Sega Genesis Mini 2019 - Not Flashback, Not AtGames

[Sarge]

Fascinating results on input lag and audio latency. A lot of the comments seem to indicate that the audio lag is variable, which means it may be more of an emulation bug than a global latency thing. Weird stuff for sure.

The variable input latency also throws me off; very strange stuff, but I suppose that could come down to how the controllers are implemented and how they interact with the OS.

[samsonlonghair]

Fascinating results on input lag and audio latency. A lot of the comments seem to indicate that the audio lag is variable, which means it may be more of an emulation bug than a global latency thing. Weird stuff for sure.

The variable input latency also throws me off; very strange stuff, but I suppose that could come down to how the controllers are implemented and how they interact with the OS.

My gut tells me that this might have something to do with different TV sets.

[samsonlonghair]

So y'all know there's a whole scene of people who hack these mini consoles. That's not exactly what this post is about. Something interesting turned up when dumping files off the Genesis Mini. There's a .json file which indicates that at some point, there was meant to be a music player for the Genesis Mini that would play sound files from various games. This .json file isn't the music player application itself; rather, it's more like a music directory which could be used to generate playlists. The really interesting part is that it contains references to games which did not get included in the final release of the Genesis mini.

Here's a few lines of code. The whole .json file is 5015 lines long, so I won't post the whole thing.

Code: Select all

{
    "arrenge_sound": [
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_AlexKiddInMiracleWorld",
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_TheSuperShinobi",
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_MonsterWorld3",
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_MonsterWorld4",
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_SuperHangOn",
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_MonsterLand",
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_BareKnuckle",
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_BareKnuckle2",
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_BareKnuckle3",
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_GoldenAxeAC",
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_GoldenAxe2",
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_GoldenAxe3",
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_toejam1",
        "system/sound/bgm_menu_toejam2"
    ],
    "soundplayer": [
        {
            "arch": "sms",
            "arr_volume": 0.68,
            "game_id": 1,
            "game_title_max": 1,
            "game_title_min": 1,
            "motion_ch": "gaugeset_sms",
            "patch": [
                {
                    "address": 179,
                    "org": 83,
                    "patch": 178
                }
            ],
            "preamp": 11.0,
            "romfile": "roms/AlexKiddInMiracleWorld_Sound.BIN",
            "sound_fadetime": 2,
            "sound_list": [
                {
                    "length": 6,
                    "loop": 0,
                    "req": [
                        129
                    ],
                    "title": {
                        "eng": "Title Song",
                        "jpn": "タイトル"
                    },
                    "type": 1
                },

Each of the listed games have multiple sound files listed with titles in english and japanese (and in some cases multiple european languages as well). You can see in the example below that the sound file is 52 seconds long. "req" is an object that contains information about the request. I believe that in this file the "req" number is a reference to find the sound file inside a database. No two sound files appear to have the same "req" number.

Code: Select all

                {
                    "length": 52,
                    "req": [
                        136
                    ],
                    "title": {
                        "eng": "Petit-Copter",
                        "fra": "Petit-Copter",
                        "ger": "Peticopter",
                        "ita": "Peticopter",
                        "jpn": "プチコプター",
                        "spa": "Peticopter"
                    },
                    "type": 1
                },

Maybe during an earlier prototype of the Genesis mini this sound player could have been used to play music for the menu. That's just my speculation.

[samsonlonghair]

It seems that the Genesis Mini has been successfully hacked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Un6sJluZE

TL;DR, what do we know?
The SoC is a cheap clone of a Allwinner A33. https://linux-sunxi.org/A33
The USB cable supplied is POWER ONLY. You will need your own USB with data to connect it to PC
The Front USB ports are locked down to only a few speicifc gamepads and usb hubs. USB memory sticks will not work. (We will change this when we build the new kernel/u-boot)
It is the same specs as the (S)NESC
To boot the console in FEL and connect it to the PC you need to hold the reset button and plug it in to the PC
There are two secret test modes that can be enabled using an official 3 button and 6 button gamepad. (PM one of us if you have this combo so we can get some notes)
.rodata:00017280 00000047 C 1P: A+B+C+START = Stress Test\n1P: START + 2P: X+Y+Z = USER Mode change
A full list of roms available (on the us release at least) is here: https://pastebin.com/8dkqF3Um
We have a full dump of the rootfs
The emulator used on the Mega Drive is m2engage. It’s closed source and also supports emulation of other consoles. It’s the same emulator used on the Wii U Virtual Console
All the data for roms and scripts for the UI are encrypted and compressed on the NAND. We have decrypted it
There are scripts available which directly interact with the UI meaning that customising the UI should be easy
To put custom content on the console using the stock UI will require decrypting, decompressing the payload, modifying, recompressing, encrypting and uploading. A new hack tool is being developed to handle this.

[nightrnr]

Whelp, I own one of these now, due to my co-workers going in on it as a Christmas gift (I am so not worthy, but have an awesome sales team ).
I like it, and it gives me legitimate access to Wily Wars, Monster World IV, and Super Fantasy Zone (and it's nice to play some of the games that I otherwise have packed away in storage).

Am glad that it came with 2 controllers (as is becoming the norm), but perplexed why they included SFII:CE and Eternal Champions but not 6-button gamepads (I'm not buying any others).
Whatevs though, and I play Street Fighter on basically everything that can anyways.

Really nice game selection with only a couple duds and only another few I'd change due to preference. Wish they had Shining Force II instead of the 1st one, but I'll deal.

So now I have 4 mini systems and I might just have to get a TG-16 mini to complete the set.

[samsonlonghair]

ETA Prime just posted a tutorial for adding new games to your Sega Genesis Mini with Project Lunar. It works similar to Hackchi or BleemSync.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_qPtGToGUk

Still in Beta, but it looks pretty straightforward.