Genesis/Mega Drive Digital Audio Examples

How well can the Genesis/Mega Drive actually reproduce sound? As I refuted in a previous video, the Genesis/Mega Drive has a bad reputation for its digitized audio and I am here to refute that again. Watch, listen and enjoy!

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• sega
• genesis
• mega
• drive
• digital
• audio
• pcm
• digitized
• 16
• bit
• 16-bit
• video
• game
• music
• tempo
• 32X
• model
• bailamos
• gradius
• try
• to
• star
• tengai
• makyou
• kubaki
• den
• far
• east
• of
• eden
• shenmue
• dac
• tiido
• priimagi
• joe
• redifer

[hacksquad]

i guess genesis / mega drive could play 2 digital audio channels at once, you can test street fighter II on genesis, 2 player game and try to use special move on both players, you could hear both players voice at once.

[Joeredother]

@hacksquad This is true, it can do it through programming. You can do this in Alien Soldier as well in the sound test by playing different samples/voices at the same time. Alien Soldier's voices sound a lot better than Street Fighter II's as well.

[winterhell2002]

so, how much memory does it take for 1 minute with such quality?

i know 1 minute of CD audio is larger than a mega drive cartridge.

[Joeredother]

@winterhell2002 It would take just under 24 megs (in Genesis measurements) to handle 1 minute of this quality. 32 megabits allows just over a minute and a half.

[darkychao]

@Joeredother Actually, at the exact quality being used in this video (26 kHz uncompressed mono 8-bit PCM), it's only 26 kB/s (208kbit/s) 1 minute would only take about 1.5 MB or 12 Mbits. ;)

[Joeredother]

@darkychao Certainly not arguing with that math, but we couldn't fit much more than a minute and a half in a 4 MB ROM image, Tiido would have to explain why.

[pushstartscreen]

Genesis does what Nintendon't after all?

[Joeredother]

@maiki60fps **Sigh** even when people say it themselves, they do not understand the point of the video. The point of the video is that it can be done. THAT'S IT! It is cool to see what can be done under extreme conditions even if we'll never see such things in a real game environment back in 1989. People like seeing their systems do unconventional things. Why people piss and moan about this is beyond me.

[GMajorVideos]

That Gradius 3 song sounds VERY similar to the style of the Sonic Adventure games in my opinion.

[MN12BIRD]

@Servbot01 He obviously couldn't record the 32X version to use because it would only sound as good as it sounded on the 32X you can't make it sound better. Yes he recorded that song from the Saturn version but it was converted it to the 26KHz mono PCM file that the Genesis can play and it is playing it in this video. You can play it on your own Mega Drive if you have a flash cart.

[SuperAwesomeness64]

Holy Sh**! This sounds freakin' awesome!

[cakestalker]

Too bad Mega Drive (Genesis) didn't support ADPCM, then one could be able to fit high-quality sound in the game cartridges.

[Ehal256]

awesome stuff, a bit funny though when streets of rage 2 still sounds better ;)

[CompakNess]

You just had to use Shenmue music at the end didn't you?? It hurts to listen to that beautiful games soundtrack! Makes me want a sequel. So. MUCH.

Anyway. I'm truly surprised that the genesis/megadrive can actually produce such crisp pcm samples. I thought the Megesis couldn't have clear audio samples...

[Tiamat583]

You gotta love the genesis audio in some places!

[SpiralPegasus]

When you said Gradius 3 I went "HOLY CRAP, THE GENNY HAD GRADIUS 3 AND I DIDN'T KNEW ABOUT IT?!" and then became dissapointed when I found out there was no Genesis port of it :(

PCM audio quality is absolutely impressive but I guess the best way to prove the Genesis' sound quality could be good is to refer to the best games it had, i.e., the Sonic games, Gley Lancer, Castlevania Bloodlines, and so on...

[dissident93]

@Adam060756 Even the SNES Street Fighter had bad samples. And the SPC700 was 100% sampled! Although the SNES did have great tunes, so did the Mega Drive. I can't hate on either one.

[Adam060756]

@dissident93 That must be why games like Street Fighter II sound atrocious!

Big rom, shitty voice samples.