New member here, some might remember me from the old DP days or other retro sites. I finally registered (usually only lurk because I never have anything to ask/add) because I'm trying to find out a technical detail about 32X CD games. What I'm wondering is basically this: If you have a 32X and a Sega CD and run a CD-based game, will that game be able to use the Sega CD CPU, or is the Sega CD merely acting as a storage medium in this case (similar to the PC-Engine CD units). To be clear, I don't care whether the released 32X CD games actually make use of this or not, I only need to know if it is possible. In other words, I'm wondering if a 32X CD game is running on the same technical platform as a 32X cartridge game or if it can utilize the additional CPU to achieve better performance. Thanks in advance
Not sure but if I had to guess, it does. Sadly, only 6 games (5 worldwide, 1 exclusive to Brazil) were released for the combo and they are just FMV games that look less grainy. They might not use the Sega CD CPU.
The cd 32x games use the sega cd cpu like all other cd based games. The 32x was there for the colors.
Yes, the SegaCD hardware is fully available. The 32x and SegaCD are independent units, and both units, or neither unit, can be utilized by any game on the system. If you have both units connected, you could plug a normal Genesis cartridge into the 32x, and play it. In this case, neither the 32x or SegaCD hardware is being used. It's possible to write a CD-based game that uses the 32x hardware, such as the SegaCD 32x games that were released. The SegaCD supported an operation mode where the system was booted from cartridge rather than CD, and the SegaCD hardware was fully available in this mode. Flux is an example of a commercially released Genesis cartridge that used the SegaCD hardware. It would also be possible to create a 32x cartridge that uses the SegaCD hardware as well as the 32x hardware, although none were ever commercially released.
That could be a great way to patch the music in the 32X version of Doom. I know Pier Solar homebew carts came with a CD that you put in the Sega CD to allow the game to have CD quality music. Hopefully someone can get some homebrew for the Genesis CD 32X combo that fully utilizes all 3's hardware capabilities.
Thanks a lot Nemesis, that definitely clears things up then. Great to hear the 32X it's not just using the CDs as an alternative storage medium. Shame it wasn't put to use though!
Any points of reference to this as i'm going to be creating a game that might benefit from this in the near future. Scorpion Illuminati
All the information currently available on this is on the SpritesMind forums. Here's the most relevant thread: http://gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1018
Thanks for the link, i downloaded the source code and hopefully will figure out how it works. I would like to use pcm samples from a sega cd to supply the music. I doubt reading data is possible in mode 1 but, i will investigate anyways. Sincerely, Scorpion Illuminati
