MegaSD - FPGA MegaCD Cart

[Yakumo]

I would have put Night Striker on the list if only for the awesome cover and lovely artwork on the disc, but the Saturn version is the best IMO.

Ah but don't forget the Awsome arranged soundtrack only found on the Mega CD port.

[Yakumo]

To give SEGA America a lot of credit, they did far more to use and push the Mega CD than SOJ ever did. ]

I have to disagree there. All the Americans gave us on the Mega CD were ****ty FMV games and shovel ware. I'd say the British pushed it the most that's to Core Design. They did the most impressive stuff on the hardware.
If anything the Americans ruined the Mega CD with all the FMV **** they kept pumping out. At least the best FMV game game from Japan, Road Blaster FX (Road Avenger)

[Baseley09]

Now that is a question, has there ever been home tech able to rip a data ld?. I know people have ripped movies off ld but thats just recording from the video output, data in a gaming one is not something i have heard of. I don't even know if theres any tech out there in homes that isn't outside of a mastering factory.

There's a project going on at the minute to perfectly take an image of the BBC Doomsday LD's so it's probably technically possible, the daphne emu works well in a basic way too.

[Team Andromeda]

I have to disagree there. All the Americans gave us on the Mega CD were ****ty FMV games and shovel ware. I'd say the British pushed it the most that's to Core Design. They did the most impressive stuff on the hardware.
If anything the Americans ruined the Mega CD with all the FMV **** they kept pumping out. At least the best FMV game game from Japan, Road Blaster FX (Road Avenger)

SEGA America gave us Batman Returns which was the 1st game to make major and sustained use of the ASIC chip, SEGA America really pushed the Mega CD and tried to make the system a seller and for a couple of years, SOA enjoyed decent sales and also got half decent 3rd party support. SEGA Japan just didn't seem to care for the MEGA CD at all.The system launch was a utter joke and SEGA Japan looked to none of its Scailing coin ups on the system.

How much better would the Mega CD have sold and how much would the system image have been if SEGA Japan had put its top consumer teams on the system with ports of OutRun, GF II, AB II, Super Hang On, Space Harrier... All with full use of the ASIC chip, Arcade perfect music using CD-DA and Arcade quality sound effects coming off the PCM chip

[Team Andromeda]

Ah but don't forget the Awsome arranged soundtrack only found on the Mega CD port.

That is awesome and I love Night Striker on the Mega CD , it's such a close port too, just a shame the screen res is terrible LOL

[samanosuke]

How much better would the Mega CD have sold and how much would the system image have been if SEGA Japan had put its top consumer teams on the system with ports of OutRun, GF II, AB II, Super Hang On, Space Harrier... All with full use of the ASIC chip, Arcade perfect music using CD-DA and Arcade quality sound effects coming off the PCM chip

Not any better at all, in my opinion. At the time, the industry was looking at the technology to provide the next leap forwards in gaming, not more accurate ports of arcade games that were nearing ten years old by the time the MCD was launched. Put it this way, the Super Scalar 32x ports barely registered a blip on anyone’s radar, and the same would have been the case for the MCD.

Having said that, had we seen first/second party support that pushed the limits of the 3D technology (like Nintendo did with Starfox) then the world might’ve sat up and took note. More of a push towards narrative driven titles like Snatcher and the Lunar series would also have helped differentiate the hardware from its cartridge based origins.

[Team Andromeda]

Not any better at all, in my opinion. At the time, the industry was looking at the technology to provide the next leap forwards in gaming, not more accurate ports of arcade games that were nearing ten years old by the time the MCD was launched. Put it this way, the Super Scalar 32x ports barely registered a blip on anyone’s radar, and the same would have been the case for the MCD.

Having said that, had we seen first/second party support that pushed the limits of the 3D technology (like Nintendo did with Starfox) then the world might’ve sat up and took note. More of a .

The Mega CD was just a Add On and a 1991 add on at that , it came out way before SEGA even got it head around 3D graphics and where sprites were powering SEGA latest Arcade boards, never mind it's home systems

In 1991 it's was all about sprite scailing and mode 7. The Mega CD had the better hardware than mode 7 and it's a crying shame SEGA never used it's Arcade games to better use and really show off the Mega CD.

[Leon Retro]

In 1991 it's was all about sprite scailing and mode 7. The Mega CD had the better hardware than mode 7 and it's a crying shame SEGA never used it's Arcade games to better use and really show off the Mega CD.

I think there were technical reasons why Sega felt arcade perfect ports of OutRun, Power Drift etc.. weren't possible. Didn't you mention something about this a while back? Was it to do with bandwith or the memory bus???

But I think Sega would have been wise to create brand new sprite scaling games. They could have made games similar to F-Zero and Super Mario Kart. You'd think the tech would have been really good for a karting game.

It's such a shame that the Mega CD wasn't a huge success, because we'd probably have far more classic games for the system. Its best games really highlight how it could deliver impressive sprite scaling and enhance 2D games.

[Team Andromeda]

I think there were technical reasons why Sega felt arcade perfect ports of OutRun, Power Drift etc.. weren't possible. Didn't you mention something about this a while back? Was it to do with bandwith or the memory bus???

That was just an interview with the programmer of Battlecorps and where he said the limited bandwidth between the 2 systems made it very hard for people to use the system, unless you used specialist code and went low level and deep dive; which given the limited market share most 3rd party wouldn't dedicate its teams to such a process, much less lead development on Mega CD.

For SEGA and it's In-House Teams there were no such excuses and while no home system at the time had the hardware to handle perfect ports of SEGA's X or Y boars, the Mega CD had the hardware to scale and rotate multiple bitmaps. If SEGA Japan had looked to use the system with scaling and rotation engine, like that, seen like in Batman Returns 3D sections, then we could have had really nice ports of the likes of Space Harrier, OutRun, AB II, GF II, Super Hang-ON and given the Mega CD sound hardware we could have also had Arcade perfect music and arcade quality sound effects and for a game like OutRun, that would have been a big deal to any SEGA fan in 1991.

I used to love playing my Snes game looking forward to the next Mode 7 showcase (usually on bosses) and loved its use in games like Contra III, Axelay, Castlevania IV and just felt it was such a waste for most Mega CD games, that never used the ASIC chip to produced similar impressive effects in its games.

It was rather embarrassing that a tiny UK company like CORE (was at that time) could totally outclass SEGA Japan, on its own system

[CMcK]

It does seem odd that SoJ added the scaling and rotation abilities to the Mega-CD then didn’t use it. The bandwidth across the expansion slot wouldn’t have allowed for 60Hz games thought more like 20 - 25 Hz at best.

[Team Andromeda]

It does seem odd that SoJ added the scaling and rotation abilities to the Mega-CD then didn’t use it. The bandwidth across the expansion slot wouldn’t have allowed for 60Hz games thought more like 20 - 25 Hz at best.

Yeah it would have been running in a window and around 18 fps, but Batman Returns and Soul star look and sound miles better than Out Run and Galaxy Force II on the Mega Drive and both those games on the MD only run at 30 Hz . So I would have taken smooth scailing and much better sound anyday over the base MD versions

[_SD_]

I’ve often wondered what could really be pulled off on the CD32X combo by a skilled team that really understood the hardware... I’m sure it’s a lot more capable of just playing slightly enhanced FMV games!

I’m thinking it should be able to run something like the original Resident Evils: 3D characters on static backgrounds. Have the 32X handle the 3D assets and load all the backgrounds from CD?

[Leon Retro]

For SEGA and it's In-House Teams there were no such excuses

Yeah, Sega should have at least created some sprite scaling games to show off the hardware. You'd think they would have been up for it, seeing the company is famous for pushing sprite scaling. They really dropped the ball.

I used to love playing my Snes game looking forward to the next Mode 7 showcase (usually on bosses) and loved its use in games like Contra III, Axelay, Castlevania IV and just felt it was such a waste for most Mega CD games, that never used the ASIC chip to produced similar impressive effects in its games.

Imagine how special a Contra or Castlevania could have been on the MCD. The extra power and effects could have really come in useful. There was so much potential for sprite scaling games and impressive 2D titles.

It was rather embarrassing that a tiny UK company like CORE (was at that time) could totally outclass SEGA Japan, on its own system

CORE did some great things in the 90s. A British devloper to be proud of. It's cool how they managed to show off the sprite scaling power of the MCD.

I’m thinking it should be able to run something like the original Resident Evils: 3D characters on static backgrounds. Have the 32X handle the 3D assets and load all the backgrounds from CD?

At the very least -- Alone in the Dark would have probably worked on the system. But maybe Resident Evil would have been possible in maybe a less impressive form.

[Jaz]

Let's just hope it doesn't suffer from the same ****storm their PC Engine adapter had.

I’ll be waitng for your review of the SD.

Is the PCE kit they sell worth it now?

[beecee]

On the fence with this just now, just took the plunge on the SD2Snes Pro, but going to wait on the full reviews for this, plus i'm sure i read somewhere they are doing a version that plugs into the expansion port rather than the cart slot.