SpritesMind.Net

[Chilly Willy]

After reading about the Everdrive-MD in this thread, I decided to get one. It came in yesterday, so I've been trying stuff out on it.

We've seen the pics on KRIKzz's web page (which is down right now), so I won't bother with photos on the cart itself. Let's start with a picture of how you chop up an old case for it.



Use a drill to make a hole through which you can use something to press the Master System button (it's not long enough to stick out through a standard case). Use a file to make a slot for the SD card.

After that, it will look like this when plugged into your MD.



Switch it on and the menu pops up. Note this is v3 of the Everdrive-MD OS on v2 hardware.



The way the Everdrive-MD works is interesting - it has 8MBytes of flash on it. The OS runs from the first 4MB. You select a game to copy from the SD card into the second 4MBytes of flash. Choose "select new game" in the menu to go to the SD card browser. There you can select a game to burn to flash. Note that SD cards must be FAT16 formatted. FAT32 formatted SD cards will show an error when you try to use them. It DOES support long file names, so that's a good thing. It does NOT sort the file names, which is a bad thing. You'll be hunting through pages of files looking for the game you want (and Murphy's Law states it will ALWAYS be on the last page you check). After it is burned to flash, you can play it from the top selection of the main menu.

It takes about 20 seconds to erase 4MBytes of flash... less for smaller games. Then the game is read from the SD card and burned. This is rather fast, taking only 24 seconds for 4MBytes. The combined erase plus burn time of just over 43 seconds is almost half the 79 seconds it takes the Neo Myth MD to load a 4MByte file off SD card into PSRAM. At the moment, the speed of the Everdrive-MD is offset by the time it takes to locate the game. I look forward to a revision of the menu that sorts the file names.

MD games ran great on my CDX - no troubles on anything I've tried. When his web site says it doesn't work with 32X games, what it means is it doesn't work with the 32X. While the menu starts, it won't properly erase the flash, nor does it burn the game to flash. Even MD games don't work with the Everdrive-MD through the 32X. You HAVE to run this directly on your MD. Also, while SMS games are supported, I was unable to get any to run on my CDX. They DID work fine on my Nomad, so this is again probably a hardware issue of the Everdrive-MD REALLY wanting to work on just a MD. Use anything else and it may or may not work.

So what are you getting for your money? A flash cart that handles nearly any MD or SMS game, but only on plain MD consoles or the Nomad. Any other Genesis model or compatible (it didn't work at all on either the RetroGen or the GenMobile) probably won't work with it. However, if what you have is a MD or Nomad and all you want it to run games from an SD card, this is probably the cheapest way to do so.

EDIT: v4 of the OS is out and fixes the issue with SMS games on the CDX. SMS games work fine now. Also, you can burn a 32X game to the flash on a MD/CDX/Nomad, and then play it on a 32X. That works fine. The issue with the 32X is being looked into.

[Eke]

On that note, for those interested there is a group purchase in progress on this thread, with $10 discount: this makes the thing even cheaper and I finally decided to get one myself.

[notaz]

[Ketsuban]

Probably just needing all the pins the Megadrive makes available - the 32X only passes through those pins which are needed to make games run.

[Chilly Willy]

To play games on the 32X, flash the game from the SD card on a MD/Genesis and then plug it into the 32X. That works fine. So it's not reading the flash on the 32X that's a problem, just writing it.

Oh, one other issue I ran across while trying this out - the file type detection needs work. It's think most 32X files are actually SMS files and refuses to burn them because they're too big for SMS files.

[Chilly Willy]

Updated OP with new info. The new OS (v4) is out and fixes the issue with SMS games on the CDX!

[KanedaFr]

[Chilly Willy]

The PocketMD appears to be the Japanese precursor of the GenMobile (Jap region + four buttons instead of US + six buttons). None of the emulated MD clones work with any of the flash carts but the TotoTek MD-Pro. I've got both the GenMobile and the RetroGen, and the Everdrive doesn't work with either. The Everdrive doesn't even register - the clone acts like there's nothing plugged in at all.

By the way, the Everdrive OS is up to v7 now. So if you have one and are using an older OS version, update!

[KanedaFr]

thanks for the reply.
So 2 choices left : tototek or modded cartridge.

[Chilly Willy]

At this time, yes. I hope that eventually KRIKzz figures out what the issue is with the Everdrive on the clones. My guess right now is there's something wrong with the header on his boot code - the clone examines whatever is plugged into the cart port and if it doesn't think it's a valid cart, it ignores it... at least, that's my thought on the matter.

[Eke]

I think Everdrive use !MRESET on cartridge port to reset the system (on mine, BIOS license screen appears everytime I boot a game). The VCLK signal as well according to the cart pinout.

Most probably these signal are not connected to anything in these cheap clones (I don't think they are used by any official games).

[HardWareMan]

Meanwhile, Masyanaya made new cartrige, wich has many features:

[Chilly Willy]

Here's the store page: http://ramfactory.com/product_info.php?currency=USD&products_id=29

Looks like they're still getting set up...

[HardWareMan]

I already bought 2 of this and one for SNES. Everything OK.

[Chilly Willy]

Do they take PayPal?