Expert: Octane - 10/5/2010

Question
QUESTION: Hello

I asked this somebody else in the category but he replied it's outside of his knowledge, so I try it with hitting yxou instad. I hope you can help here:


Hello Russell, hope you are doing fine! I run an original Sega Mega Drive v1 PAL and recently purchased an NTSC/PAL USS/JP converter (at least it was supposed to me one of such) and looking at it closely I figured it cannot be one of such as one side is a 7 cm plug and the other side that you plug into the mega drive cart port is a 8cm board kind of plug.

My guess maybe it's a very cheap master system converter or similar? (that thing was sold by same german seller also in gray, black (the one I have) and golden colour).

I have seen that US/JP converter on ebay costs between 40 and 350 € are they really that rare and do they work really so well? I mean it's still cheaper than having 3 consoles (PAL/US NTSC and JP NTSC) and I wonder what the differencew between JP and US is as both are NTSC.


Also do the converters care about the 60/50hz issue? Or is music not slowed down/speeded up?

I have now ordered a HONEY BEE NTSC US JP / PAL connverter and hope it's any good!

Thanks in advance!
All the best!
Bye!
Joerg

ANSWER: Gday Joerg,

I would guess by your description it is probably a 3rd part Master system converter.  (Best way is test with a Master system game see if it works)

You really don't require a converter for a Mega Drive/Genesis it will run 70%-80% of all games by itself without any modification.  Now some of the last lot of games like Super Street Fighter 2 have speed & region checks in them.  But generally rule of thumb is plug the game in and see if it works, if you get a out of region message then you know it does not work.  Japanese Games tend to have a different shaped cartridge so you either have to put the game in another shell or grind out the side of your Megadrive so the rounded edges fit.  This probably why there really aren't too many converters out there for the Genesis/Mega Drive or why they are reasonably expensive because they where never really needed.

Converters generally do not change the speed of the console, they generally read the speed/lockout information from one game and apply it to converted game.  The music might be alittle off but you generally will not notice it all that much on the older games.  (The only type of game that I've ever come across that really becomes unplayable because of this is music games like DDR, so anything on a Mega Drive you really will not notice.#

Both Japanese and USA cartridges are both NTSC but there is a Japanese and English Switch #Region lock of some type# contained in the console but it was not really used all that much mainly on the later series of games.  Quite a lot of games had both Japanese and English encoded in them and would change when inserted into the opposite console.  IE If you plug a Japanese Bare Knuckles in a USA console it will come up as Streets of Rage NB a lot of the RPG that where heavey text based are not included in this.

You also could convert your Model one Megadrive to be a universal system.  There are several jumpers in the unit that refer to NTSC and PAL #JP3 & JP4# and English and Japanese #JP1 & JP2#.  Quite easy to solder in 2 switches.  Now I will tell you that many years ago when I did this converter in a PAL territory when I ran the Mega Drive in NTSC mode the picture was Black and White #Thru both AV and RF connectors# and I had to get a SCART cable for my TV for the picture to look correct in NTSC mode.  #Although most of the time I just booted the NTSC cart in NTSC then switched it over to PAL to get around the region locking.

Hope this helps you further.

Octane



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello Octane, that's a very good answer, wow , thank you!

I hope you do not mind if I ask some follow up and explain some things.

The way I ran into this is PAL/NTSC issue, that I first bought a ATGames MegaDrive clone (imported from China to EU by Blaze UK). Prior to this I also bought the German edition of "Dune II". I put the region switch to "PAL" and it said in red letters: "This is for use in Europe only!!!!!"

I have read on the internet that there is one unit with old firmware where most carts do not work and a 2nd unit which has a newer firmware (according to http://www.aeropause.com/2008/07/review-atgames-sega-megadrive-twin-pad-player/)

Here is the not  so helpful reply I got from ATGames:

"Dear Joerg ,

Please allow me again to clarify. I never heard there’re two versions for this device ever since I came aboard.
Does the console run well? I meant, do you have any problem when play those built-in 15 sega games? if yes , then the console is perfectly in good condition.
However , if you are having difficulty to run the console after inserting a cartridge , I highly suggest you go to your retailer for help and may ask for the root cause.
For my point of view for now , this is the integration between console and cartridge , and the problem is not coming form the console .

Should you have any questions, please kindly let me know.

BRs,
Peng   "

DO you know anything of this?

Are there really 2 versions?

What I found out is, that also the sound emulation really blows, it really sounds pretty bad.

In the end I bought an original PAL MegaDrive instead

So I guess I had bad luck to run into a region locked game

I just don't want to run into chances of non-working games.

I have learned about the bridges on the PCB to switch the device to NTSC/PAL JP/US last Saturday, he could do that on the fly. However he said it was only b/w over A/V cable and I would need a RGB cable (over scart)  for NTSC in colour.

Then I wondered why e.g. the NTSC DTV works in colour on my PAL TV? He said it probably produces PAL 60 but in Wikipedia it says the NTSC version is NTSC . Maybe you can ched light into this NTSC to PAL tv cable thing?

Also on Amazon Germany the Marketplace Sellers write that the Mega Drive requires a CRT TV??? But I have a full HD TFT (Toshiba REGZA XV505) and no problem.

I am getting all confused by this. And I want to know because I found somebody in cologne who would modify the Mega Drive for NTSC/PAL JP/USA for me.

Thanks in advance!
All the best!
Bye!
JOerg



ANSWER: Gday Again Joerg,

I going to try and do my best to answer each question.

Your problem with Dune II cart might just be one of those carts that does not work with the Blaze/Firecore Mega Drives.  You have to remember that these consoles have absolutely no Megadrive hardware in them (Unlike say a Yobo or Hyperkin duel Megadrive/NES with has a Genesis on a Chip hardware)  It is just a crappy emulator running on 32-bit ARM Chip so there are bound to be a heap of games that refuse to function.  I've played around with the portable GenMobile and the sound is fairly bad, they have quite a lot of slowdown and I had them crash and freeze mid game.  The Atgame systems are probably the worst clones out on the market, I kind of wished they just pinched the design from Brazils Toytech who are great at making Sega products.

There is probably several different versions of the unit running around (There has to be as I have seen at least 3 that have different games lists on them# the sales people at Atgames aren't going to know.  I assume the emulator is probably going to be very similar in each so your Dune II probably won't work in either version.

With a Modified Genesis you going to be able to play everything.  You might need a bit of tweaking to play it but it should boot everything.  The color situation on running NTSC on a PAL Mega Drive needing a SCART/RGB cable is kind of weird but I think you friend has something that it's not really running true NTSC rather a PAL 60mhz or even a NTSC 50mtz.  I know when I converted my Mega Drive, which was probably at least 10 years ago #I was in Australia at the time which is PAL region# I had a TV that could play NTSC and PAL signal but the Megadrive would only output in Black and white mode when in NTSC until I got a Scart cable for my TV.  A US NTSC Genesis worked fine in color, a PAL Australian Megadrive worked fine in color but as soon as I switched my PAL Mega Drive to NTSC it would output in black and white.  But again it booted everything.  The simplest think I found with cartridges that needed to boot in NTSC to work was I would boot them in NTSC mode and once they where running I'd switch it back to PAL mode to play in color when I had it hooked up via the AV cables.  #You can switch the machine from PAL to NTSC while running which does not cause any problems.  I found no NTSC cartridges that required the machine to constantly run in NTSC mode only at boot up (Unlike the SNES which on some games would run for a while then come up with the message about being a wrong region#

The Seller on Amazon Germany that states you need a CRT TV to play the Mega Drive is kind of wrong and kind of right.  Now they will function on a HD TV as you know because of your TV, there are a small amount of HD TV that don't output the old signal all that well and look really bad.  Also you will require a CRT TV if you want to hook up say the Menisor or Lethal Enforcers guns.  #Because Light guns will only work on CRT TV's there is no work around this)

I think the PAL/NTSC JAP/ENGLISH Mode will work for you.  Again even before this I just try whatever carts you have in the unmoded system and see if they work.  If they come up with the out of region message you know you going to need the mod for those cartridges.

Hope this helps you more.

Octane





---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello again,

I just had a look and I guess you mean "TecToy" as I didn't find the other you have mentioned: http://www.tectoy.com.br/produto_interna.php?id=39

I do not know Portuguese but according to the picture and wikipedia it has no cartidge port so it is not interesting for me. However they sold and I have it , the  
MD Play and it indeed has a pretty decent sound emulation!

What you said about B/W NTSC/PAL just confirms what he showed me, without rgb via scart cable you are b/w only.

Do you know how to see which version of the AT game clone you are going to buy? (As wikipedia only mentions the differnt amount of games in the US release) and which of them is the best?

As I said earlier in my rating comment, I am probably going to put this on hold after your next answer, until I finally received the NTSC JP/US converter and the Afterburner JP cart and maybe when I got mine modified by switches.

You really helped me a lot! Thanks!
All the best!
Bye!
Joerg

Answer
Gday Again,

TecToy I knew I probably spelt it wrong.  Has been for years a company in Brazil that has the Sega license and been cranking out heaps of Sega related games and systems cheaply.  Right up to the Dreamcast.  They produced heaps of master system products, it still very quite huge in Brazil.  (Including stuff like Mortal Kombat 3, Street Fighter 2, Tekken for the Master System even built a 6 button joy pad that where never released anywhere else but there.)  The Guitar Idol is a real megadrive just no cart slot.  Yeah 16 bit Guitar Hero, if someone had come up with the 20 years ago.

The majority of there products don't come with a cart but they are at least true hardware unlike the blaze/firecon.  

Unfortunately I don't think you are going to know what version of an Atgame clone you are getting without pulling the thing completely to pieces to look at the board and maybe the chipset.  I think they will be all fairly similar the way they run.  I really don't think one version is going to be much better than another, they cheaply produced and I bet there is little R&D ongoing on them.  It's really personal preference which you get.  There are several models with different game configs on them, hell there is even one out now called the Gopher that has no cart slot but an SD slot to load more games via that.  (Talk about letting people break copyright and just download the games for nothing via torrents.#  Just depends on which one you like.  Personally I kind of like the portable with the cartridge slot even if the sound is bad.  But nothing really beats playing it on original hardware.

Again the issue with B/W when running your PAL unit in NTSC mode is easily fixed by just switching the console back to PAL mode once you have booted up for playing the game in color.  Again most of the time the import game probably will boot up fine without switching it over no NTSC Mode.  #The only one I can ever remember coming up with an issue is Super Street Fighter 2 Japanese cartridge I played in PAL mode which was released 1994)  Any early produced game like Afterburner II probably 1988-1993 should work just plugged in it's just the later series of games that might have a problem.

Octane