with no Jean-François Champollion."

https://www.patreon.com/posts/netlists-and-103978875

[stone plinth]

It just kinda feels like we might be at a crossroads

Black box is a good way to describe it based on my current understanding of the wire by wire thing

[old sierra]

It is why it took so long to get Jaguar core running well, the CPU is from a netlist that took a lot of unpicking to figure out why things weren't working as they should

[floral ingot]

https://x.com/abaroners/status/1979930311543726465?t=FhH-7R0BbjsARxgv68QBIw&s=19

Barone (@abaroners)

Ultimate Doom for the Sega 32X, without requiring the Sega CD or an expensive flashcart, with PC-accurate maps and textures, FOR FREE!!!
Go try it, folks.

X · Oct 19, 2025, 3:19 PM

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/155631-ultimate-doom-32x-resurrection/

There you go. 😉

[fading hare]

Save states!

[sudden obsidian]

I just want save states man 😭

[drowsy hemlock]

Isn’t the received wisdom that, unless the core was written specifically with it in mind, save states are basically a no-go? If so, while they might be more likely with the genesis core, it doesn’t mean they’d be likely to happen, even if it was still in active development

[fading hare]

Not with that attitude! It happened with SNES! Anything ||not really|| is possible if we believe hard enough!

[faint onyx]

We wait for the christmas miracle....

[stone plinth]

I'm not gonna be able to sleep if I can't play Chakan the Forever Man with perfect accuracy

[fringe zodiac]

Sometimes I love to be wrong. Maybe a Hell on Earth 32x (incl. The TNT Mini levels or even No rest for the living) can become a reality, too.

[ivory shale]

The old core seems like it was quite far off from the mark, I have tried test roms on the cores and the Nuked core is the only thing I have seen outside of real hardware that passes them all, the old core flubbed quite a bit of them. Even things that software emulators have working now like the Overdrive 2 demo had issues in that core.

[ivory shale]

That's the thing though, it kinda doesn't IMO since it's too big to add 32X or CD support to.

[stone plinth]

In terms of the Nuked core, my only current issue is just the audio filtering thing. If that were resolved, I think the core would be perfect as far as support for the original console.

[ivory shale]

I don't get how netlists would work either, but don't people use decapped chips to study how they work and try to write software or FPGA cored to replicate them? The nuked core can't be used in a similar manner?

[stone plinth]

But the fact that the issue hasn't been resolved since it was raised in (I think) late 2023 shows that there's some difficulty with the core.

[old sierra]

Do you have a link to the tests?

[ivory shale]

https://gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3329

[old sierra]

Would be interesting to see results for the old Genesis core if anyone is bored and wants to run and take screenshots of the results

[stone plinth]

I might have a look now

[ivory shale]

I did run them before, not sure if I took screenshots, like I said the old core flubbed several of the tests while the new one ran them perfectly

[jade turret]

I think Jotego's description describes quite well why a netlist can't be used in the same way as decapped chip information.

[old sierra]

Incidentally, JesusFish forked the old core and updated .sys, so the version in the Alt Cores DB is the newest version of that for anyone still using it

[stone plinth]

Nuked Core

[old sierra]

Interesting it fails one, I wonder what it means

[stone plinth]

Old Genesis Core

[ivory shale]

Wait, the nuked core failed for you?

Let me try it again, I know it passed them all before

Huh, guess I remembered wrong, that last one fails for me too

BTW, that "SPR CHANGE MIDSCREEN" test, dosen't say pass or fail, you are supposed to loko at the two images and see if they look the same, the old core is failing that one while the new core passes

[stone plinth]

Ahh I see

[ivory shale]

Are you using the new tests by the way that were posted at the end of the thread?

[stone plinth]

I am yeah

[ivory shale]

Also in the second one, the DMA test, the nuked core passes all of them

let me try the old core

[stone plinth]

Nuked Core passes these tests but the Genesis one hangs (as in never stops counting) on the second from bottom test on the first page

VRAM to VRAM, VBLANK, H40 - it just keeps on countin'

[old sierra]

Maybe worth raising an issue if one is indeed failing on the Nuked core

[ivory shale]

IIRC it does eventually stop counting.... but it takes like 15-20 min

P.S. That gets counted as a fail

[stone plinth]

"vcounter corruption test not always work on hardware, you can find other special test for this."

So if it doesn't always work on real hardware, core is accurate?

[old sierra]

Makes sense, I guess

[ivory shale]

Well, tunnotron3000 posted the screenshots, I am getting the same results on the cores

IIRC this was also how I realized that the 32X core is based on the old genesis core, running those tests on the 32x core

[old sierra]

Yeah, that and Mega CD are based on the old core

[stone plinth]

I'd love to see how a MegaSG performs

[old sierra]

They pre-date Nuked and it wouldn't have been possible to use Nuked as the basis for those, even if there was space

If you find the GitHub page for the jailbreak core then check issues it is likely someone tested them

[stone plinth]

Oh is that all the MegaSG is?

[old sierra]

I had a quick check and didn't see an issue

https://github.com/SmokeMonsterPacks/Mega-Sg-Jailbreak/issues

[stone plinth]

Looks like their updates addressed that Sonic 3 CRAM dot water issue interestingly enough though

[ivory shale]

I think that Gamehut guy at one point wrote homebrew to actually make use of those cram dots to draw high-color images on screen, wonder if those would work on these

Problem is I can't try it since they only work over analog on a CRT, and mine is just connected over hdmi

[stone plinth]

I tried that demo and it worked on the nuked core

At least if it's what I'm thinking of

[ivory shale]

I was talking about this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6KRVmX4FuM

[stone plinth]

Yeah there was a demo of that in a pack I picked up

It seemed to work

[stone plinth]

Nuked core

Old core is off

[ivory shale]

Nice!

Old core still does a decent job on that I would say

[stone plinth]

Might be timing related? No idea.

[ivory shale]

Probably considering the skewed line on the spaceship

[stone plinth]

I do wonder how many of those fails could be addressed. I wish I had the brainpower to tackle any kind of programming but I'm more on the creative side of things.

[glass shale]

MiSTer wins again!

[glass shale]

And again!

[stone plinth]

The accuracy does not make me any better at Dragon's Revenge

[ivory shale]

No core can fix that 😛

[glass shale]

We all do get less accurate as the years go by

[stone plinth]

I'm certainly less accurate than I used to be

[drowsy hemlock]

MiSTer doesn’t

[sinful glen]

@stone plinth sorry but do you have a link to this demo please ?

[stone plinth]

I don't sorry, it was part of an htgdb pack. It was called "Impossible Colours" or something similar

[night cape]

If you search for htgdb pack you'll find it.

[ivory shale]

The gamehut guy used to have a roms page where he put his homebrew (AFAIK it was only his own homebrew and nothing copyrighted) but it appears to no longer be up

[chrome moss]

I heard he used used the same variable name in a game that Nintendo had used in 1986 and they sued him for 700 million dollars in lost funds. That caused him to take it all down

The variable you ask? ‘X’. Apparently Nintendo had received a patent for the variable X one month prior to suing the guy

[velvet mural]

Well, they should be suing Elon Musk then

[chrome moss]

A hallmark trait of bullies is that they never pick on anyone their own size. Always smaller, younger, weaker prey.

[edgy ruin]

Gamehut's demo can be found here: https://ttjontt.wixsite.com/gamehut/downloads

[pallid meadow]

Hi all. I’m recently playing Landstalker on MD core and I’ve found some fps instability on some zones (usually zones with a lot of things in movement). Is that something related to the game itself? What would be the best way to check this kind of thing (without real hw)?

[crisp vine]

probably looking for footage from original hardware

[rotund bluff]

That's a normal tuesday for any 16-bit era console...

[pallid meadow]

Thanks

[pallid meadow]

Do you have any suggestions or search on yt and hope for the best is the only way?

[fallow dome]

FPS instability is extremely common for older games.

With mature cores, assume that’s original game behavior until proven otherwise.

[long cairn]

Hey friends, does anyone know by chance what changed in the sega cd core that updated last week? can't find release notes for it.

[pallid meadow]

Yes. I’m always in doubt about that and I just usually come here to double check 🤣

Thanks guys

[glass shale]

Framework updates only

[fallow dome]

That’s good though. It’s great that people are always looking out for that. Because once in a while people do find things.

[long cairn]

Appreciate it.

[glass shale]

@warm carbon is this really fixed now?

[warm carbon]

not “fixed” because the underlying issue can still pop up - but it’s been mitigated by the seed lottery

[fallow dome]

Sounds like he fixed it

[glass shale]

Probably the same seed that fixed us-east-1 right?

[warm carbon]

it's always DNS

[glass shale]

Poor DNS

[warm carbon]

trying to link seeding to DNS and failing. ah well, it's still early

[glass shale]

Do Not Seed

[drowsy hemlock]

Seed 10?

[obsidian dagger]

MegaSEED

[rotund bluff]

I salute you again, Zophar! Lord of the domain, bringer of primigenial emulation news in the 90's!! 😄

[long cairn]

https://tenor.com/view/mattp-do-you-think-it-funny-gif-21356244

[left elk]

jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim

[inland quail]

I can imagine Zophar shouting EFFFFF in response to an update not addressing the issues he reported an eternity ago 😂

[plain quiver]

SH7604 updated.

• implemented self-refresh mode
• implemented standby mode

[fallow dome]

Pins updated, thanks for compiling that @plain quiver

[tropic juniper]

Yeah got mine already. Works propper.....

[plain quiver]

37 years ago today, the MEGADRIVE launched.

[glass shale]

This was the one I had back then. Japanese model with the big golden 16-BIT and blue reset button! Good times!

[stone plinth]

So it's just a couple of months younger than me!

[stone plinth]

Wait no it's older than me. I'm 36.

Writing my life away.

[light mist]

@fallow dome ban this child

[kindred anchor]

mister discord the middle agers paradise

if you havent been through midlife crisis and bought your de-10 nano instant ban

[fallow dome]

What if the de10 is the midlife crisis?

[kindred anchor]

that was what i was trying to imply

[fallow dome]

Oh no

[stone plinth]

I bought all my guitars when I was in my twenties/early thirties so I can't have that as a midlifer

[split moth]

you can always buy even more guitars, though! 🎸

[stone plinth]

I'm at critical capacity

But yes okay I will!

[fading hare]

Excuse me, we only celebrate the Genesis' birthday around here!

[drowsy hemlock]

Anyone remember when this happened?

||if so, u old||

[light mist]

nice times when you could still solar power the state of the art entertainment systems

[glass shale]

MiSter can be solar powered, so it's contemporary 😌

[faint onyx]

I still have this one. 50/60 Hz modded, Ingame reset & a Mega Everdrive Pro. Since Mister i put it away. But sometimes i want "the real deal". Still one of the best looking consoles ever.

[desert leaf]

^ I wish that was still sold through Amazon lol

Too bad it’s not

The mega Everdrive pro I mean

[broken pewter]

I liked your youtube video talking about upscalers and how people shouldn’t expect them to be crystal clear

I have a Genesis 2 with a 3BP V2+ installed, Joyzz controller and MED PRO but ever since Mister, I haven’t really played on it

I’ll probably end up putting all that stuff away in storage later on, probably not selling it because I’ll regret it later

[elder briar]

i haven't regretted selling mine just yet

[broken pewter]

I’ll probably end up hooking them up to a CRT if I get that all setup (yes i’m aware Mister supports analog output but it’s cool hooking up OG hardware to what it was truly meant to be played on)

and I like having my dual ram mister

[elder briar]

you can still get analog video from a dual ram mister but it can be fickle

[quartz wigeon]

Take it secret of the four winds is not playable on mister yet?

[plain quiver]

Wark once said : Another Megadrive/Genesis game "The Secret of the Four Winds" (like Paprium).
The game uses additional hardware on the cartridge—a YX5200 hardware MP3 player with a separate flash drive to record the soundtrack, and it also uses the main flash memory with the game ROM for saving. The game won't launch on a standard emulator!

[fading hare]

No access! Very ominous! 😱

[quartz wigeon]

So it's possible with another core or is that just hypothetical?

[plain quiver]

No possible with the MiSTer, like for Paprium.
The YX5200 hardware MP3 player is out of spec.

[kindred anchor]

mfw feels when i put a mp3 player in my sega genesis cartridge

[noble thunder]

Just looking at the datasheet, it literally is an MP3 player

Just send commands to play track X from disk

[ivory shale]

Are you saying that Paprium is or is not possible on mister?

[stone plinth]

New MiSTer addon just dropped for Paprium and Secret of the Four Winds

[ivory shale]

Isn't the MP3 thing for Paprium though a work-around for not having fully reverse-engineered the sound chip?

[plain quiver]

Not possible under the current circumstances.

And you're right, that's a workaround for RA and the Everdrive.

[ivory shale]

Huh, how come it can work on a Everdrive but not MiSTer? Isn't the everdrive it works on running on a weaker version of the FPGA the DE-10 Nano uses? Is there additional hardware on the everdrive assisting it?

[plain quiver]

Risc-V Softcore.

[ivory shale]

So it has a RISk CPU assisting it?

[plain quiver]

On the Everdrive, you don't recreate a full Mega Drive system.

[ivory shale]

Yeah I know, though it's only compatible with the model that is re-creating the entire SegaCD

[plain quiver]

And there is almost no more place on the FPGA with the courrent Mega Drive core.

[plain quiver]

And that core needs at least a partial rewrite when you see some remaining issues.

[ivory shale]

Hmm, sounds like a mess of having to make a version of the old core just for that game if the sound chip gets reverse engineered

[inland quail]

I really feel like the Sega/Mega CD core shouldn't be in update all with its default settings. It should be considered experimental as its quite unreliable for several games.

[drowsy hemlock]

Works fine for all the ones I’ve played. All… 3 of them

I’d bet 99% of people are just gonna play Sonic CD and Snatcher on it

[stone plinth]

And Bari Arm!

[drowsy hemlock]

Oh, night trap!

[lethal prairie]

There’s more than 3 Sega CD games?

[stone plinth]

Based on everything I've been reading, it sounds like a genesis core rewrite would be very beneficial.

It could then be used as the basis for the sega cd core.

[lethal prairie]

Be the change you want to see in the world!

[stone plinth]

I say all this with no comprehension of how much work that would be.

[drowsy hemlock]

Depends what it is that causes the issues with the Sega CD core

[stone plinth]

Trust me, you don't want me anywhere near anything with programming. I'll be a cheerleader at the side.

[drowsy hemlock]

I’m gonna guess it’s not the mega drive bits

[stone plinth]

Gimme an F, gimme a P, gimme a you get the idea

[inland quail]

iirc the Sega CD core isn't based on the nuked based genesis core.

[drowsy hemlock]

Lazy devs are one thing, but lazy cheerleaders?!

[drowsy hemlock]

It’s not

[plain quiver]

Even the 32x and Mega CD cores aren't aligned with the same Genesis core basis.

[drowsy hemlock]

The biggest thing that would help imo are more devs

[plain quiver]

I tried to update the Mega CD core with all the changes made to the 32x version (except the SH-2, obviously), but I got completely lost after days and days of trying.

Updating the YM2612 to the last version on Jotego's repository and the VDP code first.

In the end, I was more useful on the Saturn tests.

[inland quail]

Is it feasible for the Mega CD core to be fully rewritten based on the nuked core basis?

[warm carbon]

no, not enough room

[fading hare]

I doubt it considering not enough room.

[warm carbon]

the mega cd core already has to have stuff turned off in order to run signal tap

[inland quail]

Yeah.. I still think the Mega/Sega CD core should be considered experimental and not included by default via update script. Because anyone who is really into Sega/Mega CD will try all sorts of games, and if it happens to be their favorite system, they may easily consider FPGA gaming to be a scam 😂

I dont think it would be much different than having the Jaguar core included by default

[drowsy hemlock]

I’m not seeing that many open issues

[inland quail]

It's still a neat accomplishment for the games that do work

[fading hare]

I don't remember which games are problematic.

[elder briar]

i've not encountered many problems in the sega cd core, but i generally avoid all of the fmv junk and such. i imagine that's where a lot of issues crop up

[fading hare]

At the very least, all the games I've played on it have been great!

[warm carbon]

yeah, I guess I'm unfamiliar with which games are not working? I have played a bunch of sega cd and not noticed anything

[plucky flare]

that core has been there since 2019, it's not getting removed from distribution

[elder briar]

i do consider the genesis, sega cd and 32x cores the definitive way to experience all 3 systems, so it would be nice to see them all fixed/buttoned up eventually

[drowsy hemlock]

As it is for almost every system

[inland quail]

Dracula Unleashed freezes at level 5, microcosm doesn't go in game, dark wizard has missing sound effects. That's just at the top of my head

[plain quiver]

Spider-man vs. The Kingpin freezes on subway levels.

[inland quail]

So I guess it is a good core for those who dont explore the library or aren't into the games that have issues.

[elder briar]

would be comforting to know that a lot of those issues were fixed up regardless

[fading hare]

There are several cores that are included in the update script though that have issues. Like N64, Saturn, CDi, etc. I get that it would be great for them all to be perfect, but at some point if most games run great, I think it's fine for them to be in the update script.

[woeful goblet]

In my opinion, Mega Cd and SMS should be the top priority cores to get a rewrite or update.

[inland quail]

But for N64 and Saturn, isn't it mainly obscure games that have issues, and some of the ones that do have alternate releases that do work?

[elder briar]

afaik most of the issues in the n64 and saturn cores are from things not being able to fit on the cyclone v

[fading hare]

I wouldn't consider Madden to be obscure on N64.

[inland quail]

Fair point

[elder briar]

i was under the impression that some things in the n64 core don't work properly because corners had to be cut for the core to fit on the fpga, while some things in the saturn core don't work properly because there's just no more optimizations that can be made

[fading hare]

I don't think the reason is the point though.

[inland quail]

At some point I was wondering if nuked can be optimized and have corners cut while still maintaining the same behavior. At least for the sake of a better Sega/Mega CD core.

But I really know very little about nuked other than, its a tremendous labor of love, to implement everything down to the lowest level

Though maybe that level of granularity might not be necessary entirely for its accurate performance

[fading hare]

I think optimizing the nuked core kind of defeats its purpose though right? May as well just go back to the old Genesis core at that point.

[jade turret]

My understanding is that a netlist derived core like MegaDrive can't be optimised, it is what it is.

Posting this again as this same thing came up recently. https://www.patreon.com/posts/netlists-and-103978875

"The second problem is that these netlists per-se do not teach you anything about the system. If you look at the file you will only see thousands of cryptic names connected in a very low level way. The function of the device cannot be inferred from just reading the file. This is the opposite to regular design files where functionality is easy to grasp for expert eyes. So you may have a black box that does what it is supposed to do, albeit transcription errors, but you have learnt nothing about the system. It is like a Rosetta stone with no Jean-François Champollion."

[inland quail]

While its not impossible to optimize, it seems like it would be a ton of work for small gains. I think the nuked based core is roughly 50% larger than the old genesis/megadrive core, and the Sega CD would add quite a lot of complex logic.

[inland quail]

Thanks for sharing this, it's certainly an important point

[elder briar]

imho i wish the nuked core would be depreciated and the old genesis core come back to get fixes/updates

[inland quail]

Hmm, you know I heard the snes core was based on Near's research. Wasn't nuked originally a software emulator, essentially the genesis/megadrive equivalent of bsnes? I wonder if a new genesis core can be made to be as accurate without netlists.

But its hard to say if that would still leave room for a sega/mega CD

[fringe zodiac]

I see why you are saying that. But that is a hot take.

[jade turret]

Nuked was made to run in software just before the FPGA core work started for MiSTer, but it's absurdly slow even on the best desktop CPUs money can buy. Even BSNES isn't as low level as these netlists. I'm sure you could make the Genesis core's output be as accurate even if it is not achieved in the same manner. At this stage I think it's more likely that better hardware comes along and makes all of these outstanding issues far easier to deal with.

[elder briar]

very much so, i won't deny that. i do prefer the genesis core though; i like the extra features a lot, and it feels much more in line with the scd and 32x cores

[fringe zodiac]

I would love to see any core deprecated for a nuked core. Netlist or not, it is what FPGA should be thriving for: as close as it gets to a 1:1 replication. Warts and all.

[jade turret]

Nuked MD core playing Master System games as accurately as it does is a really nice bonus too.

[fringe zodiac]

Sure. I use the SMS core for some great SG-1000 games. But I tend to use the Nuked core for SMS games

[ivory shale]

I had a lot of graphical corruption in Switch. Though it's hard ot tell if some of it was intentional or happens on real hardware too, but some of them were definitely a SegaCD core thing

[ivory shale]

IIRC it uses up almost all the FPGA because it's something called... I think a netlist? Basically a wire-by-wire re-creation of the ahrdware, it's NOT optimized for FPGAs and very difficut to work out what does what to even try to optimize it. Someone would either need to sit down for likely months analyzing it to optimize it so it takes less space, or just write another core (or possibly fix up the old one). Currently the nuked core, while super-accurate, is a bit of a dead end because nothing can really be added or even much changed with it.

[ivory shale]

There is a software version, though it's a few versions behind the FPGA core. Not sure if it was originally a software version or it's just a software implementation for testing purposes. Regardless, it runs at about 1/100th of a frame per second so... have fun with that.

I actually tried running that test ROM on it, took like half an hour I think? Or over an hour? I don't recall, but it actually performed slightly worse than the FPGA core.

Actually, I think it was several hours...

(The test ROM normally takes like... 10 seconds)

[inland quail]

The snes core is so solid and supports all sorts of additional hardware associated with snes, and it's still getting better. I just have a feeling that if the genesis core were rewritten from scratch with a similar approach, it probably would be comparable to the nuked core and more optimized for space

[ivory shale]

Funny you say that, since there is discussion happening in the SNES channel about some incompatibilities with the core, plus it was recently updated for inaccurate PPU behavior in Pocky and Rocky

[inland quail]

The best part about that, is that it's being updated to address these kinds of issues.

I know you just jumped into the conversation, but we were originally talking about Sega CD core, which sadly isn't getting these kinds of updates and fixes as far as I can tell

[ivory shale]

I know, I mentioned a SegaCD game that has graphical corruption

[drowsy hemlock]

I don’t think there’s an issue for the Dracula unleashed issue. Might be worth adding it to GitHub

[inland quail]

it was only recently discovered, but do you think more issue reports will help at this point?

[drowsy hemlock]

Yes

Always

afaik, srg320 authored this core. He’s been busy with PCE and SNES fixes, as well writing the Saturn and 3DO cores. Maybe once he’s done those, he might loop back around to the SegaCD or the 32X. Maybe he won’t.

Or maybe someone else will come in and fix up the core?

But creating high quality issues is a useful thing that us non-developers can do. Far more useful than having opinions about whether or not nuked should be optimised vs picking up the old genesis core etc 😉

[inland quail]

My main opinion was that sega cd core isn't a good one to have on the public distro, it kinda makes the whole project look bad. but I get that its a hot take.

but I agree that getting an issue report in would help

[drowsy hemlock]

Also remember that when srg320 moved away from his previous location (occupied territory), he had to leave behind his Saturn (which he was actively working on at the time). He might not even have a SCD right now, which may be one reason he hasn’t had chance to look at this yet

Or it’s just not fun/interesting to him 🙂

[inland quail]

He did make the snes core without having a snes didn't he? 😄

[old sierra]

The Mega CD core is so full he can't run signal tap on it, which makes working on it much more laborious.

[inland quail]

I'm so relieved he's in a safer place, wherever he is.

I used to worry so much about him

[drowsy hemlock]

This is one area where maybe the DE25 might help

And probably more productive than the whole “will the DE25 let us jam nuked, 32x and SCD into one core” question

[inland quail]

Also it's such an old core, I bet with all his Saturn experience, he might be able to optimize or rewrite quite a lot.

[elder briar]

has anyone reached out and offered to send him a sega cd or other consoles

seems like a small price to pay for everyone to have a better experience

[inland quail]

if the core is that full, maybe he can start from scratch or from an earlier build.

[old sierra]

Yeah exactly

[drowsy hemlock]

I am confident that the SCD core will get better eventually

It just might take a bit of time

[inland quail]

Yeah...

[drowsy hemlock]

It wasn’t exactly a popular console/addon originally anyway 😅

[inland quail]

It doesn't mean the games aren't great though. But yeah, eventually... I wonder if it was more popular than the 3DO

[drowsy hemlock]

But doing a new system is probably more fun than fixing up an old one 😅

[fading hare]

It was definitely more popular than the 3DO. And I had a 3DO.

It was the first add-on for one of the two biggest consoles at the time.

[elder briar]

even with it's small amount of games, i think the sega cd is way better than most other cd-based consoles of the time. it beats the snot out of the 3do and cd-i in my eyes

[old sierra]

I would say more people have heard of the Mega CD then CDi and 3DO, certainly in the UK

[stone plinth]

I hadn't even heard of the NES when I was a kid. I thought Nintendo went straight to Super.

[elder briar]

that would be quite a foray into the gaming industry

[old sierra]

I am from the UK and didn't play a NES until the late 90s, it wasn't that popular here. The Master System was bigger, but consoles didn't get huge until the 16 bit era

[kindred anchor]

the NES was quite popular in the scandinavian countries

[stone plinth]

In terms of the nuked MD core, it'd be nice to get a new release with the ability to disable the After Burner II (as an example) audio workaround.

[kindred anchor]

yeah ill fix it when i drop the truth nuked MD core

[stone plinth]

I checked the GitHub and the audio issue was last updated October 2023. I'm guessing it's either not a high priority or it's more difficult to fix than it would seem.

I'm currently using the version with the filter disabled

[split stratus]

It’s just difficult to fix. There’s also an issue on the GBA core audio that I think is essentially the same issue we’re seeing on the MegaDrive core

[stone plinth]

Did I read something about the old core having the issue "fixed" in a hacky way?

[split stratus]

Not sure, I don’t think it was hacky, though. Jt12 was just written with that sort of distortion in mind. The fix could likely be adapted. It’s just a pain because the developer has to figure out what the heck the obtuse signal names mean (in nuked) and what they’re actually doing, and then port over what jt12 does

I would like to see that, though. That or just fix the mister framework filtering so it doesn’t introduce the issue in the first place

Maybe DE25 would help? Wouldn’t automatically fix it but the increased resources means more could be spent on the framework

[stone plinth]

So it sounds like this is another downside of the netlist approach then?

Sounds like it's a bit like mixing water and oil

[drowsy hemlock]

DE25’s extra logic elements have been spent several times over now, I think 😅

[stone plinth]

I.e. adding non netlist core stuff to netlist stuff

[split stratus]

Yeah, the netlist approach is still good but it’s just that it’s very hard for anyone other than the original author to modify, and that turns out to be a problem when there aren’t many FPGA developers working on mister to begin with

But yeah the issue is complicated, Paulb-nl said something along the lines of “sitting this one out while the smart people figure it out” and he’s a brilliant dev that submits accuracy fixes to cores fairly regularly lol

[stone plinth]

Definitely a double edged sword. The NES core appears to be an incredible example of superb accuracy without a netlist being used. Makes me wonder how accurate the old core could be made if some of those test fails were resolved.

I was very impressed when using the analog out from the Megadrive core into the RT4K. The pre-made profiles for an actual Megadrive worked perfectly with the analog output.

[narrow panther]

There's actually an ongoing project that tries to understand the Nuked-MD netlist. Having a complete understanding of the hardware can allow new games to push the hardware to the max, and also improve accuracy of emulators. You can see loads of notes and diagrams about the workings of the VDP here: https://github.com/sikthehedgehog/vdpnotes

[split stratus]

Nice! I didn't know this existed, very helpful

[fallow dome]

pins updated

[ivory shale]

We would have never had a JaguarCD core if that was the mentlaity though 😛

[drowsy hemlock]

No, the point I was making is that that might mean there’s not as much incentive to e.g. rewrite it, if some fundamental issues required that

Or as many other developers interested in contributing

[ivory shale]

I would say that the SegaCD was more popular than that, it wasn't the SNES but it wasn't the 3DO either

[drowsy hemlock]

Sure - but how many people routinely contribute to popular consoles like the SNES? 😉

Outside of the original developers, most cores have only a small number of contributors, and I feel like the more popular consoles maybe have the most. (But that might also be because the popular ones have been around longer?)

I suspect that the motivations are also slightly different for getting a first working core out of the door vs fixing up niche issues

[ivory shale]

Depends, I mean, we have the vast majority of the NES core being worked on by one person despite how popular the NES was, and there was massive new interest in the core after that recent accuracy test rom appeared

[warm carbon]

obviously we need a 100th coin test for segacd

[drowsy hemlock]

I dunno, I just don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say it’s not surprising that some of the more unpopular consoles don’t have loads of people jumping to fix niche issues 😅

[ivory shale]

Heh, well there is a genesis test, and you can run it on the 32x core by renaming it, probably segacd too... but yeah

Obviously that does not test the 32x or SCD portions

There has also been heavy discussion for weeks on the CD-I channel lately

[drowsy hemlock]

Let’s see how heavy the discussion is 5 years from now 😅

[ivory shale]

5 years from now N64, PSx, and Saturn were considered an impossible pipe dream

[drowsy hemlock]

Not quite sure what your point is?

(I’m not being difficult)

But regardless, it doesn’t matter. All we can do is wait for cores to be fixed, or fire up an editor and try to help ourselves 🙂

[fallow dome]

popularity means a higher chance someone who's capable and willing to do improvements appears

same goes for finding issues, etc. etc.

[normal granite]

hiya everyone, i use snax64 these days for my snac adapters, and was curious if there's any possibility in adding 2 player snac for Genesis type cores? I think these days I can use SNAC plus a USB adapter, so its not a huge deal, but it would be awesome to have multiple SNAC controllers for genesis/32x/CD

[light mist]

explain 3do

[old sierra]

3DO is one of the most popular systems we don't yet have a core for that is possible on the DE-10 Nano

[fickle hemlock]

there's not enough pins to do 2p genesis sadly

[light mist]

you dissing virtual boy?

[old sierra]

"one of" the most popular. 3DO and VB are about the only consoles released in the West that went don't yet have, are doable on the DE-10 Nano, that people who aren't massive console nerds or armchair game historians can name.

[ivory shale]

No, the Virtual Boy disses Virtual Boy

[light mist]

@fallow dome save me

[fallow dome]

Yes how can I help

[fallow dome]

I think the 3DO is pretty well known amongst retro gamers. Likely not very familiar but at least known about.

[stone plinth]

Plumbers Don't Wear Ties ironically did a lot of heavy lifting to keep it in people's memory

[edgy ruin]

Well, there is this test program by Krikzz which verifies Sega CD known functionalities, undocumented behaviors, timings, etc... and fails on most (if not all) Sega-CD emulators.
https://github.com/krikzz/mega-ed-pub/tree/master/mcd-verificator

[plain quiver]

We know it with srg320 (and some other devs).

[woeful goblet]

Its one of the best Spider-Man game of all time . Sad it doesn’t work properly on Mister

[compact plover]

It just takes one person who's passionate about a platform or looking for a challenge such as Slamy with the CD-i core and srg320 with the 3DO core. I thnk people do tend to overestimate how important passion is though. Robert did build the N64 core out of passion, but some people just want the challenge of building a core, Like I'm pretty sure srg320 has little interest in 3DO as a platform. I guess it depends on the individual devs and their motivations. Don't want to speak for any devs, but that's just my observations. I remember Greiverhart just wanted to build 1 core being the Pokemon Mini and dipped out afterwards so each dev is unique

[old sierra]

Yeah, definitely. Although seeing as srg320 had never even seen a SNES before building the core, I think it is safe to say he doesn't have a long, deep passion for the 3DO 😉

But I do think we are now at the point where if you were to show an average western vintage/retro gamer a list of all the console cores and ask them "what is missing?" They would struggle to name many, even any, beyond maybe 3DO, which is obviously well on the way, and Virtual Boy.

[compact plover]

Sure, but as someone who bought a MiSTer in 2020, there are so many cores being added that we never thought would see the light of day on the DE10 Nano, either for their complexity or their obscurity. Everyone knows about the N64, Saturn and PS1 being the upper limit in terms of MiSTer's capabilities, but the obscure stuff is really fascinating. We've gotten 32X, NGCD, Super Cassette Vision, Atari Jaguar/CD, 3DO, CD-i, Pokemon Mini, Super Vision 8000, etc. Every one of those platforms listed was said to have been a pipe dream but here we are. We even have the PC-FX under development which will lead to the Virtual Boy one day so I think it's all just a matter of time. New devs pop up all the time and I couldn't be more grateful

[old sierra]

Oh yeah, it has been fantastic, and I am holding out hope that we will get more obscure systems down the line, just need passionate Devs who are interested in paths less trodden

Like I really hope we get a community wide solution for the Laser Active file format, to get those down to a sane size, and those one day supported in the Mega CD and PCECD cores

[narrow panther]

https://bsky.app/profile/anaelseghezzi.bsky.social/post/3m4qwlfptck2r

Anaël seghezzi (@anaelseghezzi.bsky.social)

Jumping! I want the driving to feel smooth and arcadey like a Sega Rally. I was never a big fan of Wipeout's physics, but I love the graphics obviously :)

▶ Play video

Bluesky · Nov 3, 2025, 9:09 PM

This is looking so good! 🤯

(It's for the Mega Drive)

[drowsy hemlock]

Virtual Boy core will be the best core

[manic ridge]

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2025/11/sega-technical-institutes-cancelled-mega-drive-rts-dark-empires-has-just-been-dumped-online?fbclid=IwY2xjawN2Y25leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHigo6iCsjzmz4rmfbGgiZxGJnXa1hBWZVRkwZcq5JMqiaK4gRMtMw7gwSkp5_aem_DluuHVgiG-mM1smk5ZzHBw

[ivory shale]

I don't think those were ever meant to be "usable", it's like capturing uncompressed video. That 300GB file is not meant to be usable as-is, but to make sure you capture everything to then compress to something more sane.

Though for those laseractive games it's more complex than just running a compression codec on it

[old sierra]

Yeah, I have mentioned it a few times, although was a different channel yesterday #1103404843512631357 message

[ivory shale]

Yeah, I read that same article you mentioned. The rips are made to preserve the disk as much as you can get to a digital re-creation of the physical disk itself as possible so if anything comes up in the future that it turns out we needed to have, we would hopefully have it preserved, they are not meant to be a final format to be played back in emulators or video players.

Whatever final format one would need has not been planned yet IIRC

[past magnet]

I thought they did make a player for domesday rips? (of normal laserdiscs)

[ivory shale]

I don't know, probably is possible like it is to play back uncompressed video, but like I said, it's not meant to be a final format

[old sierra]

The developer has said this is the final format as far as he is concerned, as he would rather the emulator run on old computer and have massive files, than not run on older computers and files be smaller.

As far as I am aware nobody is actively looking at a smaller format for these discs

[fallow dome]

Don’t older computers have tiny hard drives? 🤔

[drowsy hemlock]

Depends how far back you go. During the early SSD days they arguably got smaller

We’re now back at maybe 2006 😅

[old sierra]

The assumption seems to be that everyone has a massive NAS set up with TBs of space and downloads all of Mame...

[fallow dome]

lol

[old sierra]

Yeah, it is a rather myopic view

[drowsy hemlock]

What about those of us who have a NAS with many TBs of space but don’t download all of mame?

[fickle hemlock]

how much more compressed could it get though?

[fallow dome]

CHD compress it!

[plucky flare]

considering it is completely uncompressed...

[fickle hemlock]

oh its not even using basic compression? lzo or anything

[old sierra]

There was a lengthy discussion about it with some of the grey beards, in theory it could be possible to maybe get them down to a single digit GB each, so not tiny by a lot smaller than 50-350GB

[fickle hemlock]

yeah probably i mean, just zipping one would give you a rough estimate

[old sierra]

This was considering turning every frame into a compressed jpeg file and maintaining the data

[fickle hemlock]

at some point you're just reinventing h265 from first principals

[kindred anchor]

has anyone tried putting the 300gb files into handbrake!??!

laserdisc_for_mister.mkv 👍

[plucky flare]

it's not as simple as 'h265' because they have requirements regarding seeking/single frame addressing that isn't going to play well with something with b-frames

[old sierra]

Just to reiterate, these are not video files. This isn't like Laserdiscs arcade systems where the Laserdisc part is just a video. The way to think about these discs is they are a CD ROM of data, video, music etc. but on an analogue format not digital. A whole new file format needed to be created to even capture them and there is no easy way to compress them and them to work because of the nature of the data and how they worked. The format was in a lot of ways a technical marvel, to encode all this on an analogue format.

The system did tricky things like slow down and speed up playback, play things in reverse, have lots of branching between videos.

[glass shale]

Never heard about this game. Is this something like Paprium that has a uC inside the cartridge or something? 🤔

[ivory shale]

All of mame these days is like, what, 1TB? Which isn't much these days, that's generally the size NVME people put in their builds, to say nothing of a storage drive. But yeah, expecting people to have multiple 300GB rips on an "old computer" is silly.

Also who would emulate this on an old computer anyway?

Go back old enough and your "old computer" can't handle drives over 2GB, and after that was the 120GB limit... my Pentium3 had that limit and I had to do some tricks to bypass it when I needed to replace it's boot drive

... and then unless you are on linux or an NTFS based system your old computer can't handle a partition over 2TB, which would fill up fast with images that huge.... not to mention you are likely using a modern SATA to IDE adapter to put such a large drive in an old computer in the first place

[fallow dome]

The old computer excuse is code for “this is what I want to do, logic be damned” lol

[plucky flare]

or 'this is already too much work, I'm not developing a compression scheme too'

[fallow dome]

Ok that makes more sense

[old sierra]

Am just grateful he actually pulled this off and stuck at it for 18 years, which is insane.

Hopefully someone can come up with a way to compress these better so they are a more sane size and we see support in MiSTer one day.

[ivory shale]

I mean, he could just come out and say that. He's already done far more than enough in working on this for two decades and creating this new format to begin with, nobody would fault him for not wanting to create a compression format too. The archival is the important part, another decade and it would have been too late for most of these disks.

Once they are properly archived there is no rush to create a compressed format

[bright pivot]

People already received their 8bitdo earthion controller?

[fallow dome]

In Japan some have, yeah

[fading hare]

I forgot that I even ordered one of those.

[drowsy halo]

I wish they made it weird

[void eagle]

yeah, it should turn into a ship and fire lasers

and play the hidden Yuzo Kushiro voice clip

2.4G M30 works wired and has super low lag wired too. Tough I do wish they made a wired console controller.

[faint silo]

Knuckles Chaotix is running way better on the new unstable core from 11.03.25

ive been playing in on Ares emulator lately but it has crashes, Misterfpga could now be the best way to play it

[glass shale]

MiSTer wins again!

[light mist]

What if it loses on purposr to gain an easy win though?

[livid spire]

Always a good time to be playing SMS! Been away but will be back playing some more soon (hopefully)

I'd need to check what aspects could be added to the core. IIRC extended resolution support wasn't working fully (limited use in commercial games).
SNAC light phaser accuracy is a little off I think. I had everything setup to experiment with that one so should get back to that again.....
Also, 3D glasses support 😎
I never did work out how to experiment with that test core needing a custom adapter

[fallow dome]

Always has been! MiSTer

[plain quiver]

I'm missing some time for testing Mortal Kombat II, Kolibri & Motocross Championship once more.

Incident tickets have been opened regarding them since quite some time, concerning speed.

[lethal prairie]

Still works perfectly on the core, used the Python script to extract the ROM just last week!

[warm carbon]

@fallow dome First of all, @ing you is now impossible. I have to use your Christian name. Second, is linking (or posting) the python script to extract the earthion rom from a legally purchased steam version against the rules (I assume it is, but checking)

[stone plinth]

Is the Christian name Robothy?

[warm carbon]

i dare not speak it here

[fallow dome]

Yeah I wouldn’t post it

I’ll change my name back, sorry about that

Ok done

A python script is of course not breaking any laws but people can get upset about it, even if it’s used for 100% legal means.

imo of course

[lethal prairie]

It’s technically bypassing encryption too so that’s where it gets hairy

[warm carbon]

yeah, that's a good callout

it's not extracting the rom as much as it's stripping the rom of the encryption

[ivory shale]

It's more extracting an encrypted file, the rom itself is technically not encrypted, the container that's holding the rom is

It's different than breaking the encryption on a modern console where generally the executable itself is encrypted

Personally I don't see a problem with the script, since you need to have purchased the game on Steam to use it anyway.

[proper agate]

Still violates DMCA.

[sage prairie]

The scripts include encryption keys extracted from the binary

[fading hare]

It's 👁️ 👄 👁️

[fallow dome]

The fact that we’re even debating it doesn’t put me at ease. Sorry to be a bummer about it but I’d rather play it super safe here.

[ivory shale]

Ah, that complicates things a bit, though, there was that whole HD-DVD key thing from a few years back

[glass shale]

This is getting more like “Patchion”! Geez!

[past magnet]

Gotem

[manic ridge]

I gotta try the new version

[void swallow]

Just got this in from amazon.jp looks really nice in person the decals are textured though which may be a good or bad thing

[ivory shale]

six face buttons and two shoulder buttons? For a shooter on the genesis?

[lethal prairie]

it's just a normal 8bitdo M30 with Earthion branding, I don't think they were going to do anything more than that

[ivory shale]

Wish someone would make a modern dual-analog style controller with six face buttons, would be perfect for emulating just about every system that didn't have a numberpad for buttons, as well as work for modern games 🙁

[lethal prairie]

https://www.amazon.com/Retro-Bit-Saturn®-Wireless-Controller-Genesis-PC/dp/B0CL93KJ6P

[ivory shale]

IIRC it's shoulder buttons are not analog

[split stratus]

on the M30, the shoulder buttons are just mapped to the C and Z buttons anyway.

[ivory shale]

Yeah, I hear that's thanks to microsoft not allowing more buttons on their controller api for windows?

I'm honestly fine with that, no system ever had six face buttons AND four shoulder buttons

Problem is I can't find a controller that's basically a modern dual-analog controller with six face buttons, even if C and Z are remapped to two shoulder buttons. All of them either only have one analog stick, one set of shoulder buttons, or the shoulder buttons are not analog.

Like, literally all I want is a modern Xbox controller with a C and Z button, you'd think that would have been done a hundred times over by now

[fallow dome]

The only games that need 6 face buttons are very specifically Capcom-style fighting games. Atleast nothing else comes to mind.

[ivory shale]

Many saturn games did

[fallow dome]

yeah but the duplicated inputs from the existing A B C

snd the layout wasnt necessary for those functions

[ivory shale]

Depends on the game, there was also no standard for how buttons were duplicated

Would be feasable to use a 4-face button controller for those if you could configure a key mapping per-game, but as-is it would be a pain to remap the controller every time when you switch games

[fallow dome]

I like 6 face buttons for Capcom-style fighting games and N64 but im glad they didnt stick around. Being moved to the top is a great comprimise.

4 buttons for thumb and two buttons for each pointer finger

[pastel peak]

‎ 🎩

🧿👄🧿 ✨
‎ 🫴

[ivory shale]

I don't see the point of a "medium" attack but eh

[fallow dome]

LOL

[ivory shale]

Though imo shoulder buttons are a lot more annoying to use

For that

[fallow dome]

sorry lol to the reaction

[ivory shale]

Yeah, that thing pops up now and then, pretty sure there is a keyword, but I can't put my finger on it

... oh comon

[fallow dome]

yeah good point

im too used to capcom fighting games and saturn lol

[ivory shale]

My default mapping made burning rangers awkward

[fallow dome]

i wish i could design a controller, not because i think i could do better or want to improve anything but i find that process fascinating

[ivory shale]

I have most of the parts now to build a controller

.... except for the final buttons and the casing

I need to fix my 3d printer

[fallow dome]

well thats super cool regardless

[ivory shale]

But it's a spinner controller so the buttons are not the main point

[old sierra]

Hmm, is 32x part of unstable nightlies?

[plain quiver]

Yes.

[manic ridge]

Only the one that's for Genesis as I recall, the bluetooth one they're separate

[split stratus]

Ah good to know!

[drowsy halo]

Capcom Medium attack is cool for fireballs

[fickle hemlock]

i think virtua fighter is a true 6 button fighting game?

at least 5 was i guess i know the others less

[night cape]

This is only true with the 2.4Ghz M30. All the buttons are independent on the Bluetooth M30.

[sage prairie]

My m30 2.4ghz shoulder buttons are independent, they aren't shared with anything in both xinput or dinput modes.

[past magnet]

VF is 3 buttons

[brave token]

https://youtu.be/sp4WPlkRGpU

I have been working on this over the past few weeks. I want to caveat this that:

1. This is targeted for speedrunner savestate practice, NOT standard savestates as you progress casually through a game.
2. This is a POC, not really polished yet or ready for prime time. I was just able to get a game to boot this morning.

I thought this would be the best place to share since it has a lot of passionate mister genesis users, though this is definitely targetted towards speedrunners and not sure if any of them are actually here.

I just wanted to share and see if there was any interest for it to progress further or if it could be helpful for anyone who wanted to speedrun on the mister but didn't because of missing savestate support.

[celest mango]

Really interesting solution, obviously limited but would definitely be useful for practicing with no input lag

[glad aurora]

Savestates would be AMAZING

[stuck gull]

save states would be excellent, both for games that have password systems and so a sleep mode could be implemented into portable handware like the analogue pocket

[brave token]

Sorry, I don't want to raise expectations too much for this. This is currently more like 1-way savestates. You have savestates on your computer with a software emulator and this tool converts them effectively into ones that run on mister. It creates a new rom that puts the savestate data and a little bootloader at the end. The first thing it does restore all game state (memory and registers) and then jumps on the next vblank to where the pc savestate was.

It doesn't have the capability of creating a savestate on the mister itself. This unfortunately doesn't make it valuable now for most users.

An area where I think it could help very soon would be for speedrunners who want to use the mister to play genesis games. For a lot of them, they are using lots of savestates to keep practicing different areas of the game. So it is not that big of a deal to get to those areas once on pc. It some ways it may be even better since you can tweak to be in the exact situation you want with a tas and then restore to that, which you couldn't do with an everdrive.

I could imagine it could also be used for full bidirectional savestates. Basically it work more like the snes savestate system where most of the saving / loading would be in genesis code and you need a simple interrupt on "save"/"load". What I have would be the load portion of that code, although it would probably need an expert to actually add the interrupt capabilities to the core itself.

[fallow dome]

What if I’m a passionate MiSTer Mega Drive user?

[brave token]

never heard of it

Really low level, but I got all of these patched savestate versions of roms working on software emulators first. Then I opened it up on the megadrive core and just got a blank screen and was so sad...

Then as I was losing hope, I got the old genesis core and it worked . It was interesting to see the accuracy differences between the two cores there.

After some research and trial and error, I was interacting with one component in a way that was documented to not be not safe with original hardware and once I added in safer handling code there it now works on the megadrive core.

Personally it was a bit of a scare, since debugging that without an actual software debugger was exceptionally tough. Excited in the end though that I got it working on both cores and also a cool highlight of how close the megadrive core is to original hardware vs the software emulators I tried and the earlier genesis core.

Sorry you got me thinking about my genesis vs megadrive experience from yesterday 🙂

[manic coral]

this sounds great @brave token , i'd absolutely use that to practice sections

[ivory shale]

Anyone here ever tried any of the SRAM hacks for Xenocrisis?

[void swallow]

Does Dark Wizard on the MegaCD core have a problem where after trying to leave a town the game resets to the bios screen? Thanks

I'm having that problem

[teal roost]

I’m not sure but I already wouldn’t play Dark Wizard on the mister core because it has missing sound effects. You can check issues in the Sega cd core GitHub page.

[brave token]

Thanks. I think I'm going to try and harden this up over the next month or two and see if I can turn this into something releasable.

My POC used mame as the savestate source, but I think I'm going to try and switch to a using gst files I think. I wasn't aware of them but they can be created by blastem, gens, and keta fusion. I think it will be a lot easier for me to work with and I may be able to use it to fix the sound initially on restores.

Ultimately, I want to support gen-plus gx and bizhawk, but working with their savestates seems a LOT harder. If people start liking the tool though I could maybe come back and try adding support those as well.

Shout though if you think the initial choice above seems like a bad call.

[manic coral]

not a bad call. better to get something functional for now imo. i don't think it's a problem to have to use any of a few specific emulators to generate the states.

[ivory shale]

I generally consider savestates only usable on whatever created them anyway (and even then sometimes version differences can break that) so any cross-compatibility with software emulators is just a bonus. Most would likely be happy to have savestates exist at all on the genesis core

[narrow panther]

The character sprites look different from the last time I saw it! Still looing great https://youtu.be/ghuZCUeVnbc?si=YsR_rbBkL1N4KVQy&t=80

[ivory shale]

So I am guessing nobody tried that save romhack for Xenocrisis that I mentioned before?

[faint onyx]

Ok, played into level 2 (Xenocrisis), did a reset and started the game again. The SRAM save seems to work fine, you start at level 2.

[ivory shale]

Did you try it in anything else? It was crashing for me on anything I ran it on except mister, wondered if that was normal

[faint onyx]

Just tried it with my Japanese MD+Everdrive Pro. Works without issues here.

[versed rapids]

https://x.com/FFmpeg/status/1989450172762657029?s=20

FFmpeg (@FFmpeg)

Patch for FFmpeg's Sega's FILM muxer. This format was used on early Sega consoles, including the Sega CD and Sega Saturn.

The Sega CD dates from 1991!

FFmpeg aims to play every video file ever made (and in this case also create them).

X · Nov 14, 2025, 9:47 PM

[ivory shale]

Huh, was JUST watching a video about Google complaning about a bug in FFMPEG that only effected the first like, 20 frames of a single Star Wars game from 1995

[blissful lagoon]

Not because that they use that codec, but because they swarm any FOSS project they depend on with LLM-generated bug reports, I’m sure..?

[ivory shale]

Well, the video was about people being mad at Google for doing that with ffmpeg...

But that was teh bug they found, yeah

[proper agate]

The problem is that the open source projects don't have the resources to fix the bug, but now that the bug is disclosed it's a hole people can exploit.

[brave token]

So close yet so far..... I now am building these savestate roms with sound being restored on bootup... but it seems the sound restore only works on emulators not mister 😭

Mister is too accurate

If anyone has experience with really accurate software emulators that have debuggers let me know. Currently just trying random things since I don't have a good way to debug.
(Note, I think the issue is how I am restoring the yamaha registers)

(z80 was tough, but I think I got past that...)

[brave token]

NEVERMIND.... IT WORKS!!!!!!!!

[quasi sable]

can't get the justifier to work correctly with snatcher, any trick to it? It sort of works with lethal enforcers, though aims a little to the left, but when doing the calibration within snatcher the xhair is going all over the place.

[quasi sable]

well in case it helps anyone else.....I put the EU version in the wrong folder and was running that one without realizing it and it worked fine other than the light gun so I didn't realize it.

Gun would shoot fine etc it just would not aim correctly due to pal I'm sure.

[ivory shale]

A bit late but if you are talking about the bug I mentioned, again, it's only for decoding the intro video of a single Lucasarts Star Wars game fro 1995, and IIRC only happens between frames 11 to 20 or something like that, plus I think that codec isn't even included in a standard compile of ffmpeg. So I hihgly doubt it's being used to exploit many people

[proper agate]

I believe you can exploit it with a fake video file that contains the exploitable codec but is named something else. It'll get autodetected.

[ivory shale]

Isn't that codec NOT included in a standard ffmpeg build though?

(Also this now makes me wonder if ffmpeg can play the video files off of the Sega Saturn version of Mechwarrior 2. I recall looking into those files in a hex editor and seeing "MECHWARRIOR2MECHWARRIOR2MECHWARRIOR2MECHWARRIOR2MECHWARRIOR2MECHWARRIOR2" sprinkled throughout the file itself, clearly a custom or modified codec the devs made just for that game)

[faint onyx]

With the current Mega CD core there is a bug with Secret of Monkey Island. Enable the mouse in port 1 and boot the game. It goes from the Sonic Sega Logo straight to the CD player. I can confirm this.

https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=9758

[earnest coyote]

Hrm, interesting. I wonder how it works on real hardware. I still have an unopened copy of SoMI I've never opened that I should try out.

[earnest coyote]

So on real hardware it works on port 2 only but there are no issues that cause it to reset to the CD menu. There's definitely something broken with the MiSTer core.

[carmine pine]

Best to open an issue to log it

[brave token]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR1g4wTH_38

[shut aspen]

oh shit, save states on the mega drive core now???

[brave token]

The above video goes over my progress and how to setup the tool.

My current state:

1. Sound works
2. It works well for most games I've tried but there are some issues

• Some savestates just don't load properly even for games that work
• I am struggling with sonic 1 (though it works on genesis core just not megadrive)

At this point, I think it would be usable for speedrunners even though it definitely has some gaps. I'm also interested in feedback on how it works and maybe I can start keeping a list of what works and what doesn't.

I'll see if I can fix some of the outstanding savestate conversion issues. Some (particularly this sonic issue) are really tough so if anyone knows the internals well and has ideas I would also love to brainstorm or collaborate with them).

[fading hare]

Not for creating the state within the core.

[brave token]

Yes and no..... This is really a workaround for the lack of savestate support. It converts savestates on the pc to roms on the core. It is mostly useful for speedrunners I think. A stopgap solution unfortunately, but I'm hoping it will help improve mister adoption with speedrunners.

@fallow dome I'm not exactly clear on the server policies if it is ok to post my beta tool here or not (if not, people who are interested can dm me). Also, while this tool is entirely targetted at the mister, if too distracting I can maybe setup an alternate discord server just for the discussion. Just let me know what is best.

[brave token]

Just fixed that bad bloodlines savestate ! If the 68k had the z80 bus locked when the savestate was made I didn't relock it when restoring.

[brave token]

Oh, sorry probably wasn't clear in my messages above. While not perfect, I think the tools is ready to use as a beta and get some initial feedback if anyone wanted to try it. I just didn't want to post the binary into the channel without a mod ok. You can dm me if you want to try it until then.

[fading hare]

Sounds like something that could be posted in the test-builds channel. But I think you need access first.

[fallow dome]

Hey, sorry I’m replying so late to your message.

Basically, as long as it doesn’t contain any copyrighted content and doesn’t contain tools to bypass currently sold games then it’s all fine to share.

[brave token]

Great thanks! It definitely follows all those rules!

This is the savestate conversion beta tool. Instructions are in the zip (basically unzip it and put it in the mister "Scripts" directory). However, I highliy recommend watching this video first as it explains in much more detail how to use this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR1g4wTH_38

Note, this is a beta so I am very confident not every game or savestate will work. I'd really appreciate any feedback good or bad on it. Also people finding games that don't work will also help me fix some of the defects.

And again to not get peoples hopes up, this really is currently targeting speedrunner workflows. Since you can't create the savestates on the mister itself, it won't be very helpful for casual playthroughs. Hopefully this could be a building block one day for that one day though.

[heady harness]

Awesome work!!!

[rotund bluff]

Has anybody else noticed that, in the MegaDrive core, when running SMS games, the Vertical Crop option does not work when border is disabled?

Well, I opened an issue for that, in case you guys can confirm the problem:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/MegaDrive_MiSTer/issues/73

[night cape]

I guess this is because Master System have a lower resolution when the border is turned off. There is nothing to crop.

[rotund bluff]

Crop option not only crops the image, but forces integer scaling.
The magic key is integer + crop.

[dark plover]

any hack for 60fps sonic spinball? hehe

[elder briar]

not sure if there are any improvement patches for spinball, but you could play around with the turbo settings in the old genesis core maybe

[dark plover]

Yeah I can mess around. Game is super sluggish stock. 30fps

[elder briar]

i believe spinball was programmed in C rather than assembly. i don't think they had very good C compilers for the genesis back then like we do now, so it runs pretty poorly

[fading hare]

It does run a lot better with turbo on the old Genesis core.

[pale plover]

That game is so poorly optimized that I would imagine you would need to make the code from scratch to fix all of the problems.

[robust flax]

Kinda surprising sonic spinball doesn't already have an unofficial fix considering the sonic fan base is the sonic fan base. We'll get sonic 06 recomp before sonic spinball gets fixed

[drowsy hemlock]

Surely even sonic fans don’t like that game 😅

[pale plover]

Sonic Spinball is that game everyone had, but nobody wanted to play.

[drowsy hemlock]

Pinball is boring as hell, digital pinball even more so

[kindred anchor]

wrong

[drowsy hemlock]

I will never understand how people can enjoy pinball. Although I notice that everyone that enjoys it is very old

[fading ermine]

When was the last time you played pinball ? Have you ever tried the modern iterations like Stern games or Jersey Jack pinball games with big LCD screens and impressive gameplay, rulesets, mechs and lightshows (eg : the latest Harry Potter pinball is an absolute stunner).... If the last time you played pinball was on an old electronic machine from the 80s with a few pop bumpers and drop down targets with "blip" "blop" sounds, i can understand your frustration but pinball has radically evolved through time... for the better imho 😉. The main caveat with pinball is the pricepoint as the average price to pay for a modern machine is around $10k which is far from a standard videogame budget and which explains why most of people into it are far from being youngsters most of the time 😁

[dark plover]

Pinball is an acquired taste. It’s dope though

I agree. Expensive. I want the Data East Simpsons. I’ll get it eventually

[kindred anchor]

youre supposed to play them at an arcade or pinball parlour admiteldy

[elder briar]

only played real pinball machines once or twice, but i enjoy pinball video games quite a bit. devil crash on PC engine is good fun

[elder briar]

the entire game was coded in C so truthfully i don't know how much extra performance you could squeeze out of it. best chance is to just remake the game from scratch, but i don't know if anyone loves spinball that much lol

then again this is the sonic fanbase we're talking about

[drowsy hemlock]

I’m not old enough for the last time to play having been the 80s

I’ll admit that I haven’t gone around looking to try out new versions of the game, but that’s just because the fundamental concept is really not interesting to me - no amount of noises or flashing lights is going to make it interesting to me

I was kinda joking about the age thing (and saying it just to wind people up) - but I do really think that you’ll struggle to find anyone in their e.g. 20s who’s interested in the game, and I don’t think cost is the issue

Although fwiw I also think slot machines are also boring as hell, so I wonder if I’m immune to flashing lights and sounds being a thing that is attractive to me

[fading hare]

You need to get into the ring with our latest game-challenge then! We're doing...pinball!

[woeful sky]

How do I find the turbo core?

[elder briar]

there's no turbo genesis core. it's a menu option in the older genesis core

[woeful sky]

Nice, what does it actually do? Is it like the N64 turbo core or something else? How do I find the older core and what's the difference between it and the new one?

[elder briar]

the older core is less accurate but has more extra features, like turbo. it works similarly here as it does in other cores

you can find the old genesis core in the pins of this channel

[woeful sky]

Thanks, how do I find out what feature differences they have?

[elder briar]

playing them lol. you could look at the github repositories, but not everything is listed there

[fading hare]

Another great example of games that benefits from the turbo mode is the hacked Road Rash games that increase the frame limit to 30fps. It's an awesome sight to see those games running so smoothly.

[woeful sky]

If I already have the core installed on my Mister what would it be called/where do I find it in the menus? Otherwise I have the link to install it

[sage prairie]

The old core is called Genesis, it would be an alt core from update all, probably not in Console, but in the Other menu. If you have a names.txt file, it may have a + beside the name.

[woeful sky]

Thank you

[dark plover]

any way to cpu hack the sega cd ... wondering for sonic cd slow down

[elder briar]

funny you're bringing up sonic CD now as i was playing that on my mister just a few days ago. there's no turbo modes on the sega CD core though, unfortunately

[dark plover]

sonic 1-3 runs so much better

im suprised

[elder briar]

they really do. i guess CD tries to put too much stuff on the screen at once sometimes

these days, i like to play the PS2 version via the gems collection. has higher-quality cutscenes, smoother rotation in special stages, both JP/US soundtracks, and no slowdown

the 2011 remake (and by extension, the version found in sonic origins) also has these features

[dark plover]

i cant tell whats going on with this future and past ... there was one section in the pinball stage that it was chugging a lot ... was getting a tiny bit nauseous lol

[elder briar]

the goal is to travel to the past to destroy the generators, destroy the holograms and collect the time stones to create a good future in each zone

[ivory shale]

Wasn't there an even more recent remake that runs the game natively in widescreen and lets you play as Tails?

[elder briar]

the version found in sonic origins is based on the 2011 remake. origins plus allows you to play as sonic, tails, knuckles or amy

the remake was also decompiled and is playable natively on PC (and ported to other platforms) with mod support

[ivory shale]

Not origins, there was a seperate one released before that

It was actually delisted because of origins IIRC

[elder briar]

yeah, the 2011 remake. the version in origins uses that remake as a base

[ivory shale]

Ah, it was 2012 on Steam, could have sworn it came out long after that

[elder briar]

it's been a while

[ivory shale]

Origins is dead to me on Steam as long as it has Denuvo

So I don't even count that

[elder briar]

yeah, i'm very thankful that there's decomps for CD and the other genesis sonic games now, especially with origins being the way that it is

[ivory shale]

(Yeah, let's put an invasive DRM on ports of 40 year old games that people had been emulating on potatoes for the last 30 years)

[elder briar]

way too little way too late

[ivory shale]

Yup

SEGA and Ubisoft just put it on everything and never remove it

S-E was like that, they seem to not use it as much anymore and eventually remove it. They even put it on a FREE game, what are they protecting

[fallow dome]

pins updated

[fringe zodiac]

Taki preparing the Superstation?

[plain quiver]

Maybe.

[woeful sky]

Does this mean it's likely to tie in with the menu stuff he shared a while ago? Hope so, that looked great

[faint onyx]

What did Taki exactly? And what can we do with the updated cores from today? I'm a bit lost

[plain quiver]

Updating the sys module.

[faint onyx]

Means?

Is this preparation for the use of his the Super Station menu?

[plain quiver]

For us, at the moment, nothing fancy.

[faint onyx]

Ak ok. When it's done, is it just an update of the menu.rbf?

[plain quiver]

At the moment, that's just some of the major cores to have the latest framework pushed.
I don't know any more than that, like everyone else here.

[faint onyx]

Ok, sorry for all these questions. We will see what happens later. Thanks for the infos.

[plucky flare]

it has nothing to do with the super station

other than maybe he'd like a bunch of cores to get released because the sys update has a fix or something that may be relevant

[ivory shale]

Crazy to think that within the span of a year we are going to go from one FPGA platform that can run N64 games to like 4

[elder briar]

mister still wins again

[elder briar]

wait, what's the fourth platform? mister, A3D, M64, but what else is there

[glass shale]

Labubu

[elder briar]

oh yeah i forgot, the game laBubu

[fading hare]

https://youtu.be/XETjtZb5rO4?si=C3lZ8WczjWbzpTSu

[ivory shale]

Superstation

In retrospect I guess calling that a platform is stretching it a little

[lethal prairie]

Yeah I don’t think it really counts as separate

[sage prairie]

It is literally a mister, not separate at all.

[elder briar]

yeah superstation is just a mister in a pretty shell

[void eagle]

Isn't superstation a tv network?

[glass shale]

It’s a freaking labubu

[desert leaf]

The other alternatives are cool, but nothing beats the mister imo

[spare summit]

https://www.youtube.com/live/9BkhSoffx6w

[finite rapids]

and just hit export on a vid haha

Its so wild thats the Doom engine...on 32x

[glad aurora]

The 32X was capable of some pretty damn impressive visuals. While I think the hardware in general was a major mistake, it's also a shame it didn't do well enough to a few years of support

[cold prism]

I'm sure if Outrun 32X was made, it would be solid port.

[elder briar]

wasn't that going to come out but got cancelled?

probably would've been pretty awesome if it turned out like the space harrier and after burner ports

[cold prism]

Yep, even Daytona USA, Power Drift and even Rayman was announced (or advertise) to the console but got canned because of the Saturn.

[elder briar]

well at least we got all of those and more on the saturn eventually

daytona USA on 32X would've been... interesting lol

[cold prism]

I'm more sad about the cancelled "Castlevania: The Bloodletting"... but it turn out to be Symphony of Night along the way (well at least parts of it)

[fervent rain]

I have an official SEGA 6-button pad, and it’s not working correctly with Trouble Shooter or Ms Pacman. I’m supposed to hold Mode when powering on the “system” or plugging in the controller to force 3 button mode, but it has no effect. Is my controller the problem, or is this a limitation of the Mister core?

[elder briar]

isn't there an option to force 3 button mode in the menu? or was that only in the old genesis core

[fervent rain]

Its in the core but it does not effect SNAC controllers.

I think the problem is my Mode button. It is extremely hard to press, only game I can get it to work in is The Lost Vikings and not consistently.

[fervent rain]

Hmm. According to other things online, the mode setting should work and the mode button should not work.

[frank finch]

Unless it's because my 32x core is out of date, there's a strange issue where the game mentions emulator incompatibilities at startup and a flickering sky

[plain quiver]

You can try with the last unstable core on the pinned messages.

[frank finch]

That's what I was using. I forgot to mention I updated

[plain quiver]

So, that's the last version.

[frank finch]

Yup

[ivory shale]

The 32X core is based on the older less accurate genesis core right? Maybe whatever accuracy test it's running to try to determine if it's running in an older emulator fails on that old core

[versed rapids]

32x core have better part rewrite but not backported on genesis core

[ivory shale]

Huh? There was a rewrite of the old genesis core?

[spring lantern]

MegaDrive is the newer one

[ivory shale]

I know that, but the nuked core is not the one used for the 32x or segacd

[versed rapids]

32x have some part rewrite from Genesis core

[ivory shale]

So there were still some updates made to the old genesis part of the 32x core? Was SegaCd updated too?

When were these updates to the 32x core made by the way? I remember trying a test rom intended for genesis on it and it performed about the same as teh old genesis core

Granted, I don't have an everdrive to see how that test would run on a real 32x though, but it should only test the genesis part of it

[versed rapids]

the test rom on genesis you just need to rename on 32x for the extension and they will run

[ivory shale]

Yeah, that's what I did

[versed rapids]

32x have more green test

[ivory shale]

Than the Genesis+ core? Nice to hear 🙂

Wonder what Robo Blast is testing for then that the current 32x core is still not matching real hardware on

[old river]

It seems like the answer is "undocumented tricks"

[plain quiver]

Issue reported.

[fervent rain]

God, I’ve wanted to play Sonic Robo Blast 2 on crt for so long… never knew the 32X would be the answer, lol.

[elder briar]

could always just play the PC version on a CRT monitor, or a TV via emudriver

i think someone was working on a dreamcast port many years ago, but it was never finished. shame

[elder briar]

anyone tried spider-man: web of fire on the 32X core? there's a lot of graphical corruption and frequent slowdown in the latest unstable, but i can't tell if they're actual core issues or if the game is just that bad lol

[plain quiver]

The game itself is a glitch & slowdown mess.
But yeah, should be verified/compared with a real system, thing I don't have unfortunately.

I've seen some gameplay videos, but either they're not exhaustive, or they don't mention a real console (the video capture looks too sharp not to be an emulation).

[stone plinth]

Even with optimal analog sampling, apparently it's virtually impossible to get a perfectly clear image due to the way the 32x mixes its video with that of the Megadrive

[old river]

I wonder if Quarterback Club has similar graphical errors, or if the srb32x issue is due to a different trick.

[quartz wigeon]

Secret of the four winds still unplayable on mister i take it?

[manic coral]

this video has a fair amount of hardware capture of that game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndZ_HHL9bHo

[livid spire]

Gotta share this! Live
https://youtu.be/CWCUmTTVjMY?si=QDJkL2FBU0q20V3I

Will be exciting to see everything that comes out from this. Sega Channel is an engima to me

[manic fractal]

it's pretty much all sega channel stuff that was missing! check the Gaming Alexandria link in the video's description

[elder briar]

this is the exact video i was watching last night. it definitely seems to glitch and lag more on the core than on real hardware

[fading ermine]

Is there a way to get the Mars Sample Program - Pharaoh S32X ROM to launch ? All i get is a black screen even with the latest unstable core 🤔

[chrome moss]

Sega Saturn called and it wants its game back!

[plain quiver]

You can't, at the moment.

[manic ridge]

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2025/12/the-video-game-history-foundation-has-just-recovered-a-treasure-trove-of-previously-undumped-sega-channel-games?fbclid=IwY2xjawOu-M9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEefP5pmLBLUjUK8c14-Fff5QaUcO4G87bEbiJLmd4RSygUi6MgUeMDd7yKAqc_aem_KCNHLhs3aVYP9UGecoQ5Yg

Oh someone posted a video sorry

[loud gull]

so sega channel was actually a flashcart with internet?

[ivory shale]

Basically, though it was not quite internet IIRC, it connected by coaxial RF to your cable TV provider

Home cable internet would not really be a thing for like 1-2 decades later

I remember seeing commercials for it all the time, but I didn't have a genesis

I have no idea how much space was on it, but it was like a primitive gamepass and you could download some games to it, having to erase them to download others since there wasn't a lot of space

I think the SNES sattleview worked similarly except by sattelite instead of RF, and I think there was some stuff that were permanently stored on the hardware while others you downloaded

(Which is why so much of this was lost for years, and some might be lost permanently. Unless someone finds an archive of that data from the servers somehow the only source we have are old Segachannel/Sattleview carts that somehow still have save data intact)

[old sierra]

What format as these new dumps in? Will the core need updated to support them?

[ivory shale]

Many of the save batteries would have died by now

I don't think they released them yet, but for Saga channel I am pretty sure they are standad genesis roms

[old sierra]

That would be good

[ivory shale]

I think that group tends to not release roms often

Not sure

[plain quiver]

The ROMs are working as far as I know.
BIN format.

At least, for the games.

[old sierra]

Hmm, do we support .bin in MD core or even old Genesis one?

[plain quiver]

Just rename them as .md

The format is the same.

The md extension was done for differenciating dumps from other systems.

I only tested The Flinstones and Garfield - Lost Levels some days ago.

[loud gull]

i want a network-enabled everdrive

it would be simpler to keep my collection

[fading hare]

Yeah they work. No need to rename.

[earnest coyote]

I had this and it was amazing.

[ivory shale]

I can't magine how cool it would have been back then, I was a Nintendo fanboy back then, also would not have been able to afford both a snes and genesis

[earnest coyote]

I got the Genesis late for Chritmas of 93 and we got the Sega Channel not long after that so it was the primary way I played games on the Genesis.

I have strong memories waking up on the first of the month to turn it on and see what games were available

[old sierra]

Oh wow, I take it your Sega Channel is long gone?

[earnest coyote]

Yeah, we gave it back to the cable company when the service ended.

But I have a different model on my bookshelf

[old sierra]

Do you think any content could still be on that?

[earnest coyote]

No, the ROMs don't stay in memory when powered off

[old sierra]

Ah OK, that makes sense why there haven't been dumps before

[earnest coyote]

There has been some before but some data was missing

I think now almost all the North American data is found, although probably not all the firmware iterations

[drowsy hemlock]

I didn’t read the article but who the hell was dumping the games back then?!

That’s some serious foresight

[earnest coyote]

There were CDs with the data sent to cable companies and there were some carts used to showcase the Sega Channel "offline"

[drowsy hemlock]

Or storing them so that they could later dump them or whatever

Ahh gotcha

[loud gull]

damm, SEGA was ahead of its time, they invented the premium services we have today with playstation or xbox lol

[earnest coyote]

They invented Game Pass, and even PC Game Pass even though they didn't ship the later one

[drowsy hemlock]

And console online play

[fallow dome]

Do any of these sega channel dumps have anything interesting? Genuine question, not being a smartass lol

[earnest coyote]

Yes, go watch the video :-p

Garfield: The Lost Levels is probably the biggest thing out of it ROM-wise

but there's also just a ton of internal Sega material around the Sega Channel and an unreleased PC variant

[plain quiver]

The Flinstones is interesting too.

[warm carbon]

It was actually Garfield 2 in Japan, but Miyamoto thought it would be too hard for american audiences. So they rebranded a healthcliff game for the american version

[earnest coyote]

What's funny is Garfield the Lost Levels was the only version of the game I played as a kid so I was confused when I loaded up a regular Garfield cart as an adult

[fallow dome]

Do I gotta…..?

[warm carbon]

I actually need to catch up on this because it does seem like this is kind of a big deal

[loud gull]

it seems like I'm going to try them in my pocket

[velvet mural]

What kind of memory chips are inside ? Wondering if they can FeRAM-ized. (or MRAM). Conversely, wondering whether you couls set up your own server to send stuff to it

[loud gull]

probably cheap sram, as it was designed to be downloaded and lost after power off

garfield is cool, has some toejam 2 vibes

[earnest coyote]

I'd need to crack it open again to check. I'm also really curious if it's possible to create your own coax broadcast somehow.

[velvet mural]

These days with software-defined radios, it may be simpler than you think

[fickle hemlock]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4XtDqK63z8

[fervent rain]

Is this a different method from the groovy-mister technique?

Yep, definitely is.

Not sure what would be easier for me.

I have the IO Direct, not sure if that is compatible with groovy mister.

[drowsy halo]

Do you mean 1-2 years, not decades?

[ivory shale]

Nope

[drowsy halo]

In North America, it was very common by the late 90s

[ivory shale]

Cable? Most people didn't even have dialup in the mid 90s

[drowsy halo]

I had cable internet by 97 or 98 and tons of others on IRC had it at the same time.

Dialup became common when AOL created an unlimited usage plan for $20 in 1996

[ivory shale]

IRC users were hardly most users, especially if they ran a fserv

I couldn't even get cable internet until 2002

[vital idol]

I saw plenty of fservs on slow connections.

[ivory shale]

Again, I'm saying most people, not available at all. The first people to have cable internet during those times were hardly the majority

[ivory shale]

I know, I ran one while I was still on dial-up

[drowsy halo]

By this definition, sega channel was never a thing.

[ivory shale]

???

[drowsy halo]

i need to stop. None of this matters

Please carry on without me

[fading hare]

We didn't get cable internet until 2001 at my house.

[drowsy hemlock]

2000/1 for me too

TIL @drowsy halo was even more of a rich kid than @fading hare

[drowsy halo]

Lol. I think cable was double the aol price, which is cheaper than i pay for fiber today. So maybe I'm even more of a rich now.

[fallow dome]

I had internet in like 88/89 and cable late 90s, ISDN shortly before that lol

[drowsy halo]

Did you have the ultra boring WWW or a service like prodigy?

[fallow dome]

Prodigy, my dad worked at IBM

[drowsy halo]

Would he approve of you using IBM Clones?

[fallow dome]

Nope lol, we were only allowed to have IBM PCs

[drowsy halo]

Seems silly now but the threat was real

[brave glade]

i had a computer teacher back in the 90s who was anti-macintosh. I came out of the mac computer lab one day and he was about to congrat me on getting an award, i went to shake his hand and he stopped and asked me if i washed my hands lolz

[drowsy hemlock]

Some of us didn’t even exist then

[robust flax]

I sure didn't

[drowsy halo]

How can you even be sure there was a 1988

[velvet mural]

I'm sure

I was there

[ivory shale]

Ditto

[drowsy halo]

https://imgflip.com/i/afbg4o

"There was an Internet service called prodigy and my dad worked at IBM, which made computers at the time!

[warm carbon]

IBM stands for Its'a Business Machine

they were originally from newark

[drowsy halo]

Corey Booker's dad was ceo

[fading hare]

Did he also not allow you to play HAL games like Kirby or The Adventures of Lolo!? ||With HAL famously choosing their name to be one step ahead of the letters in IBM.||

[drowsy hemlock]

TIL

[obsidian dagger]

is that really a spoiler lol

nevermind, i guess so

i watch too many retro gaming youtubers who all parrot the same facts

DID U KNOW THAT DOKI DOKI PANIC

[fading hare]

Facts!? I'm a FAQs person myself.

[fading hare]

But did he have a 3DO on launch day for $700!?

[drowsy hemlock]

@drowsy halo Rich fight

Throw money at each other as a weapon

[drowsy halo]

🧐

I've got one eye protected

[drowsy halo]

😭

[fading hare]

I was Crash'n and Burn'n all day long.

...because it was the only game available!

Well that, and the sampler CD with Batman The Animated Series Mr. Freeze episode!

[drowsy halo]

I was downloading telesync VCDs and making vhs tapes to pass around at school.

[fading hare]

I busy obeying the law.

[drowsy halo]

there are people who drop like $20k on trim upgrades to their $60k SUVs and think it's normal

and it kind of is. what a wild world

[fading hare]

The only wild world I want to be a part of is Animal Crossing.

[velvet mural]

HAL actually chose their name based on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Which chose that name due to the reason you cited, but over 20 years earlier.

[ivory shale]

Wait, if HAL was mocking IBM then what is TIL mocking?

[drowsy hemlock]

UJM

[spare summit]

https://fxtwitter.com/i/status/2001725135175184734

Frogbull (@Frogbull55)

Knuckles' Chaotix WITHOUT the infamous link system?
︀︀Yes, it's possible! 🤯
︀︀Rediscover this hidden gem in a totally new way!
︀︀I explain how right here: www.patreon.com/posts/146156261
︀︀
︀︀#Knuckles #32X #Hack #Sonic @SEGAGuys @playsegasaturn @yoshinokentarou @thesegaguru @thesegalounge

**💬 16 🔁 96 ❤️ 652 👁️ 36.0K **

▶ Play video

FxTwitter · Dec 18, 2025, 6:43 PM

[thorny pivot]

How far along is the Sega planetarium projector core?

[drowsy halo]

wait

i have never seen this

who has this

we need to get it right away

[stone plinth]

If it displays Sonic the Hedgehog, would that be a Homestar Runner?

[spare urchin]

'I'm a terrific runner, not a planetarium!'

[fallow dome]

Sega Toys makes cool stuff

Almost a different company though

[vital idol]

you're a different company 😉

[stuck gull]

My sega toys

I need a green one to complete the set

green sonic

https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Scourge_the_Hedgehog

oh ofc it's a thing

[fallow dome]

I like the great value knuckles and tails you have

[stuck gull]

[fallow dome]

lol I’m kidding I know that’s the thing and the other thing from those sonic games I can’t remember but they were playable characters on Sonic mania

Armadillo thing

They were in the arcade game?

[elder briar]

i want to say segasonic was their first appearance yeah

[hard oar]

The armadillo started as a Sonic replacement in Chaotix 🤓☝️

[fallow dome]

@elder briar good work, our ruse exposed the Sonic fan!

[stuck gull]

[elder briar]

anything to weed out the fake fans

[elder briar]

knuckles' chaotix if it was good

[stuck gull]

youse are just jealous

[lethal prairie]

knuckles' chaotix if it was good

[hard oar]

but Sonic 2 isn't good 🙁

[elder briar]

be nice

[drowsy hemlock]

It’s great

Actually it’s ||mid||

[lethal prairie]

The Sonic 2 hater brigade is out in full force today

[elder briar]

fucked up

[stuck gull]

I find myself replaying sonic 2 the least