Retro Core - EverDrive X5 - An honest review 

ravagingwolverine thanks for the input, ravingwolverine. The X7 has the save states although I'm not sure of its quality. I have heard it's perfect but then again I saw another RU-vid video that stated the EverDrive X7 could do things it actually couldn't.

I agree. It's best to buy the original items. The onky one I have that's not original is the Gdemu for Dreamcast. That's because the official one is hard to get. Always having to wait and then you may not by in line for one.

Its worth to people really depends on user's own merits. Some may see the deal that they can have the whole library or only the games they want for that single price tag, since the money you spend on both carts and everdrives just go to another person rather than the people that made the games anyway. I've always wanted MUSHA, but no way in hell am I spending way more than what an everdrive is worth to get a genuine copy for example. Others may not find it worth the money if they can get the games they want in total for less than the Everdrive's worth.

RoryDropkick hahaha, I can imagine the worry because these things are not that cheap. Actually, the honest review part is because there are other videos out there which don't tell the whole truth and don't even mention about the music player or Master System games. Oh, this also plays 32X games. Something I forgot to mention in the video. You will need a 32X of course.

Yeah, pausing the Master System games via the EverDrive button can be a little nerve wrecking. It would be easy to mod the EverDrive to accept a separate pause switch but then you'd have wires hanging out of it.

I'm glad it was a use to you. 👍

Phillip Croxford no worries. Other stuff I forgot to mention is that you can use it as a Mega CD save ram. You can also load 32x games from it if you have it connected to a 32x.

Lol, possibly for some :)

On the Stick you really should get one. Don't buy a cheap Chinese effort either as they can't be updated and have a reputation for dieing quickly. The X5 in my opinion is the all round best buy. The X7 can do real-time save states and it can rest to the EverDrive menu without having to press the reset button but it almost cost twice as much as the X5.

Yeah, I'm not into the knockoffs. I have a Super Everdrive, which I love (used it for my video on Majyuuou, because eff paying what that game costs secondhand), and it's really a matter of whether I'll get a Mega Everdrive or one for my Famicom next.

Ah, I'm doing a video on the Super EverDrive soon followed by the PC Engine one.

Shady Character it sure is. I really do like that option. Such a cool way to hear music from games that have no sound tests. You do need to download the correct sound roms though.

@@RetroCore How do you get it to work?

Yes, I know this but most don't which is why I use the term mode 7. Saves a lot of bother explaining things later :p But yes, you are 100% right in saying they are raster effects.

Genesis has to do all raster effects with H-blank interrupts or timed code, which is slower and trickier, that's why the effect in question is less common there. SNES has HDMA unit to do raster effects like this easily. And Mode7 is totally different beast, although indeed often used in combination with heavy HDMA use. The point is that this specific effect does not need anything that Mode7 offers, by the very design - it designed around the fact that vertical scaling is easily doable with raster effect, while horizontal scaling (required for perspective correctness) is not doable.

Seen it ages ago. Sorry, but that's not 'true Mode7', very far from that. That's very limited, slow low res software renderer of perspective projected tilemap that imitates one particular application of Mode7. Impressive programming and HW trickery, though.

ALberto Doriguzzi it sure did. I have a beta build of that game too which I may show off at some point in the future. It has some of the effects missing with strange results.

Pan Cot is a masterpiece. What kind of black magic did Success have/use back then?

No, you couldn't download the roms from the web back then. Besides, they hadn't sold any game if you could have used flashcart with all the games in it.

Those special effects probably would take up most of the storage on the cartridge. Keep in mind they were working with 1/2 of a MB of storage and all the way up to 4MB of storage I believe, and yes, MB, not GB. They wouldn't have space for the rest of the game; that was a big limitation of the time and is why most games back then were hard, it's so people wouldn't spend $100+ in today's money adjusted for inflation and then go home and beat their new game in an hour because that's all they could cram on the cartridge. Believe me.

I know what you mean. Im lucky enough to own quite a nice Mega Drive collection but the EverDrive is so handy for playing games that I don't have or for homebrew and unreleased stuff.

As far as I'm aware the Retron 5 won't work with any type of flash card so I'm afraid the EverDrive will not work on it. The Retro Freak I don't know, sorry.

The Game Gear is actually very similar to the Master System hardware. The main difference that prevents it from working normally is the color palette. The Game Gear has a much bigger color palette, even bigger than the Genesis. The Master System's VDP can't display it and thus they don't run normally.

Maybe it is official however they are sneeky with the fakes now.

I'm not familiar with the X7. I know on the X5 button mapping isn't possible.

It sure would have. Theres the kid with his Chinese 5 in 1 multi card prancing about then you show up with ever made Mega Drive on one cartridge. Man, that would be amazing back then.

Ah ah ah!!! そうだね

No, I'm afraid not. It can save normal style like a regular game with a battery back up but it can't do save states. Only the X7 can do that.

Joni Xavier X5 X7 = Emulate! XD X3 is da best .. go with X3

Any everdrive will play beta games.

retrovideogamejunkie no problem. As I mentioned in the video you can reset to menu or reset to game. There's an option in the EverDrive setup section.

Retro Core thnx, funny enough i was listening you and that question came out and few seconds after you show the overdrive menu

retrovideogamejunkie Hehe, no worries.

No you can't. This cart will play 32X games in you have a 32x console though.

so i need the everdrive krikzz and the 32x console to play 32x games on mega drive. Ok. thanks a lot bro.

Sadly, yes. But at least it save buying the games.

Someone was saying the other day that the Mega EverDrive X5 And X7 now come with Master System FM support.

I'm afraid we don't have Genesis 3 in Japan. I don't think anything will make it work on a Genesis 3 I'm afraid.

That's the thing with me though. I don't use save states. It's basically like cheating in a game for me. Same when it comes to the rewind feature in racing games. I never use that. Maybe it's because I'm old and prefear playing in a traditional style 😊

@@RetroCore Saves are like cheating only if you use them just for that. I personally would use them like a "pause", so I can continue the following day without letting the console turned on, the whole night.

Leonardo Antonio some great ideas there but I don't think a steam like service would happen. Still, nice if it did.

Retro Core Thank you and well.. maybe not something as big like steam, but actually a fan supported platform would be great, getting in the homebrew independent games and share them could be something like the shareware games for msdos available in the early 90s internet.

Рома Поров DS cards are good. The R7 series is the one to go for.

More bass on the Mega Drive.

shattercross with an EverDrive you wouldn't have to :) just use the music player function. Still, Thunder Force 4 is an excellent game.

Some of the Omake tracks where used on the arcade version of Thunder force 3.

Lucky Hit you'll love your purchase! The EverDrive X7 is the cream of the crop. I love the X5 due to the price point and features although I would like the save states from the X7 :)

It helped that Krikzz had them up for 20% off over the weekend, couldn't resist after that :)

***** Cool. I should have waited to buy mind :p

@@RetroCore Are we sure the EverDrive X7 isn't emulation? I mean, save/load states, which seems difficult to do on console.

Ruaidhri O'Baoill well, yes the save state is an excellent option for those who need it but for many it's just a luxurious option that isn't really worth paying almost twice the price of an X5 for.

So true. My brother comes over and we may only have an hour or so to play. Well, we're not done Gain Ground or whatever other obscure game we didn't get to play back in the day. That's ok, we'll pick right up where we left next week.

The save state feature is great, but far from perfect. Many games glitch out after loading a save state, from missing music to completely glitched graphics. I think this has to do with the X7/v2 not being able to dump the entire memory like an emulator but has to read the states from several places.

Save states are always welcome, but definitely not a good reason to get an X7. As CaptainKeelhaul said, it's really a mixed bag when it comes to how well the save state works for each game. Most likely if you're getting an Everdrive it's because you want the original Genesis experience without the hassle and expense of collecting games for it, otherwise you would just emulate. Save states are just not part of the original experience. And let's be real, most genesis games were meant to be played over and over until you could easily complete it in one sitting. They are short games and were designed with that in mind. I would say the most compelling reason for the average user to get an X7 over an X5 is the most recent update that allows the X7 to utilize the Master System's FM sound. Maybe that's still not good enough a reason to pay double the price, but certainly a far better one than a dodgy save state feature.

They both play the exact same games but the X7 has a few bonus features such as saving anywhere in a game. Neither of these cartridges come with games pre-installed. You need to get them yourself from the net.

So the games you demonstrated on this video were those you personally installed into the cartridge? What are some sites that I find to download these games?

These are not that cheap but they are fantastic bits of hardware and we should be greatful to Igor (Krikzz) for developing them. He makes them for so many systems too. I've got two more follow up videos in the works.

You can't play Mega CD roms from this cartridge with or without a Mega CD attached. You can load up different Mega CD bios though.

Javier Bosch it sure was. The biggest problem that held back the Mega Drive was the cost of RAM. This meant that many games had small cartridge memory which crippled the amount of detail which could be added to a game.

ROM, not RAM.

photographboy it is very strange how some games were release with odd choices in colour pallets. I wonder if it had something to do with the development kits of the time?

No idea. I use a Mega DS from TerraOnion for Mega CD stuff.

Nope, 100% Mega Drive powered.

Sorry, I meant the x3. RU-vid isn't letting me edit .

Sorry, I couldn't say to be honest as I deleted all the none Japanese versions. I only kept the US and PAL titles that were not sport games and didn't get a Japanese release.

No problem. I guess I'll find out soon enough. I also found Game Genie codes to force a region on imports and an easy way to make and patch them as IPS patches. So either way I should be OK.

They work on other clone systems. But who really knows without trying.

@@RetroCore Ok so it does work, but I don't recommend it at all, I'm going to get a real SEGA. I was having some problems with the X3 or the SD card not sure what it was I finally got it working tho, But every time I turn on the System I get (Settings were reset to Default) not sure if that's normal or not, also when I ran the Everdrive Diagnostic Test I get 2 errors (DISK TEST... Error: F0 and DISK WR SPEED... Error F0, any info on this would be really appreciated thank you!

Hey, that's nicee you are buying such a device for your father. Hope my son does stuff like that when he's older. Okay, the difference between saving. Well, both the X5 and X7 can save games like any regular game cartridge with battery back up but the X7 has another type of save k ow as "save state". What this means is that no matter what type of game you are playing you can save your exact position then come back another day and pick up where you left off. So imagine playing a normal VS fighter and reaching the final boss but suddenly you had to go out. In any normal circumstance you'd have to switch off the game and start again even when using the original game cartridge. With the X7 though, you can basically freeze the game at the final boss battle and save that state. Next time you want to play you would load up that save state which in essence will basically unfreeze the game so you can continue playing.

Save state sounds perfect for him to be honest, that's exactly what he needs. How does 'game saves' work in comparison to that for something like sonic 2 with no game saving feature? (as you can see, whilst I am a dutiful son buying my father something he'll love, I'd like to avoid spending double the money if I can :P)

It should work just fine. Save halfway through a level then pick up right were you left off at another time. It works the same way an emulator would work to be honest.

+Alianger ah, I see. Thanks for the info.

They're from different FM chip series, totally not compatible. It is possible to make an imitation and a wrapper for OPLL data to be player on OPN, but it needs smart converter, something in-between (MCU or something), and as far as I remember, YM2612 is not accessible in the Master System mode. In that case on-cart OPLL emulator is the only option then, which takes a good deal of programmable logic.

I guess if someone converts them in to a format readable by the Mega Drive.

Online gameplay?

@Retro Core: it was a useless feature. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PMwG-eBkWng.html

Really? I always thought it did. Quite a bummer if that's true :(

Retro Core I said I think, I maybe wrong :-/

datamanmachine Oh, you save me from googling :-)

That's true for the official converters but the PowerBase Mini FM contains the FM sound circuitry and will output FM sound through the Mega Drive.

Oh never heard of non official Converters!? Interesting! :)

No, you need the X7 for that feature.

No, that is a reprogrammed version for the Mega Drive.

@@RetroCore hmmm, so like that Oke thanks for the answer

+Larry Bundy Jr 32x roms, yes you can but it's impossible to play Mega CD games via cartridge. You can only load up a bios file so the EverDrive will act as one of those CdX converters that datel made so many years ago.

Retro Core Aah, does loading up a different BIOS have many advantages? (aside from region unlocking)

Larry Bundy Jr You can do some little tricks like load the Japanese Bios and load up Streets of Rage 2, chaning the title screen to Bare Knuckle ;) I have the v2 and love it. Lots of fun stuff and I enjoy the in-game menu to do save states. BTW Larry, I'm still willing to ship you those SFC disk drives, see your email.

Larry Bundy Jr oh Larry, I know why I never received your mails. The address on my older videos was wrong :( it should be mes1975jp followed the normal Gmail. Com

Larry Bundy Jr hmm, not really unless you like the US bios music.

You can save your RPG as normal but I don't know how many different games can be saved. Best to ask on the official everdrive forum.

tony deskafeinado oh yes, I forgot about the SRam feature but I didn't know it sped up the loading.

I've tried a few. Some work, some have colour glitching and others crash. I can't start most of them though due to the start button on a 6 button pad not being recognised. I need to get a 3 button pad.

Not for SNES. The Mega Drive is backwards compatable with the Master System but the SNES isn't backwards compatable with the NES.

thanks for the info,i was just about to put the specific thought of mine into to reasons for buying everdrive.It is a cool piece of technology,i still want it.But not forget to mention that mario bros from NES you are playing here is a little different at sound,image is the same

You have to download them. They are easy to find. Googling "Mega everdrive rom set" should bring up results for full sets complete with folders. Or you could just add the games you like.

Yes, you need a Mega CD / Sega CD to play Mega Cd / Sega CD games. No, you will need a 32X to play 32X roms via the Everdrive.

Sorry, I don't remember. this video was made 6 years ago.

@@RetroCore no worries, thanks for the reply!

I don't know. I've not tried that. If it did you'd still need a Mega CD as the Mega Drive lacks the required hardware.

This one can't play CD games. It was made long before CD drive emulation was a thing.

@@RetroCore okay, I think i understand better now, it seems to offer memory for CD games that support it. Is the only device offering CD emulation the MegaSD by Terraonion? It looks so slick but it's so expensive....

+alex ling thanks for watching. The EverDrive doesn't come with an SD card but they can be bought cheaply. The EverDrive game sets can be found on line easily too.

thankyou, keep up the good work!

Nope, they'll work perfectly without one as long as you are using a Mega Drive 1 or 2. The cheap Mega Drive / Genesis 3 is lacking the compatable chips for Master System compatability.

pomegran I downloaded an EverDrive pre-made set from the iso-zone. They're set doesn't have them all but it will get you started. The two shown on my video are included in the Iso-zone set.

I beleive it does play 32x games and can also load different bios in to a Mega CD. I must confess that I've not used it on a 32X though. The x7 has the Master System FM audio suport and can reset from a game back to the EverDrive menu with a button combination.

Sega90s nope, you can play any CD game on any system. Of course PAL systems will still play slower with boarders though.

Retro Core Nice, I will now definitely get this. I hope the PcEngine one I just ordered works this well. Some of those shooters are insanely priced.

It was part of a firmware update from what I remember. Check the official site and that you have an official EverDrive. I beleive the Chinese EverDrive models can't be updated.

If I recall they're put in to a Master System folder and that's it. If you're using one of those Genesis 3 consoles or Mega Drive clone then there's a strong chance Master System games won't work.

@@RetroCore Yeah, it won't work on the X'Eye

The "x" series is better. The best being the Mega EverDrive 7. I own the Mega EverDrive 5 which Is the all round ideal model for most people. The EverDrive MD was the very first everdrive and as such is out dated by the newer versions.

The model 3 was only ever release in the US.

Yes, no problem at all.

Sure, the FM addition is really cool. I have no use myself since I own a Japanese Master System but for those who don't it's a great extra.

Actually, if I am reading it correctly now, ALL versions of the Mega Everdrive come with FM audio support now! Which makes the x5 and x3 even more of a better deal over the x7

Really? Now that is very cool. In that case just stay with the X5.

Ah, I bought most of them years ago on CD. I'm talking 20 to 30 years ago for some of them. They're probably out of print by now. I'd say looking on Yahoo Auctions Japan is a great place to look for Arcade soundtracks.

You need to install them yourself. It's not hard though. Places such as the ioszone have ready made packs for the EverDrive series that you can just copy over to an SD card. All the directories and so on are already made for you.

No. These things never come with the SD card.

Galdelico yes, that's how it works. So you can play any Mega CD / Sega CD game on any console :) this is excellent for Mega CD fans.

Excellent, thanks! ^_- Seems like I'll be getting one soon, then. Those recolours look pretty cool as well.

Mega Everdrive X7 also works as a Mega CD save cartridge.

I just searched Google and found a site full of demo scene stuff for all systems. One of the best sites is www.pouet.net Most of the stuff I have came from here and most of it will work on the X5.

Retro Core I have one more question, where did you find the port for super Mario bros? I've been looking everywhere and I can't find it

StoicVampire Pig it's true though. I have no interest in Mario at a later :p I haven't got a clue where the bonus rounds are located :l

+Alianger its running via standard RGB. If you are used to composite I guess the image may look darker.

Are you sure? I think they did have Paypal support at some point.

It's called bad apple.

Sure. The cart it is in now is a standard Mega Drive cart besides the slot for the SD card.

@@RetroCore Thanks! I used to be member of the Dreamcast History boards and remember your channel. Happy to see your'e still making videos. Cheers!

Yeah, never update the chinese one. You will kill it.

Retro Core wait, there are PC everdrives? Like I can get all the PC games?

@@sincityblue03 the PC Engine is a videogame console. It was called like that maybe for marketing purposes, as PCs were seen as an overall more powerful better deal than buying a videogame console.

Yes but understand that this cartridge can not play Mega CD games, only load up a different bios. It will play 32X games if you own a 32X

Thanks, I found it.

So, what's the name of the demo?

I'm afraid not.

You can do normal game saves on it like you would on a regular game cartridge but nit special save anywhere game states.

No, you have to buy that separately.