A few Game Gear questions

[Ace]

http://www.smspower.org/dev/docs/wik...are/BIOS#toc12

There's information about the Game Gear's BIOS, and from what I'm seeing, it seems to serve the same purpose as the MegaDrive's TMSS: lock out games that don't have a certain ASCII string in the ROM. It would also appear that Game Gears with a BIOS can select the correct palette data depending on whether a Game Gear or Master System cartridge is inserted.

[celticsfan]

Another Game Gear question, when it first came out, it was such a battery hog. Was wondering, with today's high powered batteries, would the battery life be a little higher?

[TmEE]

The life will of course be higher. The backlight is the major power sucker, if you get rid of the backlight, the GG lasts as long if not more than GB

[Ace]

I'd probably add a backlight on/off switch to the Game Gear while I replace the capacitors. There's already something to dim down the backlight on the Game Gear, right, except there's no way to shut it off?

[TmEE]

my GG has no dimming or shutting down options. If you want some, you need to add it yourself.

[Diosoth]

Except you can't see the games without the backlight on, making it pointless.

[Ace]

If I can see the screen of my GameBoy Color in my house, I can DEFINITELY see the screen of the Game Gear with no backlight. And the GameBoy Color's screen is VERY dark, so that's quite conclusive.

[MN12BIRD]

Game boy color screen is reflective and designed to be seen without a backlight. The Game Gear screen is not reflective. You wont see a single thing at all even under extremely bright light on a Game Gear without the backlight!

[Scooter]

The picture on the GG screen is MADE by the light (similar to a CRT TV screen). It won't show a thing with the light source turned off.

[Ace]

In that case, I'd dim it down A LOT, about the level of a GameBoy Color in normal lighting. Any instructions on how to dim the backlight of a Game Gear?

[MN12BIRD]

If anything I would see if you can find a Majesco Game Gear. I wonder if you can take the LCD screen out of a Majesco and put it in an old Game Gear? I just found this out because my buddy got one and the screen is better on the Majesco it doesn't get as blurry when things move. Seems cool but they seem to be hard to find (there are 30 game gear systems on EBay right now and not one of them is a Majesco!) the only thing is the TV Tuner doesn't work on it.

[Ace]

I couldn't care less about the TV Tuner, as I wouldn't watch TV on a portable system anyways! But yeah, Majesco Game Gears are about as hard to come by as a US Sega Master System II(had to wait about 2 years to get mine via a local classified ad.), and I have NEVER seen one, not in person, not in a classified ad., and not on eBay. But if I do find a Majesco Game Gear, I'd get that one in a flash.

[MN12BIRD]

Damn they really are that rare... shitty. I would love to find one too. I mean I knew they would be rare but I didn't think they would be THAT rare! I'm also looking for an SMSII, my local game shop had one before they closed shop but when I went to get it they said it was gone

[djtwok]

GG games could be played on MD or SMS using homemade adaptor, but you will get greenish image and possible input issues.

Have you tried that or build an adapter for GG Cartridges (just wondering how to play GG Carts on MD/SMS) ? Shouldnt games that use the SMS Color Palette (like Castle of Illusion) show normals Colors on SMS ?

[Ace]

Damn they really are that rare... shitty. I would love to find one too. I mean I knew they would be rare but I didn't think they would be THAT rare! I'm also looking for an SMSII, my local game shop had one before they closed shop but when I went to get it they said it was gone

Man, that sucks! I've had that happen a lot before I found my Master System II in a classified ad while looking for one on eBay. I was getting ready to buy the sucker, but it was sold right under my nose every time before I found it in an ad. F***!

I would still be happy with a Sega Game Gear if I have too much of a hard time finding a Majesco Game Gear. Though I would like to get 2 Game Gears, 1 of which I'll turn into a Game Gear Console, with the screen removed, 1 controller port like the TurboGrafx, no battery compartment, and TV output with RGB, S-Video and Composite video. The system would be dual-slotted, however for dual Master System/Game Gear compatibility(how does a Game Gear know when a Master System or Game Gear cartridge is inserted?)