i plan to purchase a PAL sega mega drive 2 with 60 hz mod this week. i have played a few games for sega mega drive when i was a kid, but i didn't have chance to try SMS games in the past. so i thought a flash cart with support for both mega drive and sms rom can help me. i heard how the FM sound for SMS is superior, so i want to try my chance at that. also rom loading from sd cart is a must. Possible combinations for me: 1) Neo Myth MD 3in1 flash cart (139$) + neo 2 sd flash cart (69$) + shipping (i assume it will be about 10-15$) about 225$ or 2) a SMS console with FM sound (via viletim's expansion) (about 180$) + Everdrive MD (93$ with shell) + Master Everdrive without shell (77$) about 350$ and plus 10-15$ shipping. 3) if i stop caring about FM sound i can get away with Everdrive MD with total about 93$ so option 1 seems great for me as it still has fm support. but i have heard various claims about this FM sound is really distorted. this worries me as i am about to pay 125$ more only for that. also people say Neo Myth flash carts are really bad quality. i never had any problem with my everdrive 64. i would be very glad to hear suggestions especially from people who tried FM sound on Neo Myth MD 3 in 1, and/or people who tried both everdrive and Neo Myth series.
I am the owner of a 2nd version NeoMyth and a sms1+smsfm+masterED ... they both sound the same to me in FM games, I have no complain. The only difference is bass and general audio "texture" , but this is to be expected since they play through a completely different machine. But I too have heard complains about FM sound, a friend of mine has a neomyth too and is not satisfied, maybe there was some batch with a fault or something? As for building quality, the case is sturdy, well cut and mine works fine after all these years, I can't comment more on that
thanks for the comment. how about the flashing software for NeoMyth? i plan to use SD cart, so after i flash the basic firmware, i can drag-and-drop files to sd card and no mess with flashing software, right?
I had a modified SMS2 on ebay last week which didn't sell. SMS2 FM Board 2 port pause mod Power on led in power switch S-video AV 50/60Hz switch Safe Language mod I don't know why the Master System doesn't get the love anymore, ah well.
I've been holding out for a pin adapter to play Japanese carts. One of those things who keeps my current Master System around.
They have them on SMSPower (or used to?) they call the "Gender Adaptor" or some such. They plug into the Expansion port on a SMS model 1 http://www.smspower.org/Development/GenderAdapter Whoops sorry, it's the other way around.... Keep forgetting that!
ic2005/neoflash include the shipping in the price. There's no mention of FM on the product page for some reason but mine has FM and it sounds fine to me. edit: I was looking at the MD myth cart + Neo3-SD cart 2011 bundle kit. That doesn't mention FM because the Neo3-SD doesn't support SMS games. You need the Neo2/Neo2 Pro for SMS games (they have other carts without SD but those are slow and unreliable to write to, best to stick with SD).
http://www.ic2005.com/shop/product.php?productid=33&cat=3&page=1 here is the link. They mention FM. Though i have learnt only v5 can load SMS games from SD and the version number of the cart is not on the product page. it would be really a bad surprise to order this and see you can play sms games from 256 Mbit flash only. www.ic2005.com/shop/product.php?productid=41&cat=5&page=1, i have to buy this too to have sd cart support. maybe you looked at the one below which supports sd carts out of the box but not sms games unfortunately. www.ic2005.com/shop/product.php?productid=132&cat=3&page=1
Sega switched between using Yamaha sound chips and their own implementation. I imagine that it's the console that makes the difference, not the flash cart.
I only have the 512mbit cart that came with the flashcart, once you "burn" the games in windows then they load instantly , Chilly Willy enhanced the menu by far... I hear that with the SD adapter it works the same as the everdrives but it doesn't use a flash memory to hold the game, it uses ram so the wait is shorter
The only problem with that is the fact you lose the game stored in memory after a power down. But that wouldn't bother me since I rarely start same game from a fresh session. But the shorter wait times should make up for that. Hmmmmm...
^ you do lose it BUT the load is instant like with the megaED ... so it's not something to worry about IMHO on the "classic" 256/512/1024mbit carts you get a one-time delay when you burn the games though windows, after that everything is instant
The only complaint I heard about the FM on the MD Myth was from someone who mods their MD for better quality audio than stock, so he's hardly an impartial voice. If you shrug over the Model 2 audio, you won't complain about the FM in the Myth. If you get a Myth with a flash-only cart, you write the SMS games over USB to the flash and you're set. The only issue with that is you have to write the games you want to flash - depending on how many games you like, you may wind up reflashing the cart periodically. To run games from SD, you need a Neo2-SD AND the V5 hardware of the Myth. There is a version of the Myth from ic2005 that comes with the Neo3-SD - that won't run SMS games at all since you need either flash or zip-ram, and the Neo3-SD has neither one. The Neo3-SD is only good for MD or 32X games. It's cheaper, but not what people wanting to play SMS games need. So you are stuck with either the Myth + flash-only or you have to buy the Neo2-SD separately. The Everdrive-MD is a nice cart and plays SMS games, but you'll need a separate FM mod to the MD for FM. Getting the MasterEverdrive for SMS owners is also nice, but it again doesn't have FM, so you'd need the FM expansion. So no matter which way you go, you're going to have trouble and spend extra. You stated your only other choice... forget FM.
thanks for the detailed answer Chilly Willy. if you do not mind i have a few more questions: 1) if i get the neo2-sd and MD Myth 3 in 1, the SMS games will be run directly from SD cart, right? everdrive writes the rom from sd cart to flash and then runs the code, i assume this is not the case for MD Myth 3 in 1. i wonder this because there is a lot of talk about bad sectors on flash. So my plan is to buy the neo2-sd and never use the 256 Mbit flash. 2)if i order the MD Myth 3 in 1 (not the neo3-sd one), is it guaranteed that i will get the V5 hardware? There is nothing about that on the order page.
With the Neo2-SD and V5 Myth (by now, all Myths should be V5), you can run SMS games from SD. The Neo2-SD has what they call "zip ram" in it; the file on the SD card is read into zip ram, and then run from there. The Neo2-SD also has 512Mbits of flash, so commonly used games could also be burned into flash for faster running (no loading needed). The FM is normally ON when you run SMS games, but you can also turn it off if you wish to just use the PSG for some reason. You also have save ram for the few SMS games that save (like Phantasy Star). Bad sectors are rare, but can occur, especially as a device gets older or is used a lot. That's why I like the MegaEverdrive more than the EverdriveMD - the former loads to ram, while the latter burns to flash. As I mentioned above, the best use for the Neo2-SD is put the most commonly used games (SMS, MD, and/or 32X) into flash, and load the rest off SD. You can, of course, ignore the flash altogether... I tend to myself. By this time, there really SHOULDN'T be any older versions of the hardware in stock, but if you're concerned, you would want to contact them about it... probably the best way is to ask Dr.neo on the NeoFlash board in the IC2005 forum.
http://www.ic2005.com/shop/product.php?productid=33 This should answer all questions. Support for MK III games with FM sound. Support for the SD/TF flash cart. Says it is the MD5 model. Ect, ect... Price and purchase info at bottom of screen.
That "MD5" term was not about the Myth, that was about the Asian clone of the MD1 that it was plugged into in the pic. The V5 we are talking about is the firmware version of the CPLD inside the Myth. My menus tell you the CPLD version so that bug reports are easier to deal with - for example, if you report that SMS games don't run from the SD card with your V4 cart, we know why. There are 4 versions out - the original V1, V3, V4, and the newest, V5. I've got all of those (although my V3 cart kicked the bucket after a round of heavy testing last year).
