What are the different ways to get FM sound out of MarkIII/SMS games?

So what are the different ways to get FM sound out of Mark-III/SMS games?


I know you can:

a) Get a Japanese Master System and use a special adaptor for Western games that have FM enabled.

b) Get a Mark-III with FM add-on.


Now what I'm really curious about: Is there a way to play Mark-III games on a Megadrive and get FM sound?

I heard rumors there's an adaptor w/ a built in Yamaha FM chip that will enable this. Anybody know where one could get such an adaptor?

 

I think the rumoured adaptor was really a MD flash cart (with an FM chip as an option?)

Here's one link, though I don't know any more about it. http://www.neoflash.com/forum/index.php?board=41.0

 

Annoyingly there are a couple of games which didn't get released in Japan but did in the west but still have FM Music (for example Wonderboy III - Dragons Trap aka Monsterworld II), so apart from Emulators or adapters there isnt anyway to hear the lovely music.

 

Not true - you just need one of these adaptors to play US/Euro games on a Japanese SMS via the expansion slot.

 

I think a MK3->MD adapter could have FM if it would integrate the FM circuit:
http://www2.odn.ne.jp/~haf09260/Mark3/Fm70.htm

Hopefully the MD connector provides the necessary port controls for decoding.

 

Originally Posted by Jamtex
so apart from Emulators or adapters there isnt anyway to hear the lovely music.

Did you fail English at school? ;-)

I still would like to find a way to turn off the FM Sound chip and force the Japanese SMS to use the SN sound chip...

 

Here's a question, why do the western games such as Wonderboy III have FM sound when they were never released in Japan which is the only region with a FM sound compatable Mark III / Master System? were these games originally programmed in Japanese then translated in to English for the Western market ?

Yakumo

 

Yes, after the Mega Drive was released, Sega did in Japan what they did to the Saturn, which was stop releasing games for the older system, and concentrate on the new one. Many of the Master System games were programmed in Japan, even though they would only be released in the US or Europe. I bet the programmers cried themselves to sleep every night over that...

 

man, that must have been a real shock to Japanese gamers. I mean, Wonder Boy III is one of the best games on the system !

Yakumo

 

quoted for truth. such a finely crafted game, you can tell the programers understood the master system inside out.

 

On another note it did appear on the Game Gear in Japan, so there hard work wasn't totally wasted.

 

The game was also released for PC-Engineand TurboGrafx (under the title "Adventure Island").

The head dev of WBIII wrote an essay in the WB Sega Ages collection talking about how it sucked that the game didn't get released in Japan.


About the Mark-III's FM Sound:

So a MD adapter which includes the FM sound chip has yet to be produced, huh?

That's too bad, because I like playing Mark-III games on MD in order to enjoy them in RGB.

So the only viable option for the ultimate Mark-III experience would be a Japanese SMS with RGB mod? Kind of a hassle and expensive.

 

The Japanese SMS has an identical A/V output to the Mega Drive, including RGB output. I'm not sure about the Mark III...

 

J-SMS outputs RGB!?

I didn't know that!

Sweet! I'll have to get one then.

 

Yeah Monster World 2 Game Gear was released in Japan SEVERAL MONTHS after Monster World 3 on Megadrive..