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V1.1 March 2019
System Settings
Hardware
USA (NTSC Export) – Use for Games released in
North and South America
Japan (NTSC Domestic) – Use for Games released
in Japan and South Korea
PAL Regions (PAL Export) – Use for Games
released in Europe and Australasia
PAL Extra (PAL Domestic) – Extra option which
is not used by licensed games
The Genesis/Mega Drive uses region locking where
the cartridge reads the state of a pair of bits.
In some consoles, the state of these bits can be
changed by installing jumpers or a switch,
and these options replicate this. However, the
PAL options also set the speed and video timing to
PAL-compatible settings, so changing these bits in
mid-game may cause a game, which is currently
running, to crash. These settings should be set in
conjunction with 60p modes for NTSC and 50p
modes for PAL in the Video Submenu.
By 1992, most games would display some kind
of message when a console played a game from
the wrong region and would refuse to progress.
Some games just give a single color screen or, for
companies such as Konami, just a generic logo.
In that case, change the region to the correct
region and reset.
Auto Region Detection will allow you to play a game
even if the game is not correct for the
region set by Mega Sg. When this option is active, it
will show the Region the console is
being forced to use below the option’s text. The
change in the region is only temporary and
nothing will appear if the region matches the
console’s settings. Some games are multi-region,
so Mega Sg prioritizes USA over Japan, then Japan
over PAL Regions with this
option.
Force 3 Button Mode
Some games will not function correctly with a
6 button controller, so use this option if you are
experiencing controller difficulties. Most games
which have difficulties with 6 button controllers
on original hardware will work fine on Mega Sg.
American Gladiators, John Madden Football, Ms.
Pac-Man, Olympic Gold: Barcelona ‘92 and Second
Samurai are examples of games which require this
option to be enabled on Mega Sg.
YM3438 Busy Behavior
The YM3438 has slightly different behavior when
telling the system that it is ready to receive data
compared to the YM2612. A few games do not
account for the varying behaviors and as a result
the speed of their music may not be ideal. If this
option is checked, then the music in Hellfire will run
slower than intended. Earthworm Jim should have it
checked, the music is slower than it should be with
the YM2612’s behavior.
SD Card Speed
This option allows for SD card access in the File
Browser via three speed settings for loading files :
Normal Speed, Fast and Faster.
Unless your SD card is really slow, you should be
OK with Faster. Lower the speed down if you are
having trouble loading Files.
Debug
Disable YM2612 Channels – Allows you to
individually disable each of the YM2612’s channels.
Disable PCM Audio – Turns off the sampled sound
processing mode feature of Channel 5, FM audio,
which is synthesized sound, will still be heard
through Channel 5.
Show IRQs – Shows IRQs active on any scanline
or portion thereof in red. The Genesis/Mega
Drive can generate an IRQ on any scanline and can
generate an IRQ on each scanline. IRQs are often
used for advanced graphical techniques.
