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Analogue announces the Mega Sg (shipping early, March 25th)
- Thread starter ShinJohnpv
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But I am European and I want physical games on my shelf. Them being PAL is basically a must for me as these are the games of my childhood. Some games I bought 2+ decades ago at this point, others are games I used to have that I've re-acquired, and others are games I always wanted to have but couldn't afford back in the day. And okay, a few classics I only later learned were must-owns. Honestly, the few Genesis boxes I have on my shelf kinda bother me. They look so out of place.
Most PAL Mega Drive games can be played at 60Hz without any issues though, at least on a real console. Here's hoping the Mega Sg supports that.
If its setup like the Super NT I reckon you could just default the system to NTSC and then boot the PAL carts up forcing them out at 60Hz.
Keep in mind that most 1993 and easier Megadrive games don't have region lock and many contain the same rom chip as other regions. They'll work even when system is set to NTSC.
Later games, though, tend to use region lock. Should be able to get around it easily enough, though.
I have a modded Megadrive with a 50/60hz/region switch and I'm pretty sure all of my PAL carts run perfectly fine at 60hz.
Think this game is supposed to be ported to the PS4 too. They showed off a video a while ago. It's a DICE game.
also, something I think it kinda interesting you can see in a comment I left on SIFTD half-a-year ago, is that this (game named Hardcore) was initially supposed to release the same year that Contra: Hard Corps was released. I wonder if that did anything.
Tbh they need to do those deals in order to entice the people who would buy this since a MiSTer setup is cheaper and does far far more
The Mega SG serves a different market than MiSTer. The MSG is aimed at collectors that want to use their original media, and it's a plug and play device that requires little to no knowledge from the users. There is significant cross over with those that just want to play roms, but that's not the market the MSG is primarily targeting.
The colletor market already owns what it needs to play those games (and have probably been unhappy about the lack of analog output in te first place, something the MiSTer allows). I mean I have a msg preordered and it will probably remain in its box with my MISTer remaining front and center.
The MiSTer crowd is hardly your « i wanna play roms » segment of the market, those just get a much cheaper Pi and are happy with its poor level of emulation
This is hardly the case. I'd imagine there are many multiple times the number of people who own say a retron to play their carts than people that own an OSSC or retrotink2x. Analogue's products are basically being advertised as the ultimate plug and play HDMI consoles for collectors. When you are deep into the retro gear hole you overestimate how many people have any level of knowledge about this stuff. The vast majority of any casual market is people who just want a plug and play device.
I own a SuperNT and MiSTer. Super NT is more accessible, looks great and probably more accurate. I love the fact that it runs at a slightly adjusted speed for HDTV compatibility. The only thing I don't like are the scanlines at 1080p. Mister on the other hand is also a fantastic project. I still haven't come around to sell my Super NT and probably I won't. In fact I might get a Mega SG as well. The reason I haven't ordered yet is that I cannot get over the fact it does not support CD games in any other way than using the original Mega CD attachment. For me, the whole reason for this to exist is that I don't have to bother with original hardware, so having to find an original Mega CD defeats purpose.
Err the people getting a Retron 5 for 80$ aren't going to drop 230$ on a mega SG to play « old genesis games »
The size won't matter because 5x is cropped and as such, bad at 1080p and the scanlines don't look right because it's not an integer scaling method for 1080p uncropped, it's a linear one, making them look terrible.
Retrogaming is far bigger than the subset of people that know anything about OSSC, retrotink2x or framemeisters. Analogue's whole shtick is to get mainstream outlets to hype their products to people outside the usual retrogaming markets when they make announcements and when they launch products. Taber literally tells people their hardware is the ultimate in fidelity, and the best way to play these games. He loves those high profile interviews where he feeds them a line of bull about his products.
Looking forward to the SG shipping so that the frequent detours down Mister lane can slow down at least for a little while.
Hardcore looks amazing. Looking forward to playing it.
Hardcore looks amazing. Looking forward to playing it.
Again someone paying 80$ to play 13 systems poorly emulated isn't going to fork 230$ just to play genesis games and not be an enthusiast or a hardcore fan. The overlap between retron5 owners and super NT owners must be incredibly small (and I'm one of them because I love the FPGA concept but then again I also own a Mister, two osscs, various snes md and sega cd models and so on)
I imagine it's because putting in the stuff to be able to read CDs would increase the cost on an already pricey device, and giving it the ability to read CD images without a disc leans a bit too much into piracy territory.
I don't believe the casual retro gamer gives two shits about fidelity or accuracy. If you gave them the choice between a single device that plays multiple systems competently for a bit over $100, or several devices with near-perfect accuracy and the best image quality at damn near $200 a piece, they're going to go with the most cost-effective option every time.
Never a truer word said, I belong to quite a few Facebook retro groups, and most people are happy playing on modern LCD's via shitty cables with OG hardware, or some crap emulation device like a Retron/ATgames! It horrifies me cause I'm the total opposite, as in it has to look and sound great, or not bother frankly, so an OSSC and Analogue devices are the only way I'll ever do it.
Yeah it's unfortunate, but this is why Pioneer doesn't make TVs and why we can't get a Panasonic OLED in the USA. It's also why eventually we'll all be streaming our movies instead of spinning disks.
Everything's a race to the bottom.
I don't see anything wrong with wanting to use a Retron over buying a bunch of separate FPGA systems or original systems and upscalers, switches and cables. Some people just want to play the games, and that's perfectly fine. This hobby is expensive enough as it is.
And I say this as someone that owns an OSSC and a bunch of HD Retrovision cables.
Not yet and it's why I haven't placed an order for the Mega Sg yet. I don't want to place multiple orders from them considering the cost they charge for shipping.
Cropping 5x isn't bad at 1080p. That's just a weird thing to assert. It's really about preference if you do or don't mind not seeing the stuff that was often obscured by overscan on a CRT. The scan lines aren't perfect. They're like 1-2 pixels off from where they should be, but sitting at a distance and setting them to no higher than 100 depth makes that hard to notice. In fact @ 1080p they're much better than the 4.5 setting and more uniform that the standard 4:3 aspect.
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Nothing wrong with it, half the problem is that people honestly don't know any better!
True story, mate of mine has spent £150K on retro gaming, in the past 18 months......guess what he was using his carts on?? Yup Retron 5, and a 12 year old shit TV *couldn't make this stuff up* anyhow I've been banging on about the OSSC and how well LG TV's make use of 5X 240p, and once you've seen it, you'll never use the Retron again, so he buys the 4K LG set I told him too, and OSSC, tell him how to use it (2 hours on the phone) says it looks worse than the Retron lol, see him next day and it looked awful, no matter what I did, but as soon as I plugged in my Csync scart from RGC, my word what a difference! He was blown away, and very happy!
All this goes to show the uphill battle retro gaming has, and so many would be enjoying their experience much more, if they realised simple things like cables making a huge difference, and that TV's automatically stretching 240p/480i, because "hey it must just be like that" and tinny bad audio, added input lag, it all just skews perception, not their fault, but they just don't know any better, and they think it's just their memories that made it seem better 25 years ago.....
That's because 99% of the scart cables you find on the cheap are just composite cables wiring wise.
Gotta pay more than 5 pounds to get a quality rgb cable nowadays :p
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Even besides that, the Sega CD was actually pretty significant hardware upgrade. It's not like the PC Engine/TurboGrafx CD add on that was just data storage (well the later cards added some ram to it too). The Sega CD had another 68000 processor in it running 5mhz faster than the Genesis' own. On top of that it had another 6 Mbits of ram for games, plus the 1Mbit in backup storage. If you wanted the Mega SG to play Sega CD games it would need an even bigger FPGA, making it even more expensive.
Isn't it also because the Sega CD's use of a BIOS rules that out too?
Not really looking forward to buying a used Sega CD because they're pricey at this point and who knows how long they'll last, but there'd be too many great games I'd be leaving behind without one.
Not really looking forward to buying a used Sega CD because they're pricey at this point and who knows how long they'll last, but there'd be too many great games I'd be leaving behind without one.
What I'm hoping is that after release it can be made so that Sega CD games can be played from an SD card with the system attached. I don't really know how much life is left in the laser in mine, and as far as I know there isn't an ODE like there is for the Saturn or Dreamcast.
The Cyclone V they use (even if it's a rather small one) should have enough space for both the SCD and the Mega CD. To give an example, the Vampire 2's cyclone 3 FPGA has a full 68080 running at 300 mhz and full RTG and AGA support (release 3 that isn't public yet).
Or the Mister's Minimig that has close to perfect Amiga AGA with a 68020 implemented just fine on a cyclone V (that has roughly 50% more space than the Super NT's FPGA)
I would have been happy with the option to use an external USB CD drive and play original discs that way.
By the way, have they released any pictures of the Mega Sg connected to Mega CD yet?
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This is something I'd also like to see before I pony up for either a mcd1/2
I'd imagine it's more emulating the hardware in the Mega CD than the CD reading aspect of the Mega CD.
Don't forget, there's the BIOS, and the scaler that handles Mode 7-esque rotation seen in games like Thunderhawk etc. I think it has extra sound processing as well?
This isn't a media size issue. It's a logic space issue on the FPGA itself
The Super NT's Cyclone V has 98000 logic connections, both systems have to fully sit within that space (so both M68k, both VDPs, both sound chips and so on). Adding a usb cd drive won't solve that issue
This would require essentially adding USB support to a Mega Drive, ie. no small task.
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