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Game Gear game running on Sega Master System
Post Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 12:18 pm
Last edited by Bock on Mon Sep 04, 2006 12:23 pm; edited 1 time in total
First of all, don't get too excited!
Only a very small fraction of Game Gear games can function on a Master System. They run properly because they are natively using SMS compatibility mode. Other games would break, have incorrect colors or no Start button.

People have tried this before in various way, using writable cartridges, etc. The novelty and coolness of this video is that an actual, original Game Gear cartridge is being run unmodified on a Master System.

http://www.smspower.org/misc/sms_gg_adapter-CastleOfIllusion.avi

I've used a Gender Adapter on a Japanese Master System, along with a custom SMS to GG pinout adapter originally built by Philip Smith.

Note: the noise on the monitor near 00:22s is due to a bad contact in my video cable. The game works fine.
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Post Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 12:20 pm
This is what a regular unmodified Game Gear game would look on a Master System:

Kick & Rush
http://www.smspower.org/misc/sms_gg_adapter-KickAndRush.avi

Aleste II
http://www.smspower.org/misc/sms_gg_adapter-AlesteII.avi

The graphics bugs in Aleste II are I think due to my GG-SMS adapter which has faulty contacts.
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Post Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 12:57 pm
Last edited by Maxim on Thu Mar 28, 2019 5:55 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Post Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:17 pm
That's actually pretty interesting - I have read in so many SMS & GG FAQ's that a GG - SMS convertor would be virtually impossible due to the severe differences in the colour pallettes used. Obviously it is not a problem for some games though. What are the chances of having a few of these adapters made in a similar vain to the gender bending adapters currently being done?
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Post Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:37 pm
The only unique game i can think of that works is Excellent Dizzy, every other game thats master system compatible was actually released on master system.
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Post Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:40 pm
Kinda figured that would be the case, but then what about all the Tec Toy Ports? How did they get round the colour issue when porting all the GG games they did?
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Post Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:41 pm
The problem is getting a "few" made - if you have to make a minimum order of 250, at a cost price of €10 each (for example - I don't know the cost price of the gender adaptors), would you be willing to put up €2500 and hope to sell enough to meet your costs?
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Post Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:48 pm
Yeah, I get that, but what about the Tec Toy games that were ported the other way round ie, were GG games first before they were SMS games. Easy enough to reduce the colour pallette I suppose. And yeah, I know your point about the cost for the adapters, however, I have been following the gender adapter topic since it was first posted here, and if there were actually a possibility of a GG adapter being made (assuming it were atually useful for any games! lol) - I reckon you'd sell at least double those than the gender adapters. Problem is, gg and sms are relatively easy to get hold of everywhere, but Japanese Hardware isn't for your average basic collector, so many will buy the Gender adapters just for novelty value rather than because they'll actually get any real use out of them.
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Post Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:54 pm
kungfukid wrote
Kinda figured that would be the case, but then what about all the Tec Toy Ports? How did they get round the colour issue when porting all the GG games they did?

They had the source code. Adjusting it to work isn't too hard, so long as the game itself is already acting in an SMS-like way regarding things like making enemies appear on the whole screen, instead of the central 128x96 region that shows on the GG. You then just have to change the palette data, fix the Start button code to use the Pause button (or another button), and remove any Gear-to-Gear code. This can be done just by hacking, as Chris Covell has done. However, if you have the full source code, you can fix other issues more effectively (Chris just hacked some games that are acting very SMS-like already).
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Post Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 3:02 pm
I'd never seen that page from Chris Covel, that's pretty impressive stuff - especially the frogger hack! I'd love to actually be able to play those games on the SMS. Great, well cheers for the info!
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