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Emulate the Sega Master System

It would be nice to add support for the Sega Master System hardware. Most of the required devices already exist as part of the Mega Drive emulation. With some adjustments, the Master System could be supported too.

Nemesis1207, 23.04.2013, 16:45
Idea status: under consideration

Comments

Sik, 24.04.2013, 03:07
Off the top of my head, all the critical components are already there (Z80, VDP, PSG, controllers are backwards compatible), provided you emulate mode 4. It shouldn't be much effort (besides emulating the Z80 interface to the VDP), though you probably may also consider adding proper Master System controller support for obvious reasons.

This won't give 100% compatibility (e.g. modes 0 to 3 need to be emulated as a few games use them - at least mode 3 for sure), but it should be a good start.
KingOfChaos, 24.04.2013, 07:06
SMS support makes sense, with the least effort it seems. I also added a request for Game Gear support... might as well, right?
Oerg866, 24.04.2013, 09:58
Emulating more platforms does nto make sense right now. People should focus on ideas to build the base emulator, and the MD part. (debugging features, helpers, etc.), instead of exorbitant requests like "I want to play gamecuebs and dremacasts NAO!111"...
Sik, 24.04.2013, 20:45
The main difference is that in order to emulate the Mega Drive 100% you're pretty much already emulating an entire Master System anyway, save for the controllers (mode 4 may not be used by any games, but it still can be accessed by Mega Drive programs, so it has to be emulated either way - and that'd be the hardest part in adding Master System support).
KingOfChaos, 24.04.2013, 10:17
Yeah, you could very well be right. Ultimately it comes down to what features make the most sense to add before attempting elaborate departures from the Genesis, like the Saturn and Dreamcast. Adding Saturn support alone would be an incredible undertaking and could potentially take over a year to complete. Hell, people having issues running Genesis games at full speed would have WAY more difficulty running Saturn games at decent frame rates. That's another consideration as well, is current PC hardware good enough for things like the Saturn and Dreamcast if accuracy's the focus of every system added? Assuming the system requirements are VERY high, as we don't currently know what they are for full speed Genesis emulation, things like playable 32X framerates could prove problematic even on the latest high-end hardware.

Master System makes sense, it should have the same system requirements (maybe a little less) than the Genesis. Game Gear would make sense too because of that, just because. Additional debugging features and cheat-related features make the system requirements a little higher. Yes, they're worth it, but still.
Gen89, 25.04.2013, 14:19
The SG-1000 would be nice if you are doing the Master System
KingOfChaos, 26.04.2013, 03:47
The SC-3000 would be nice too. And the SF-7000 for the sake of completion.

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