New Games/General Gaming

[DE.]

1 hour ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

But why though? Did we have crap tvs over here or something? 

I feel the urge now to replay all my favourites at their optimum! 

I don't know too much about PAL/NTSC, but I don't think it's anything to do with the quality of our TVs. As far as I can tell back in the day when TV was first coming into existence Europe and South America pretty much all went with a PAL signal, whilst America and Japan went with NTSC. I've actually read that there are a number of advantages to PAL, but obviously when console games got big it was driven by Japan and the States. Japan had the Famicom which was huge, and Nintendo rejuvenated the US gaming market with the NES (which was just a reskinned Famicom). In Europe we were more into microcomputers (ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC Micro etc) and later systems like the Amiga and early gaming PCs.

So when consoles came over here they had all gotten their start either in the States or Japan. As a result the games were all NTSC 60hz. It's possible to convert that to PAL and make it work fine, but for whatever reason (probably money related) instead we got games that weren't optimised properly and even though they did run on PAL hardware they were slower than they should have been. There are games specifically released in PAL regions that run fine (and will actually run too fast if they are played on an NTSC system) but most didn't fall into that category.  

[DE.]

I just finished a playthrough of Streets of Rage 2 in NTSC, and yowie wowie that was tougher than I remember. I swear there were more enemies this time around. Usually I get to the final boss with 3 or 4 lives to spare, but this time I only had one. It made for a fucking tense final confrontation, but nonetheless...

That mofo went down hard 

Sweet success.

I think I have to say that Streets of Rage 2 is probably my favourite Mega Drive game of all time. I love the Sonic games and a lot of others, but SoR2 is the one I go back to time and time again. Playing through it is still a challenge, but everything about it is awesome.

[davulsukur]

On 23/08/2019 at 11:17, Bigdoggsteel said:

Fascinating stuff man. Thanks for sharing. You made something that seems daunting look pretty simple (my dexterity would lead to even messier soldering though I would imagine). 

Streets of rage and Sonic look so good on the big screen with the NTSC and Japanese settings. I had no idea we didn't actually have the first world experience! I was a Mega drive kid through and through. Had the master system before that. 

Share more of your handy work if you do any please. 

Silly question coming up, are you connecting it to the TV with the original cables or have you some HDMI adapter? 

I wonder if you connected a 5.1 speaker system to the TV, how would it sound... I have a lovely 5.1 speaker set up on my PS3 which is in my parents house. Too many big speakers and wires to have in my own place with our little fella. Just have the old sound bar connected to my PS4 at home as it is less messy and easier to keep away from him. I am just imagining Streets of rage at NTSC settings with a 5.1 set up..... Mmm that's nice. 

Just to hijack this slightly, I had a decent sound system set up in my old house but it remained in the loft forever when we moved due to size, wires etc.

So, soundbars. Decent? Any recommendations?

[DE.]

Generally speaking with soundbars you get what you pay for. What's your budget?

[DeeCee]

I got a Majority branded one for the telly, decent, just over £40

[davulsukur]

13 hours ago, DE. said:

Generally speaking with soundbars you get what you pay for. What's your budget?

I reckon £200ish but could stretch that a touch if needed

[Norbert Rassragr]

That was genuinely interesting stuff. I have an 'Asian' spec mega drive 2 in my parents' attic, and possibly a mega drive 1 as well. However, at home I have one of those remade jobbies with the built in games that were sold a couple of years ago. The only games it hates are Virtua racing and the J league football game. I won't be taking the machine apart as I remember how shit I was at soldering at school and it won't have improved.

[DE.]

5 hours ago, davulsukur said:

I reckon £200ish but could stretch that a touch if needed

That should be well enough to get a very nice sounding soundbar tbh, I'd keep an eye on hotukdeals as soundbars often come up on there for good prices.

2 hours ago, Norbert Rassragr said:

That was genuinely interesting stuff. I have an 'Asian' spec mega drive 2 in my parents' attic, and possibly a mega drive 1 as well. However, at home I have one of those remade jobbies with the built in games that were sold a couple of years ago. The only games it hates are Virtua racing and the J league football game. I won't be taking the machine apart as I remember how shit I was at soldering at school and it won't have improved.

I'm guessing you're talking about the atgames mini MD? That's just a 'system on a chip' so even if you did open it I don't think there would be much you could do to it. I think some of the asian MD's were region free by default so would play any games, however I'm guessing it would still default to 50hz for PAL games so a 50/60hz switch would still need to be modded onto it for full affect, Not 100% on that though as I've never owned one!

[Adam C]

On 20/08/2019 at 19:30, DE. said:

I'm pleased to report that after a quick five minutes of re-soldering the MD is now a fully functional multi-region machine  To tell you the truth I'm impressed it's still working. I re-soldered the contacts about 7 or 8 times yesterday and took a real crash course in how to solder. I only realised after a couple of hours I'd been using the wrong soldering tip, it was too big for the job and that was causing me significant problems. Once I switched to a smaller tip things became much easier. I wish I'd known sooner but that's how you learn I guess!

To be perfectly honest the worst part of the whole thing was filing the hole for the rocker switch to fit in. I really should have bought a small saw, as this took forever. I was literally filing for about an hour and a half and was aching like hell afterwards. The sense of relief when the switch finally fit into the hole I'd made was pretty huge. 

This was the donor MD I got on Monday, a bit yellowed but fully functional:

The inside of a MD for anyone interested. The cartridge slot is towards the back, power supply and video out top left, power switch, volume switch and reset switch bottom left and the controller ports bottom right. The contacts that need to be modded are on the right, labelled JP1/JP2/JP3/JP4. 

The first step was to sever the connections between the JP2 & JP3 jumpers, as these are what lock the console into 50hz English PAL mode.

The console will still work fine once this is done. As it no longer has any region settings it defaults to US NTSC, and runs as below at 60hz full screen.

So if you just want to mod your console to run as US NTSC, this is literally all you need to do. Close up the console and you're good to go. 

Of course I was going a bit further so the next step was to solder wires to left JP2(Japanese)/JP3(English) and right JP1 (ground - US NTSC by default). 

This was my first attempt and franky it is embarrassing. I was using the wrong tip, hence the awful soldiering. There's so much wrong with this. Frayed wires in bad positions, solder touching across the JP2 to JP3 and JP3 to JP4 contacts and solder in general all over the place.

Somewhat surprisingly the console did work despite this disaster. It didn't work as I intended though. I had standard English PAL, and also Japanese PAL - a format which has never even existed as Japan uses 60hz NTSC, but for some reason this option exists on the MD motherboard. You get it essentially by joining the JP3 and JP4 connections, which is what I have mistakenly done here. Japanese PAL looks like this:

Basically the same as English PAL - 50hz and bars across the top and bottom of the screen - just in Japanese.

Regardless I took the console back to the soldering table and tried again. Frankly my second attempt was not much better.

JP1 has too much solder and the wire is begging to be shorted at that length. JP2 is okay, but JP3 has too much soldier and just look at that frayed wire. This actually worked initially, but once I put the console back together it reverted to the English PAL/Japanese PAL format. I was absolutely sure it was the black wire, as it was poorly soldered and likely still touching the JP4 contact with the heat shield on top of it. At this point I gave up on soldering for the night. Finally this afternoon I opened it up one more time. I desoldered both the JP1 and JP3 connections, then trimmed the JP1 wire and cut and trimmed the JP3 wire. I then resoldered both back to the contacts as below.

Still far from perfect but a significant improvement on the last two attempts. JP1 still has way too much solder but it isn't touching JP2, so it's fine. The wire is cut a lot shorter too. JP3 is also looking much cleaner both in terms of the wire and the solder. For the record there should really be insulation over these wires, so do not take this as a "good" soldering job - it isn't - but the chances of the wires shorting on that area of the MD board are slim and I don't have any insulation material so this should do. Thankfully this time everything worked as expected and continued to work OK after closing up the console. Here's the rocker switch soldering:

Honestly this is pretty terrible too. I soldered these with the tip that was too big, but the connections are solid enough so I left it as is. You can see that some of the plastic has melted where the soldering iron touched it. This is not the way to do it, but still OK. This is how the console looks when put together, with the switch added to the side.

It's obviously a bit big for the position, but with the heat sink on top of the motherboard this is literally the only place it can comfortably go. 

In position I, English PAL - squashed screen with bars on the top and bottom, also game and music plays at slower speed:

In position 0(ground) - US NTSC, which is 60hz, full screen, with normal speed gameplay and music:

And finally position II - Japanese NTSC, the same as US NTSC just in Japanese:

For the record this is all the same game, the original Streets of Rage. It's not a region locked cartridge so makes a good test game as you immediately get Japanese text in the intro in Japanese NTSC mode, full screen full speed in US NTSC and squashed screen slow speed in English PAL. Very quick to test the mod with this game. I do notice that both NTSC modes go a bit crazy when I initially turn the console on. The screen splits and tears for a while before finally settling and staying stable after that. No idea why this is but I know it isn't to do with the soldering as it was doing the same after I cut the jumper contacts, long before I soldered anything. Not really a big deal as the screen does stabilise after 10-20 seconds. Sometimes it doesn't do it at all. 

Finally some pics of the chips inside the MD:

The Yamaha chip in the final pic is the sound chip, not sure about the others! Worth noting the chips change depending on the model, make and year of manufacture of the MD. The Mega Drive 2 also has different chips depending on the revision. 

Also as a side note Master System games all work fine with the mod as well. In Japanese mode you even get the "Sega Mark III" logo at the start which is nice. In Japan the Master System was known as the Sega Mark III, as they released two previous consoles as the Sega Mark I & II. Later on they released the console redesigned as the Master System we all know and love.

I will upload some videos shortly to demonstrate the difference between PAL and NTSC. This post is long enough as it is.

In the 90s we got a Japanese megadrive for Xmas (just as everyone else was getting a SNES ?) and I recall that it could play games from any region, would that not have been simpler for your purposes?

[Adam C]

17 hours ago, DE. said:

 I think some of the asian MD's were region free by default so would play any games, however I'm guessing it would still default to 50hz for PAL games so a 50/60hz switch would still need to be modded onto it for full affect, Not 100% on that though as I've never owned one!

Ha I should’ve read all your posts! Can’t remember if the games were slower but I definitely remember being able to rent Japanese games from my local video shop. I believe it was because the Japanese games were wider than European and American releases, so just filing the port would’ve allowed anyone to play them. There were some really cool Japanese games, always a bit different. One that sticks in my head was where you created a monster and fought other creatures, presumably an early version of Pokemon/monster hunter. Impossible to play in Japanese of course. There was also a game where you were (I think) a construction worker with a big mallet in vertical stages attacking monsters that jumped down platforms towards you. Happy days ? Another advantage to the Japanese MD was that it had a nice red colour on the top rather than the creamy/beige one on the European systems. The less said about the US “Genesis” the better. And their SNES was truly horrible looking. My favourite MD games were the mighty Streets of rage series with its wonderful music, SF2, and the desert strike series. Special mentions to megalomania, toe jam and earl, the immortal, and gunstar heroes.

That was actually a fascinating read. I’ve been thinking about opening my decks to give the pitch slider a good clean, it’s a job that requires some soldering and I’ve been holding off but your experience might have just given me the courage to try it out. 

[Bigdoggsteel]

On 24/08/2019 at 14:54, davulsukur said:

Just to hijack this slightly, I had a decent sound system set up in my old house but it remained in the loft forever when we moved due to size, wires etc.

So, soundbars. Decent? Any recommendations?

So much set up on them I wouldn't blame you. That's another reason why I haven't moved mine to Dublin.

When I signed up to Virgin TV I got a €150 voucher for PC world/Currys , so I bought the soundbar from that. I think the brand is Sounstrom or something like that, I would have to check. It doesn't have a subwoofer or isn't a big brand, but I find it perfect. I connect it directly to my PS4 via an optical cable

What I mostly use for movies/gaming is this set-up

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01ERLN180/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01EOPT0VG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 

Not when watching with the the missus though obviously  

[Bigdoggsteel]

On 23/08/2019 at 18:59, DE. said:

I just finished a playthrough of Streets of Rage 2 in NTSC, and yowie wowie that was tougher than I remember. I swear there were more enemies this time around. Usually I get to the final boss with 3 or 4 lives to spare, but this time I only had one. It made for a fucking tense final confrontation, but nonetheless...

That mofo went down hard 

Sweet success.

I think I have to say that Streets of Rage 2 is probably my favourite Mega Drive game of all time. I love the Sonic games and a lot of others, but SoR2 is the one I go back to time and time again. Playing through it is still a challenge, but everything about it is awesome.

It's a stonewall classic game.

Have you played Mother Russia bleeds?  It's rock hard. I had to give up near the end. For my shame. 

[DE.]

3 hours ago, The Hypnotic said:

Ha I should’ve read all your posts! Can’t remember if the games were slower but I definitely remember being able to rent Japanese games from my local video shop. I believe it was because the Japanese games were wider than European and American releases, so just filing the port would’ve allowed anyone to play them. There were some really cool Japanese games, always a bit different. One that sticks in my head was where you created a monster and fought other creatures, presumably an early version of Pokemon/monster hunter. Impossible to play in Japanese of course. There was also a game where you were (I think) a construction worker with a big mallet in vertical stages attacking monsters that jumped down platforms towards you. Happy days ? Another advantage to the Japanese MD was that it had a nice red colour on the top rather than the creamy/beige one on the European systems. The less said about the US “Genesis” the better. And their SNES was truly horrible looking. My favourite MD games were the mighty Streets of rage series with its wonderful music, SF2, and the desert strike series. Special mentions to megalomania, toe jam and earl, the immortal, and gunstar heroes.

That was actually a fascinating read. I’ve been thinking about opening my decks to give the pitch slider a good clean, it’s a job that requires some soldering and I’ve been holding off but your experience might have just given me the courage to try it out. 

I definitely want to acquire a Japanese MD one of these days, but I'm already on thin ice having ordered two more of "those damn machines" from eBay ("why the hell do you need four of the same console?" - not placated by my explanations of different motherboard revisions) so I'll probably have to wait a while  the Japanese MD is definitely the best looking of the lot imo, although I also really like the design of the Mega Drive 1. 

I can't really remember how region locking works with US/European systems and Japanese games, but you're right in that if you just file the corners of the opening port it will allow the cartridge to fit. I actually don't think Japanese games had any region coding so unless the system itself locked the game out it wouldn't be an issue. 

There was a Monster Hunter game on the MD - Monster Hunter IV I believe, and I think I read it's being included on the Sega Mega Drive mini that's coming out (translated of course). The construction worker game sounds like Hammerin' Harry but that was an NES release rather than a MD release, so probably not. 

Edited August 26, 2019 by DE.

[DE.]

2 hours ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

It's a stonewall classic game.

Have you played Mother Russia bleeds?  It's rock hard. I had to give up near the end. For my shame. 

Nope never played that one - is it similar to Streets of Rage?

[Norbert Rassragr]

22 hours ago, DE. said:

That should be well enough to get a very nice sounding soundbar tbh, I'd keep an eye on hotukdeals as soundbars often come up on there for good prices.

I'm guessing you're talking about the atgames mini MD? That's just a 'system on a chip' so even if you did open it I don't think there would be much you could do to it. I think some of the asian MD's were region free by default so would play any games, however I'm guessing it would still default to 50hz for PAL games so a 50/60hz switch would still need to be modded onto it for full affect, Not 100% on that though as I've never owned one!

It is that atgames mini one. I had lost a few of the leads for the original mega drive(s) so I bought that. Thinking about it, the mega drive 2 I have must have been PAL, as I got it when I lived in Hong Kong and that was a PAL region. We had an even older JVC TV we brought over that worked. Not that TV was much cop there. My primary school teacher had a side job presenting major sporting events like the Olympics.

[DE.]

Just now, Norbert Rassragr said:

It is that atgames mini one. I had lost a few of the leads for the original mega drive(s) so I bought that. Thinking about it, the mega drive 2 I have must have been PAL, as I got it when I lived in Hong Kong and that was a PAL region. We had an even older JVC TV we brought over that worked. Not that TV was much cop there. My primary school teacher had a side job presenting major sporting events like the Olympics.

The atgames system is kind of notorious for being poor quality to be honest, but yeah it's just a flash chip essentially so the type of mods you'd do on a normal MD wouldn't work on that. There's a Mega Drive mini coming out in October which will blow the atgames system out of the water. I've got it (secretly) on pre-order, but it's £70 so not exactly cheap.

I think most non-Japanese asian consoles are also PAL, but the cartridge shape is different so you need to alter any non-Asian MD to accept the slightly wider cartridge shape. The Mega Drive 2 itself was produced in both NTSC and PAL variants, but it has a totally different motherboard to the MD1 (and is generally considered inferior). Modding a MD2 is totally different to a MD1 as it doesn't have the JP1/2/3/4 jumpers. Most of the mods I've seen use the reset button to switch region, and a new LED light which changes colour depending on the region you've selected. I definitely prefer the MD1 method!

Edited August 26, 2019 by DE.

[Norbert Rassragr]

I wouldn't mod any of them, as I have never been good at any technical things. I've been better at the theory than the practical. I also won't buy the new official mega drive mini as I have the atgames one, which still works. I like getting my money's worth out of anything.

[Bigdoggsteel]

27 minutes ago, DE. said:

Nope never played that one - is it similar to Streets of Rage?

Ya, its very similar, but with a modern twist. Worth a go 

[davulsukur]

9 hours ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

So much set up on them I wouldn't blame you. That's another reason why I haven't moved mine to Dublin.

When I signed up to Virgin TV I got a €150 voucher for PC world/Currys , so I bought the soundbar from that. I think the brand is Sounstrom or something like that, I would have to check. It doesn't have a subwoofer or isn't a big brand, but I find it perfect. I connect it directly to my PS4 via an optical cable

What I mostly use for movies/gaming is this set-up

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01ERLN180/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01EOPT0VG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 

Not when watching with the the missus though obviously  

Cool,cheers.

Headphones? Sounds like the perfect thing to have when watching tv with the mrs!

I did have a pair for when she went to bed and I stayed up but now I have 2 young kids so I need to be able to keep an ear out for them. In a couple of years, I'll probably buy another pair though.

I'll check out soundbars, need to make sure Moana gets the full works when The Rock is belting out "You're welcome" (yer, I have 2 daughters)

[DE.]

Bought a boxed OG Master System from eBay for more than I really should have... but YOLO I guess. I've got a couple of Master System II variants which were very cheap but the original Master System looks much better.  Just a shame it's also much more expensive!

[davulsukur]

Playing Gears 5 at the moment. 

Decent game but I've played most of them to date, so I guess that makes me slightly biased.

[benhben]

Anyone played the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare? I think you could play a Beta if you pre order on the PS4 network. Any opinions so far? 

[DE.]

Not my kind of game, unfortunately. Am currently working my way through Chaos;Child which is a lot longer than I thought it would be.

[davulsukur]

The Outer Worlds came onto Xbox game pass on release.

Its basically just fall out 3/4 in space with brighter coloured things around. 

Not necessarily a bad thing mind you. Good game so far.

[Wegerleswiggle]

Anybody played FM20 yet?