The Sega Master System thread

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Jedi QuestMaster
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by Jedi QuestMaster »

tokumaru wrote: Sat Feb 04, 2023 9:15 amThe SMS port of Ghouls 'N Ghosts wasn't very good... I wish they did a better job with that.
...says you! I loved this. :mrgreen: I particularly enjoyed the upgrade system. The reason I played the SMS version was because I had only ever played the NES Ghosts 'n Goblins and felt an 8-bit home version would be a good next step. What didn't you like about this port?
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tokumaru
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by tokumaru »

Jedi QuestMaster wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 1:03 pmWhat didn't you like about this port?
I think the movement feels a little slow and janky compared to other GnG versions I played (I borrowed the Genesis version as a kid a few times and loved it - the SMS one I discovered years later via emulation). The graphics look a little too plain and repetitive. Also, not being a big fan of RPGs, the upgrade system confused me a bit, but I guess that one's on me. It still seems a bit out of place, though. I don't think it's a terrible game though, it's still very playable... I just wish it was a little better. I've certainly seen worse versions, such as the ones for the C64, ZX Spectrum and CPC.
SNESPlayer
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by SNESPlayer »

For Sega Game Gear and the MS differences in games released? Well there's quite a few here and there. The games on GameGear tended to behave quite differently in terms of screen-size against the Master System quite obviously, this did caused things to go a bit haywire with the GameGear however. As an example, the Sonic games on GameGear tended to be much more difficult on that than on the MS simply because of how much the screen allowed you to see further. Certain bosses in the GG versions were quite tough and difficult to maneuver in the GG as opposed to the MS too, on the other hand, the GG did receive games that were never available in any form for the MS and some of those games were interesting in their own.

Crystal Warriors is an example, it is an SRPG with quite a few novel features for the time. It was probably the first SRPG (that I know of) where you can actually tame and handle monsters fighting for you if you manage to recruit them, this is ideal in scenarios where your character faces against an enemy whose elemental damage is strong against you but weak against the monster you have. You don't have control over the monster however and once it is defeated it cannot return back, but it did added a layer of complexity and even some replay value as you can choose party members in one playthrough that would not appear until you replayed it or had a different save file.

That same game received a sequel in the name of 'Royal Stone'. Looks like a nice game, haven't played it because my backlog of games is bigger than Mount Everest but I heard good things of it and its fan translation too (Yeah, it was a JP only game. Guess SRPGs on the GG were a public too specific for the GameGear?)
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by Pokun »

Although I've never had a GameGear, the GG library have long amazed me more than the M3/MS library with it's surprisingly good number of RPGs and SRPGs like the already mentioned Crystal Warriors and its sequel, Shining Force Gaiden 1 and 2, Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict, Dragon Crystal, Defenders of Oasis etc.

I've been long thinking of picking one up, but I'm not yet sure which model to look for. I see a lot with new TFT screens, but I would prefer to have the original screen if possible.
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by calima »

The original screen is terrible according to many, and they also reportedly have leaky caps. So why not go for one that has a new screen and caps replaced? Some also have a new battery, usb-chargeable.
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by tokumaru »

The original GG screen is pretty bad, yes, but it's not impossible to use. At least not back in the day when they were newish... hopefully they didn't become worse with time (I haven't touched a GG in nearly 30 years).

I'm a sucker for authenticity myself, so whenever possible I prefer things in their original form. If I want the "enhanced" experience, which sometimes I do, I can always go with emulation in all kinds of devices.
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by lidnariq »

The original screen is exceptionally low contrast (about 1:2 static contrast ratio) and slow, like all other backlit CSTN screens of the era.

(The reason that the DMG and MGB have a better static contrast ratio is because they're reflective, which means that the light is going through the LCD twice, which squares the contrast ratio. This also explains why the MGL is roughly 1/2 the contrast ratio of the MGB.)

At the same time, you cannot buy a modded screen that correctly handles the Game Gear's non-square pixels, so I hope you like aliasing. And I'd say that at the very least Sonic for the Game Gear was designed around "black" not being super-high contrast: https://cdn.retrorgb.com/images/GameGea ... pare02.jpg
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by nesrocks »

Me I'd also prefer the screen to be the original blurriness. Nostalgic factor. The problem is leakage. I own a SMS 3D glasses CIB that has the lcd all leaked, unusable. Such a shame.
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Pokun
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by Pokun »

Yeah there are many reasons to want the original screen. One is that I want to see how bad the original screen is with my own eyes. Authenticity is also important if I'm to program my own homebrew for it, I would really want to see how my game looks like on the original screen if at all possible.

Another is that I heard people having problems with compatibility between certain TFT screens and flashcarts, and then we have the fact that many such screen mods maps certain button-combinations to change brightness, add fake scanlines and other functions, which interferes with gameplay for any games that uses the same combinations (for not mentioning ruining homebrew potential). There is no button combination that is safe to use, a screen mod should at least have its own dedicated button for setting such things.

Finally many screen mods needs the chassis to be permanently modified, something I'd also like to avoid if possible.

But leaky caps/liquid crystal yeah, I would really need to get a fully functional and recapped one.
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tokumaru
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by tokumaru »

IIRC these mountains are dark red in the game... if the mod is making them black then this really isn't a good mod...
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by Jedi QuestMaster »

tokumaru wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 3:20 am The original GG screen is pretty bad, yes, but it's not impossible to use. At least not back in the day when they were newish... hopefully they didn't become worse with time (I haven't touched a GG in nearly 30 years).

I'm a sucker for authenticity myself, so whenever possible I prefer things in their original form. If I want the "enhanced" experience, which sometimes I do, I can always go with emulation in all kinds of devices.
There's something I miss about that bright blue tint that the original Game Gear screen emitted. Is there a way to have that without the minimal view angle (I remember trying to watch other people play, but only seeing white)?
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by Drag »

Colorspace transformation can help get you there.

Take an original Game Gear screen, then measure the physical color (i.e., CIEXYZ) of red, green, blue, white, and then the gamma curve of the LCD itself. This is the Game Gear's native colorspace.

Next, observe that modern LCDs tend to be designed for the sRGB colorspace (which includes a CRT-style gamma curve). You want to transform an RGB color from the Game Gear's colorspace into the more standard sRGB colorspace, which you do using a matrix.

That matrix is computed using the measurements from before, plus the standard definition of sRGB, so it's something you precompute once, and then you have a handy color corrector which makes the colors look like the original Game Gear screen.

Edit: I'm also surprised that in 2023, people still don't understand how to resize a pixellated screen in a non-awful way:
Step 1) Perform nearest-neighbor resize to nearest integer multiple.
Step 2) Perform bilinear resize the rest of the way.

For example, to resize an axis from 200 to 450, do a nearest-neighbor resize to 400 first, then a linear resize the rest of the way to 450. This way, you only have one pixel of interpolation between each boundary.
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by lidnariq »

In personal experiments, you can get the vast majority of the experience of the GG screen by:

1- Map the full R4G4B4 palette to the brightness range from roughly 128 to 192. Exact curve isn't particularly important because the dynamic range is so low.
2- Take your 160x144 input. Blur vertically with a [1 1] convolution matrix.
3- (optional) Add an ellipse gradient multiplier to mimic the limited viewing angle
4- Replace each one input pixel with 6 wide by 5 high, where the left, middle, and right 2x5 are fully-saturated red, green, and blue components. (This will darken the screen even more)

Here's the above algorithm applied to one screenshot for https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3784/
3784screenshot1-more-nearly-authentically-terrible.png
At some point in the future I will have access to a spectrophotometer and can measure my GG with original screen, but the above looks pretty close to other people's pictures.
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by Drag »

Don't forget about the other effect that passive-matrix LCDs have: When there's a lot of "active" pixels on a line together, it makes that entire line more "active" than the other lines. On Gameboy, this means horizontal lines of dark pixels make the entire line darker overall, and on Game Gear, vertical lines of light pixels make the entire line lighter.
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Re: The Sega Master System thread

Post by Pokun »

Meaning non-active pixels becoming darker too compared to other lines? That doesn't sound like how I remember my DMG but I could remember wrong.
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