Overclocked + Fully Modded Mega Drive - Comparing Mods Enabled/Disabled - SEGA Genesis

In this video I show my overclocked and fully modified PAL Sega Mega Drive. It has been overclocked to have the option of running at 10Mhz instead of the standard factory 7Mhz. As well as being overclocked it has also been region modded to play games at either 50/60Hz - PAL/NTSC and language modded to play in either English or Japanese. I have also added extra video and stereo outputs to the rear of the console.

I give a brief description of what all the mods do then I show some comparison footage of games running with and without the mods enabled.

My Mega Drive is hooked up to a 1080p Sony Bravia HDTV via RGB Scart. The picture quality I get from it is stunning. The colours are vibrant and the image is extremely clear/sharp. I've taken some stills to compare the difference between RGB Scart and Composite.

RGB Scart images,
Sonic - http://tinyurl.com/3ka348t
Streets Of Rage 2 - http://tinyurl.com/3pqmjmo

Composite images,
Sonic - http://tinyurl.com/4yltwe8
Streets Of Rage 2 - http://tinyurl.com/3vz4xlw

The tutorial I followed to overclock the console was by thedamomonster.
Check out his channel here for a ton of great vids..
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDamoMo...

Thanks for watching!

• Category

  Gaming

[MrAwsome514]

@RetroGameTech Retro-sanctuary's website has a good article on it by the way. Also the waterfalls in sonic are actually alternating lines of the background and the waterfall. In RGB These lines seperate and do not look right at all. In composite they blend and create the proper  effect.

[RetroGameTech]

Sorry but composite simply looks terrible compared to RGB Scart. It's washed out, blurry and technically inferior. There's really no argument to it.

I used composite cables for years before upgrading to proper RGB Scart. The difference is night and day. No way I'd ever go back.

[MrAwsome514]

one example of this is the transparent loops from the game hard driven by tengen. The sega genesis cannot produce transparencies. They used a cross hatched texture which was blended by the dithering of the composite output to imitate transparency.

[RetroGameTech]

Composite looks terrible compared to RGB Scart no matter what console it is. Look at the comparison pics I took in the description if you don't believe me ;-) . I wouldn't recommend anyone use composite if it can be avoided. The The Mega Drive looks and sounds awesome using it's native RGB output.

[storerestore]

I think you are missing the point he is trying to make. No one is arguing the technical superiority of RGB. He's saying that some of the techniques artists used might have been written with crappy composite video in mind and will look more natural with the artefacts it produces. This is more prevalent in for example the C64 scene, where people still argue against pixel perfect graphics output on the basis that they ruin artwork made with the blurring in mind.

[RetroGameTech]

I'm not missing his point at all. If you read his previous posts on this video you'll see he was mostly just trying to be pedantic and negative. Also, this wasn't and isn't the only video on YouTube you'll find him making similar types of antagonistic comments ;-) .

I also kind of doubt he's ever even used or seen a console played through RGB Scart in real life. And his "expert" opinion that overclocking a 68000 CPU from 7MHz to 10MHz would reduce its lifespan was just a bit silly tbh :P

[BillyTheFunny69]

Watch out guys, Flame wars below.

[Andrew Howie]

Yeah, for some reason the Mega Drive has particularly bad composite video, but especially excellent RGB video compared to other consoles I've tried. SNES has much better video through composite, but the video through RGB seems to be a little less sharp and colorful than the Mega Drive.

[Andrew Howie]

Most games do not use the composite video blending effect. But besides that small detail, Sonic still looks soooo much better in RGB through SCART. You have to really try it in person to believe it.

[otacon152]

That's true but like I said I'm just too lazy to arse about with the actual consoles most of the time. I don't mind the little difference between playing it for "real" and roms.

[Siknik64]

Ugh. People in Europe had to deal with this?? Yikes. Fucking 50 Hz.

[GroovinFunk]

Roms are terrible. Nothing can replace the physical cartridge, system and conroller.

[Djinn S]

Only on low settings.

[otacon152]

Nice informative video. Can't see myself doing anything like this myself as I'm too lazy! I mostly just stick to roms even though I like collecting the carts and consoles themselves.

[Hambag2009]

the mods are fun and i really enjoyed watching what you did here, but these are the reasons why i use my japanese mega drive, a little faster speeds and i can play both PAL and NTSC games waithout compromising or adjusting the console. plus i prefer the design of the jap console.