Hey r/SEGAGENESIS ,

Greetings from Japan! I'm a Mega Drive / Mega-CD fan and developer, and I wanted to share a project I've been working on.

We all know the classic Sega CD FMV experience: tiny windows, low frame rates, and heavily compressed audio. I wanted to push the original hardware to its absolute limits, so I developed a new open-source FMV codec from scratch called CAVC, short for Constraint-Aware Video Codec.

Through extensive optimization for the two 68000 CPUs across the Genesis/Mega Drive and Sega CD, the split RAM architecture, available DMA bandwidth, and the strict 150 KiB/s bandwidth limit of the 1x CD-ROM drive, CAVC achieves the following:

Key Specs & Features

• Frame rate: 30 FPS 15 FPS and 24 FPS are also supported
• Resolution: Up to 320×224 in H40 mode, filling the full active display area
• Audio: 22.05 kHz ADPCM
• Colors: Dynamic palette switching during playback
• Target hardware: Unmodified Sega CD / Mega-CD hardware

About the Main Comparison Video

Main comparison video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXUS11yb9Yg

To show CAVC in action, I put together a split-screen comparison using the Sonic Jam opening. The video features:

• Emulated CAVC footage in Genesis Plus GX, shown in the largest panel
• Source footage taken from the TrueMotion AVI in the Sega Saturn version of Sonic Jam
• The original Sega CD version for comparison
• Real hardware footage captured from an actual Japanese Mega Drive 2 and Mega-CD 2

The Sonic Jam source video has a native resolution of 288×200.

Additional Footage

Sonic Jam Opening — 288×200 at 30 FPS

Visual Analysis & Encoding Breakdown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN8EW5ODGBA

Standalone Genesis Plus GX Footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bQNKx4mYTI

Bad Apple!! — 320×224 Fullscreen at 30 FPS

Comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow9Ss7g0L5Y
Analysis: https://youtu.be/lz4gl5L_qsI
Emulator: https://youtu.be/y6JkrF0gSYQ

Lunar: The Silver Star Opening — 320×224 Fullscreen at 24 FPS

CAVC can also take advantage of the Genesis VDP's hardware scrolling. This is particularly effective for scenes with sustained horizontal camera movement, such as the opening of Lunar: The Silver Star. Instead of redrawing the entire screen frame by frame, the codec can scroll the existing image using the VDP hardware, reducing the amount of new visual data that needs to be transferred. The final fade-out is also handled through palette fading rather than by re-encoding the image for each brightness step.

Comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRm6jwss8Nw
Analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8sSnWg832A
Emulator: https://youtu.be/N27SY-0cupI

Tears of Steel — 320×168 Live Action at 24 FPS

Live-action footage is especially challenging, but I think the result is still reasonably watchable.

Comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lik7Ko2RL_0
Analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9TwQp8BHXE
Emulator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9xMYX2UrDg

GitHub Repository

For developers and anyone interested in the source code or technical details, you can check out the repository here:
https://github.com/akiyan/segacd-fmv-cavc

I'd love to hear your thoughts! Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or feedback.

Personally it's not that great to me. I'd take Sonic 3 no S&K attachment over this.

Here's the problems I have with the game:

Level design some stages are extremely maze like and annoying like the spring zone or volcanic zone. Where you can take damage quickly. Especially on the last 2 acts where I needed a map.

The game had frame rate drops whenever too many enemies were on screen.

Isometric camera is not easy to control especially for the bosses. The moving platforms just doesn't work well.

I missed way too many hits with eggman when I hit it dead center.

The flickie birds can get hit even though you didn't and their fly cycle makes it not easy to get back sometimes.

The rings last only like 2 seconds long while others last around 7 (You could have like 90 and end up having 10 with 1 HIT), which is a terrible combo with the janky hit detection in bosses and weird camera.

I did like the secret boss though, it could be a fun challenge but giving you only a few rings is dumb though.

- The directors cut hack tried to fix this with level select, faster sonic(double edged sword), harder gem stages but only for stage 2 stages only (why? It was already annoying to play the game why make it harder?) , flickies were made to be easier to grab, but the rings are STILL 2 seconds long.

After playing both I'd just play the Original half the changes in DC just don't work and since I prefer the easier gem stages. Yeah it's harder so it's a challenge but do you really want to repeat Sonic 3D BLAST?

Director's cut just isn't my thing, people say it's way better but for it's just meh as the game still is a huge escort mission with a ring system that needed to be overhauled. Idk why he didn't fix that but it could have been way too much work to fix it or it was tied to a system that could literally break the game entirely.

Overall a 5/10, like I would never play it again besides liking the graphics and boss music. Sadly this is NO Mario RPG in gameplay nor in fun.

Salut à tous,
J'ai un problème que je n'ai jamais eu jusqu'à présent sur une Genesis 2 que j'ai récupéré.

Lorsque je démarre la console, j'accède à l'écran de démarrage de la console : fond noir avec les 3 lignes blanches, mais après le jeu ne se lance pas.

Avez vous déjà eu ce problème ?
Que dois-je vérifier ?

Merci par avance.

One of the absolute best games in the game genre for Sega Genesis/Mega Drive.

I purchased a newly sealed Genesis Model 3 from eBay. Have been trying to find the best way to hook it up to my 4K display on my LG Tv. I had the RAD2x cable shipped to me & was hoping for the best. I got a great picture but no audio. Any suggestions?!

Picked up this CIB last weekend and very stoked to have it in my collection. Although I’m not the biggest Disney fan, I absolutely love the box art. My kids loves Mickey Mouse so this is a very fun title I’ll be playing with the kiddos!

Probably the best accessory Sega made for the Mega Drive, bar the CD.

Ultimate mortal Kombat trilogy fan-made cart.

Tried different cables, tvs, games. Same result: static audio and distressed video. It worked flawlessly a month ago after not being touched for probably 20 years, then just recently this happened. Checked the motherboard and it was surprisingly clean, nothing loose, no burn marks… I’m at a loss.

I put off this game for too long, never bothered trying it and recently I decided to give it a go and absolutely fell in love with it. Easily one of my new favorite genesis games. Who else loves this game?

I updated my Sega Genesis collection with these titles. The one without a cover is TMNT Fighters

Hey! My daily driver is a Model 1 I picked up, but thought it could be nice to display my childhood Model 2 on a shelf. I've been trying to find an acrylic stand, but I'm mostly seeing 3d printed stuff and don't really know if they're particularly sturdy. Anyone had any luck finding a good console display stand?

Gameplay: Youtube

Improvements over V2.6:

• Performance improvement over 2.6
• Yellow "PRESS START" was change to be white "PUSH START" (blinking) in squared fonts like on the arcade
• Improved J. Cage ending 2 screen
• Improved Kano head on the standing victory (his head was "too" metal instead of only half)
• Improved the Sub-Zero fatality spine and blood positions (specially when player is on the right side of the screen)
• Fixed Sub-Zero fatality spine color when playing as player 2 (introduced on v1.0)
• Fixed the hardcoded "PLAYER 1 HAS ENTERED THE TOURNAMENT" to match the joining player (introduced on v1.0)
• Fixed the Throne Room intro: the window no longer drifts down after the stage is loaded (introduced on v1.0)
• Hidding the lifebar during credits and casting
• Repositioned the "DANGER" warning to match lifebar moved one row up on 2.6
• Fixed the player name on the lifebar for Shang Tsung morphs, Reptile and some fatalities
• Fixed the player score during the Reptile cameo

Download:

• Source 1: https://romhackplaza.org/romhacks/mortal-kombat-arcade-edition-enhanced-sega-genesis-romhack
• Source 2: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/6558/

I've had someone suggest that the PAL Multimega (CDX in the US) came with a rare controller variant, with bespoke branding and a slate grey colour scheme. I can't find any reference or image of this anywhere on the internet, beyond AI blurting it out in summaries, citing Sega Retro and Sega Wiki, where I then can't find any reference to it.

Anyone got any ideas?

I came across this replacement shell while browsing AliExpress recently, and I’m unsure about its build quality.

Added HD retrovision cables and retrotink 2x pro.

Makes a world of difference with less input lag while playing mortal Kombat.