I totally forgot to mention the Mega SG can play Game Gear games with a cartridge adapter, or with the jailbreak. I guess you can say that falls under the umbrella of "emulation", but if case anyone wasn't aware, here's the adapter: www.retrorgb.com/analogue-mega-sg-cartridge-adapters-now-available.html
Haha I was just about to swoop in and point this out, only RRGB got there first… I think I’d disagree that it counts as emulation since it maps a GG core to the MSG’s FPGA does it not? Isn’t that the same as what the MiSTer does? Similarly I believe that a jailbroken Analogue NT mini has a Sega Genesis core (although I can’t get it to work), which runs Master System games natively, so in theory the ‘Super Game Gear’ prototype thingy’s code could be combined into a patched GG ROM to potentially allow it to run on that? 🤔
I remember "chasing" TV stations across broadcasting zones during long interstate trips as a kid with Gamegear TV tuner in tow. I was very grateful to have it, even if now I'm reduced to a G revision that won't display TV, oh that and there's no analog broadcasts for it to pick up any more. That, and there's a myriad of ways to watch video on the go that are far better than a battery guzzling Game Gear.
@@terence79chan Funny thing is the old "circuit tutorial" set I got as a gift from Radioshack as a kid has proven more useful, as analog radio broadcasts outlived analog TV broadcasts.
Thank you, I've now learned why some of my legit game gear ROMs load up in emulators at full master system resolution. I had assumed they were hacked roms (fan ports) or the emulator was failing to crop properly - turns out it was working as on original game gears (albeit those would have used much worse scaling)
As bad as the original Game Gear screen looks today, peering into the Toys R Us display case back in the day was mind-blowing! Portable Sega games in full COLOR was like alien technology back then. 😉
I remember discovering that Prince of Persia was actually just an SMS game when I pulled the cartridge out while it was running, and obviously the game crashed but so did the scaler, so I was able to see a cropped portion of the full resolution graphics on my GG. It baffled me for years until I figured out what was actually happening.
Interesting. Considering the Turbo Express released only 2 months after the Game Gear with full resolution, Sega should have made the Game Gear with a full 256 x 192 resolution screen.
Pretty cool! There are quite a few GG2SMS games that were reworked and removes the garbled area. Maybe it was the choice of words that sounded a bit off, but the Power Base doesn't actually allows the Mega Drive to be backwards compatible, it's basically only a passthrough since the cartridge slots are different, the converter allows the console to read the SMS carts and cards, it's otherwise backwards compatible internally.
When I was a kid I remember Prince of persia looked weird on game gear, the copyright screen was tiny and blurry it was the only game like this (the only one I owned), now I know why (I eventually got a master converter so I figured out it had something to do with the master system resolution).
I know the whole "just use a MiSTer" thing has become almost a meme like the older Pi line, but for the Game Gear in particular it really is the best way to go by far, all things considered.
I'm pretty happy with the Analogue Mega Sg + GG adapter and Analogue Pocket + GG, but I like playing from my carts. Though it would be a nice choice if Analogue ever gets around to jailbreaking it, to have more options.
Back in 1999, I had a Compaq 2015C WindowsCE Handheld PC, which was about the same size as a GameGear, and there was a WinCE emulator available for GameGear. I didn't play it that much, regrettably, but I did load up Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Daffy Duck, and they were all impressive.
This was a great video as a kid i too always wanted Sega to make a Super Game Boy for the Sega Master System console back then so I definitely be checking this out as I grew with the Game Gear
I have never seen an SG-1000 or a Master System, even if I've played a number of the games! This era of Sega is a complete blindspot for me, so this was super cool!
This was such a great video. I grew up on the Nintendo side and didn't know much about Sega. The TV adapter for the game gear would have instantly made you the coolest kid in school.
It was really awesome to see a Game Gear-exclusive game with the "expanded" screen size & proper coloring, as I managed to get the same result on a stock Sega Genesis using the RetroN5 adapter, but the colors were understandably all destroyed & I couldn't actually start any of my Game Gear games on the Genesis, minus Chuck Rock 2 (which would just crash upon starting Level 1). Amusingly enough, even SG-1000 games can boot up on a Genesis, with the audio playing just fine, but since the Genesis doesn't support that old video mode (hence why F-16 Fighting Falcon doesn't work) nothing shows up on the screen.
I had the GG TV Tuner. It definitely was not as good as the dedicated portable TVs on the market at the time, but it was better than nothing. There were a few UHF channels at my house that I could not pick up on the TV in my room at my parents' house. But I could get them on the GG if I pointed the antenna in just the right direction or went outside with it.
It's also important to remember that although the screens were "good enough" at the time it's also been 30 years now and the contrast and pixel response has definitely gotten better with age
i used to have the castle of illusion game when I was a kid and it filled the screen of my game gear entirely... weird since Im now learning this is a just a MS rom on a GG cart. anyway cool video!
Oh man the TV tuner for the GG was epic. When i got a used GG with sonic games, tv tuner and car adapter my gameboy felt primitive and got put down until i got a GBA
The Analogue Mega Sg with its cartridge adapters can run original Game Gear cartridges, and with the optional DAC can display on a 15KHz CRT with proper border masking and correct support for the SMS video mode games. All three of those components can be bought from the Analogue store and be shipped out now if you do not want to wait out the shipping schedule for the Analogue Pocket.
Yes. That what I'm currently using and while it's awesome, I'm getting a small picture within my Sony CRT. Not sure how to make it to fit the full screen of my CRT tv. 🤔
@@onetwo6039 In that respect, the Mega Sg must behave like every other device shown in this video on a CRT, the Game Gear's resolution is 160 pixels by 144 lines and the CRT expects 240 lines, so a Game Gear must have borders if you want proper proportions.
@@NerdlyPleasures ok so basically that's the way it's going to be. There isn't really anything that can be done? I'm kinda scared to mess with the settings on the SG worried I might do something way wrong.
Great video, thanks for giving the Game Gear some love! I have many of the mods you mentioned, but my favorite way to play my original carts is through the adapter for the Mega SG. Especially, after the FirebrandX settings adjustments.
Loved my GG! Still do. Wish I had had Master System! Oh I had/have the TV tuner! I remember I would try to watch TV on my way to my grandparents but could never tune anything I wanted to watch. Even at home I had a hard time tuning stuff in.
Oh man, I went mad last year when upgrading my GameGear. Started with a full recap, only to realise that 1/3 of the original screen wasn't even working. No amount of attempted heating of the connectors would salvage it. Then added the McWill screen. Then wired up the VGA pads for TV out. Also snagged a SCART cable from VideoGamePerfection so I could play on my PAL CRT. I also added the PXLmod player 1 board. I managed to get both Dsub ports sitting flush with the system. Time consuming but absolutely worth it. In a way I built a GameGear "Switch". The thing chews through 6 eneloops at a time so its barely a portable, but hey at least I can plug it into mains and into a TV. The folk at SMS are wizards. They helped me figure out how to get lightgun games working on a Gamegear whilst using TV out on CRT. You'll need a Master Gear link cable (game gear link cable modified with a 9 pin controller port for player 2) - this is for the TH signal (only obtainable via player 2 kn the link cable). You also need a means of providing 5v and ground to the link cable. I basically built a passthrough adapter the plugs between my lightgun and the Master gear cable, which grabs its ground and 5v from usb. The lightgun ROMS also need to be the modified version that treats player 2 inputs via the Master Gear link cable as player 1. All in all, really happy with the end result. That said, some of the other builds are more insane. There's a guy on SMSpower that even managed to do all of the above whilst also getting the Master System's FM upgrade and 3D hardware working on their modded GameGear.
Definitely not for everyone, given the price, but I have a RetroFreak clone console, which is kind of like a Retron 5, but it plays a lot more than 5 (11 different consoles and handhelds if I remember correctly). It's emulation, but really good emulation with lots of options like save states, video options, scan lines, and it outputs at 720p over HDMI, so not good if you're using a CRT. It will play Genesis/Mega Drive games natively through a cartridge slot, but there's an adapter you can get that lets it also play Master System and SG-1000 cartridges and MyCards as well as Game Gear cartridges. It handles Game Gear emulation independently from Master System, so you lose no color range and there's no junk on the edges. However, it simply scales the Game Gear screen to 4:3 720p, so unless you're playing a Game Gear game that is just a Master System ROM, it's not going to increase the viewing area. But since the RetroFreak also plays Master System games, you can just use those instead. Unlike the Retron 5, the RetroFreak can rip your game ROMs to an SD card and play off that without you needing to insert the cartridge every time. The dirty secret is that you can just put downloaded ROMs on there and play even if you don't have the Game Gear/SMS adapter. Though I'd say it's morally light gray to download a ROM of a game you actually own, and only slightly darker morally gray to download a SMS ROM for a Game Gear game you actually own. But the RetroFreak will still play real carts if you have the right hardware, and it looks and sounds fantastic.
Never been a fan of the GG but def looking forward to things like this or a consolizer. Re-capping these things are not fun. I'v done about 4 so far, not as bad as a Sega CD model 1 but...not much. Thanks for the hard work Bob, we appreciate it!
Your timing on this is actually pretty good. Postman is apparently working on a GG consolizer thats similar to the GBHD line of products, with plans to unveil (hopefully) in the fall. Can't wait to see how that turns out
One quick note, the Majesco model game gears (manufactured in the 2000s) haven't been known to suffer the same capacitor issues that the Sega made units did.
9:49 Super Nintendo Entertainment System + GameBoy = Super GameBoy Master System + Game Gear = Master Gear I think that would've been the most fitting name
Thank you so much for indulging my curiosity in pretty much any way you could put it all together. When you pulled out the power base converter, I was like, "This is why you keep your patreon subscription." LOL
Bob! Thank you so much for this info, and of course thanks to the devs of all of this!! I loved the GameGear as a kid and my collection of games for it is my favorite to display. I also wanted a TV tuner sooooo bad. Definitely going to follow the development of this, will be one of the first to pick it up. I've recapped a number of GGs at this point, also have a couple damaged beyond repair. I have a analogue pocket on order. I've been waiting for this space to mature. SO between the new boards, more repairs and consolizers, I better put some money together for all this.
I vaguely remember my sega game gear days when i was a kid, i had some cool games like sonic, wonderboy, outrun and a couple more i don't remember, but what i do remember, was my dad getting annoyed of me always asking for double AA's, i would take double AA's from where i could find them (clock in the kitchen, tv, vcr and hifi remotes etc) just to get 1 or 2 hours extra on this game gear thing! It eats batteries for lunch! So when it was my birthday, offcourse i would ask for a big pack of quality double AA's! But my dad didn't bought me double AA's, he gave me a pack of C or D cells, those giant big ones! I didn't understand why he would gave me the wrong kind of batteries, but than he gave me something else, an official Sega "Booster Pack", it came with a sega wall adapter and this big black box with a wire on it, those big C or D cells were offcourse for this black box thing, it took 6 of those giant batteries, and it could power the game gear for a good while, handy for those long car trips! At home i would just use the wall adapter! But when i got my gameboy pocket which could run for hours and hours on a set of tripple A's, my game gear got burried in the lowest drawer of my closet, and since i forgot to take out those double A's (durasmell, i still hate you!), offcourse they had leaked when i wanted to play my game gear once again after a couple of months, completely ruining my game gear! My dad couldn't repair it, it was to far gone, and i was sad, really sad, because honestly, i loved that lil sega console!
Awesome video man! I love the game gear. One thing you forgot to mention was the game gear adapter for the Analogue Mega SG, it's a great way to play these games on the TV.
I absolutely wanted a GG TV adapter as a kid. Nowadays I'd still enjoy if there were some way it worked with my CleanScreen modded GG. Ah well. The CleanCreen mod has TV out contacts on the board, though I haven't looked into what it might require to use, other than soldering on ports. Additionally, CleanScreen was way easier to install than others according to my modder. This was due to the flex ribbon and the reduced number of necessary cap replacements post-removal, speaking only for my GG which is an older model with worse leaking. The only drawback I might mention is that RetroSix used to have a bit of a reputation for sending incorrect parts (the flex ribbon in my case), but they helped me get the right one on the second try and were professional.
TV adapter works by directly driving the LCD (it puts the Game Gear's chipset in a special mode that shuts down the CPU and VPU and diectly passes through the cartridge pins to the LCD). Sadly that means that the various TV adapters will output yet other different resolutions and timings, than the native 160x144 or the SMS-compatible 256x200 mode that the mod screens recognize and can decode.
Bob, this chapter was amazing. In my opinion the Super Game Gear project looks like the most amazing solution here, It will be amazing if the developer found a way to add nice frames the video, like the Super Gameboy does. ALSO it will be amazing if they Add LINK CABLE support, like Super Gameboy 2 does, that way I bet people like me will buy 2 instead 1, in order to use them linking 2 consoles for 2 player games. BTW, I think the only comparison your video lacked is to watch at the same time, Game Gear games like SONIC, compared with their proper extended resolution at a TV , next to the Sega Master System version.
Great video!!! I asked Krikzz (Everdrive's creator) when he announced the NES core for the Mega EverDrive PRO, why instead of that , he releases as Game Gear core. He said that "It can not be done due genesis palette limitation".... now I'm thinking that maybe the SNES+FXPak Pro is a better alternative for releasing a Game Gear core (like the SGB core for the FXPak Pro)
You could totally watch broadcasts on it via one of those digital converters. They have analog outs as well as ANT passthrough (touch the antenna to the center coax pin). If you're gonna watch TV on a GG in 2022, you gotta go all-in ridiculous.
The adapter could be programed to display an overlay on top of the garbage data, the same as modern day retro compilations having the "arcade cabinet" as a border
Wow, thanks for video. I had the GG TV tuner back around mid 90's and hacked the 3.5 jack to take a signal from my SNES and was quite proud and with a sneaky smile showing off Super Mario All Stars running on my GG to friends. Earned me some otaku street cred amongst my friends.
Great video, Just decided to open my old game gear and replaced the caps with SMD caps except for the power board which got regular caps. The smell was horrid when changing them. would be interesting to see 2 player running on the master system mod instead of a game gear with link cable.
I have a mint lion king edition game gear and 30 boxed games and 45 unboxed games. I have CIB master gear converter still with the warranty card and sticker! ❤
I loved my GG, was far better than the game boy. You could it on the dark and it was a better design you could also watch TV on it. Cracking handheld. I wish I still had mine
A few things to add - game gear can be modded with FM and 3D glasses hardware, but it's not a user friendly mod at all. Also, almost all LCD screen mods also output RGBs but use (I think? maybe?) ttl level sync. you can use a small $4-5 open source AV module to add composite video AND s-video to get full output options. It should work with MCwill modded VGA consoles too to get a console that could all that as well, likely sharing pins on the VGA connector. Finally, a consolized game gear that doesn't output correct RGB video on master system games is unfortunately maybe not modded correctly (it could be an older limitation of tims board?) - the game gear compresses master system video to fit the game gear LCD normally which messes with the video - to get around this most LCD and video mods connect a wire that essentially disables the SMS video compression giving it proper video output. it's a common mistake in LCD installs to miss this wire and cause video issues just like yours in "mickey".
It would be interesting to see what they could do with the Genesis hardware, considering that it has the same (or at least a similar) 4096 color pallete and extra processing power that could be used to draw a border à la the Super Game Boy.
The Genesis maxes out at 512. You’d either have to make something that actively runs the Game Gear game and converts the output to something the Genesis can display (like a more involved Super Game Boy, not really worth it nowadays), or figure out how to get the SMS backwards compatibility working. It doesn’t sound like anyone has figured out the latter yet.
Sega was developing a GG to Gen converter around 1995, presumably for launch for the Nomad. It most likely would of just been a GG Z80 running through the Gen hardware kinda like the SVP chip does for Virtua Racing or the SH2s in the 32X.
I think palying game gear games on the Mega drive would have been what people would have wanted to do if anything since those systems were more contemporary and more people had a megadrive and the megadrive was backwards compatible anyway but may have been able to handle the extra colour.
With the benefit of hindsight, maybe they should have let people play Game Gear games on the Master System instead of the other way around. and Imagine if they'd done the same thing for the Megadrive. The same tiny carts on three different pieces of Seega hardware. You'd need some kind of code trap to figure out whether the game was running on GG or Master System because of the GG's extra vi.deo options, and the games would have be be designed to work on either, which is probably why they didn't go this route, but it would have been very neat
I wonder if the Game Gear benefits from its lower resolution to display more colors, otherwise I feel it's basically a Master System in smaller form factor. I like it as it kind of gave the Master System more years in the market, so we have a better idea on how would the SMS fair with more third party support and newer titles, like Shining Force and other exclusives.
Kind of missed opportunity that they didn't add dynamic GG window cropping options, that way it wouldn't be fixed and the GG screen could have changed and improved over time. Would have needed a 160x120 4:3 LCD instead but then it could have bumped up to 208x156, and 256x192 GG models. Would have made AV-out more attractive for the GG, could have done 256x192 on TVs. :D Although really I always hoped Brazil might do a SMS-2 with Start button and improved color palette included, but it never happened. :( If it had been adaptive from the start the GG versus SMS code difference wouldn't be the obstacle it became later. Certainly if I could hack GG titles I'd likely include a few window size options while I was at it. That sprite spawning window edge difference seems to give people some trouble though since many produce more screen but the gameplay is still 160x144 based. With GG exclusives there is a performance aspect for that smaller screen sometimes which is a complication. I do think Sega could have planned the GG better though so that official SMS or Genesis GG cart adapters could have been made just like Nintendo did with the SGB. Glad somebody tackled a hardware based solution since palette shifting is a trivial matter, sure it looks technically better on GG but that doesn't mean SMS colors can't apply. Sweet original hardware solutions you featured there, a new PCB is a great salvage option for those custom IC chips. True it's more a hobby to use OG-GG hardware now that I can see why many use other paths to GG gaming.
Am I the only one that is more interested in the other way arround? Meaning more master system ports for game gear. Like you said, I am sure is not that hard to just grab some master system games, zoom in, move the U.I. closer if needed and then just having a cool game gear port of the game. There are so many good master system games with no game gear ports, like shinobi, phantasy star or the alex kid games. Some would even work ok. And no problem of missing colors. I am all for hacks of game gear games zooming out, but I am mostly interested in retro handhelds, so I am more for hacks of master system games zooming in for game gear.
I'd really love to see game gear games playable via the FPGA on the Mega Everdrive Pro, but I'm guessing that would require bios files that don't actually exist.
Because Genesis is mostly (?) backwards compatible with SMS games, is it possible for similar adaptor be created for use on a genesis utilising the proper gg colors that i assume a genesis could handle?
8:24 What does the toggle switch on that prototype do? It seems to be labelled "J and O". Could that be Japan and overseas....? But then, I'm confused. The GameGear is region free and Japanese Mark III games have a physically different pin connector than Master System. So what the heck does that toggle switch do?
It would be better, if on the "Super Game Gear", they could map the Start button to a button combo instead of requiring that you use the SMS Pause button. (Maybe something like holding both buttons + up/right, for three seconds, for example) It's not very good if you are gaming across the room from your system.
You mention the Analogue Pocket, but another possibility there is Analogue's Mega SG, for which a GG adapter is available and obviously works on a TV. If you're an idiot like me you can even use the SMS convertor for the GG in the GG adapter despite the fact there's an actual SMS adapter in the box. The TV tuner, as I imagine you've guess, does not work.
I totally forgot to mention the Mega SG can play Game Gear games with a cartridge adapter, or with the jailbreak. I guess you can say that falls under the umbrella of "emulation", but if case anyone wasn't aware, here's the adapter: www.retrorgb.com/analogue-mega-sg-cartridge-adapters-now-available.html
That's what I've been using and I love it!
Haha I was just about to swoop in and point this out, only RRGB got there first… I think I’d disagree that it counts as emulation since it maps a GG core to the MSG’s FPGA does it not? Isn’t that the same as what the MiSTer does? Similarly I believe that a jailbroken Analogue NT mini has a Sega Genesis core (although I can’t get it to work), which runs Master System games natively, so in theory the ‘Super Game Gear’ prototype thingy’s code could be combined into a patched GG ROM to potentially allow it to run on that? 🤔
FPGA is hardware emulation.
@@RetroRGB ok yeah good point. Excellent video by the way 🤘🏽
It would have been nice if this adapter worked on original hardware. The Retron equivalent also doesn't work on an actual Genesis.
I remember "chasing" TV stations across broadcasting zones during long interstate trips as a kid with Gamegear TV tuner in tow. I was very grateful to have it, even if now I'm reduced to a G revision that won't display TV, oh that and there's no analog broadcasts for it to pick up any more. That, and there's a myriad of ways to watch video on the go that are far better than a battery guzzling Game Gear.
I still have that tuner and it now listens to broadcast from a DIY uhf transmitter connnected to the VGA out of my other GG.. Haha
@@terence79chan Funny thing is the old "circuit tutorial" set I got as a gift from Radioshack as a kid has proven more useful, as analog radio broadcasts outlived analog TV broadcasts.
@@Dark_Jaguar that’s so true. 😂
Thank you, I've now learned why some of my legit game gear ROMs load up in emulators at full master system resolution. I had assumed they were hacked roms (fan ports) or the emulator was failing to crop properly - turns out it was working as on original game gears (albeit those would have used much worse scaling)
I can confirm this, I used to work as a QA tester for Sega of America, the Game Gear titles were tested using a modified Master System console.
Oh wow, really??? Do you have any more information on this?
@@RetroRGB I know NBA jam was developed using a master system, there's a master system prototype that's been floating around.
Way cool man! Bet that was a fun job.
As bad as the original Game Gear screen looks today, peering into the Toys R Us display case back in the day was mind-blowing! Portable Sega games in full COLOR was like alien technology back then. 😉
The Master system is the best console forever in my heart.
I got a lot of use out of my Game Gear - had that SMS adapter and the TV tuner!
I'd love for someone to make a modern dtv tuner for the game gear, for no good reason
I also have the SMS adapter. pretty handy as my SMS has broken.
I remember discovering that Prince of Persia was actually just an SMS game when I pulled the cartridge out while it was running, and obviously the game crashed but so did the scaler, so I was able to see a cropped portion of the full resolution graphics on my GG. It baffled me for years until I figured out what was actually happening.
That GG Cardboard "Bezel" was absolute genius!!! 🤣🤣🤣
LOL, thanks :) I stole the idea from Maxim...but I don't think he intended it to be so silly ;p
Interesting. Considering the Turbo Express released only 2 months after the Game Gear with full resolution, Sega should have made the Game Gear with a full 256 x 192 resolution screen.
I wish I had this accessory back in the day in the 90's!
Pretty cool! There are quite a few GG2SMS games that were reworked and removes the garbled area.
Maybe it was the choice of words that sounded a bit off, but the Power Base doesn't actually allows the Mega Drive to be backwards compatible, it's basically only a passthrough since the cartridge slots are different, the converter allows the console to read the SMS carts and cards, it's otherwise backwards compatible internally.
When I was a kid I remember Prince of persia looked weird on game gear, the copyright screen was tiny and blurry it was the only game like this (the only one I owned), now I know why (I eventually got a master converter so I figured out it had something to do with the master system resolution).
I know the whole "just use a MiSTer" thing has become almost a meme like the older Pi line, but for the Game Gear in particular it really is the best way to go by far, all things considered.
I'm pretty happy with the Analogue Mega Sg + GG adapter and Analogue Pocket + GG, but I like playing from my carts. Though it would be a nice choice if Analogue ever gets around to jailbreaking it, to have more options.
your mister is portable? wow
i sold mine for $700 lol
@@jonniefast Someone is actually working on a portable MiSTer. I think it was shown off on an earlier RetroRGB video.
That or analog pocket
Back in 1999, I had a Compaq 2015C WindowsCE Handheld PC, which was about the same size as a GameGear, and there was a WinCE emulator available for GameGear. I didn't play it that much, regrettably, but I did load up Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Daffy Duck, and they were all impressive.
This was a great video as a kid i too always wanted Sega to make a Super Game Boy for the Sega Master System console back then so I definitely be checking this out as I grew with the Game Gear
I have never seen an SG-1000 or a Master System, even if I've played a number of the games! This era of Sega is a complete blindspot for me, so this was super cool!
Would have been hard to see an SG-1000 outside of japan. It didn't really get released anywhere else.
Master System was very popular in UK. I had one. Not a lot of people in USA have heard of it apparently though.
This was such a great video. I grew up on the Nintendo side and didn't know much about Sega. The TV adapter for the game gear would have instantly made you the coolest kid in school.
I had the TV Tuner as a kid! Definitely great for swim meets when I couldn't watch my Saturday morning cartoons
It was really awesome to see a Game Gear-exclusive game with the "expanded" screen size & proper coloring, as I managed to get the same result on a stock Sega Genesis using the RetroN5 adapter, but the colors were understandably all destroyed & I couldn't actually start any of my Game Gear games on the Genesis, minus Chuck Rock 2 (which would just crash upon starting Level 1). Amusingly enough, even SG-1000 games can boot up on a Genesis, with the audio playing just fine, but since the Genesis doesn't support that old video mode (hence why F-16 Fighting Falcon doesn't work) nothing shows up on the screen.
I had the GG TV Tuner. It definitely was not as good as the dedicated portable TVs on the market at the time, but it was better than nothing. There were a few UHF channels at my house that I could not pick up on the TV in my room at my parents' house. But I could get them on the GG if I pointed the antenna in just the right direction or went outside with it.
I didn't know about those GG to SMS conversions. They look great
This was one of the most informative and in-depth videos ive seen on youtube. It was TV quality....back from when TV had quality 😢.
This is awesome to see happen. I remember years ago, talking to others about doing this on SMSpower, but no one took on the project at the time.
It's also important to remember that although the screens were "good enough" at the time it's also been 30 years now and the contrast and pixel response has definitely gotten better with age
I seem to be the only one, but I love the look of the original Game Gear screen and would never want to replace it.
Thanks for the video. I love the Game Gear and I am currently developing my own Game Gear game. Hopefully I will be able to complete it !
i used to have the castle of illusion game when I was a kid and it filled the screen of my game gear entirely... weird since Im now learning this is a just a MS rom on a GG cart. anyway cool video!
Oh man the TV tuner for the GG was epic. When i got a used GG with sonic games, tv tuner and car adapter my gameboy felt primitive and got put down until i got a GBA
The Analogue Mega Sg with its cartridge adapters can run original Game Gear cartridges, and with the optional DAC can display on a 15KHz CRT with proper border masking and correct support for the SMS video mode games. All three of those components can be bought from the Analogue store and be shipped out now if you do not want to wait out the shipping schedule for the Analogue Pocket.
Yes. That what I'm currently using and while it's awesome, I'm getting a small picture within my Sony CRT. Not sure how to make it to fit the full screen of my CRT tv. 🤔
@@onetwo6039 In that respect, the Mega Sg must behave like every other device shown in this video on a CRT, the Game Gear's resolution is 160 pixels by 144 lines and the CRT expects 240 lines, so a Game Gear must have borders if you want proper proportions.
@@NerdlyPleasures ok so basically that's the way it's going to be. There isn't really anything that can be done?
I'm kinda scared to mess with the settings on the SG worried I might do something way wrong.
Fun fact: Game Gear emulators can run SMS games if you just change the file extension! It also works with virtual console rom injection.
Same with rom carts. Like I showed here.
There is a good GameGear emulator option on the GBAx5 Mini Everdrive too. I play them with my Gamecube Gameboy Player.
When you said super game boy for the game gear, I thought you could play game boy games on game gear. This makes more sense
I love seeing the inside of retro consoles. So clean and uncluttered. "Simple" ya know.
Always love these deep dive videos, especially with a such a great handheld that too many sleep on!
It would be excellent if a genesis version comes out too. I always wanted to play my game gear games on the Genesis.
Great video, thanks for giving the Game Gear some love! I have many of the mods you mentioned, but my favorite way to play my original carts is through the adapter for the Mega SG. Especially, after the FirebrandX settings adjustments.
Loved my GG! Still do. Wish I had had Master System!
Oh I had/have the TV tuner! I remember I would try to watch TV on my way to my grandparents but could never tune anything I wanted to watch. Even at home I had a hard time tuning stuff in.
Great and informative video as a owner of both the SMS and Game Gear
Oh man, I went mad last year when upgrading my GameGear. Started with a full recap, only to realise that 1/3 of the original screen wasn't even working. No amount of attempted heating of the connectors would salvage it.
Then added the McWill screen. Then wired up the VGA pads for TV out. Also snagged a SCART cable from VideoGamePerfection so I could play on my PAL CRT. I also added the PXLmod player 1 board. I managed to get both Dsub ports sitting flush with the system. Time consuming but absolutely worth it.
In a way I built a GameGear "Switch". The thing chews through 6 eneloops at a time so its barely a portable, but hey at least I can plug it into mains and into a TV.
The folk at SMS are wizards. They helped me figure out how to get lightgun games working on a Gamegear whilst using TV out on CRT. You'll need a Master Gear link cable (game gear link cable modified with a 9 pin controller port for player 2) - this is for the TH signal (only obtainable via player 2 kn the link cable). You also need a means of providing 5v and ground to the link cable. I basically built a passthrough adapter the plugs between my lightgun and the Master gear cable, which grabs its ground and 5v from usb. The lightgun ROMS also need to be the modified version that treats player 2 inputs via the Master Gear link cable as player 1.
All in all, really happy with the end result. That said, some of the other builds are more insane. There's a guy on SMSpower that even managed to do all of the above whilst also getting the Master System's FM upgrade and 3D hardware working on their modded GameGear.
Definitely not for everyone, given the price, but I have a RetroFreak clone console, which is kind of like a Retron 5, but it plays a lot more than 5 (11 different consoles and handhelds if I remember correctly). It's emulation, but really good emulation with lots of options like save states, video options, scan lines, and it outputs at 720p over HDMI, so not good if you're using a CRT.
It will play Genesis/Mega Drive games natively through a cartridge slot, but there's an adapter you can get that lets it also play Master System and SG-1000 cartridges and MyCards as well as Game Gear cartridges. It handles Game Gear emulation independently from Master System, so you lose no color range and there's no junk on the edges. However, it simply scales the Game Gear screen to 4:3 720p, so unless you're playing a Game Gear game that is just a Master System ROM, it's not going to increase the viewing area. But since the RetroFreak also plays Master System games, you can just use those instead.
Unlike the Retron 5, the RetroFreak can rip your game ROMs to an SD card and play off that without you needing to insert the cartridge every time. The dirty secret is that you can just put downloaded ROMs on there and play even if you don't have the Game Gear/SMS adapter. Though I'd say it's morally light gray to download a ROM of a game you actually own, and only slightly darker morally gray to download a SMS ROM for a Game Gear game you actually own. But the RetroFreak will still play real carts if you have the right hardware, and it looks and sounds fantastic.
I use the RetroN 5 3-in-1 adapter with my RetroFreak, it supports SMS, Sega card, and Sega Game Gear games. All work great.
@@jfroco does the Retron 5 also play Game Gear and Master System games with an adapter?
Never been a fan of the GG but def looking forward to things like this or a consolizer. Re-capping these things are not fun. I'v done about 4 so far, not as bad as a Sega CD model 1 but...not much.
Thanks for the hard work Bob, we appreciate it!
Love these deep dives. Another great video. Now time to recap the ol' GG
Great inside look and info. Great job!
Didn't know about these adapters, thank you for showing these!
Incredible work. Loved this episode. Thank you
Your timing on this is actually pretty good. Postman is apparently working on a GG consolizer thats similar to the GBHD line of products, with plans to unveil (hopefully) in the fall. Can't wait to see how that turns out
Yup, I've been following their posts. It looks cool!
One quick note, the Majesco model game gears (manufactured in the 2000s) haven't been known to suffer the same capacitor issues that the Sega made units did.
I personally wouldn't chance it.
9:49
Super Nintendo Entertainment System + GameBoy = Super GameBoy
Master System + Game Gear = Master Gear
I think that would've been the most fitting name
Hah! Love the cardboard bezel.
Thank you so much for indulging my curiosity in pretty much any way you could put it all together. When you pulled out the power base converter, I was like, "This is why you keep your patreon subscription." LOL
Hahahahaha...thanks very much!
Bob! Thank you so much for this info, and of course thanks to the devs of all of this!! I loved the GameGear as a kid and my collection of games for it is my favorite to display. I also wanted a TV tuner sooooo bad. Definitely going to follow the development of this, will be one of the first to pick it up. I've recapped a number of GGs at this point, also have a couple damaged beyond repair. I have a analogue pocket on order. I've been waiting for this space to mature. SO between the new boards, more repairs and consolizers, I better put some money together for all this.
I vaguely remember my sega game gear days when i was a kid, i had some cool games like sonic, wonderboy, outrun and a couple more i don't remember, but what i do remember, was my dad getting annoyed of me always asking for double AA's, i would take double AA's from where i could find them (clock in the kitchen, tv, vcr and hifi remotes etc) just to get 1 or 2 hours extra on this game gear thing! It eats batteries for lunch! So when it was my birthday, offcourse i would ask for a big pack of quality double AA's! But my dad didn't bought me double AA's, he gave me a pack of C or D cells, those giant big ones! I didn't understand why he would gave me the wrong kind of batteries, but than he gave me something else, an official Sega "Booster Pack", it came with a sega wall adapter and this big black box with a wire on it, those big C or D cells were offcourse for this black box thing, it took 6 of those giant batteries, and it could power the game gear for a good while, handy for those long car trips! At home i would just use the wall adapter! But when i got my gameboy pocket which could run for hours and hours on a set of tripple A's, my game gear got burried in the lowest drawer of my closet, and since i forgot to take out those double A's (durasmell, i still hate you!), offcourse they had leaked when i wanted to play my game gear once again after a couple of months, completely ruining my game gear! My dad couldn't repair it, it was to far gone, and i was sad, really sad, because honestly, i loved that lil sega console!
Your story put a smile on my face. Not cause I'm laughing at your AA peril...but because I went through something similar :)
Good stuff. Very cool to see an adaptor for SMS. I wonder if it will remain a one-off or if it will go into production.
I also wanted that TV tuner so bad. Now I watch videos about people talking about TV tuners on something the size of a pack of smokes...
Awesome video man! I love the game gear. One thing you forgot to mention was the game gear adapter for the Analogue Mega SG, it's a great way to play these games on the TV.
Yeah, I pinned a comment about that...but you're right, I totally forgot.
I absolutely wanted a GG TV adapter as a kid. Nowadays I'd still enjoy if there were some way it worked with my CleanScreen modded GG. Ah well.
The CleanCreen mod has TV out contacts on the board, though I haven't looked into what it might require to use, other than soldering on ports. Additionally, CleanScreen was way easier to install than others according to my modder. This was due to the flex ribbon and the reduced number of necessary cap replacements post-removal, speaking only for my GG which is an older model with worse leaking. The only drawback I might mention is that RetroSix used to have a bit of a reputation for sending incorrect parts (the flex ribbon in my case), but they helped me get the right one on the second try and were professional.
TV adapter works by directly driving the LCD (it puts the Game Gear's chipset in a special mode that shuts down the CPU and VPU and diectly passes through the cartridge pins to the LCD).
Sadly that means that the various TV adapters will output yet other different resolutions and timings, than the native 160x144 or the SMS-compatible 256x200 mode that the mod screens recognize and can decode.
Bob, this chapter was amazing. In my opinion the Super Game Gear project looks like the most amazing solution here, It will be amazing if the developer found a way to add nice frames the video, like the Super Gameboy does. ALSO it will be amazing if they Add LINK CABLE support, like Super Gameboy 2 does, that way I bet people like me will buy 2 instead 1, in order to use them linking 2 consoles for 2 player games. BTW, I think the only comparison your video lacked is to watch at the same time, Game Gear games like SONIC, compared with their proper extended resolution at a TV , next to the Sega Master System version.
Great video!!! I asked Krikzz (Everdrive's creator) when he announced the NES core for the Mega EverDrive PRO, why instead of that , he releases as Game Gear core. He said that "It can not be done due genesis palette limitation".... now I'm thinking that maybe the SNES+FXPak Pro is a better alternative for releasing a Game Gear core (like the SGB core for the FXPak Pro)
Great video!! Was that a St1ka cameo!??! If so AMAZING!!😄👍👍👍
Absolutely!!! He shot that footage just for this video :)
@@RetroRGB Wow that is awesome!!! I really enjoy his channel as well!! Overall a super episode!!👍👍👌👌👌
Awesome Bob, thank you so much.
You could totally watch broadcasts on it via one of those digital converters. They have analog outs as well as ANT passthrough (touch the antenna to the center coax pin). If you're gonna watch TV on a GG in 2022, you gotta go all-in ridiculous.
Really interesting video!
In keeping with the same sort of naming scheme as "Super Game Boy" might I suggest "Sega Master Gear"?
The adapter could be programed to display an overlay on top of the garbage data, the same as modern day retro compilations having the "arcade cabinet" as a border
Not possible. I wish it were though.
@@RetroRGB Any idea why it's not possible?
Very, very, very cool! Thanks for the awesome video, and your, always great work!
Thanks for watching!
Wow, thanks for video. I had the GG TV tuner back around mid 90's and hacked the 3.5 jack to take a signal from my SNES and was quite proud and with a sneaky smile showing off Super Mario All Stars running on my GG to friends. Earned me some otaku street cred amongst my friends.
Great video, Just decided to open my old game gear and replaced the caps with SMD caps except for the power board which got regular caps. The smell was horrid when changing them. would be interesting to see 2 player running on the master system mod instead of a game gear with link cable.
Wish Sega would bring out an updated Game Gear, compatable with the old stuff. Plus an updated digital TV tuner.
Hopefully the developer can get the Super Game Gear to work with the Genesis converter!
Love your videos. Period.
Thanks for watching!
I was really expecting that little switch on the side of the adapter to toggle on a masking border to cover the garbage pixels....
I would have loved that, but it's not possible with software like that :(
This was fascinating and it makes me want to go buy a Game Gear. I wish I knew what happened to the two I had when I was younger.
Curious! Big Game Gear fan! Let’s bring it on!
I have a mint lion king edition game gear and 30 boxed games and 45 unboxed games. I have CIB master gear converter still with the warranty card and sticker! ❤
The Mega SG with its GG adapter will also allow you to play GG on the TV
Wow...did not realise that Sonic on master system ( and game gear?). Came After the more superior Megadrive/ genisis one. 🤯
I loved my GG, was far better than the game boy. You could it on the dark and it was a better design you could also watch TV on it. Cracking handheld. I wish I still had mine
I wanted the TV tuner but it was so expensive.
A few things to add - game gear can be modded with FM and 3D glasses hardware, but it's not a user friendly mod at all. Also, almost all LCD screen mods also output RGBs but use (I think? maybe?) ttl level sync. you can use a small $4-5 open source AV module to add composite video AND s-video to get full output options. It should work with MCwill modded VGA consoles too to get a console that could all that as well, likely sharing pins on the VGA connector. Finally, a consolized game gear that doesn't output correct RGB video on master system games is unfortunately maybe not modded correctly (it could be an older limitation of tims board?) - the game gear compresses master system video to fit the game gear LCD normally which messes with the video - to get around this most LCD and video mods connect a wire that essentially disables the SMS video compression giving it proper video output. it's a common mistake in LCD installs to miss this wire and cause video issues just like yours in "mickey".
@9:17 😆 ghetto genius
It would be interesting to see what they could do with the Genesis hardware, considering that it has the same (or at least a similar) 4096 color pallete and extra processing power that could be used to draw a border à la the Super Game Boy.
The Genesis maxes out at 512. You’d either have to make something that actively runs the Game Gear game and converts the output to something the Genesis can display (like a more involved Super Game Boy, not really worth it nowadays), or figure out how to get the SMS backwards compatibility working. It doesn’t sound like anyone has figured out the latter yet.
@@SpacedHarrier Oh, my bad, I forgot. Still, it would be much easier to find proper color matched with the larger pallete.
Sega was developing a GG to Gen converter around 1995, presumably for launch for the Nomad. It most likely would of just been a GG Z80 running through the Gen hardware kinda like the SVP chip does for Virtua Racing or the SH2s in the 32X.
I think palying game gear games on the Mega drive would have been what people would have wanted to do if anything since those systems were more contemporary and more people had a megadrive and the megadrive was backwards compatible anyway but may have been able to handle the extra colour.
Woot! I need a cardboard bezel!
Love the video thank you
Glad you enjoyed it
With the benefit of hindsight, maybe they should have let people play Game Gear games on the Master System instead of the other way around. and Imagine if they'd done the same thing for the Megadrive. The same tiny carts on three different pieces of Seega hardware.
You'd need some kind of code trap to figure out whether the game was running on GG or Master System because of the GG's extra vi.deo options, and the games would have be be designed to work on either, which is probably why they didn't go this route, but it would have been very neat
I wonder if the Game Gear benefits from its lower resolution to display more colors, otherwise I feel it's basically a Master System in smaller form factor. I like it as it kind of gave the Master System more years in the market, so we have a better idea on how would the SMS fair with more third party support and newer titles, like Shining Force and other exclusives.
Kind of missed opportunity that they didn't add dynamic GG window cropping options, that way it wouldn't be fixed and the GG screen could have changed and improved over time. Would have needed a 160x120 4:3 LCD instead but then it could have bumped up to 208x156, and 256x192 GG models. Would have made AV-out more attractive for the GG, could have done 256x192 on TVs. :D Although really I always hoped Brazil might do a SMS-2 with Start button and improved color palette included, but it never happened. :(
If it had been adaptive from the start the GG versus SMS code difference wouldn't be the obstacle it became later. Certainly if I could hack GG titles I'd likely include a few window size options while I was at it. That sprite spawning window edge difference seems to give people some trouble though since many produce more screen but the gameplay is still 160x144 based. With GG exclusives there is a performance aspect for that smaller screen sometimes which is a complication.
I do think Sega could have planned the GG better though so that official SMS or Genesis GG cart adapters could have been made just like Nintendo did with the SGB. Glad somebody tackled a hardware based solution since palette shifting is a trivial matter, sure it looks technically better on GG but that doesn't mean SMS colors can't apply.
Sweet original hardware solutions you featured there, a new PCB is a great salvage option for those custom IC chips. True it's more a hobby to use OG-GG hardware now that I can see why many use other paths to GG gaming.
The GG auto tuner (only released in japan) doesn’t use the dedicated pins. I would have liked to see you try that one
I didn't even know that was a thing!!! I'd love to try one.
St1kaaaa....! (Voice from Kirk shouting "KHAAAAN!")
haha yep that's me :D
Am I the only one that is more interested in the other way arround? Meaning more master system ports for game gear. Like you said, I am sure is not that hard to just grab some master system games, zoom in, move the U.I. closer if needed and then just having a cool game gear port of the game. There are so many good master system games with no game gear ports, like shinobi, phantasy star or the alex kid games. Some would even work ok. And no problem of missing colors.
I am all for hacks of game gear games zooming out, but I am mostly interested in retro handhelds, so I am more for hacks of master system games zooming in for game gear.
*Retron 5 is the best way to play Game Gear games* 💡
The Retron5 is a laggy emulation console. It's one of the worst ways to play Game Gear games. Using an app on your cellphone is probably better.
I'd really love to see game gear games playable via the FPGA on the Mega Everdrive Pro, but I'm guessing that would require bios files that don't actually exist.
The super Mega Tower
Because Genesis is mostly (?) backwards compatible with SMS games, is it possible for similar adaptor be created for use on a genesis utilising the proper gg colors that i assume a genesis could handle?
No, because the Genesis switches to SMS mode when the Power Base Converter is used. Great question though. I should have mentioned that ;/
8:24 What does the toggle switch on that prototype do? It seems to be labelled "J and O". Could that be Japan and overseas....? But then, I'm confused. The GameGear is region free and Japanese Mark III games have a physically different pin connector than Master System. So what the heck does that toggle switch do?
I actually kind of prefer the master system games on the game gear because of the way they scale. Looks more normal to me.
It would be better, if on the "Super Game Gear", they could map the Start button to a button combo instead of requiring that you use the SMS Pause button. (Maybe something like holding both buttons + up/right, for three seconds, for example) It's not very good if you are gaming across the room from your system.
You mention the Analogue Pocket, but another possibility there is Analogue's Mega SG, for which a GG adapter is available and obviously works on a TV. If you're an idiot like me you can even use the SMS convertor for the GG in the GG adapter despite the fact there's an actual SMS adapter in the box. The TV tuner, as I imagine you've guess, does not work.
Check the pinned post
The fact I can play SMS games using an EverDrive GG X7 on Game Gear and have a homemade Mega Man for SMS that works answers the question. ;)