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I was wondering if there was a comprehensive list of PAL optimized Mega Drive games online somewhere, as I unfortunately own the PAL versions of Ranger X, Cool Spot and Aladdin (all of which are optimised) and I would rather not buy any more optimized games by accident.
You are from England, why donīt you want optimized games? Itīs about the best it can get.
You could not play them on original hardware running at 60Hz. It also always means that the games have a region lockout.
By "PAL optimised" don't you mean "chip locked"? My PAL copies of those three games all run great in 60 Hz. I just have to boot the games in 50 Hz and switch to 60 Hz once the region check is done.Quote:
Originally Posted by jesus.arnold
PAL Sonic 3 for instance is truly PAL optimised. It runs like crap in 60 Hz :D
But oddly enough it runs fine in 60 Hz when it's combined with S&K...
I have a region modded MD so un-optimized games run perfectly on PAL60Quote:
Originally Posted by 108 Stars
Optimized Megadrive games usualy run at the correct speed but not the correct screen ratio (not possible on MD?), they have squished graphics, so with optimized games I have the choice of -
Right speed with a warped screen on PAL50 or right screen too fast on PAL60
therefore PAL optimized MD games are always inferior.
No dude, basically the 3 games I talked about were changed when brought over to PAL to make up for the speed loss, so when you play them at 60hz they now run way too fast, this actually seriously harms the gameplay in Cool Spot, the other two are only a little bit worse.Quote:
Originally Posted by KillerBean2
I find it terribly amusing they haven't fixed this issue (lazy PAL conversion) for VC. I guess you could always use Fusion along with verified PAL and NTSC dumps of the same game and discern the speed differences! It wouldn't help with the aspect ratio however, since emulators stretch all resolutions anyway (unless there's a specific feature to the contrary that I'm unaware of)
A slight unrelated question however I hope to get answered, are all JUE dumped carts region-free (e.g. MK2)?
My PAL Sonic 3 Plays fine on my Genesis using the Game Genie with the region code
Fine or perfect? Big difference. I'm pretty sure it runs up to 18% faster on NTSC! I was made aware of this when I had tried to run S3 using Kgen98 under DOS in 60Hz mode and it had run quite a bit faster.
What? PAL-optimised games just use something other than the video output for their timing, they're the exact same otherwise as their NTSC counterparts.Quote:
Originally Posted by jesus.arnold
Sonic the Hedgehog will have the exact same screen ratio as Comix Zone on your Mega Drive, despite the fact that CZ is PAL-optimised.
No they weren't. They use something other than the video signal for timing, otherwise they're identical to the NTSC releases besides being region-locked. So you get 'NTSC speed' (i.e. the 'real speed' of the game) whilst outputting PAL video.Quote:
Originally Posted by jesus.arnold
Flicking the video mode switch mid-game will screw up any game and cause it to malfunction, PAL-optimisation or none.
Sonic 3 has PAL optimized engine, the speed difference is in gameplay, but its rather minor... same for music speed. I have Sonic3 on my Russian cart, without region check, and if you start in PAL and switch to NTSC you get horrible lag as the game uses all the extra 50Hz offer (and that extra is huge), and if you switch to NTSC, all that is gone and game really slows down. Start in 60Hz and switch to 50Hz means slower gameplay as 50Hz optimized engine is not in use then.
In 50Hz you get 50% more DMA, 20% more CPU time between the frames, huge difference.
Another game that tries to take advantage of 50Hz is Ristar, and I've heard Stroy of Thor is one such kind of game aswell. Codemasters games should be 50Hz optimized aswell.
That explains the whole PAL Sonic 3 in 60Hz vs. PAL Sonic 3 + S&K in 60Hz thing. The missing chip lock on S&K makes the difference. Awesome! It has been puzzling me quite some time :DQuote:
Originally Posted by TmEE
I don't think you actually understand PAL VS NTSC at all, either that or we are having some kind of misunderstanding here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Elusive
all PAL Mega Drive games being run on a PAL machine at 50hz display with a warped screen
Games that use 240 line res will have the borders a little bit smaller.
I take it that this is a pirated version with the region lock removed?Quote:
Originally Posted by TmEE
My point was that early games used the video signal for timing, so a NTSC machine would render at 60Hz while a PAL machine would render at 50Hz. PAL-optimised games, on the other hand, use some other method of timing, so no matter what video output you're using, in theory it should display at exactly the same speed. Sonic 2's music, for example, plays at the same speed on NTSC and PAL machines.Quote:
Originally Posted by jesus.arnold
So, I don't understand how it can be 'warping your screen' as there's no fundamental difference between PAL and NTSC releases, unless you mean the usual PAL/NTSC resolution difference - PAL-optimised games on PAL machines will still display PAL screen borders.
Or you could just import games for your modded machine and bypass this business altogether :p