Ah my mistake. I thought it was an official one.
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Ah my mistake. I thought it was an official one.
I just this week bought the rare PAL Turbografx and a bunch of games after being offered one for an incredibly good price. I am really looking forward to getting it. Before my only previous experience with a PCE was on an import one my rich friend owned when I was younger but he only had about 6 games for it.
Money saving tip, use Magic Engine to test the Japanese versions of US releases, if they're in English save tons of money!
The PAL unit might be the rarer version of the system, but less desirable as a game system in and of itself compared to a PCE or TG16. I would never buy it as a main or first system, only as an interesting collectible piece. Also be fare warned; I wouldn't recommend buying a CD attachment for it. It's an interesting piece of collectible game history, but it's a complete hack job of a system (plus all the games run slower).Quote:
Originally Posted by Crackdown
The FM towns is an awesome computer also. Its not just a console. The issue is finding the games in the us is impossable so unless you're totally fine with always tracking games down in Japan the system is virtually useless to buy in the US. Even finding roms is a pain in the ass. Plus who has a computer with a floppy disk drive to make FM town boots to play anymore?Quote:
Originally Posted by StarMist
For whatever reason, IDK, you can get new PAL PCE's for dirt cheap. Any idea as to why?
I am a collector anyway and I only paid £30 for the system with Blazing Lazers and picked another 7 games for £25 on eBay which included some really good stuff like Galaga '90, Dragon Spirit and Pacland. I don't really give a toss about the slight speed difference. If I like the system enough I may invest in a Duo at some point.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomaitheous
It's not exactly slight. It's about 17% speed difference. And without any benefit of PAL vs NTSC. They stall the CPU and system for a number of scanlines to make up for the speed difference :mad:. I.e. You don't get the normal benefit of more processing cpu resource per frame like NES/SMS/MD/etc PAL systems VS NTSC systems. Thus, you still get the slow down along with the slower gameplay (where as it's less of a chance of happening on the other systems unless the slowdown is really bad). It's a lose/lose scenario. Like I said, it's a hack job they did to the US system for the PAL release.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crackdown
The PC-Engine/TG16 doesn't have this PAL or NTSC mode. You actually define the video frame itself (the width of the scanline, the number of active scanlines, number of vblank scanlines, width of hblank, etc). The VDC in the system was meant to run on it's own, with all sort of weird resolutions and display modes(including up to 512 non interlaced visible scanlines). A proper setup PAL softs would have required reprogramming the game's frame setup. That's a per game change. The hack job they did is a work around for that, but it introduces timing issues that the developers never intended on ever encountering. Some US (that's what it plays natively) hucards even have some graphic glitches because of this. A lot more CD base games are timing sensitive. Hell, I could just imagine ADPCM CD streaming being a potential issue since it requires an IRQ to tell the cpu to switch the buffer pointer for the ADPCM chip, every so many seconds. Delaying that can't be good >_>
Edit: Actually, some CD games would have been alright if the VCE was in PAL frame mode. They setup the VDC to a shit load of vblank scanlines. But the VCE vsync signal tells the VDC that top display is ready to begin. To bad all softs didn't setup the VDC like that. I only found this out recently, because I was load testing some games but making the VDC double frame inside a single frame - in which the CPU gets called twice in one NTSC frame. The vblank line number was soo high that it wouldn't double frame; had to change it.
You're back :DQuote:
Originally Posted by tomaitheous
Back at the end of January. :D I got a refurbbed and modded SGX from electrochip. I paid a bit more than $100, but it WAS modded (svideo and region select).Quote:
Originally Posted by tomaitheous
I got a NeoFlash 128M PCE flash card so I could do homebrew. I don't have many PCE games yet, just a few of the cheaper/better ones. Have you looked at the price for SGX HuCards? Talk about rare! ;)
Yeah, ebay is not a good place for BUYING PCE stuff right now, unless you get lucky. :)Quote:
Ebay sellers really crank up the prices. At least the US/EU sellers. I just sold a ton of TG16 hucards/CD, and PCE CDs over at PCFX on the forums there. TG16 hucards for ~$6-12 range. Even gave away one for free ($30 game). PCE CD games from $3-12. All games were complete with case and manual (hucards even had protective sleeves). One or two games for higher range (LOT for $25-30, etc but I gave discounts on multiple purchases). That's about the going rate over there on the forums, minus the more sought after titles (like Spriggan, Spriggan 2, Macross 2036, etc).
At some point, I'll get a CDROM for the SGX. I'm hoping that JUST a CD would be cheaper than a Duo or similar. It would also be cool to work on SGX CD homebrew. :D
From a business standpoint, that really wouldn't make sense . . . unless said game was unlicensed as you'd end up having to pay double royalties for each copy (Sega and NEC) unlike a few games on contemporary home computers. (I think there were a handful of Amiga/ST combo games, and I know of several PC/Mac combo games -all CD or DVD though -and then some other examples like TRS-80/Apple II using different sides, I don't think any A8/C64 stuff did that though . . . not sure about double sided combo cassettes either))Quote:
Originally Posted by tomaitheous
Was that for the Asian PAL release, I didn't think there was any official European release? (or was there semi-official -NEC backed- import support?)Quote:
Originally Posted by tomaitheous
There seems to have been an official French release of some sort . . . though SECAM would involve a similar frame set-up to PAL.
Hmm, so not only good for arcade stuff, but the VDC potentially could have catered rather well in a late 80s home computer system too. ;)Quote:
The PC-Engine/TG16 doesn't have this PAL or NTSC mode. You actually define the video frame itself (the width of the scanline, the number of active scanlines, number of vblank scanlines, width of hblank, etc). The VDC in the system was meant to run on it's own, with all sort of weird resolutions and display modes(including up to 512 non interlaced visible scanlines).
Games probably would have gotten reprogrammed fairly often had there been a real push for PAL support by NEC with good management (hell, Europe should have fared better under their existing marketing strategies than the US did -small countries with high density population much more like Japan).Quote:
A proper setup PAL softs would have required reprogramming the game's frame setup. That's a per game change. The hack job they did is a work around for that, but it introduces timing issues that the developers never intended on ever encountering. Some US (that's what it plays natively) hucards even have some graphic glitches because of this. A lot more CD base games are timing sensitive. Hell, I could just imagine ADPCM CD streaming being a potential issue since it requires an IRQ to tell the cpu to switch the buffer pointer for the ADPCM chip, every so many seconds. Delaying that can't be good >_>
Actually, having to modify the game like that would probably lead to many more games being optimized for 50 Hz gameplay speed in general. ;)
Yeah, the prices are ridiculous on complete games. Ever since the late 90's. I only have a tototek and turborom board flash cards. The tototek card has a problem on the Super CDROM2. I don't think they completely disable the card/ICs for the CPU addressing the upper 1Mbyte range. It's has a bus conflict since both are fighting it out. And accessing built in 64k original CD ram and CD/ADPCM registers randomly fails when it shouldn't. Which might not be a big deal unless you're writing your own system card or special homebrew/demo and using this card, but more importantly is access to BRAM (save games). So even real game roms on tototek card have problems with it. I confirmed this with Chris Covell and his tototek card + Super CDROM2 setup. I guess on the Duo, the Duo wins the bus conflict every time. I really need to get a NeoFlash card :?Quote:
I got a NeoFlash 128M PCE flash card so I could do homebrew. I don't have many PCE games yet, just a few of the cheaper/better ones. Have you looked at the price for SGX HuCards? Talk about rare! ;)
The Super CDROM2 addon that specifically fits the SGX, is the best CD setup out of all the CD options IMO. It'll handle many types of crappy CDR media that the normal Duos and old CD addons choke on. Standalone (no box), they go for $100-$150 IIRC. I got mine for $90+shipping a number of years back. It's like the Duo, in that it has the system card 3.0 built in. So don't have to worry about buying a system card immediately (though I do recommend the Arcade card Duo version which is the cheaper version and runs on this setup).Quote:
At some point, I'll get a CDROM for the SGX. I'm hoping that JUST a CD would be cheaper than a Duo or similar. It would also be cool to work on SGX CD homebrew. :D
Without fixing the VCE for outputting a PAL frame itself (and providing the h/v sync timing signals for the VDC), you don't get the benefit of more cpu speed per frame though. Sure, you could adjust for the speed difference but it still doesn't fix some other underlying issues. Specifically the ADPCM CD streaming setup. Unless they made a specific PAL region CD unit that somehow addressed this. Other timing related issues can be fixed in software though. Still would suck not to have the additional cpu speed benefit of a PAL setup though.Quote:
Actually, having to modify the game like that would probably lead to many more games being optimized for 50 Hz gameplay speed in general.
The only system officially released for PAL market is the TurboGrafx. And at that, it was only a test market release AFIAK. All the PAL PCE's are all 3rd party modifications to the system. Nothing official.Quote:
Was that for the Asian PAL release, I didn't think there was any official European release? (or was there semi-official -NEC backed- import support?)
There seems to have been an official French release of some sort . . . though SECAM would involve a similar frame set-up to PAL.
I am :DQuote:
You're back
Ouch! Sounds like a hassle. I keep hoping KRIKzz makes a PCE Everdrive... I'd love a MicroSD interface with a couple megs of ram. That would be an AWESOME card for the PCE since you wouldn't even need a CD at that point. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by tomaitheous
Great! I'll keep an eye out for one once I've built a bit of money back up. The SGX was about it for the year for me. Discretionary budget all expended... ;)Quote:
The Super CDROM2 addon that specifically fits the SGX, is the best CD setup out of all the CD options IMO. It'll handle many types of crappy CDR media that the normal Duos and old CD addons choke on. Standalone (no box), they go for $100-$150 IIRC. I got mine for $90+shipping a number of years back. It's like the Duo, in that it has the system card 3.0 built in. So don't have to worry about buying a system card immediately (though I do recommend the Arcade card Duo version which is the cheaper version and runs on this setup).
Unless KRIKzz makes an Everdrive with SD interface and ram... then I'll probably get that instead. :cool:
Dream: SD or MicroSD interface, enough ram to handle Arcade Card emulation, ADPCM chip, emulates Super CDROM2 from ISO on SD... :love:
Mooz and I were talking a few months back about making a simple SD loader flash card for the system. He likes the Atmel chips and was looking into using one for the interface. Nothing too fancy mind you, but it would need to support my extended SF2 mapper (16 banks of 512k rom). Mednafen currently emulates it in the WIP builds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chilly Willy
Yeah :D There has been many a discussion about emulating the interface logic for the CD addon over the past couple of years. The direct CD unit is almost pure scsi (the command string and status bits are near identical to scsi). But nothing's ever come of it. Actually, if you look at mednafen source code - there's enough info there to write a soft emulator for it... to do just that.Quote:
Dream: SD or MicroSD interface, enough ram to handle Arcade Card emulation, ADPCM chip, emulates Super CDROM2 from ISO on SD... :love:
I took apart my arcade card pro: http://www.pcedev.net/arcard_card_pro/
The arcade card duo doesn't have the rom (one of the two glop tops) and doesn't have the sram, since it technically doesn't enable the hucard port for the Duo and Super CDROM2 systems. It just maps itself into open bus area of the original hardware bank. Small area of $100 bytes (info). But I don't have a Duo card to take apart/pics.
I want a SuperGrafx :( I can't really justify the price since I have my modded Duo-R...but I still want one!