Genesis Firecore

bobthebuilder · Post by **bobthebuilder** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 3:19 am

I recently brought one of the new Sega Genesis Firecore consoles (This one comes with an SD card slot and wireless controllers) for 15 dollars on Amazon and I wanted to really test out its compatibility. My big plan is to do a video review of the system in comparison with the original Genesis Model 1, so I would like some help/suggestions. What demos or games should I feature in my video that demonstrate the quality of the Genesis emulator?

P.S. Surprisingly enough, all the homebrew genesis games I have tested run on the system

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Chilly Willy · Post by **Chilly Willy** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:01 am

Start by showing that the audio is completely off - Sonic is the common example used... just listen to the Firecore compared to any real MD model.

The Firecore is an ARM SoC running a REALLY crappy emulation. It has problems with graphical glitches, priority problems, and the sound is a couple octaves lower than it should (although PCM usually sounds okay).

You'll find all kinds of reviews of the Firecore consoles and handhelds over at SEGA-16, and they're all universally negative.

Not to say that there isn't a use for them... they're cheap enough to give to a kid without worrying he'll destroy it (where you would NEVER give them a Nomad), and they probably won't notice the problems.

bobthebuilder · Post by **bobthebuilder** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 6:09 am

Chilly Willy wrote:The Firecore is an ARM SoC running a REALLY crappy emulation.

My goal is to show how bad the emulator really is, in fact, that was the reason I brought it. I think it is absurd that the Genesis Firecore is officially a Genesis and wish to vent about it through a video review. I intend to show that the model 1 Genesis is better than it in almost every regard. There are only 2-3 minor things that the Firecore model I brought has over the original Genesis.

Chilly Willy wrote:Start by showing that the audio is completely off - Sonic is the common example used... just listen to the Firecore compared to any real MD model.

The problem with the sound is that most people are aware of it being poor and many don't think it is all that bad, so I will not bother beating the dead horse too much more (But I still plan to show a great example that I have found of its poor sound emulation

)

My aim is to try and show the visual problems (Things that would bother most people). I am hoping that there are some good timing sensitive demos that will crash and/or glitch the console in a predictable manner. I have found some games that crash it, but it occurs after playing for some time. I would prefer quicker glitches that are easy to trigger/demonstrate. I already downloaded a handful of the demos here, but if you or anybody else know of any demos that would be interesting to show on the Firecore please let me know (I will post any interesting results here

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Chilly Willy wrote:You'll find all kinds of reviews of the Firecore consoles and handhelds over at SEGA-16, and they're all universally negative

Thanks for the tip, I will check out the reviews at SEGA-16 and see if they mention any games that quickly demonstrate problems. BTW, I am not looking for "blank" game will not boot up (That is a boring issue to show in a video review). I am hoping to show more interesting bugs/problems.

Eke · Post by **Eke** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:18 am

The thing is, the majority of games (at least the most popular ones that people are generally going to try on these devices) are not difficult to emulate, and would run fine without the need of accurate emulation of original hardware.

Same goes for homebrew since they have generally been developped on emulators so it's not really surprising they would run fine, even on basic emulators.

And for the somehow tricky games, it's all in the details though, a tiny glitchy line or dots, a single wrong effect, palette error, etc... stuff that most people will likely just ignore or not notice...

That's said, i remember we started a list of the few games that were tricky to emulate perfectly, somewhere on this board (might be in one of the Kega or Regen threads). From memory, the following games generally exhibit glitches in inaccurate or outdated emulators (even Kega for a few of them):

- lemmings, skitchin, road rash & lotus games, galahad (during intro), outrunners, sonic 3d (bonus stages),batman & robin (two faces boss fight): single line or dots glitches
- striker, zero the kamikaze, mega turrican (sky level), F1, Kawasaki Superbike, Deadly Moves, Nigel Mansell World Championship: flickering lines
- sol feace: graphic error during the intro (rotating earth)
- gaiares: flickering text on title screen
- chaos engine: screen flickering when moving
- double clutch: corrupted text on title screen
- sunset riders: wrong title screen effect
- mickey mania (moose chase level): missing sprites, graphic errors
- captain planet & avengers (one of the two available version), Bass Master Classic Pro: graphic glitch on startup
- mega-lo-mania, ex-mutant, fatal rewind, dracula, time killers: freeze or crashes

Nothing really spectacular as you can see, and probably not something bad enough to make the aimed market ask for something better.[/quote]

bobthebuilder · Post by **bobthebuilder** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:01 pm

Eke wrote:From memory, the following games generally exhibit glitches in inaccurate or outdated emulators (even Kega for a few of them):

- lemmings, skitchin, road rash & lotus games, galahad (during intro), outrunners, sonic 3d (bonus stages),batman & robin (two faces boss fight): single line or dots glitches
- striker, zero the kamikaze, mega turrican (sky level), F1, Kawasaki Superbike, Deadly Moves, Nigel Mansell World Championship: flickering lines
- sol feace: graphic error during the intro (rotating earth)
- gaiares: flickering text on title screen
- chaos engine: screen flickering when moving
- double clutch: corrupted text on title screen
- sunset riders: wrong title screen effect
- mickey mania (moose chase level): missing sprites, graphic errors
- captain planet & avengers (one of the two available version), Bass Master Classic Pro: graphic glitch on startup
- mega-lo-mania, ex-mutant, fatal rewind, dracula, time killers: freeze or crashes

Wow, thanks for the info

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Eke wrote: Same goes for homebrew since they have generally been developped on emulators so it's not really surprising they would run fine, even on basic emulators.

And for the somehow tricky games, it's all in the details though, a tiny glitchy line or dots, a single wrong effect, palette error, etc... stuff that most people will likely just ignore or not notice...

Most of my tests support what you are saying. Most of the demos seem to work on the Firecore (Only a few have minor graphical issues) :/ . I have even found demos that run well on the Firecore, but have minor graphical issues on the original Genesis

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The good news is that I have found that most of the Direct Color Demos and one of the color palette demos fail on the Firecore (They work on the original Genesis without issue)

Chilly Willy · Post by **Chilly Willy** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 6:44 pm

Well, the direct color mode is something emulators never thought of, and goes against the normal way the video is handled. Of course, now that it's out there, emulating it should actually be pretty simple.

Mask of Destiny · Post by **Mask of Destiny** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 10:15 pm

I picked up a Sega Megadrive Arcade Motion Dual which I believe has the same hardware/emulation as the Genesis Firecore (both made by AtGames and the box has a Genesis Firecore logo on it). Vectorman is a mess on it (though still mostly playable). Lots of graphical glitches and periodic slowdowns.

Sound emulation is pretty terrible. A lot of FM instruments sound a bit off and the pitch is way off for some notes (might be the PSG, not sure).

The direct color demo doesn't work (no surprise there).

Charles MacDonald · Post by **Charles MacDonald** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 10:39 pm

Has anyone extracted the Firecore emulator binary and figured out which open source emulator it is based on?

Eke · Post by **Eke** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 11:31 pm

the direct color demo requires cycle accurate VDP emulation, no public emulator can actually handle it

it's not surprising they got the FM sound emulation wrong, it's probably the slowest thing in an emulator if you want to do it right and is complex

at the end, it's all about compromises between development costs and quality, maybe it's impossible to produce a (really) cheap product with "perfect" emulation and if you think about it, why would they do that ? there will always be people to buy their products and think it's "good enough for that price"

Chilly Willy · Post by **Chilly Willy** » Tue Oct 30, 2012 12:43 am

Eke wrote:the direct color demo requires cycle accurate VDP emulation, no public emulator can actually handle it

Actually, if you don't care too much about accuracy, it's the easiest thing to emulate. Just look for DMA with no increment on the background color register. When you see that, merely turn the data at the DMA source into a bitmap to show.