a converter than would alow me to play my GG games on my SMS? I have seen the converter that lets you play SMS games on the GG. but was wondering if anyone developed one that went the other way. any help would be appreciated.
The Game Gear apparently had a bigger palette (or was it on-screen colours?) so it's not technically possible, despite the rest of the hardware being identical. Made for piss easy ports though.
You can make a converter, but only a few games will work properly. Games like Castle of Illusion, which are in fact just the Master System version on a Game Gear cartridge, making use of the Game Gears built in compatibility. The Game Gear has an improved graphics chip, a different resolution etc, so games just wont play properly at all on a Master System.
You can always mod a game gear to play on your TV, just be aware it won't display at full size. For example if you have a 34cm TV, the image will be around the 20cm or so mark. Here is mine I have done.
If you run a GG game in a SMS it will boot fine and might play... BUT: 1- You will have no start button to start the game 2- You will have a psychotic palette due to the differences on the enhanced VDP the GG has ... 3- You might have problems with sound due to the GG sound chip being customized for "pseudo stereo"
I used a video board (the one that is shown through the screen) from a chap on smspower forums. His user name is Viletim. Here is the link for you http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11931 . The video board can output RGB, S-video and composite. Composite was good enough for me, so I just went with that. I had a GG that had a dead screen, so I removed that and fitted the video board in it's place. I removed the cart slot and relocated that through the GG outer screen so it is now a "top loader". It required that I lengthen the back row of cart slot pins, not really to hard. With this though, I can't play SMS games anymore, bbuuuttttt that doesn't matter as I have a fairly modifed SMS2 for that (50/60Hz & language switch, pause on control pad, on light built into the power switch <refer guide on mmmonkey website>, FM sound board <also from Viletim>, RGB, S-video and composite out). I used a controller port from a dead MD2 and wired up controller port 1 to the existing GG controller points (the GG buttons sytill work). I wired up the 2 player port via the EXT port on the GG, here is a link for that http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12065&highlight=game+gear++player . I also added the pause mod trick from the SMS into this so I can use my modified SMS control pad with the pause button on it. I think that is about it:thumbsup:
Awesome to know it's doable. I just need the FM board and my SMS2 will be ready for all that. Right now it's a crap model. PAL RF only. Not so much as a reset button lol.
For the best GG, I guess, is to replace the standard backlight with one from a NDSi (DS lite is to small). I have done this and it is pretty good, battery life goes from something like 1hr to 4hr+. I haven't tried it but since the DSi backlight takes up less room, you should be able to have that and the video out board which would make for a better GG. Don't forget to change those caps lol!
Ha, I've been kicking around that very idea for some time now. Glad to see someone actually did it. Though if possible I'd love for a custom case to be created. That works and looks pretty good but I wouldn't mind something that might look good enough to be confused with an actual SEGA made prototype.
Here is the link to my post on Sega-16 in regards to the backlight mod. http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?17412-Game-Gear-with-DS-backlight I still haven't had a chance to re-visit this (to busy modifying Atari's for AV, Sega Nomad, Sega CD's etc etc lol). But I do hope to get back to it soon. I am going to try and leave the standard polarizer (the white plate I refer to) and see how it goes with the brighter DSi backlight. It might be ok and it would make the mod so much easier.