OverClocked : Platforms :
Sega Genesis / Megadrive
   


   
 


Sega's GENESIS was just that - a rebirth for the company, creating a huge competitor for Nintendo before they even entered the 16-bit wars . . . debuting with an impressive list of titles that included Phantasy Star II, Space Harrier II, and Revenge of Shinobi, the Genesis won a new generation of gamers over with better sound and graphics, a CD-ROM addon, and way better third party support than the Master System ever enjoyed. Even after the technically superior SNES entered the arena, Sega still had the SONIC series, which introduced a whole new twist on the platforming genre, and achieved speeds the SNES's low clock rate arguably could not have handled . . . The CD addon, though not worth its original $200 price tag, did enjoy several awesome titles - Sonic CD, Snatcher, and the IMMORTAL Lunar . . .

The Genesis also introduced Electronic Arts' popular sports franchise, and later prooved successfull enough to warrant a handheld spinoff called the NOMAD - essentially a portable genesis, and the CDX - a portable genesis + Sega CD, but with no screen. Some say the Genesis won the 16-bit war, others the SNES . . economically, the figures point to Nintendo, but for many gamers the Genesis was the platform of choice, especially for sports gamers or sonic fanatics ^^  
   
   
 

Specifications:

CPU:
*Motorola 68000 running at 7.61 MHz
*1 MByte (8 Mbit) ROM Area
*64 KByte RAM Area
*Co-Processor: Z-80 running at 4 MHz (not included in Genesis 2 or 3 models)
*Controls PSG (Programmable Sound Generator) & FM Chips
*8 KBytes of dedicated Sound RAM
Graphics:
*64 Simultaneous colors from a 512 color pallette
* Pixel resolution: 320 x 224
* VDP (Video Display Processor)
* Dedicated video display processor
* Controls playfield and sprites
* 64 KBytes of dedicated VRAM (Video RAM)
* 64 x 9-bits of CRAM (Color RAM)
* 3 Planes: 2 scrolling playfields, 1 sprite plane
Sound:
* PSG (TI 76489 chip)
* FM Chip (Yamaha YM 2612)
* 6-Channel Stereo
* 8 KBytes RAM
* Signal/Noise Ratio: 14dB
   
   
 
Emulators

Genecyst
SARDU was a veritable god of emulation programming, as nesticle, callus, and especially genecyst show . . this emu features tons of stuff, speed, compatibility, a disturbing GUI, and an all-around feeling of quality . . weapon of choice, for now, though the Genesis scene is seeing some activity . . .
DOS
Kgen98
Kgen98 is "the other badass DOS Genesis emu" . . like genecyst, it is no longer being worked on, but also like genecyst, the author achieved good speed and compatibility . . this was actually used BY SEGA themselves in a commercial release of classic gen titles for PC!
DOS
GENS
GENS came out of nowhere and really surprised a lot of people as it started picking up speed and other abilities like scanline and eagle display modes . . . PLUS, it's still in active development, which means more compatibility & features to come from this surefire Genesis / Win emu . . get it!
WIN
Megasis
Megasis is a really accurate Genesis emu, with great compatibility and the BEST sound implementation . . games sound beautiful played on it, just try Streets of Rage & see what I mean . . the downside is, it requires a pretty powerful PC for decent speed . . other than that, GREAT.
WIN
DGEN
DGEN is a great genesis emulator still in development, and supports the two-player split screen in Sonic 2 . . . programmed by Dave, who also did the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade emu, DGEN has good compaibility, average speed, but not as good sound as Megasis . . still, definitely worth the download . . .
WIN
   
   
 
   




Top 7 Things We'll Never Understand about the Genesis / Sega CD:
1. Menacer - not only did this weak sauce gun peripheral CLEARLY steal the look & feel of Nintendo's Super Scope 6, it never really had any good games . . . only fun as a prop for kindergartners

2. Night Trap for Sega CD - this game was actually banned because it showed violent abduction or something . . I'd have banned it JUST for the "acting" . . why was this even an issue: nobody bought it!

3. The Genesis System Redesigns - I know . . let's take a perfectly cool looking system and make it into a small black plastic turd!! Yeah!

4. Herzog Zwei . . . okay, this is actually a great game . . really great . . . but why name it something that sounds like a type of german sausage? No wonder it wasn't HUGE . . can you imagine everyone trying to pronounce it right??

5. The 32x addon - I don't think I even need to EXPLAIN this one . . .

6. Cheesy FM explosions - Nintendo really had foresight with the SOUND portion of their SNES hardware . . SEGA was reduced to making an FM synth chip create explosions, which sounded more like Cat wretch than pyrotechnics, usually . . .

7. Toe Jam & Earl - No, this wasn't a bad game . . but we really have to question the sanity of SEGA in thinking that they could turn anyone named "Toejam" or "Earl" into appealing console mascots . . .