Huge thank you for such a spectacular and in-depth review! I was particularly happy that my little surprise for the PAL users was finally noticed and appreciated, as I went the extra mile to make it happen. Also, I think that new camera you've got recently added some extra Blast Processing to this video! To address some occasional water level crashes you had during some tests, I investigated it and it appeared to be a rather rare low-level bug on the hack's side. It was causing a data race condition and affected some machines more than the others (I assume it really comes down to tiny differences in memory performance of the flashcart and the system itself). I released a small update that fixes this issue. The hack should now work stable on any Genesis/Mega-Drive revision. Download link is the same.
Blast Processing was never used in any games, they used the term that is for some other feature to simply state their clock speed was twice as fast as the SNES. There are technical articles out there that show what Blast Processing really was, and it wasn't for gaming, because there wasn't any power left to do that (irony). Basically, it was just a way to directly access all 3 channels for red, green, and blue, and switch them to any intensity as desired, showing all 512 colors at once, if desired. The fact the DMA use allowed for faster access, is the "Blast Processing". The wrinkle in it is that it required precise timing to draw a stable image on-screen, similar to Atari's "Racing the Beam", except each console's clock speed was different enough that any Blast Processing images were not compatible with each other fully, but can be with timing tweaks, again different to each system. There have been SEGA Fan-Boys refusing to accept that this is what Blast Processing is, but again, technical journals prove the above to be correct, albeit in far better detail.
You should've never told me to never look up the jailbar effect, now i *have* to look it up. Edit: Apparently it's an analogue video problem. Kind of looks like the entire screens have some sort of vertical stripes or well, jailbars all over it.
Where did you get your Japanese Mega Drive?? I recently found and purchased a Japanese version of Sonic & Knuckles and I wanna play it on real hardware.
I believe I know how some of this works. Each pixel represented takes up more space. Say example the first set back. This would use around 3x3 pixels etc. The music either uses less YM2612 channels or just uses the SN7643.
Uh... That's not how it works man. Analog signal or not, a flat panel has to convert that signal to digital. Yes, including your TV's there. Since your TV"s in Europe come with SCART, the scaler inside of them is probably more adept at handling resolution changes than these scalers. They had to be that way. It's simply an issue with these two scalers, and an issue that most SCART bearing HDTV's don't have. Future scalers that are coming out now are addressing the issue and are able to change resolutions much faster.
@@gamingnubs7628 The issue isn't "fitting" it into an iso image, it's the fact that the disc would have to physically load up every time the graphics change. A lot of painfully long loading times.
6:34 Ya know I think we might need a counter for how many times that Sunky guy has come in with the assistance. They're not even the real Sunky and yet he seems to be everywhere.
Hi Garrulous64! I'm one of your Subscribers on RU-vid! And yeah, that Gameboy mode of Sonic 1 Blastless is pretty cool despite the hard to distinguish what's what due to the degrading graphics quality.
5:46 I always assumed that the “no signal” message was done in editing to make sure glitches were clear. Didn’t know it was part of the display itself.
No, actually. All capture cards have a "no signal" message of some kind but with Magewell capture cards, you have the ability to change that message. So, I made my own "no signal" screen and told it to use that (I can change it to any picture if I really wanted lol). So, whenever my capture card gets no signal, my own text appears. No video editing was done to make it do that 😅
This hack is amazing, I wish I knew just how they managed to do it. It's unfortunate that the OSSC and Framemeister struggle with this one, as the retrotink 2X runs it with no issue whatsoever. But then again, that's a line-doubler rather than a true upscaler.
The OSSC is also a line doubler; not a true scaler. I should have picked my words more carefully. My bad. I've heard that the RetroTink is more capable with resolution changes. I'm really looking forward to the RetroTink 5X.
@@redhotsonic I have the 2X scart and 2X multiformat, they're both incredibly capable, easy-to-use devices. One thing I've noticed is that in the Sonic 2 bonus stage, it handles the resolution change seamlessly, but my TV mentions the new resolution.
Speaking of drinks, I read a manga awhile back, and Sonic makes a cameo in one of the panels. His likeness is on a mug owned by the protagonist's friend.
There is actually a trick that can be done to get a full 320 x 240 resolution on NTSC Mega Drive / Genesis systems, but it's pretty complicated. The TiTAN group actually used this trick for Overdrive 2.
I have a suggestion that might help out with your digital capture card issues in the future, though it would require asking somebody to build a modchip for you. Here's what I have outlined... *Mega Drive VDP modchip for seamless native integer horizontal scaling on digital output;* - If the VDP registers are set to H40, do a 4x horizontal integer scale to get 1280 pixels. - If the VDP registers are set to H32, do a 5x horizontal integer scale to get 1280 pixels. - Either way, regardless of VDP mode, the horizontal resolution is always the same on the digital output, keeping digital capture cards happy. - Because it is linked directly to (and controlled by) the VDP registers, the modchip should theoretically have no delay when switching resolution modes. - For outputting to a 4K capture card, just double the horizontal integer scaling value. - Something similar could probably be done for the vertical resolution to help a digital capture card think it is receiving a 480p signal regardless of whether the console is operating in 240p or 480i modes. Again, it would be linked directly to the VDP registers, minimizing the delay.
*lifting the VDP pin is actually the most destructive way of getting rid of the jaibars, because the pin might tear and fall off, and there's no turning back. moreover, lifting a single VDP pin is more difficult since the adjacent others might get damaged in the process. there's a much safer option, and that's cutting a trace on the motherboard near the video encoder and bringing the target encoder pin to ground. this way the VDP risks nothing and the cut trace can easily be bridged later. DO NOT do it if you don't know what you're doing. jailbars derive from the colorburst frequency, which is generated by the VDP, and if you are only using composite video you'll see everything in black and white. That's also why I would go for the "encoder trace" option instead of this one - it's easily reversible. So this mod is recommended ONLY if you use RGB cables.
Could the crash be caused by the animated spikes-pointy thingies? Maybe it's caused when the water waves are loaded into RAM? Just trying to figure it out in my brain.
Those game crashes probably come down to hardware revisions being slightly different. There are several games out there that have certain bugs or issues when played on certain revisions of the Genesis hardware, of which there are literally dozens of. Significant changes were made internally between some of these revisions, leading to issues when it comes to certain game's programming being designed around a specific revision. Some games even take advantage of bugs present in Model 1 hardware to produce certain effects. It's all pretty well documented & very interesting.
I think for 8 - bit s1 game doesnt need another resolution. why? Answer: I loaded in s1 blastless 8 - bit version of game with resolution 320х224 and all worked as usually
There's a Blast less DX as well that makes the transitions even faster then before. Works fine on my flash cart, (tested on my Electrohome CRT rather then my flat-screen, Genesis model 2 and AV cables) but would the DX version possibly fix the weird compatibility issue with scales and such?
Well now I know why genesis games dont look right on emulators im used to the bars. Even that m2 3ds port with the realistic crt display using 3d was a little too smooth
PAL resolution hacks really should be a thing we see more of. If they could also allow for an optimized framerate that would be epic. This is one really cool idea for a hack tho
The good news is that the new RetroTINK 5X handles resolution switching MUCH faster than the Framemeiser and OSSC, so anyone lucky enough to grab one of those should be able to play this without too much trouble.
This mod really shows how much people take graphics resolution for granted nowadays. 4k is overrated. Even 240p can be beautiful. Of course, high resolutions are the opposite of worthless, and they all have their uses. But the bigger that screen resolutions become, the less you can appreciate how they improve overtime. This mod is an eye opener for me. Thank you, vladikcomper.
