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A lot of the sound carts there have been developed more recently and don’t really have much classic game support. I think the Konami SCC and maybe the Panasonic FM would be good bets in terms of game support.

Thanks. So I just heard a review mention FM sound so I dug in. For anyone interested:

https://www.faq.msxnet.org/msxaudio.html

https://www.msx.org/wiki/MSX-MUSIC

https://www.msx.org/wiki/Panasoft_SW-M004

Looks like MSX 2+ included the FM PAC built in and quite a few game utilize:

A lot of MSX and MSX2 games used the FM PAC to produce best sound and music during games.
The original FM PAC was produce by PANASOFT in 1987, and was include in MSX2+ and Turbo-R machine later, and named MSX MUSIC.

Many games on disk or Cartridge use the FM PAC.... Aleste 1 & 2, MonMon Monster, R-type, Undeadline, Xak, Bombaman etc etc...

https://msx.ebsoft.fr/fmpaq.php

Seems that you figured it out. I don't have FM on my MSXs so I cannot speak from experience but the SCC sound is quite impressive.

Now that it's been figured out which base unit is best, can anyone suggest a base price and weight for one of these? Given their rarity, I will not be waiting for a sale, but I'd totally jump on a "decent condition" "mostly complete" yahoo auction if the price was average.
If anyone else needs help with shipping, I have a reship address that can retrieve your Asian package to your house.
It's 100% effective so-far.

Anapan wrote:Now that it's been figured out which base unit is best, can anyone suggest a base price and weight for one of these? Given their rarity, I will not be waiting for a sale, but I'd totally jump on a "decent condition" "mostly complete" yahoo auction if the price was average.
If anyone else needs help with shipping, I have a reship address that can retrieve your Asian package to your house.
It's 100% effective so-far.

I think MSX 2+ is the "best" bc it comes with FM Pac, but price to value is probably MSX2. Seems to be a lot of MSX2 machines available out there. Forget the last TurboR revision unless you hate your wallet

Was surprised to see some working MSX 1 machines for under 150 bucks. The MSX 2 platform had a big jump in graphics and they're backwards compatible so I'd lean that way.

Also, lots of machine options between manufacturers. Noticing some don't have the floppy drive.

Can floppy games be loaded via the cart slot on SD Card options? No floppy may not really matter if so.

Jagosaurus wrote:Forget the last TurboR revision unless you hate your wallet

That's for sure! The R seems like collector bait to me since it's heralded as the most complete MSX. But to me, not being able to play the few JP digital comics and jRPGs is not a deal breaker. There is enough titles(I'd go so far as to guess 90%) that run on msx and msx2 to entertain me that I don't feel the need to go down the Turbo-R money pit ($600-$1000 for a loose Turbo-R last I checked)

Jagosaurus wrote:Can floppy games be loaded via the cart slot on SD Card options? No floppy may not really matter if so.

To save money, I wouldn't bother with a working or repaired floppy drive. I personally do not own any disk media for msx and the flash cart options have solutions for that.

Around my area, the local VG store sells msx1's for $100-150 and msx2's $200-250 last time I checked. You can also look on YAJ and you might score a loose MSX2 for $50 but the overseas shipping and fees might negate any savings. Like the current video game market, condition and having the box/manual/etc all plays its part in driving up the price.

Pro-tip: watch out for the Panasonic FS-A1 (super common) and some Sony MSX2's that require an odd power supply/wall wart that are NOT included in some auctions and is reflected in the selling price. I've see that special PSU sell for $80 by itself

Majors wrote:

Nemoide wrote: I'm not really sure if the Sound Cartridge can be emulated since a flash cart wouldn't have the audio chip and IDK if you can get a ROM for it!

That is what I also read, you need a real/rare Konami Sound Cartridge. Jagosaurus is starting off with one of the challenging titles to run on real hardware, Snatcher.

Just want to update to say I WAS WRONG ABOUT THIS! I've been fooling around with a Carnivore 2 flash cart which uses FPGA and can mimic the Konami Sound Cart *and* a game at the same time! It comes preloaded with ROMs so even though I haven't totally gotten it working, it's still good!
And I've been having quite a time trying to get my own ROMs loaded onto it until I found out that there's a list of tested compatible compact flash cards. The Verbatim card I was using isn't on the list and might be incompatible; ordered one from the list from ebay, hopefully that will work better. If anyone's planning on getting a Carnivore 2, make sure you check CF compatibility! Assuming it works, it looks like loading ROMs is done via the MSX itself; it's not like an Everdrive where you can just drag & drop things onto an SD card.

The other popular flash cart is the MegaFlashROM although AFAIK they're only available from one retailer and are harder to get and more expensive. No clue if they're easier to use or not.

Nice Nemoide! Ziggy now has work for his Flash Cart & ODE thread

Would love to play those Snatcher & SD Snatcher translations on OG MSX hardware. Let me know how testing goes