Mega Drive Plus Games for Mega SD - How are they made?

[Batzarro]

Hi. Since the Mega CD flash cart came out which lets you also play Mega CD games without a Mega CD, there's been a lot of videos about it on Youtube. They sometimes mention Mega Drive Plus (or +?) games, they are rom hacks which allow you to play the game with audio from .WAV files.

For example there's a version of Out Run with the arcade soundtrack and a version of Streets of Rage 2 with the SOR Remake music floating around the internet. But they don't have a readme file saying who made them and I can't seem to find anything on Google concerning how these rom hacks are actually made. Sorry does anyone know how?

[Jorpho]

Looks like this is a brand-new development.

I found this thread:
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?34482-Anyone-capable-of-making-MD-games-for-the-Mega-SD

[FAST6191]

For others just learning of this then the following video will hopefully get you up to speed on the background of it all
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i569jGYkDiU

As for the question then sounds like any in depth hardware hack -- learn how the hardware is addressed and its protocols for speaking to it, modify the game to do that rather (or in addition to) what it already does. As this is nice 16 bit era hardware, which is to say before sound formats became somewhat standardised, with the added perk of the console in question having a straight up processor with its own memory (trivially making it Turing complete) and multiple chips it governs within that setup, then each hack is probably going to be its own ordeal with its own approach needed for the really fun aspects. However reading some of what is to come you can get 95% of the way there and help yourself out within many games to make a somewhat easier approach.

https://forums.terraonion.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1027 mentions something by way of example, as does https://pastebin.com/f0AiBAG1

For a more general approach there is the dev manual I found at the bottom of https://terraonion.com/en/producto/megasd/
https://downloads.terraonion.com/public/MegaSD_DEV_Manual.pdf

[EvilJagaGenius]

Just learned about the flash cart from this thread and dang, that looks cool.  I have a Genesis and 32X but no CD, so this looks right up my alley... if I had the funds.  I'm hoping either the price goes down or someone tries to clone it.  In the meantime, does anyone know if emulators support these kinds of hacks?

[Jorpho]

In the meantime, does anyone know if emulators support these kinds of hacks?

The thread I linked to suggests Regen.

[peixemacaco]

Hmmmm, I was viewing this topic and I've reminded of Gens 32 Surreal emulator.  Years before MSU for Snes , that emulator played CDDA for Genesis games.

You may see Moonwalker MD playing on Gens 32 Surreal emu here   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5Di18KKTI4

Modified the post to show a better video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYy3vb-1UGo

It´s so old the emulator, that only a few videos on YT....lol

Tried to play this Strider as Sega CD game on this emulator, but not worked, it only stay on CD Play screen on Sega CD....

Nelson

[EvilJagaGenius]

Apologies for the topic necromancy, but the author of Genesis Plus GX is working on implementing this into the emulator: https://github.com/ekeeke/Genesis-Plus-GX/issues/297

Hopefully, once it happens, more people will be interested in playing around with the feature.

[peixemacaco]

Apologies for the topic necromancy, but the author of Genesis Plus GX is working on implementing this into the emulator: https://github.com/ekeeke/Genesis-Plus-GX/issues/297

Hopefully, once it happens, more people will be interested in playing around with the feature.

Great news!!!

Nelson

[RadioTails]

Apologies for the topic necromancy, but the author of Genesis Plus GX is working on implementing this into the emulator: https://github.com/ekeeke/Genesis-Plus-GX/issues/297

Hopefully, once it happens, more people will be interested in playing around with the feature.

Fantastic news! Can't wait!

[VicVergil]

Comix Zone will need this the most.
The actual game was shipped with an Audio CD with much higher quality versions of in-game background music, for the players to listen to as they play the game with the music option off.