Classic Game Room - RETROGEN GENESIS/SNES ADAPTER review
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ส.ค. 2024
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RetroGen Genesis/SNES Adapter review! CGR is supported by a legion of rad fans around the galaxy. If you dig it, please kick in at least $2 on Patreon for CGR production :) Lord Karnage will smile upon thee!!
Classic Game Room reviews the RetroGen Genesis/SNES adapter that allows you to play Sega Genesis and Mega Drive games on a Super Nintendo!
Use that adapter with the master system adapter for genesis on the snes
Does that work? I have a retro gen
The RetroGen is an entire Sega Genesis clone inside an SNES cart.
Technically is not really an adapter and the SNES is not "playing" the games. It's only providing power and controller input.
+OldGraFX Yup their GBA SNES thing is the same, it feels kind of useless.
+OldGraFX
wow, that was a turn-off.
+- ̗̀new ̖́-Truly Atomic ➁ - The Pre-Prequel I think the Retro Advance adaptor has its uses, considering how rare the Game Boy Player is. Both of these adaptors are kind of a gimmick otherwise, though.
OldGraFX does it work with the power base converter,and the 32X ?
OldGraFX And yet it’s a better clone than AtGames’s offerings
I heard him say "It's time to say goodbye" and I was like "Oh crap he's quitting CGR"
Then he said "I'm about to destroy the world with the RetroGen" and I was like "Oh thank God"
+ericbazinga Because even if Earth is destroyed, CGR will safely continue in the safe confines of the Intergalactic Space Arcade, which is far more desirable than the alternative.
+ericbazinga He said that because he knew he was about to commit a Blasphemous Heinous crime against all existence.
+theseabass Yeah but I'll die
Imagine having this in the late 80s would have blown my mind
There was a console called the doctor, it could play all Nintendo and sega games.
Especially sinces snes didnt exist in late 80s
@@newmarketdispatch4830 I'm glad someone said it.
This might just rip a hole in the space time continuum...
+Logical Phallusy only because the Stuper Pretendo is inferior in every way to the SEGA Genesis.
Romsole World EDF!
+Logical Phallusy Yeah, but it provides NINTENDO POWER!!!!
+Logical Phallusy It's a bit more complex than what AVGN told on that video.
To start, only one game use the 512x448 mode of the snes because 64KB of VRAM is too few for that mode due having to use 16x16 tiles (check RPM racing for details), the whole rest use 256x224, which is inferior to the 320x224 that most sega genesis games use.
Sound depends on the cartridge size on the snes, because if they don't have too much space, they will have to recycle the samples a lot or use really small ones, which leads to really muffled sound, against the always crystal clear, but buzzy sega genesis audio.
Also the "one exception" have a HUGE impact on games, as it can put quite a dent on the game design by itself.
Also was just easier to port arcade games to the genesis because it used the same CPU, which allowed most devs to just hack the code in to run on it, while on snes you had to basically rewrite the game from scratch as assembler which was the thing games were written on back then was entirely CPU dependent.
But that simplistic comparison didn't showed another problem the sega genesis had, that was the fact it used more expensive ROMs than the snes.
Snes require a minimum of a 8bit 2.68 Mhz ROM, while sega genesis requires a 16bit, 7.67 Mhz ROM, which most likely made most games of the genesis smaller in average, which in turn made the snes better for bigger varied worlds like RPGs and expansive platformers, while the faster, easier to port CPU made the genesis better for arcade stuff.
+Logical Phallusy
"Genesis cartridges couldn't have those sorts of special chips"
Actually it did, the Megadrive/Genesis version of Virtua Racing used an extra chip called the Sega Virtua Processor.
Also Donkey Kong Country didn't use any extra chip and was just a 16 bit game.
The retro gen is basically a genesis on a chip. All it uses the SNES for is control input and power.
so it's not emulation then? It's actual hardware and not just a CPU running software?
+skins4thewin correct :-)
Yep, there's a GBA and NES one also that work on the SNES.
Precisely. It is a hardware emulator.
James Cree so, I’m guessing that it has the same lousy sound quality as those systems
does this mean snes has blast processing
+[cancer]Linus just the tips Nope.
No, but neither did the Genesis.
+EarlnEarl Clearly you didn't see the commercials.
RIP SEGA
Stereotypical Black Reactionist nooooo but i like playing bayonetta
I swear its for the gameplay....
The Impressive thing is that the SNES controllers work without some weird adapter. I like it.
The RETROGEN is like the Gandhi of the console wars
I'm surprised how chemically stable Truxton was on the SNES! I thought we were going to have a repeat of the Dreamcast VMU incident of 2011.
im so glad i held on to MUSHA. had it since the 90s.
+LXRYLXRYTV Not even a human woman could make a man rid himself if Musha. She will be out on the curb next to the dumpster before that!
Hahahahhahaha bro her ass will be in the dog house.
90s ads refuted. NintenDOES!
2014 release
No it DON'T, the retrogen cartridge is doing nearly all the work. No blast processing on the SNES bro :p.
@@monkmonk1132 Oh but there is.
Genesis does what nintenDOES !
I used to call the number on the back of the SNES all the time when I was a kid in the 90's, yeah. They would legit talk to you too.
SO I'm guessing that the processing is done on the cart itself since the SNES's processor is half that of the genesis.
+Gaming History Source I would assume nearly all of it is, and its just using the SNES as power source. its basically just a glorified emulator/mini genesis I'd guess as its not even outputting from the SNES.
Not really impressed at all with it.
+Lobo's Top 5 It's neat that it plays games from any region you throw at it. Saves me a lot of space now that I don't have to keep my old Japanese Mega Drive around. I'd put away my Genesis too, but I can't seem to play virtua racing on the thing, but that might just have something to do with my virtua racing cart being a bit beat up from buying it used.
ಠ_ಠ
*And you would be extremely wrong. HUGE difference between RISC and CISC processors and that's just a single thing. You cannot compare the clock speed of these chips,.. because they are VASTLY different technologies.*
Genesis on a chip CAN'T run the SVP chip which is what Virtua Racing uses.
Idiot.
The way your voice sounds in the R Zone reminds me of vilains from 90's cartoons
+Sanny Goosave
yeah, kinda sounds like Zordon from mighty morphin power rangers
I have seen most all of your videos Mark, but I am sick this Saturday and am gonna watch them all day.
When I saw the R-zone segment my immediate thought was "oh how I miss Derek"
Already had a beer in hand!
PS. Your voice is awesome.
I have an idea: how about plugging the Sonic 3 cartridge into the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge therefore creating Sonic 3 & Knuckles and then plug Sonic 3 & Knuckles into the Retrogen Genesis/Super NES adapter? That way you can play Sonic 3 & Knuckles on the Super NES! Not a bad idea, yeah?
You're doing it wrong
Doesn't actually seem to work for me. Sonic 3 on the adapter works fine, but towering the games just brings a black screen.
+Josue Rodriguez lol
Lucky Nintendo fans....
yeah its a one chip genesis/mega drive that has the 68k CPU, sound chips and video chip built in. all its using off the SNES is the power and input lines to the controllers...
AtGames need to step up their game on the sound front...
I thought you were ending the show for a second. Don't scare me like that Mark
+demarc the R-ZONE is always the end
Visionair
5:16 - that intro on TF2 always makes me laugh
What would happen if he put a 32X on top of the Retrogen, then put in Sonic & Knuckles and then put the Sega Power Adapter on top of that, then put a Game Gear adaptor on top of that with a game in it?
The Super Nintendo would explode under the sheer weight of Sega-ness and merge reality with the R-Zone!
+Centipede What would happen if you took an N64, inserted the Tri-Star adaptor, inserted the RetroGen into the SNES port, inserted the 32X, inserted a Game Genie, inserted Sonic and Knuckles, and inserted Sonic the Hedgehog 3 into it?
+Centipede interesting thought ! What about a power base converter ? 0_0
You would finally be playing Crysis 3 max settings then.
can you plug the 32X in it
+xzeroXL Can I shoot it with my mega photon blast?
+xzeroXL if you stick the 32x adapter onto it..it may work if you can keep it stable enough surprised he didnt try this
+John W2008 It can't work because the RetroGen doesn't have the Genesis' AV/RGB port on it.
+xzeroXL No, only the Power Base Converter.
Woah, woah woah, you can't just do that. You need more blast processing then a mere clone console... thing can provide!
4:01
I have actually, when I was 4 or 5 i called in and asked for a Super Mario Kart. They told me to ask my parents, so I did, and got Mario Kart for Christmas that year.
NOT THE R ZONE
NOT THE R ZOOOOONEEEEEEE
NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
IT'S IN MY EYES
Now there should be an adapter for the Sega Megadrive that plays Super Nintendo games!
CGR lives!!! keep up the excellent work bro..I'm always entertained, and I make it a point to watch to try and watch every vid.
Sooooo the retrogen is just using the snes for power? Almost seems a bit pointless to me. Add a power cable and it's a clone console in its own right.
+Strider VM it would be normal to use a SNES arcade stick though considering the one CGR is using is for SNES genesis and pc engine it would feel 100% normal to him
The special effects to your vid blew my mind!
In all seriousness, great video Lord Karnage. I like how you cracked up and broke character at the end. Good job and this looks like a fun adapter! If I had a working SNES I'd probably look out for this product, oh well.
This is how he went doing what he loved retiring by playing TRUXTON on SNES for the good of the people. Now you could just do this on a Retropie, but Lord Karnage and Retrobit were pioneers next to Wii's Virtual Console.
It is not an adapter but actually a genesis console inside the cartridge. The SNES just provides the power and input.
We've lost him folks. He belongs to the R-Zone now.
Cross breading is finally in
-Scott the woz
Mark you proved to be Dr. Frankenstein in this video.
Dogs and cats adapted together. Mass Hysteria.
Awesome reviews there!!
Cheers from a fan from Spain!
This review was all over the place honestly... I'm halfway into the video and I still have no idea how good this product is, I barely even know what it is.
beer was really strong
Where is the demand coming from for this to exist? Can I get an adaptor to play my ColecoVision games on my NES too?
I only own Nintendo consoles, but am interested in playing Sega Genesis games. Maybe it's for people that don't want to buy a Sega console.
As far as I know, there is no ColecoVision adapter.
Remedy_PPW The adaptor costs about as much as getting the console so unless you have no room for another console then I just do not understand the need for this contraption.
The SNES is basically powering and gathering the needed input for this "Genesis-on-a-chip" cartridge, the SNES hardware isn't doing anything really, that's why it doesn't use the SNES AV cables...
Technically you aren't playing Genesis on your SNES, you're just playing Genesis with a SNES controller while your SNES powers a tiny Genesis inside of the cartridge...
imagine how many minds would have been blown if you were the only one to have one of these in the 90's
But seriously... if you put a glass of beer on the top of your awesome SNES machine, you don't deserve to have such a nice collection. If you appreciate your retro machines like that, then please send them to me. I swear they would have a 1000 times bigger respect as a part of my collection.
gonna have to put the 32x on there with sonic n knuckles
32x wont work sadly since it has to have the video passthrough.
downphoenix what about the sega CD
now im waiting for retroSNES for sega mega drive
jaja still dreaming this add is older and nothing yet for sega
I have the Reto Gen and it's the only way I play my Genesis games now, and then I put my Genesis in the closet.
Gotta love the music from the Tropico series!!! :D
If I had a time machine, I would go back to the 90s and sell theses in toys r us
How dare you not plug in Sonic & Knuckles, which in turn has a game gear plugged in, which then has Sonic 3 plugged in!
Interesting to learn that such oddball products like this exist after all these years. Thanks as always for the review.
It does work on the Super Players Entertainment System SNES clone console without the need to plug in it's own av cable. The video and audio is output through the Super Player console's av cable (composite video only, not s-video).
Mark do you now what you've done?!?!? Now the R-Zone will cross streams with our universe....NOOOOO!!!!!!!
+JesterFace05 I know right? Everybody knows you never cross the streams- hopefully even female Ghostbusters.
Picked up one this past weekend for $15 (open box). Works pretty well, though the sound isn't perfect, but it looks great. I don't have many Sega games and wanted the ability to play them on my basement TV and my TV stand is full, so this is a nice compromise. I can just put it in my SNES and use the front input on my CRT when needed. Will still use my Retron upstairs for most of my Genesis gaming though.
4:02
_"Has anyone tried calling that number?"_
Yes, actually. And I was able to get a refurbished GameCube for the price of a VCR.
Here's the story. When I was in high school over 20 years ago, a friend of mine had a GameCube that wouldn't read game discs properly. He wound up getting a new GameCube as a replacement. I had a working VCR and offered to trade it for that broken GameCube, which my friend accepted. Then I called that Nintendo customer care number and, even though the GameCube was just over a month out of warranty according to the serial number history, Nintendo graciously approved a warranty exchange. I wound up trading the broken GameCube for a factory refurbished unit at a Nintendo-approved electronics repair shop.
I still have that GameCube to this day, and it still works.
This entire review must make the 'EVERY CGR REVIEW IS JUST HIM PUTTING A PS4 DISC IN AN ATARI 2600' people rage.
+Lord Karnage so, do you get the classic mega drive sound through this? or does it use the snes soundchip? is the sound altered in any way?
what about the blast processing? does sonic run as fast on this as on the mega drive??
Oh no Mark is stuck in the R-zone! 😮
+TheGameRage1 And he can't leave, it's a little blurry but he loves it it's great, why would he ever leave?
If only this was available in the early 90's
Bloody loved that!
jese the SNES is freaking limitless i mean ive played some playstation ports on my snes its awesome what a badass machine the snes is!!
Now I get it, its a genesis on a chip/cartridge. I was wondering how could the SNES handle the Genesis' CPU speed and very different sound processor, they are both very different consoles. Your analogy hits it on the nose, the RetroGen is a parasite to the SNES' power supply, and little else.
If this were out back then with a similar model for Genesis there'd be no SNES/Genesis fanboys. 😃
I still love retro gaming
It is technically possible for cartridge hardware to add additional graphics layers to the SNES display, the Super FX chip adds an additional 256 color bitmap graphics layer for example. (normal SNES layers are tile based). They could have done something like this with the Retrogen but it probably would have been a lot more engineering.
Too slow.
The SuperFX works by doing a DMA transfer from it's own memory to the SNES graphics chip.
You could use any SNES graphics mode you like, since the Mega drive is only using 64 colours at once, but you'd be stuck with 256x224 resolution.
(I guess you could use the high res mode to get 512x224, but then you'd have a bunch of other problems.)
The biggest problem is that this DMA transfer is just way too slow.
You have to transfer at least 256x224 in 64 colours (which means you need to transfer a 16 colour background layer plus the tilemap data to get the extra 48 colours.)
This is 28,672 bytes per frame for the main part of the data, and an extra 2 kilobytes for the tilemap (which because of what you're doing has to be updated every frame.)
This is 30,720 bytes per frame.
Your NTSC SNES / Super Famicom can transfer 178 bytes per line during DMA, and you need to stick within vblank time, which is the difference between 262 and 224 lines. or 38x178 = 6764 bytes
So basically on an NTSC super Nintendo your maximum framerate would be 14 fps
the PAL system fares better. Firstly you only need 50 frames a second.
Secondly a PAL screen has 312 lines. (however a PAL Mega Drive is outputting 240 lines now. But let's assume we still use 224, just to give ourselves a break.)
The PAL system gets 180 bytes per line for DMA, and since it's 312-224 = 88 lines, or 15840 bytes
With this in mind... we could coax a PAL system into doing about 25.7 fps, which is almost tolerable, but still not exactly good.
This is why the SuperFX games never ran at 60 fps no matter what, and why they ran with a border, and at less than fullscreen.
(because if you reduce the resolution you have less data to transfer, and especially reducing the vertical height also gives you more time to do DMA)
It also tells you that no matter what you'll never get a SNES to output it's full resolution at 60 fps from an external chip, no matter what.
Even if you were to create an interface to connect a GTX 1080 to a SNES somehow, you STILL wouldn't get the full 256x224 at 60 fps output.
Granted, you'd otherwise get full on modern 3d graphics no problem...
In fact if you used a PAL system and stuck to 256x200 you could render something at something near to full 15 bit colour (with some quirks) at about 20 fps...
Not ideal, but tolerable. - by the way because of how the PAL SNES draws it's graphics, 256x200 is a 16:9 image, which if you used 'zoom' or the like on a modern TV would fill the whole screen. So it's not a total loss...
So stick a modern GPU in there, and you'd get some really weird results.
But it would be really kinda pointless.
However you simply can't output a mega drive's video through the SNES at full framerate.
It wouldn't work.
Got my beer, got my CGR hat. I'm ready.
I fcvking love the Ozone voice
can you play master system using the power base converter?
Yes, but it will have some glitchy graphics on screen.
@@sebastiann.8088 I see that you're also a fan of old CGR :D
Imagine showing this to the 90s version of us, when Megadrive Vs. SNES was thing. Our heads would have exploded.
Now you can play Streets of Rage on the SNES, with the RetroGen adapter.
The "adapter" is a complete genesis showed into a snes shaped case. It simply reads the input from the snes controllers and spits the video out on the side. Nothing fancy about it really.
For the record.......It's always Truxton time.
This especially works well with the RetroDuo that is a hand held that plays SNES games. So with this, you can play NES, SNES, and Genesis on the go! Well as long as you are on the go for only 4 hours at a time.
I just put them all on my SNES Mini. ;-)
GENESIS DOES WHAT NINTEN- UH... ALSO DOES
I miss these times.
If this device is just an emulation being powered by the SNES, then that means someone could maybe build a SNES to Genesis adapter. Device that is powered by the Genesis and play SNES carts. After all, the Genesis controller (six button) has enough to be used for SNES games. Mode button can be the select.
4:10 that Tropico 4/5 music :D
best Mariachi music ever :)
The zone...THE ZONE IS BACK!!! :D
did anybody else feel the shutter in the force when Mark plugged in Truxton
Nobody ever talks about how if you pause Truxton while bombing with the big skull on screen, it ups the damage. Oh well.
Peasants! Bow your heads!!! I am LORD ROMSOLE and I am here for Marks head. He has committed a Blasphemous Heinous crime that extends the reaches of this universe!!!!
So the unit is a compact version of the Genesis and the only thing it gets from the SNES is power? That is interesting. Good for anyone who was a Nintendo fanboy back in the day but wants to now see what was up over there in the Sega camp.
You just broke the law of the universe
2 things. 1: that did not destroy the universe. 2: don’t scare people like that. I and everyone else thought that you were leaving for a second.
insert top 10 console betrayal.mp3 song.
I wonder how Sonic would run on a lower processor.
The same since you are not processing anything using the SNES CPU. The RetroGen essentially has a Genesis equivalent CPU and is simply using the SNES as a power source and a large adapter to make use of the SNES gamepad possible.
You need something like 5-10x the processing power of the machine you're emulating, the SNES cannot emulate a genesis and vice-versa.
Badly.
If this existed back then in the early 90s there would be no competition Super Nintendo have would win
Yes been a while since you did one of these type of episodes love it
the r zone gag just made me miss Derek
Truxton is a part of the R-Zone? Truly, nothing is sacred.
I reject this heresy...
Man, what I wouldn't have done for a Retrogen in, like, 1991
+WeeWeeJumbo How about NEVER!
Romsole World Sonic appears in Smash Brothers. This world went to the dogs and we are in the Hellscape now
+WeeWeeJumbo I am living on Rapa Nui away from all the madness.
It would have been revolutionary if it was released during the 90's for a fraction of what a genesis/megadrive console used to cost, it wouldn't have lasted in the market because Sega would have sued the makers. By today's standards with portable megadrive clones it is just a curiosity.
I have a feeling this device only piggybacks off of the snes power supply. the fact that the av cables have to bypass the snes is very suspect...
+mclovin046 Yea it's only using the power line and wiring to the controller port, it doesn't actually have anything to do with the SNES. You could theoretically manually wire the power supply a and controller into this unit if you took it apart. It's a standalone Genesis clone system by itself (sans power and controller port). This begs the question - why not just manufacture the unit with a controller port and a line-in for a universal power adapter?
+Brande X I think it may be a marketing gimmick. more of a novelty...
#WTFU #ProtectTH-camrs #MakeTH-camGreatAgain
Stay determined, CGR.
Please join the fight, spread the word, write letters, make your voice heard!
Back in the day, you could buy an official peripheral from coleco for the colecovision which let you play atari 2600 games on it.
I'm guessing they bypassed the AV cables for the sega tunes? does that thing have the chips from a sega inside it?
If only they did a Snes adapter for Megadrive. There isn't one, I checked.
Did I die? Is this heaven? So we play Sega on Nintendo heaven is so great!
Hello Mark! Do you know the guy from MetalJesusRock? I bet you guys are gonmlna hit it off with all the classic gaming stuff. :)
Finally a reason to play a Super Nintendon't!!!!