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    Indeed. There are some insane levels of knowledge out there when it comes to these old games. And too many games to play.

    It does sound to me that the PAL MD Mini ought to be modded when the time comes, in the same vein as the PS Classic. Which will not only iron out these unique PAL issues but easily allow any missing classics to be installed.

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      pal ntsc niggles aside i have to say the uk version has a far nicer games list for my liking, its kind of fun that you can language switch and have all of them revert to japanese versions. As i wanted castle of illusion on my japanese one, been working my way through the games. I much prefer the 3 button pad it feels better in my hands than the 6 button one although the 6 button one has the advantage of been able to press the mode button to bring up the system menu.

      Having a blast going through it so far. Looking forward to seeing how good it can be improved on with hacking, now if sega could just make me one of those white angled mark III beauties so i can explore the library of that machine as i never really played much from the master system library. Blame those abysmal box arts for putting me off.

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        Arrived today surprisingly, despite choosing the free standard Amazon shipping. I don't like it, mainly because the CRT filter compared to the SNES Mini is grotesquely broken. It does not function correctly, or as a filter should. I don't know if anyone else noticed it, but the CRT filter seems to be applied at a different point along the rendering pipeline compared to the SNES Mini, which results in terrible horizontal banding. At least, I think this might be the case - proper tech heads who understand this can verify or correct me.

        It's difficult to articulate, but:
        I'm using a Samsung 720p HDTV, bought circa 2008.

        The SNES Mini right out the box applied scanlines on a pixel by pixel basis, so the lines were always fixed to the pixels in precisely the correct places and ratios. It did not matter what my TV settings were. There was never any banding - and changing settings did not introduce banding.

        With the Mega Drive Mini (UK model), the scanline filter seems to be applied haphazardly. The lines are not attached to specific pixel rows, and on my 720p HDTV there is horrendous horizontal banding issues.

        The weird thing is, changing my TV's zoom setting changes the banding problem. I can switch 16:9, Widescreen (seemingly different to 16:9), 4:3, Zoomed, Just Scan, and maybe another?

        Anyway, each of these produces a slightly different type of banding, or clumping of horizontal pixel rows.

        Except - and this is what blew my mind! - the zoomed in option, which cropped the entire outer ring of the gameplay area, produced no banding.

        I don't quite grasp how or why this happens, other than realising it is truly one of the worst emulator filters I have ever seen. The SNES Mini filter was precise, locked to specific rows of pixels, and when anti-aliasing was disabled through hacking the system, it produced a crisp and gentle scanline image. It was beautiful.

        I don't understand how an emulator by M2 can introduce god-damn banding to the filter. That's like amateur hour when it comes to emulation.

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          Originally posted by Sketcz View Post
          I don't understand how an emulator by M2 can introduce god-damn banding to the filter. That's like amateur hour when it comes to emulation.
          Scanlines are extremely easy to implement, so it's absolutely ridiculous that M2 did such a bad job in that regard. As you say, the SNES Mini has perfectly fine scanlines. Using something like a Raspberry Pi for emulation offers a range of scanline options to allow users to adjust things to their heart's content. I've even used MAME with simply a pic/image of scanlines overlaid and it looks pretty good.

          This is an issue that lots of people have reported, including Importaku. It's what's put me off buying one. I will wait and see if hackers can improve things. M2 should have delivered a CRT filter that looks great in 720p; it's not like they had to worry about other resolutions and all sorts of screens, inputs etc. No, everyone will be using LCD, HDMI and 720p.
          Last edited by Leon Retro; 07-10-2019, 20:57.

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            I just run mine via a Framemeister to get perfect scan lines

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              OK, so something very strange is going on. The MDM is supposed to output 720p, right? Well this is the banding that appears on my Samsung 720p TV (Model LE32A456):



              What the heck is this? Why is this happening? How do I fix it?

              I want to reiterate, and really emphasise this: THE SNES MINI DOES NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM.

              A friend of mine sent me photos of his 1080p TV, and it looked fine. Just lovely in fact. Why is my TV not working? Why is it doing this? Why does the SNES Mini not do this when played on the same TV?

              I have so many questions and yet no answers.

              I'll be honest, I kinda hate the MDM. It's sloppy, slapdash, poorly put together, and not much better than an AtGames system.

              But hey, check out that working cartridge flap and sliding audio knob which everybody is ****ting their pants over!

              There is the above problem, which the SNES Mini never had. Then there's also...

              Comix Zone's audio emulation is garbage - tracks 5 and 10 suffer from tinny sounds. Compare this to the Comix Zone download on the X360, by Backbone Entertainment. I used to criticise Backbone, regarding M2 as without fault, but really this is pathetic. Go and download the free demo and see for yourself - all the music tracks in Comix Zone, especially 5 and 10, sound velvet smooth, as they should. On M2's MDM it's just broken. My god, how the mighty have fallen. Yes, I know the Mega Drive sound is difficult to emulate. But Backbone could do it, and those guys have less credence than M2.

              Also, Shinobi III. I have the 6 button controller, but because the Mode button isn't a proper "Mode button", it's just for accessing the menu, I cannot enable the 6 button code. I did a google search and only found one person, on one forum, talking about this. I refuse to play Shinobi III unless it's in 6 button mode. Sloppy, so goddamned sloppy.

              Which is weird, because M2 knew about a special Mode button code for one of the games on the Japanese Mini (it's either Dyna or Snow Bros, one of the two), and recoded it to not require that Mode be held down to apply the code. But Shinobi III? Pffft, no 6 button mode for you!

              Which means when it's finally hacked, I'm going to need to either HEX edit the raw code of a fresh Shinobi III ROM to force 6 button mode without the Mode button code, or create my own custom IPS patch. I should not need to be programming my own custom hacks just to play these games properly.

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                Originally posted by Yakumo View Post
                I just run mine via a Framemeister to get perfect scan lines
                You shouldn't have to use a £300 scaler to get decent scanlines. I can buy a Pi for £30 and end up with a beautiful CRT effect in retro games.



                Originally posted by Sketcz View Post
                OK, so something very strange is going on. The MDM is supposed to output 720p, right? Well this is the banding that appears on my Samsung 720p TV (Model LE32A456):
                Loads of people have reported the same problem with the scanlines/CRT filter, so it's nothing to do with your screen. M2 have really dropped the ball in this respect. Some people are resorting to using something like a Framemeister to add scanlines.

                As you mentioned - Nintendo got things right with the SNES Mini. There are no excuses for M2's mistake.

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                  That could be a scaling issue given the mini is feeding a 1280 x 720 signal to a 1366 x 768 resolution screen. How does it look set to 1:1 pixel mapping? If that's possible on that particular TV?

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                    Originally posted by Leon Retro View Post
                    You shouldn't have to use a £300 scaler to get decent scanlines. I can buy a Pi for £30 and end up with a beautiful CRT effect in retro games.
                    You don't need too, the scan line option 'isn't' that bad.

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                      Originally posted by CMcK View Post
                      That could be a scaling issue given the mini is feeding a 1280 x 720 signal to a 1366 x 768 resolution screen. How does it look set to 1:1 pixel mapping? If that's possible on that particular TV?
                      My TV allows me to select between:
                      16:9, 4:3, Zoom, Widescreen Zoom, and Just Scan.

                      I tried all of them. The only one that removes the banding is "zoom", but this ends up cropping the top and bottom of the gameplay area quite severely, making games unplayable.

                      Again, the SNES Mini does not have this problem. Right out the box, unhacked, and on all the above TV options, the scanlines are assigned accurately without banding.

                      As someone on another forum said, it's like they just overlaid this crap on at the end - it is the laziest possible option. The scanlines are not generated during the emulation, they're slapped on just before the machine craps the image down the HDMI cable.

                      Part of what angers me is the universal praise this **** brick has received - every website, every YouTuber, and it's ****ing awful. I was happy with the SNES Mini. I loved it. This I can't even be bothered to turn on anymore. It sits on my desk waiting for the hackers to make it actually playable.

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                        You know, maybe it's just your TV. I don't get any banding on mine. Not that I used the scan lines anyway, they look crap. When I did try them they were fine.

                        Anyway, my mini is now in a display case where it will stay and what I bought it for. Already own multipul original hardware solutions for playing MD games. Analogue SG is the current preference with the Terraonion mega SD card.

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                          Seems like a waste of money if you aren’t even going to play it.

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                            Originally posted by importaku View Post
                            Seems like a waste of money if you aren’t even going to play it.
                            Not really. The intention was to always have it as a display item. I have absolutely no need to use it for games as it is inferior to the Analogue SG.
                            People pay a lot more for character models so I think it's a nice price for the whole tower of power.

                            When my PC Engine mini turns up I'll have a tinker with that then off to the display it goes. Same reason, already have a perfect solution for games with original hardware with everdrive plus cdrs
                            Last edited by Yakumo; 09-10-2019, 22:56.

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                              I’ve never understood why people on this forum get knocked for buying things purely for collecting/display purposes. It’s just a facet of the hobby, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. Don’t you have about a billion Yokai Watch medals Importaku?!

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                                Originally posted by importaku View Post
                                Seems like a waste of money if you aren’t even going to play it.
                                says the guy with a room like a softmap store ;-)

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