Picodrive - Mega Cd Compatibility List

[Duddyroar]

While I'm pleased as punch with the ability to play Mega CD games on my GP2X F200 via the excellent PicoDrive, I've noticed an awful lot of Mega CD games refuse to load on the emulator.

I was wondering if we could put together a list of games that function, and (if needed) the settings used to get them funcitioning. For example, Silpheed will only run if you set the read ahead buffer to 'off' (and even then I've found the music drops out at the end of level one).

Other titles I've discovered that don't work are F1 World Championship To the Limit, Popful Mail, Road Avenger and Sol Feace.

Sonic CD - WORKS
Silpheed - WORKS (with read ahead buffer set to OFF)
Vay - WORKS
Final Fight CD - WORKS (sound isn't perfect)
Keio Flying Squadron - WORKS
Robo Aleste - WORKS
Snatcher - WORKS

Popful Mail - WON'T LOAD
Road Avenger - WON'T LOAD
Sol-Feace - WON'T LOAD
F1 World Championship To the Limit - WON'T LOAD

 

[foleyjo]

Road Avenger should work fine as Ive played it on the GP2X.
Try messing with the different emulator settings

 

[Duddyroar]

Road Avenger should work fine as Ive played it on the GP2X.
Try messing with the different emulator settings

I don't suppose you know what settings you were using do you?

 

[mrsnature]

warmfluffyuk has been running a site for a while now... i think its this one:

http://checklist.berzerk.co.uk/Welcome.php

I always thought it was a good idea, however, i don't think many people add to it unfortunately, and with all the new releases of emulators its hard to keep on track.

 

[foleyjo]

Sorry cant remember what it is that I changed but I know its the thing that you should always try to change if a game locks up at the sega screen

 

[Duddyroar]

Read Ahead buffer?

 

[fishybawb]

Try enabling "Better Sync" and then reset the game. That fixes quite a few titles for me

 

[Duddyroar]

Thanks for the hint, will try this later on

 

[hsinn3r]

try messing with the settings some more, popful mail does work
i've been playing

lunar 2
sensible soccer (respect)
snatcher
sonic cd
popful mail
aaaaaaand... can't remember any more.. i think that the current version plays pretty much everything, i don't think i've come across an iso that didn't work

 

[Duddyroar]

I must have something wrong in my settings then?

 

[sukhi-2006]

To play road avenger on mega cd here are the settings

set the cpu: 200mhz
then go into sega/mega cd options and do these settings
readahead buffer 2048k
scale/rot. fx (slow) on
better sync (slow) on

If the game runs slow with these settings increase cpu speed it will make the game run faster.

 

[Duddyroar]

Fantastic, thanks for this! I run my GP2X off the mains most of the time so I'll be able to overclock and hopefully improve performance.

 

[notaz]

In most cases it's "better sync", if you cared to read the readme you would know that.

"read ahead buffer" can't have any effect on compatibility (unless there is a bug, but I doubt that).

I run my GP2X off the mains most of the time so I'll be able to overclock and hopefully improve performance.

Don't overclock too much, ARM940 will start misbehaving and you will have various kind of problems.

 

[Duddyroar]

QUOTE
In most cases it's "better sync", if you cared to read the readme you would know that.


I read the Readme when I first download PicoDrive (weeks ago) and only recently started using the emu for MCD games. But yeah, I probably should have consulted it before asking, but no harm done, eh?

QUOTE
Don't overclock too much, ARM940 will start misbehaving and you will have various kind of problems.


Really? I've asked this question before and was told that overclocking doesn't have any long-term effect on the CPU?

I'm only overclocking to 270 on PicoDrive.

 

[notaz]

Really? I've asked this question before and was told that overclocking doesn't have any long-term effect on the CPU?

Not long-term or hardware related, it will only make PD choppy or unstable when it's running in dual-core mode and is near the overclocking limit.

 

[Duddyroar]

Ah, I see. What is the 'ideal' clock speed?

 

[Rivroner]

With dual core emualtors i do this: Stable speed - 25 mhz.

So if your maximun stable OC speed is 270 it is better not to OC more than 245 or so.With a 250 OC you may have random problems.

In GnGeo beta 14 you must do the same.

 

[sukhi-2006]

The best clock speed to run mega cd as normal will be 200mhz which already setted to default settings and if you looking to run mega cd games at it's best i would recommened 250mhz don't run any game more than this clock speed it will say crash 940 which isn't a good sign the sound will mess up and eventually the emulator will freeze.

 

[Duddyroar]

Tried the suggested settings last night and all the games I mentioned before now work fine, APART from F1 World Championship. Has anyone managed to get this working?

 

[namco]

To continue the original post:

Flashback - WORKS
The Terminator - WORKS
Night Trap - WORKS
Heart of the Alien - WORKS
Batman Returns - Works with "Better Sync" enabled but is very slow
AD&D Eye of the Beholder - WORKS
Afterburner III - WORKS
Dungeon Explorer - WORKS
Dungeon Master 2 - WORKS