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I have an NTSC Master System and an Everdrive cart, what's the best way to play VGM files on this thing?
I tried Maxim's Vgmplayer 0.45 and a few .vgm files, but either the graphics are messed up or it hangs. The roms seem to work fine in an emulator.
I have no experience w/ Sega and not sure if this is your issue, but I do know that w/ the NES you have to remove the Header from the ROM to run it on the original hardware.
Did a quick search for SMS header and found this: http://www.smspower.org/Development/ROMHeader
EDIT: After reading the page further it says 'Master System and Game Gear BIOSes require this to be present to indicate valid data.' So removing that header would prob not work.
Last edited by HeavyW8bit (Nov 5, 2014 8:02 pm)
I heard from Maxim, basically said it was tested on PAL hardware and apparently PAL is more forgiving, so unless I start messing with the source I'm pretty much SOL since it's the only VGM player out there for SMS.
Hey mate - hit up Batsly Adams in about a month about this ;-)
I'm in the midst of totally breaking his (heavily modified) VGM player with all sorts of crazy experiments. What are you using it for? Is this a one off set of tracks or are you just trying to play VGM rips?
Hey mate - hit up Batsly Adams in about a month about this ;-)
I'm in the midst of totally breaking his (heavily modified) VGM player with all sorts of crazy experiments. What are you using it for? Is this a one off set of tracks or are you just trying to play VGM rips?
Primarily for the ability to play my own or other's tracks on hardware.
That's awesome to know other people are trying to work on VGM playback for the master system. I tried to set up a dev environment recently but it wouldn't compile the hello world example, it just kind of sat there doing nothing.
If i ever get it working I was going to mess around with Maxim's VGM player source and see if I could figure anything out that would cause issues on PAL vs NTSC. I did notice something weird with a pre-compiled hello world rom, the Everdrive start menu is still visible the whole time. I've never seen any games have this problem, makes me wonder if it's assuming clean RAM. Also wondering if it's something related to the Everdrive that wouldn't be an issue if it was on an EEPROM.
just for the record, it's possible to put a SMS vgm (for example exported from deflemask) on an Everdrive for Megadrive / Genesis with this tool: http://mjsstuf.x10host.com/pages/vgmPlay/vgmPlay.htm
I think it will sound the same as if it was recorded from SMS because it's the same chip.
just for the record, it's possible to put a SMS vgm (for example exported from deflemask) on an Everdrive for Megadrive / Genesis with this tool: http://mjsstuf.x10host.com/pages/vgmPlay/vgmPlay.htm
I think it will sound the same as if it was recorded from SMS because it's the same chip.
OMG Thanks Garvalf ! It's time to undust my SMS !
Ahh darn it's for Megadrive...well thanks again !
Last edited by XyNo (Jul 21, 2016 7:55 pm)
btw I tried VGMplayer with some Alex Mauer's song back in the days ! The interface is all F*** up but the song was running fine so it wasnt really an issue for me because its just one button to play one button to fast forward one arrow to stop and all the other stuff are visualisation options !
I had the feeling that Genesis / Megadrive were more available / cheaper than original SMS. Besides, you can find a Megadrive Everdrive for very cheap on AliExpress (search for "Genesis/MD EDMD"). Of course, if you already have a SMS and an everdrive for sms, my post is not useful I'm afraid 
About the sound quality / difference I can say that SMS has much brighter sound than MD. The square tones seem shorter, more staccato on MD.
Now if the music doesn't use any special tricks, just the noise preset sounds then it will sound mostly the same between the systems. But there is a noticeable difference in volume balance when the periodic noise mode is in use. Particularly the thin noise bass & low white noise drums. Those are much louder on MD. A track like this will sound good on the system it was made for and bad on the other system.
Since the original post I've acquired a Genesis HDG, a Mega Everdrive, and a YM2413 equipped Master System adapter (PowerBase Mini FM).
I've found that the Genesis hardware is more lenient with SMS VGMPlay than SMS hardware and runs it as it does in an emulator. The SMS rom runs the same on the Mega Everdrive and the Master Everdrive w/ adapter.
SMS VGMPlay does support YM2413 channel playback and it works fine with the adapter.