Streets of Rage 2 - Go Straight Beatmix (TurboGrafx-16/PC-Engine Cover)

[FraGMarE]

So this happened. 

Streets of Rage 2 - Go Straight Beatmix (TG-16 Cover) on SoundCloud

Streets of Rage 2 - Go Straight Beatmix (TurboGrafx-16 Cover) ROM File Download

[touko]

Excellent version, i like it 

[FraGMarE]

Thanks.  I was originally going to use Speedy's Go Straight cover as a base to work from, but the beatmix version was just too different and i needed to change too much stuff, so I redid it from scratch.  I think this will probably be my last chiptune I do for a while.

[roflmao]

Awesome!

[Michirin9801]

I gave it a like on YouTube, pretty good!

[elmer]

Thanks.  I was originally going to use Speedy's original Go Straight cover as a base to work from, but the beatmix version was just too different and i needed to change too much stuff, so I redid it from scratch.

Good stuff! This sounds great. 

I think this will probably be my last chiptune I do for a while.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! 

[EvilEvoIX]

VERY impressive!!!  Would it work on real hardware with all the sound effects as well?  If so I am floored (Minus the missing Bass)

[FraGMarE]

Thanks!  I'm glad you all seem to like it. 

I think this will probably be my last chiptune I do for a while.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! 

Lol, it'll be okay...  I want to do some pixel art! 

I'm definitely doing more chiptunes, I'm just taking a little break.  Besides, I have to do at least one more Raiden II cover by April anyway (25th Anniversary Project, etc).

VERY impressive!!!  Would it work on real hardware with all the sound effects as well?  If so I am floored (Minus the missing Bass)

Yea, it sounds great running on real hardware with a Turbo EverDrive.    I'm not even going to bother with a 5 channel "game-friendly" version on this, since there are VASTS tracts of channels just sitting idle, doing nothing... it's already more or less "game-friendly".

So, to answer your question, yes, it runs on the real hardware and would sound just fine in-game.  Though, for a game, I would swap channels 3 and 5, and then cut out channel5 whenever you need to play sound effects, since all the "least important" stuff currently resides on channel 3... but that's no big deal.

And the bass is missing??  :O

[EvilEvoIX]

And the bass is missing??  :O

I mean in comparison to a Model 1 Mega Drive. ;)

[FraGMarE]

And the bass is missing??  :O

I mean in comparison to a Model 1 Mega Drive. ;)

I think I'm discovering that the PCE's bass holds up against the MegaDrive a lot better than people think it does.  It can sound bassier than most SNES games I've heard, for sure.  I could just mix everything else down a notch or two in relation to the bassline/percussion and it would probably sound just as bassy as the MegaDrive.  It'd probably also sound too loud and maybe a bit dirty.  MegaDrive waveforms tend to be smooth when looked at under a microscope... PCE waveforms look like the read-out on the stairmaster machine at your local gym.  So the fact it sounds anything like the Genesis version at all, is no small feat for a 1987 machine... The little engine that could!!!  ;)

[EvilEvoIX]

Like I said I am extremely impressed!!!  I'd love to see a port over in some way.  Talk to the folks who did Beats of Rage maybe they could help?

[FraGMarE]

Like I said I am extremely impressed!!!  I'd love to see a port over in some way.  Talk to the folks who did Beats of Rage maybe they could help?

I think the only people you're going to find with the knowledge and skill to do it on the PC-Engine are right here on this forum, and sadly, I think the support for an SoR port here is nearly nil.  :/

The PC-Engine *does* require a good beat-em-up, at some point, though... and a hucard/rom would probably be the best way to go with it too.

[Michirin9801]

The PC-Engine *does* require a good beat-em-up, at some point, though... and a hucard/rom would probably be the best way to go with it too.

It really does, but you know what? If it depends on me it will have one!
... Eventually...

[EvilEvoIX]

The PC-Engine *does* require a good beat-em-up, at some point, though... and a hucard/rom would probably be the best way to go with it too.

It really does, but you know what? If it depends on me it will have one!
... Eventually...

Lets do it just port over a version of SOR for the music alone!

[NecroPhile]

I'd rather see something all new or at least a port of a less well known arcade game.  Either way it'd be a ton of work, and it seems a shame to exert such effort just to end up with a slightly different game than what most everyone's played repeatedly.

[Michirin9801]

The PC-Engine *does* require a good beat-em-up, at some point, though... and a hucard/rom would probably be the best way to go with it too.

It really does, but you know what? If it depends on me it will have one!
... Eventually...

Lets do it just port over a version of SOR for the music alone!

I'd rather see something all new or at least a port of a less well known arcade game.  Either way it'd be a ton of work, and it seems a shame to exert such effort just to end up with a slightly different game than what most everyone's played repeatedly.

I agree with NecroPhile, you see, I don't want to announce anything right now, but I do want to make my own original beat 'em up someday... It will probably take a really long time considering I have another project that's currently in development hell, and after I finish said project I want to make a horizontal scrolling shmup, but after said shmup is completed is when I'll start working on a beat'em up...
It will be primarily a PC game, but if someone is willing to help me port it over to the PC engine I'll gladly make new assets and music for said version! But that's as much as I'm gonna say right now... Heck, I don't doubt someone else could actually port SoR over to the PCE before I could even finish my current project, I mean seriously, it's gonna take a while...

[Gredler]

Sounded fan-fricken-tastic!

Like others had said, your skills have proven to be epic but I would love to hear some original work!

What are your goals for your pixel art? Do you have a project going, jumping on one, or just doing some stuff for the funsies of it? I would love to see what you're working on, and hear what theme and use the pixel work is intended to be!

Glad to see such a talented and productive contribution, thanks!

[FraGMarE]

The PC-Engine *does* require a good beat-em-up, at some point, though... and a hucard/rom would probably be the best way to go with it too.

It really does, but you know what? If it depends on me it will have one!
... Eventually...

I'd rather see something all new or at least a port of a less well known arcade game.  Either way it'd be a ton of work, and it seems a shame to exert such effort just to end up with a slightly different game than what most everyone's played repeatedly.

I'd rather see something new too.  I don't think people are REALLY going to be happy, though, unless it's a traditional "small group of vigilantes vs. city wide crime syndicate" type of beat-em-up.  That being said, there a number of arcade beat-em-ups that would have been PERFECT on the PC-Engine, that the SNES and Genesis never got.  TMNT1 (could probably be nearly 1:1), Battletoads Arcade (uses 512x224 mode, PCE has 512x224 mode, umm?), The Simpsons Arcade (idgaf what anybody says, this game was awesome), plus so many more.  We got... Riot Zone.  Woo!

I'm not necessarily against a port of some great already-existing beat-em-up to the PC-Engine.  In fact, I'd say given the current great beat-em-up count on the PC-Engine (which is exactly 0), a port would be welcomed by anyone. 

Really, I think the best way for something like porting a game to the PC-Engine, though, would be some kind of open, COMMUNITY source project that people could contribute to, piecemeal, over the course of months or even years.  Kind of like Github, except for a PCE project.  I think that's really the ONLY way something like that would (and should) get done... The IP doesn't belong to anyone in the community anyway, and it's not for profit, so why not open source it?

Sounded fan-fricken-tastic!

Like others had said, your skills have proven to be epic but I would love to hear some original work!

What are your goals for your pixel art? Do you have a project going, jumping on one, or just doing some stuff for the funsies of it? I would love to see what you're working on, and hear what theme and use the pixel work is intended to be!

Glad to see such a talented and productive contribution, thanks!

Thanks!  Uhh, original work is going to be a problem lol... I'm not any kind of actual musician.  I can just give you a mean PCE cover of something someone else has already composed.  ;)

For the pixel art, I'm probably honestly going to screw around with Xymati and/or PC-Gunjin a little more, and see what the Desire guys need for the upcoming demo too.   Like I said, I'm still going to be chiptuning, I'm just taking a break for a couple weeks instead of just starting one song up as soon as i finish another.

[Gredler]

...and it's not-for-profit, so why not open source it?

I'd work on something like that a lot if it had a programmer

[elmer]

Really, I think the best way for something like porting a game to the PC-Engine, though, would be some kind of open, COMMUNITY source project that people could contribute to, piecemeal, over the course of months or even years.  Kind of like Github, except for a PCE project.  I think that's really the ONLY way something like that would (and should) get done... The IP doesn't belong to anyone in the community anyway, and it's not for profit, so why not open source it?

Ahhhh ... but when it comes to a Port, the IP, and graphics and game-design do actually belong to someone, so you'd immediately risk running foul of them.

I can forsee problems there, even if you chose to copy a game from a small-and-mostly-extinct company like my dream-project-that-doesn't-make-sense ...

[Psycho Punch]

Ｙｏｕ　ｃａｎｎｏｔ　ｄｅｓｔｒｏｙ　
ｔｈｅ　ｌｏｓｓ　ｏｆ　ｉｎｔｅｒｅｓｔ　ｔｒｕｃｋ．

So many projects fail because people were not passionate enough to make a project happen. This easily claims 99% of indie projects on the internet, a team assembled from people working for free in their spare time almost always disbands in open source projects. We don't have nearly enough PCE devs to make this work, I mean, it has to be a project that every single one wants to do BADLY else it has no chance of happening. Everyone has to be seriously invested in it...

I think that an interesting project to tackle with that mindset is the Golden Axe Arcade Card port. Who doesn't love what was already achieved with it? It doesn't feel like it's going anywhere right now, and if the author(s) feel like it's worth a shot we could have an outstanding piece to experiment with a decentralized OSS project.

tangent: I wanted to do OSMAN for a long, long time now but there are two major problems with tackling that game: I don't feel like I have sufficient experience to do a solid conversion, and I also think that there's no way parallax can be implemented without butchering the bg layer or making it static, and that's one of the big draws of this game, the gorgeous pixel art. I think some of the big bosses of the PCE scene could do magic with it but it would still lose some of the flavor that the original version has.

[FraGMarE]

Really, I think the best way for something like porting a game to the PC-Engine, though, would be some kind of open, COMMUNITY source project that people could contribute to, piecemeal, over the course of months or even years.  Kind of like Github, except for a PCE project.  I think that's really the ONLY way something like that would (and should) get done... The IP doesn't belong to anyone in the community anyway, and it's not for profit, so why not open source it?

Ahhhh ... but when it comes to a Port, the IP, and graphics and game-design do actually belong to someone, so you'd immediately risk running foul of them.

I can forsee problems there, even if you chose to copy a game from a small-and-mostly-extinct company like my dream-project-that-doesn't-make-sense ...

I didn't say the IP didn't belong to anyone.  I just said it didn't belong to anyone in the community... i.e., anyone working on said port project.  and since the IP doesn't belong to anyone working on said project, there should be no problems freely and openly sharing code/assets with other people in the community also working on said project.  It's really the best way...

I don't think anybody in the PC-Engine community is going to receive any cease and desist letters because they all decided to team up and port a game to their system.  Osman or not.  You might foresee problems there, but I decidedly do not.  That might just be programmer paranoia.  ;)

I think the main problem with the PC-Engine community is there is little to no cohesion or teamwork, for the most part.  Everybody has their own little projects going on, and rather than come together and work on something epic that would put the PC-Engine community on the map, everybody wants to continue making Princess PeePee's Magical Adventure Story or whatever...

[elmer]

I don't think anybody in the PC-Engine community is going to receive any cease and desist letters because they all decided to team up and port a game to their system.  Osman or not.  You might foresee problems there, but I decidedly do not.  That might just be programmer paranoia.  ;)

Sure, I know that you didn't say that. 

I could easily just be being totally paranoid ... but in a world where Nintendo takes down people's YouTube channels for posting the "wrong" video of their copyrighted materials, then you never know.

OTOH, there's the argument that if nobody has stopped Tobias and PCEWorks, then anything-goes.

The truth is probably somewhere in between, where it would depend upon which arcade game you chose to port, and how much attention you drew to it (more attention -> more chance for trouble).

I think the main problem with the PC-Engine community is there is little to no cohesion or teamwork, for the most part.

Yep, it's been a little surprising to me just how little there is in the way of "community" resources, but when it comes to folks actually collaborating on a single project, then I'm a lot less surprised.

Most 4th-gen games that I know of BITD were mostly one programmer, and one artist, for 80% of the work, with maybe another artist if you had enough work to split backgrounds and sprites between 2 different people.

You might have had another pair added part-way-through, to do things like the menus, cinematics, or stuff like that.

Smaller teams just worked better than throwing lots of semi-interested folks at the same project together and then trying to figure out who-does-what-sprite-but-let's-make-them-all-look-consistent.

Collaborative code-development is difficult-enough in the professional world ... I can only see it being an absolute nightmare in a part-time hobby project.


From my POV, the problem isn't one of getting a lot of people to collaborate together on one project, it's more one of needing to have more people doing more projects.

Peer-pressure has always been a wonderful motivator for developers.

Even if folks aren't on the same project ... just having the "community" vibe being that stuff-is-getting-done, and constantly posting updates, helps give everyone else the motivation to not appear to fall behind and just spend the evening on the couch instead.

I've tried to make Uli's HuC easily accessible for folks ... and have received mostly apathy except for DK & Gredler, and even they probably wouldn't have used it if the old HuC hadn't broken on them.

It's only because of their willingness to actually use it that bugs have been found and fixed.

It's the same with Huzak.

If it wasn't for Michirin9801's large portfolio of tracks to test it with, and her willingness to be a part of the process and to listen to the results and point out problems, then it wouldn't be anywhere near as far-along as it is.

But, the reality here in the PCE community is that there just aren't a lot of active developers/teams, and I don't really have any clue of how or even if, that's going to change.

Although, I do have to say that the work that Sarumaru and the Henshin Engine team are putting into their project is really inspiring; and their ability to actually get a spotlight on it, and get some public buzz, has probably done more to raise the PCE's development profile than anything else that I've seen in the last xxx years.

[CrackTiger]

Ｙｏｕ　ｃａｎｎｏｔ　ｄｅｓｔｒｏｙ　
ｔｈｅ　ｌｏｓｓ　ｏｆ　ｉｎｔｅｒｅｓｔ　ｔｒｕｃｋ．

So many projects fail because people were not passionate enough to make a project happen. This easily claims 99% of indie projects on the internet, a team assembled from people working for free in their spare time almost always disbands in open source projects. We don't have nearly enough PCE devs to make this work, I mean, it has to be a project that every single one wants to do BADLY else it has no chance of happening. Everyone has to be seriously invested in it...

I think that an interesting project to tackle with that mindset is the Golden Axe Arcade Card port. Who doesn't love what was already achieved with it? It doesn't feel like it's going anywhere right now, and if the author(s) feel like it's worth a shot we could have an outstanding piece to experiment with a decentralized OSS project.

tangent: I wanted to do OSMAN for a long, long time now but there are two major problems with tackling that game: I don't feel like I have sufficient experience to do a solid conversion, and I also think that there's no way parallax can be implemented without butchering the bg layer or making it static, and that's one of the big draws of this game, the gorgeous pixel art. I think some of the big bosses of the PCE scene could do magic with it but it would still lose some of the flavor that the original version has.

Osman is perfect for parallax using spaced out sprites against a solid color, as they scroll behind the main layer, peeking through color 0 (or whatever). You could also add more horizontal and vertical scrolling to the background layer. Since nobody complains about Genesis games like Daimakairmura and Forgotten Worlds losing 90% of the parallax artwork and detail from the arcade versions, a PCE port of Osman with what looks like full detail on the main layer and simplified artwork in the background layer would only seem more impressive.

[elmer]

tangent: I wanted to do OSMAN for a long, long time now but there are two major problems with tackling that game: I don't feel like I have sufficient experience to do a solid conversion, and I also think that there's no way parallax can be implemented without butchering the bg layer or making it static, and that's one of the big draws of this game, the gorgeous pixel art. I think some of the big bosses of the PCE scene could do magic with it but it would still lose some of the flavor that the original version has.

Simple solution ... SuperGrafx. Create the true sequel to the promised-but-cancelled SuperGrafx Strider.

Even though it came out in 1996, the Data East DECO 156 board that it's using is 320x240 resolution, with two layers of 16-colors-per-tile backgrounds and sprites, i.e. perfect for the SuperGrafx.

The graphics could be dumped using MAME.

The main thing would be re-mapping the palettes to PCE colors, and then doing a fixup pass on the results.

[Dicer]

I've watched a playthrough of OSMAN, most of that scrolling seems to be one layer...I don't see anything outside of some sprite fuckery that the stock PCE couldn't do on a SuperCD

As much as it would be cool to see more SGX stuff it really limits the amount of people that will be able to properly play it.

Strider SGX did exist at least in proto form once upon a time, maybe some magical day it'll come to the surface.

[FraGMarE]

I've watched a playthrough of OSMAN, most of that scrolling seems to be one layer...I don't see anything outside of some sprite fuckery that the stock PCE couldn't do on a SuperCD

As much as it would be cool to see more SGX stuff it really limits the amount of people that will be able to properly play it.

Strider SGX did exist at least in proto form once upon a time, maybe some magical day it'll come to the surface.

There are too many sprite animations to really fit into 2Mbit of SuperCD RAM, I think.  Same went for Strider.  That's why they stuck it on Arcade Card.  I can only imagine Osman is even worse on the frame abuse.  Your best bet is gonna be Arcade Card or a big ass 16Mbit+ HuCard ROM image with those sweet sweet HuC6280a PSG sounds...  ;)

Maybe i'll cover a Strider tune one day, so we can all finally hear what SuperGrafx Strider might have sounded like...

[Michirin9801]

I just watched some gameplay, and wow, for an arcade game, Osman sure does flicker quite a bit >w>
A pretty arcade-close port could totally be done on the SuperGrafx, but then again that does limit who can really play it, but on the PCE the backgrounds would have to pick between having detail but no parallax, or parallax but no detail... Personally I'd pick the latter, but I have a bit of a hard time imagining what the new BG made of sprites would look like... Maybe just have a couple of building and cloud sprites here and there behind the BG in tandem with some line-interruption to do an Amiga-style gradient, but I don't know, there are a lot of ways it could be done, all of which would require some artist interpretation...

[elmer]

I just watched some gameplay, and wow, for an arcade game, Osman sure does flicker quite a bit >w>

You probably ended up at the same crappy YouTube longplay video that I did.

Try this one instead ...

No noticeable flicker.

Or just fire it up in Mame! 

[EvilEvoIX]

Why not port over TMNT from the NES?  Upgrade the colors?

[FraGMarE]

Why not port over TMNT from the NES?  Upgrade the colors?

Screw that.  Why port a port.  Just rip the sprites/tiles straight from MAME and port the original arcade game...  something like this >>

[Michirin9801]

I just watched some gameplay, and wow, for an arcade game, Osman sure does flicker quite a bit >w>

You probably ended up at the same crappy YouTube longplay video that I did.

Try this one instead ...

No noticeable flicker.

Or just fire it up in Mame! 

Yep that looks quite a bit better!

[CrackTiger]

I just watched some gameplay, and wow, for an arcade game, Osman sure does flicker quite a bit >w>
A pretty arcade-close port could totally be done on the SuperGrafx, but then again that does limit who can really play it, but on the PCE the backgrounds would have to pick between having detail but no parallax, or parallax but no detail... Personally I'd pick the latter, but I have a bit of a hard time imagining what the new BG made of sprites would look like... Maybe just have a couple of building and cloud sprites here and there behind the BG in tandem with some line-interruption to do an Amiga-style gradient, but I don't know, there are a lot of ways it could be done, all of which would require some artist interpretation...

That's what I had in mind for lower sections of vertically scrolling stages. I could put together mockups showing how nice I believe it could look, but there doesn't seem to be much on the way of sprite or background rips out there and I don't have the time to spend on that part.

If you keep in mind the standards of 16-bit console games instead of using arcade perfection as the goal, the PCE could do something that would have been declared "arcade perfect" bitd.

[Gredler]

Toejam and earl knockoff game for pce. Let's make it happen.

[FraGMarE]

Toejam and earl knockoff game for pce. Let's make it happen.

I dunno, man... I'm not so sure the PCE could pull off those funky Genesis tunes...


Just kidding, the PCE could do all that shit, no problem  bahahahahaha!

P.S., how did we get from Streets of Rage to Toejam & Earl?

[spenoza]

Streets of Earl! Toejam Rage! These are great games in my head.

[Joe Redifer]

Just checked out this thread. Great approximation of the Genesis sound hardware! Where's the Turbo Everdrive-friendly file I can play on my own system? My Turbo is fantastic because it adds a layer of 60Hz buzzzz to the mix. Who doesn't love that? Not sure why it's not perfectly grounded or where the error could lie.

[FraGMarE]

Just checked out this thread. Great approximation of the Genesis sound hardware! Where's the Turbo Everdrive-friendly file I can play on my own system? My Turbo is fantastic because it adds a layer of 60Hz buzzzz to the mix. Who doesn't love that? Not sure why it's not perfectly grounded or where the error could lie.

Right here. 

Streets of Rage 2 - Go Straight Beatmix (TurboGrafx-16 Cover) ROM File download

I never know who's interested in having the actual ROM files and who's not, so I just upload them over on the Deflemask forums, unless somebody mentions them here.  So if anybody wants any of the ROM files for any of my chiptunes, speak up.  I'll upload it somewhere.

Sorry to hear about your constant buzz.  Maybe it's time to break out the old soldering iron?

[CrackTiger]

Turbo Everdrives can add a lot of buzzing when playing sound roms.

[Dicer]

Turbo Everdrives can add a lot of buzzing when playing sound roms.

Never on mine (v1)

[ParanoiaDragon]

Why not port over TMNT from the NES?  Upgrade the colors?

Screw that.  Why port a port.  Just rip the sprites/tiles straight from MAME and port the original arcade game...  something like this >>

If we ever did that, I'd require the snow level from the NES game, I love that level.  Could maybe turn it on & off like with Striders extra level, which I also enjoy.  Only bummer would be any extra work for unique tiles/sprites that were in the snow level.

[Joe Redifer]

Downloaded. My Turbo's not hooked up at the moment, but can the Turbo Everdrive play .HES files? Or is this one of those things I need to relable to .PCE?

[FraGMarE]

Downloaded. My Turbo's not hooked up at the moment, but can the Turbo Everdrive play .HES files? Or is this one of those things I need to relable to .PCE?

Nah, you don't need to do anything special for it to work.  It should load up and run just fine on the Everdrive.  An HES file is just a PCE ROM file with a built-in PSG music player.  Mednafen even has a cool little visualizer scope when it plays the HES ROM files... pretty sure real hardware just has a blank screen with the music playing, though.  Still though... PCE tunes! 

[Dicer]

Downloaded. My Turbo's not hooked up at the moment, but can the Turbo Everdrive play .HES files? Or is this one of those things I need to relable to .PCE?

Not hooked up, what kind of blasphemy is this?!?!!?

[CrackTiger]

Turbo Everdrives are hit and miss when it comes to playing .hes files. They often distort sounds, miss entire channels, change the speed, etc and many don't work at all. Different revisions have different results for the same files and there is no consistency for newer or older models being better or worse. Sometimes an old TED will play a particular soundtrack better but it will play another soubdtrack worse.

Also, some soundtracks will only work on a particular TED if you rename them to .pce

[FraGMarE]

Turbo Everdrives are hit and miss when it comes to playing .hes files. They often distort sounds, miss entire channels, change the speed, etc and many don't work at all. Different revisions have different results for the same files and there is no consistency for newer or older models being better or worse. Sometimes an old TED will play a particular soundtrack better but it will play another soubdtrack worse.

Also, some soundtracks will only work on a particular TED if you rename them to .pce

That sounds more like somebody screwed something up making the song, tested it on a shitty emulator that didn't pick up the error, thought everything was ok and released the track.  An HES file is a PCE file and a PCE file is an HES file, that is to say they are both simple ROM image files.  The only difference is an HES file has a built in PSG music player.  As to the quality of that PSG player, that probably depends on who/what is building the HES file.  It's well known the Deflemask ROM builder makes an HES file that is highly un-optimized for any kind of game usage, but it should sound fine on real hardware.

[CrackTiger]

We're talking about a flashcart that doesn't consistently run game roms on real hardware.

The sound roms and hes files I've had mixed results with are the same ones ripped from published games and have been online for years and work in emulation, winamp, etc.

The 2 meg minimum size seems to affect both sound roms and .hes files.

I also forgot to say that you'll also get random results from various TED and hardware combinations.

If you can get the .hes file for Legend of Xanadu II to work on any TED and hardware combo, I'd appreciate it if you can let us know, because I'll gladly track down those specific models just to finally be able to record the soundtrack.

[FraGMarE]

We're talking about a flashcart that doesn't consistently run game roms on real hardware.

The sound roms and hes files I've had mixed results with are the same ones ripped from published games and have been online for years and work in emulation, winamp, etc.

The 2 meg minimum size seems to affect both sound roms and .hes files.

I also forgot to say that you'll also get random results from various TED and hardware combinations.

If you can get the .hes file for Legend of Xanadu II to work on any TED and hardware combo, I'd appreciate it if you can let us know, because I'll gladly track down those specific models just to finally be able to record the soundtrack.

Ew.  I was thinking of getting an SGX+Everdrive, but now I'm not so sure.  What the hell is the TED doing to the ROM data before it hands it to the hardware?

[elmer]

Ew.  I was thinking of getting an SGX+Everdrive, but now I'm not so sure.  What the hell is the TED doing to the ROM data before it hands it to the hardware?

Given the shortage and cost of decent 5-volt memory, the TED v2 is using modern 3.3V memory and components, and then using a 3.3V-5V buffered level-shifter to talk to the HuCard slot.

There's nothing wrong in-principle with that, but it has proved to be much more sensitive to the actual voltage on the HuCard slot than older designs.

Basically ... the v2.4-and-higher Everdrives seem to be pretty solid, but none of them play well with crappy Multi-Region mods that degrade the standard voltages or slow down the bus signals too much.

I've not had any problems with the TED v2.3 on my unmodified SuperGrafx.

The TED v2 specifically states on the site that it's not guaranteed to work with consoles that have 3rd-party region mods.

Basically, neither the TED, nor a region-mod are original spec equipment.

For now, it seems like you have to pick one or the other. Trying both sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't.

[FraGMarE]

Ew.  I was thinking of getting an SGX+Everdrive, but now I'm not so sure.  What the hell is the TED doing to the ROM data before it hands it to the hardware?

Given the shortage and cost of decent 5-volt memory, the TED v2 is using modern 3.3V memory and components, and then using a 3.3V-5V buffered level-shifter to talk to the HuCard slot.

There's nothing wrong in-principle with that, but it has proved to be much more sensitive to the actual voltage on the HuCard slot than older designs.

Basically ... the v2.4-and-higher Everdrives seem to be pretty solid, but none of them play well with crappy Multi-Region mods that degrade the standard voltages or slow down the bus signals too much.

I've not had any problems with the TED v2.3 on my unmodified SuperGrafx.

The TED v2 specifically states on the site that it's not guaranteed to work with consoles that have 3rd-party region mods.

Basically, neither the TED, nor a region-mod are original spec equipment.

For now, it seems like you have to pick one or the other. Trying both sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't.

Lol, by "region mod" are you talking about where somebody takes a small sharp instrument and pries up on Pin #29 (iirc?) of the HuC6280 chip?  If so, yea, I can see that screwing with a TED.  Isn't there a switcheroo or something on some of these flash carts, maybe some TEDs, that allows it to play on either NA or Jp region natively?