Gamegear Emulation GG


sareks

sareks

Casual gamer
Joined
Apr 4, 2012
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129
Hi, I wanted to share my experiences for Gamegear Emulation so far.


I have a Pandora 1GHz Edition. Feel free to respond, so we can help ppl that don't know much about it yet.


1) Mednafen GG - Best choice here, after some tweaking (thanks to Powergod) 800×480 resolution support, save / load states


http://boards.openpa...en/page__st__20


2) Dega - no 800×480 resolution support, save / load game doesn't work even though pressing the right buttons?


Hope this helps newbies (like me), would appreciate supporting comments. Thanks


PS: If there are more GG Emulators, please add them to this topic
 
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Wally said:
Whats the point of emulating gamegear as Master System has all the games?
Click to expand...

Plenty of games are on GG and not SMS. Despite having close to the same hardware they're really not the same game-wise. I don't know what things were like there but in the US almost no one owned an SMS and by the time Genesis was out Sega diverted most of their efforts to it. I remember when I bought a Genesis from a used game store in 1994 or so and had enough money left over to buy an SMS which was being sold for $15. The person who worked there actually had to talk me out of buying it. I was mostly just curious since while I knew Sega did stuff before Genesis (we'd kind of vaguely refer to it as "an original Sega") no one I knew had any idea what the games were actually like. I didn't see what the games were like until I got a computer and could play the first emulators.. fortunately SMS is a relatively easy system to emulate with low performance requirements so it was a popular target for emulation despite its obscurity.


GG on the other hand at least made a modest showing against Gameboy and had major games made for it clear into the mid-90s. None of us knew it had any connection to SMS hardware either.


That said, the distinction for emulation is pretty moot, since any GG emulator I've ever heard of is also an SMS emulator and vice-versa.
 
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There's no Defenders of Oasis and GG Shinobi on the SMS.


Both games relly worth playing.
 
Amongst other games, Wonder Boy III - Dragon's Trap is very different between the two systems. The GG has a higher colour palette for one thing, and a lot of ports were made re-scaled due to the screen size (Sonic 1 & 2 are notable examples, Sonic 2's first boss is a LOT harder on the GG!)


I owned both systems, loved them tremendously so always reach for a good SMS emulator. Is there a port of MEKA?
 
Wally said:
Whats the point of emulating gamegear as Master System has all the games?
Click to expand...

I was rushing in a killing frenzy in your direction... LOL

Exophase said:
GG on the other hand at least made a modest showing against Gameboy and had major games made for it clear into the mid-90s. None of us knew it had any connection to SMS hardware either.


That said, the distinction for emulation is pretty moot, since any GG emulator I've ever heard of is also an SMS emulator and vice-versa.
Click to expand...

I have a SMS to GG adaptor and I used it with a lot of games 20 years ago, It was very cool to been able to play even SMS titles on the go, and never found any problems !!


The GG was a very great device. I can't prove it, but I think it was more powerful than the SMS, I played the hell out of my GG... until it died...


Speaking about emulators I don't think that all GG emu are able to play SMS games, you just know it after loading a rom, if the colors are wrong then it's not a GG rom... But I have the feeling that some SMS games where "natively compatible" with GG, maybe them had different palettes ready to use, maybe to use the same data for GG and SMS cartridges... but again It's just an impression.


My "Mikey Mouse - Castle of illusion" cartridge for GG sometimes where starting with the wrong colors in the GG itself !! I had always to reset to have the right colors, and I have seen that the game is exactly like the SMS version.


GG was the greatest portable console, but was TOO MUCH powerful for the time !! It was backlighted, the resolution was high and with very clear colors, and had even a TV tuner that made it one of the smallest TV I ever seen !!


The drawback was the power consumption... it needed 6 (SIX !!!) AA batteries for 2 HOURS of play !!! WTF !! In a time where buying rechargeable batteries was no so cheap, and I did't have them...


One of the things that made me hate the GameBoy (in a "why GG does not have it ?!" way), was the fact that it "seemed" better for some tipe of games... for example the Pokemon series !!


Those games where LOOOONG to finish, with a great replayability, and you were even able to SAVE !!


I was asking myself why in the GG there wasn't a SAVE option, and why there wasn't RPG games !!


...now that I have access to all the list of games I know that those capabilities WHERE THERE TOO !!! But those games where not distributed so much...


I didn't know them at the time, even if I were always in the lookout for such argument !!
 
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So, for SMS I would use Picodrive,


for GG best choice is probably Mednafen
 
PowerGod said:
I have a SMS to GG adaptor and I used it with a lot of games 20 years ago, It was very cool to been able to play even SMS titles on the go, and never found any problems !!


The GG was a very great device. I can't prove it, but I think it was more powerful than the SMS, I played the hell out of my GG... until it died...


Speaking about emulators I don't think that all GG emu are able to play SMS games, you just know it after loading a rom, if the colors are wrong then it's not a GG rom... But I have the feeling that some SMS games where "natively compatible" with GG, maybe them had different palettes ready to use, maybe to use the same data for GG and SMS cartridges... but again It's just an impression.


My "Mikey Mouse - Castle of illusion" cartridge for GG sometimes where starting with the wrong colors in the GG itself !! I had always to reset to have the right colors, and I have seen that the game is exactly like the SMS version.
Click to expand...

Another interesting fact. A few GG games run actually SMS code in GG cartridge (they set the GG into SMS emulation mode).


I was always wondering why my GG favorite

https://www.youtube.com/embed/BE-rFtBnvjY?feature=oembed does not run on handheld emulators (at least I haven't found one so far). Since it's not a "native" GG ROM, the emulators are not able to run them correctly (or do not recognize them correctly).

Some emulators on the PC (eg. Kega Fusion, MEKA) recognize those cartridges and start their SMS emulation code instead.


castleofillusionsggmeka.jpg



GG ROM (left), SMS ROM (right)...


castleofillusionsgg.jpg
castleofillusionsms.jpg



There are some minor differences between the GG and SMS version. The graphics are a bit different (GG 160x144, SMS 256x192/224) and the button mapping is not the same (butt stomp attack).


Regular GG cartridges are emulated with the GG code (see window title)...


crystalwarriorssgg.jpg



According to this thread, there are 15 of those GG-SMS cartridges...


http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?comments_parentId=6767&topics_offset=924&topics_sort_mode=userName_asc&forumId=10&display=print
 
PowerGod said:
I can't prove it, but I think it was more powerful than the SMS
Click to expand...

It had a much broader color palette (12-bit vs 6-bit, but couldn't display any more on the screen at once) and a much lower resolution. Those are the only differences. GG had a mode that let it display higher resolution using sub-pixel sampling and throwing out some scanlines and a bit of the edges of the display, in order to facilitate SMS emulation.
 
mmm... seems like I was a little blinded by the Fanboy in me :p

Yoshi said:
I was always wondering why my GG favorite

https://www.youtube.com/embed/BE-rFtBnvjY?feature=oembed
Click to expand...

ehm... mine works ;) (at least in Mednafen-gg) It was like finding a needle in a haystack... but I was successfull :D


mmm found the arcane... if it's named .sms, mednafen plays it right, if it's named .gg the colors are wrong... anyway It's the GG version (like the left image you posted), so It's playable with Mednafen using the .sms extension ^_^


EDIT: on DEGA the colors of this rom are ALWAYS wrong, with any extension


@sareks: maybe add this trick with Mednafen in the first post, these hybrid GG roms can be played right by adding the ".sms" extension.
 
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PowerGod said:
mmm found the arcane... if it's named .sms, mednafen plays it right, if it's named .gg the colors are wrong... anyway It's the GG version (like the left image you posted), so It's playable with Mednafen using the .sms extension ^_^
Click to expand...

Super cool, thanks. B) Eventually we have found the handheld which is able to play the real GG version of Castle of Illusion.
 
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For the Mickey Mouse fanboys here. B)


There are some more differences between the GG (left) and SMS version (right).


In level 1, the path is a bit different here...


coigg0.jpg
coisms0.jpg



In level 2, the treasure room is hidden behind a wall on the GG...


coigg1.jpg
coisms1.jpg



PS: The Pandora has now one more USP, it runs the real GG version of Castle of Illusion.


PS2: I'm still used to the SMS button config. @#%&
 
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