PAL vs NTSC Sega Master System

KrazyRasmus

2013-07-25 06:14:11 pm

How much slower is the PAL SMS compared to the NTSC SMS?

Thread title:

R.

2013-07-26 03:24:17 am

I think PAL games run slower due to the use of 50Hz compared to the NTSC 60Hz. I believe to compare times the conversion from PAL to NTSC is to multiply by (5/6) and to go from NTSC to PAL multiply by (6/5).

However, not all PAL games run slower than there NTSC counterparts, although I am not sure on the reasons why. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable can tell you why and confirm what I have written.

Joka

2013-07-26 04:35:43 pm

Personal text

I'm pretty sure the general rule is multiply by 5/6. But some games have compensated for this and doesn't run slower (as previously stated). There can be other differences between the PAL and NTCS versions as well, that can affect overall speed (translated texts for instance or stuff that have been censored).

My advice is: play on NTSC :>

presjpolk

2013-07-26 07:48:03 pm

HELLO!

Yeah games are only going to run at 5/6 of the speed if they were lazily ported (that is, not really ported at all so much as just put into a PAL cart).

AdamAK

2013-07-27 12:47:21 am

Totally rad

PAL SMS is so slow you don't want to do runs on it. Once you play on 60Hz, you won't want to go back to 50Hz.

KrazyRasmus

2013-07-27 06:35:32 am

I'm asking because I want to run Ninja Gaiden for the SMS, and since it's PAL only, I can't really run it on a NTSC console, can I?

Onenineeightfive

Edit history:

Onenineeightfive: 2013-07-27 08:28:57 am

2013-07-27 08:10:30 am

Seconded what Adam said. I play on a PAL master system and god i love this console, but it's terribly slow... You could mod your master system with a 50/60hz switch. Anyways, i don't think for Ninja Gaiden it'll make a lot of a difference.

Still here's a (shitty) video of the mod :

Greenalink

2013-07-27 10:28:24 am

DS Dictator

Quote:

I'm asking because I want to run Ninja Gaiden for the SMS, and since it's PAL only, I can't really run it on a NTSC console, can I?

You can, nearly 99% of the games even the ones that were PAL only were intended for NTSC speeds. I took my PAL only copy of Streets of Rage 2 on the Master System to America earlier this year, played it on a Genesis with a Master System converter and the game play speed was perfectly accurate. Even TAS runs of PAL only games like Ninja Gaiden, Sonic Chaos, Sonic 2 were set to NTSC mode.

A few games on the Megadrive for instance slows the game by a huge margin when playing the PAL cartridge on a PAL 60hz (modded system) or playing it on a NTSC system, games like Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 (& Knuckles) are good examples.

AdamAK

2013-07-27 02:37:22 pm

Totally rad

Quote from KrazyRasmus:

I'm asking because I want to run Ninja Gaiden for the SMS, and since it's PAL only, I can't really run it on a NTSC console, can I?

You can run it just fine! I already did so here at SGDQ. It's very fast paced on NTSC, and it'll make for an excellent speedgame. There should be a thread up for it already.

Gamingnerd

2013-07-27 04:42:52 pm

For a proper submission wouldn't it have to be played on a PAL console? Or would it just be a separate "60Hz" category?

Greenalink

2013-07-27 04:51:16 pm

DS Dictator

Quote:

For a proper submission wouldn't it have to be played on a PAL console?

No, Master system games is like the Game Boy where it can be played on nearly any region except Japanese (those consoles uses a different cart slot) and the majority of PAL only SMS games are unoptimized on a PAL system

Or would it just be a separate "60Hz" category?
More likely this, just like the NES.

Gamingnerd

2013-07-27 05:09:41 pm

I guess it depends on the game, some may be very different while others, hardly at all.

Onenineeightfive

2013-07-29 01:20:48 pm

I'm a bit sceptical on the "60hz" category. On one hand, run the game in the fastest way is what we are seeking. Like adam said it can turn a normal game in an excellent speedrunable game. On the other hand i'll be sectarian here, but if the game was realsed only in UE (aka PAL only), i think you'll have to speedrun it on a non mod pal system. One more thing on the cons side, if we specified/allow this kind of category, what about the vc/converter/mods ? This might been already discussed a shit tons of time for the other consoles, but i haven't found anything for the SMS.

Is there a thread on all the speed difference between : vc/ntsc/pal/megadrive adaptator/whatever system that can run a master system game ?

Greenalink

2013-07-29 03:39:11 pm

DS Dictator

PAL 60hz - Frame rate is very identical to NTSC master system to the point
it's like comparing the framerate data of US SNES 1 and US SNES Junior.

Gamingnerd

Edit history:

Gamingnerd: 2013-07-30 06:20:15 am

2013-07-30 12:04:01 am

Quote from Onenineeightfive:

One more thing on the cons side, if we specified/allow this kind of category, what about the vc/converter/mods ?

VC would just generally be based on availability. If a PAL only game is released on NTSC it'll most likely be 60Hz but I think you would only have to specify that it was done on VC (and what region)
As for mods I'm pretty sure they're not allowed, even if it's just a 50/60Hz switch
Power Base Converter I don't think matters that much? Just another way to play the games without actually having owned a SMS console.

Greenalink

2013-07-30 01:53:13 am

The NTSC VC version of Uforia and the PAL Wii U VC version of Balloon Fight were semi 60hz because it was 50hz coding speed up by 20%

example

bangerra

2013-07-30 05:46:51 am

Generally you should play SMS games on 60Hz if they were released worldwide. The carts contain the same rom in every region, it's the SMS that decides at what speed the games run at.
HOWEVER some EU-only games are completely unplayable on 60Hz (The Ottifants comes to mind) and should never be attempted on 60Hz. PAL speedruns are viable for such occasions.

oasiz

2013-07-30 01:01:11 pm

Iha paska

Power base converter is just a passive rewire of the cartridge port. The Genesis / MD already has the required SMS hardware inside it all the way. Basically you could say that requiring such a adapter is a ripoff since it adds nothing new except a missing pause button.

And yeah, like bangerra said, SMS games have the same as some genesis games where they had the same ROM inside the cartridge. Gameplay speed will be different due to differences in the execution speed (Generally the main game logic loops 50 or 60 times per second, tied to TV frames). So called "speed fixes" in PAL games usually fiddle with values so that it closely matches the 60Hz speed, let's say that you move left 1 pixel per frame (60 pixels per second) you'd need to add one extra pixel per 10 pixels or similar to get the same result in a PAL version. If a game has been "speed fixed" then you might actually find differences in physics as the systems are too slow to perform accurate decimal calculations for values. SMB3 on the PAL NES suffers from physics changes due to "speed fixes" for example.

Generally if a game works on a NTSC master system then you can kinda assume that it was at least meant for US release at some point since PAL exclusive games that don't work might actually utilize the extra "time" gained per frame to draw a higher resolution picture or calculate game logic, these might still run but usually they just cause graphical glitches or crashing.

I'd say that as long as the game runs on NTSC machine without glitches, I'd consider it safe. There is no such thing as "time" in many old systems. The programmer manually calculates or eyeballs game logic speed (even timers in games) based on the system speed, and PAL just does it slower, In most cases the game is not even aware of being on a slower PAL system at all Smiley

Power base converter is just a passive rewire of the cartridge port. The Genesis / MD already has the required SMS hardware inside it all the way. Basically you could say that requiring such a adapter is a ripoff since it adds nothing new except a missing pause button.

And yeah, like bangerra said, SMS games have the same as some genesis games where they had the same ROM inside the cartridge. Gameplay speed will be different due to differences in the execution speed (Generally the main game logic loops 50 or 60 times per second, tied to TV frames). So called "speed fixes" in PAL games usually fiddle with values so that it closely matches the 60Hz speed, let's say that you move left 1 pixel per frame (60 pixels per second) you'd need to add one extra pixel per 10 pixels or similar to get the same result in a PAL version. If a game has been "speed fixed" then you might actually find differences in physics as the systems are too slow to perform accurate decimal calculations for values. SMB3 on the PAL NES suffers from physics changes due to "speed fixes" for example.

Generally if a game works on a NTSC master system then you can kinda assume that it was at least meant for US release at some point since PAL exclusive games that don't work might actually utilize the extra "time" gained per frame to draw a higher resolution picture or calculate game logic, these might still run but usually they just cause graphical glitches or crashing.

I'd say that as long as the game runs on NTSC machine without glitches, I'd consider it safe. There is no such thing as "time" in many old systems. The programmer manually calculates or eyeballs game logic speed (even timers in games) based on the system speed, and PAL just does it slower, In most cases the game is not even aware of being on a slower PAL system at all :)

AdamAK

2013-07-30 09:27:04 pm

Totally rad

Ninja Gaiden was originally supposed to be released in the US as well, but due to the NES dominating SEGA's system there, they didn't bother. I can't think of any SMS games that have actual version differences between the US and EU release - it's the same ROM.

Onenineeightfive

Edit history:

Onenineeightfive: 2013-07-31 07:09:05 am

2013-07-31 07:08:42 am

Thanks all for the clarification.

So to sum it up, in 99% of the cases the smartest way to speedrun a SMS game is to play it on a NTSC/PAL60/Converter.

To go back on the SDA rules on hardware mod, they only allowed "mod chips and boot disks used for playing imports, audio/video mods to allow old systems to output in higher quality, and official add-ons, such as the Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak". I don't know how the PAL60 mod could fit into that exception.

Greenalink

2013-07-31 10:46:22 am

DS Dictator

Quote:

I don't know how the PAL60 mod could fit into that exception

I'll do a xsplit test to see whether or not the framerates matchup because I got enough capture cards to do this
I can try out the following:

Streets of Rage - Megadrive cart set to JP at PAL 60hz vs the XBLA version.
Alex Kidd - Built in Model 2 set to PAL 60hz vs the XBLA version's Model 2 setting.

Adam's TV is black and white when he is playing Toki on his NTSC Genesis which is the same thing on a PAL 60hz modded Megadrive.

bangerra

2013-07-31 10:48:42 am

The motherboard on PAL and NTSC SMS consoles is EXACTLY the same as far as I know.
The only thing that's different is that ground is connected to the PAL connection on the board in stead of the NTSC connection.
By moving the wire about 2mm ( or by adding a switch between the 2 ) you do a 100% conversion between PAL and NTSC.

The black and white stuff on the megadrive/genesis is only with AV cables. Using RGB fixes this.

Onenineeightfive

2013-07-31 11:44:43 am

I think it's a bit more complicated bangerra. To turn a PAL master system into "true NTSC" you'll have to replace some components according to this guy :

bangerra

2013-07-31 02:39:41 pm

I'm pretty sure doing all that extra stuff would result in something that is 99.99% the same as just connecting ntsc to ground.
The only thing that would be different is that the colour frequency is NTSC in stead of PAL. The framerate should be very very close to 60Hz with either crystals. And considering SMS games tend to hardly ever be longer than 15mins, it shouldn't make any difference at all.
But what SDA does with this: no idea, pretty sure it's impossible to tell the difference.

presjpolk

2013-07-31 03:14:31 pm

HELLO!

Well as the video said, if you're on a PAL TV, you don't need the extra steps for color. The rest is only needed to use an actual NTSC display.