jap. SMS FM-chip set!!

today i bought a japanese Sega master system with the unique FM-chip set built in. i was just blown away from the warm'n'harm sound which flew over to my ears!! unfortunately i do not own any games at the moment, so i could only hear the fantastic space harrier song in the startup-title from the vers. 2.1. when i remember back in the time when i owned the euro SMS, the sound wasn't by far not that excellent as it comes from this machine!!
so i hope i have a chance to buy some titles tomorrow (r-type, aleste etc).
so here my question. do all games support this FM-chip? and is there also a hidden maze game? if yes, how to enter it?

thx a lot
tatsu

 

I have the Japanese Master System too. not all games feature FM Sound but most of them do. The games have a little FM mark on the cover and cartridge to let you know. Phantasy Star is a million times better. If you take a look at my site you can see the Master System / Mark III titles I have. On there I've marked down which ones have FM sound.

Yakumo

 

thx a lot for the answer, will check it out immediately. so what about the secret game?

:edit:

ok checked it. will buy WB3, aleste and compiles r-type at first) can you recommend me the AV-cable? i don't like to play via poorish antenna-signal

 

add. question. why they didn't use the fm-chip set in the oversea version?

 

Because it was created WAY after the SMS came out in europe&USA.
At that time,only Sega Mark III existed in Japan,and had same "sound abilities" than Occidental systems.
Later,they created the FM Sound chip set,and made it for Mark 3 players
Later again,like 2 years after US&Euro SMS release,they made the Japanese Master System,which has builtin FM Sound chipset,and LOOK LIKE US/Euro SMS...not the opposite!They were inspired from US/Euro SMS style for making it

Then,your Japanese SMS is younger than occidental ones.
That's why Occidental SMS don't have that chipset

 

I use a Mega Drive 1 AV cable but the left sound channel is buggered on it. Not too sure if this is because of the pin layout or the cable it's self. Next time I get it out I'll give it a try with my other Mega Drive AV cable to see if that's the same.

As for a free hidden game, I think not but you never know.

Yakumo

 

thx, i see^^

btw: just have seen a jap. sms once in the nakano broadway lose for about 12'000yen few years ago. so i'm just lucky about my snip of 1000yen for a boxed one:icon_bigg

is the jap. system that rare?

 

Yeah, maybe not super rare but very popular these day. Mine is a mint boxed unit that set me back 3500 yen. Even at that price I thought it was a deal so you getting it for 1000 yen is fantastic. It's just a pain that many shops sell the games for such high prices. Even Yahoo auctions isn't that cheap.

Yakumo

 

yeah, but when i checked the prices for some neat games such as r-type, aleste etc. they never went over 1500yen. so which one ar the most expensive games? btw. i also want to buy the capatain silver gold-cart, since a loved that game back in the days, especially for its bgm

 

Lucky bugger. Down here all Master System carts that are in good shape cost more than 2000 yen !

Yakumo

 

Both the SMS and MD are mono out of the AV jack in the back. That cable is probably a stereo PC-Engine AV cable.

Yes, FM games sound better than regular SMS PSG, but still, some games have disappointingly bland FM sound. Anyway, one thing to watch out for is a Mah-Jong game for the Mark III that has the "FM" logo on it, but does NOT have FM sound! I doubt you'd pick up a Mah-jong game, anyway, but...

 

A couple questions: ccovell, I've noticed that too. Is there a way to get stereo sound out of either of them?

Also, what does "FM" stand for, anyway? I assume it isn't "Frequency Modulation".

 

It is.

 

For a model 1 genesis/mega drive, to get stereo you have to have a sega/mega cd and use a male to male cable and hook one end to the sega cd mixing port and the other to the headphone port while using the stereo outputs on back of the sega cd to hear it.

The other way is to use headphones or buy some speakers and plug them into the headphone port to hear the stereo sound. For a sms I would say like the nes you would have to hack it.

 

What does that mean, then? I thought that Frequency Modulation was a term that applied to analog radio signals. What does that have to do with a sound card on an SMS? Does that just mean that it's FM-quality?

 

Probably the full title is "FM Synthesis", which is an older way to create richer waveforms out of a synthesizer. It starts with sine waves, like the old PSG chips, but modulates the one wave with the base frequency of another, creating more complex harmonics.

Here, Wikipedia can explain it better than I can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_synthesis

Anyway, for stereo sound from the Megadrive, hook the headphone output to your stereo. From the Master System, well, you could do some hacking inside and route the PSG channel to the Left channel and FM to the right channel, then connect those externally to your stereo. But a lot of games are FM-only or PSG-only. Only the Japanese BIOS uses them both at once for music, AFAIK.

 

Err, you can get stereo out of the AV jack on both the Master System (JPN) and Meag Drive ! My Mega Drive outputs Stereo through the back AV via either scart when I lived in the UK or Svideo here in Japan. The Master System may be wired slightly differnt from the MD which is why there's a humming sound from the left channel when I use the MD cables. I remember the Neo Geo ones working fine on a MD as well. Oh, my Japanese Mega Drive 2 also out puts stereo via the AV jack. All you need are the right cables.

Yakumo

 

Where's the stereo? Or SVideo for that matter. The Megadrive 2 has it, but the MD1 and SMS definitely do not.

Link: http://www.gamesx.com/avpinouts/genesisav.htm

Whatever you're smoking, Yakumo, please let me know where I can get it in my area.

 

All I can say is that the western Mega Drive or that chart is wrong. My Mega Drive can output stereo I'm 100% sure of it. I'll get my Mega Drive out on Wednesday and check it.

Yakumo

PS: My Svideo cable is a custom one I had made for RGB or as close to since Japanese TVs don't have scart on them.

 

Odd, are you saying that japanes mega drive model 1's had the ability to output stereo through the av? Cause from all tech docs and disscusions on sega hardware I have read it has been stated tha tmega drive 1 hardware can not output stereo through the av.