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The Official Sega Master System Thread


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24 minutes ago, SlidellMan said:

I'd love to make homebrew games for the Sega Master System.

I say give it a try, it's a really neat little system to work with.
SMS Power has a few tutorials and starter resources as well as a pretty active developer forum where you can discuss specifics.

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8 hours ago, NinjaWarrior said:

I know there's no way to convert Game Gear Games to Master System without decoding in C, even today with like Level Editers

 

 

 

 

While I don't know of any ready made converters, there are a few GG games that have been converted to the SMS. I've got a folder for my flash cart with quite a few of those conversions. So there are folks that have done it at least.

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11 hours ago, SlidellMan said:

I wonder how many Master System/Mark III games had parallax scrolling? (Sagaia was one of them.)

There's quite a few games that do it, the Master System has a very solid scanline interrupt system that can be configured to generate interrupts every N'th scanline which definitely helps. One unfortunate thing is that you can't change vertical scroll mid frame, so that definitely limits how many fancy scrolling effects you can pull off.

One of my personal favourites though has to be the first 2 stages of Aladdin, with a mix of scanline interrupts and animated tiles they created a pretty impressive 3D effect.

 

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4 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

While I don't know of any ready made converters, there are a few GG games that have been converted to the SMS. I've got a folder for my flash cart with quite a few of those conversions. So there are folks that have done it at least.

These are conversions done manually, what some people are trying to figure out is a way to convert them automatically do it using an adapter, maybe with a microprocessor inside it to convert the colors that aren't available on the Master System. But if you already play in a flash cart there aren't many reasons to want something like that.

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On 4/25/2024 at 10:08 PM, SlidellMan said:

I thought I would share another one of my favorite SMS OSTs:

I wonder how many Master System/Mark III games had parallax scrolling? (Sagaia was one of them.)

 

It was quite common, there's gotta be well over 100.

 

The North American launch alone featured 5 games with parallax.

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Posted (edited)
6 hours ago, SlidellMan said:

Game Sack on the Master System's overlooked FM unit:

 

Well given it was only the JP sms that had it integrated and no way to easily add it to the US/EU ones (even today you need lift components and solder the audio channels) I wouldn’t say “overlooked”.

 

Granted you can play those games now with fm on a genesis via the mega everdrive x7 and pro but that’s a totally different solution imho.

Did the JP power base converter support fm?

( nope https://www.smspower.org/forums/6634-SMSFMSoundOnMegaDrivePowerbaseConverter )

Edited by phoenixdownita
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23 hours ago, SlidellMan said:

Game Sack on the Master System's overlooked FM unit:

 

 

 

I like the FM and it is unique, but not growing up with it here in the USA I am must more nostalgic for the PSG sound. 

 

But, that said I do have a Japanese SMS with the FM unit integrated. If you play any FM capable game in it you get the FM sound which can be a blessing or a curse depending on what you like. It will not give you the option to play with it off.

 

What I ended up doing in order to play the games without the FM was to hack the roms that included FM so that the console will play them with PSG. I play those through a flash cart. I also had to hack some games to display in english but that is something else entirely ;)

 

 

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It's weird that there are games never released in Japan that had the FM audio, perhaps the Master System development kit had an unit built in and the developers didn't know about the fact it wasn't available in the west.

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Posted (edited)
On 5/13/2024 at 3:03 AM, roots.genoa said:

Looks solid! Wish the project page would give more information however.

  

On 5/13/2024 at 2:33 PM, eightbit said:

I like the FM and it is unique, but not growing up with it here in the USA I am must more nostalgic for the PSG sound. 

I enjoy the FM stuff for the sake of novelty, but a lot of the PSG tunes just fit better with the games themselves, IMO. Also, the way some PSG tracks were programmed sometimes sound busier and better accompanies whatever kind of energy a game is going for.

Edited by Austin
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Posted (edited)
On 4/22/2024 at 5:02 PM, SlidellMan said:

I'd love to make homebrew games for the Sega Master System.

SMS Power! has plenty of documentation and tools for making SMS homebrew.

 

Your main options would be:

Other, more limited, alternatives would be:

Edited by haroldoop
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On 5/13/2024 at 7:33 PM, eightbit said:

 

 

I like the FM and it is unique, but not growing up with it here in the USA I am must more nostalgic for the PSG sound. 

 

But, that said I do have a Japanese SMS with the FM unit integrated. If you play any FM capable game in it you get the FM sound which can be a blessing or a curse depending on what you like. It will not give you the option to play with it off.

 

What I ended up doing in order to play the games without the FM was to hack the roms that included FM so that the console will play them with PSG. I play those through a flash cart. I also had to hack some games to display in english but that is something else entirely ;)

 

 

Does the Japanese SMS console play all region games without modification, US/PAL? I have a modified SMS mark 2 which only outputs composite and obviously no FM sound capability so was thinking of purchasing one..

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50 minutes ago, shane857 said:

Does the Japanese SMS console play all region games without modification, US/PAL? I have a modified SMS mark 2 which only outputs composite and obviously no FM sound capability so was thinking of purchasing one..

I believe the shape of the cartridge port is different, so you need an adapter to fit the Western cartridges in it.

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