28^th September 2001

v1.10 of the Gens Manual is now ready for you to download with new Mega-Cd instructions and all the changes in the GUI explained.

Updated compatibility notes for Gens v1.10: Battle Frenzy/Bloodshot, Best of the Best - Championship Karate, Bio-Ship Paladin, Bubble & Squeak, Dashin' Desperadoes/Rumble Kids, Deadly Moves, European Club Soccer, Fatal Labyrinth, Fire Shark, Flicky, Forgotten Worlds, General Chaos, Grind Stormer/V-5, Head-on Soccer/Fever Pitch, Krusty's Super FunHouse, Lethal Enforcers, Lethal Enforcers 2 - Gun Fighters, Lotus Turbo Challenge, Toki/JuJu, Truxton/TatsuJin, Twin Hawk, Virtual Bart, Waterworld.

Updated the Emulator Defaults page (in the FAQ section) to bring it a bit more up to date, it probably needs a complete rewrite at some stage though :(

Added some more missing Game Genie Codes for: Aquatic Games, Bart's Nightmare, Buck Rodgers, The Tick.

Fixed screenshots for NBA Jam (linked to wrong file, oops!)

Red5

23^rd September 2001

** MEGA-CD EMULATION - PART 2**

It appears that the V2.00 USA bios also works BUT it depends on which CD-Drive you are using!

• On my TEAC CD Drive (540-E) it works,
• on my MATSHITA DVD (SR-8583) it doesn't.

Weird!!

Also tried the V2.00 Europe bios on both drives, it still didn't work.

Red5

22^nd September 2001

** SPECIAL REPORT - MEGA-CD EMULATION **

I found some time today to play with the Mega-CD emulation added to Gens in yesterdays release. Initially I was very disappointed, of the dozen original Mega-CDs I have here (I bought a real Mega-CD a couple of weeks ago to add to the museum.) not one worked :(. On visiting the Gens forum I noticed that Stef had said that Sonic CD worked, I have a copy of that here and it didn't! OK time to mess...

I made an ISO from my European CD and used SCDConv (also available from  Eidolon's Inn along with the Mega-CD bios files) to change the game from European to American and copied the audio tracks into .Wav files on my hard-drive. I then burnt this onto a CD and gave it another try using the American v1.10 bios...

Wahhay! It's working.

I have to say that the Mega-CD emulation seems pretty good (once you get it working) as Sonic CD worked at full speed on my system (AMD K6-2 450Mhz) although there are one or two problems:

• Major graphics problems on movies - also it gets stuck if you let it play the movies.
• Minor sound problems (speech)

I then tried it again using the American v2.00 bios and it refused to work, just like the European v2.00 bios. So here are my conclusions/tips:

• ONLY works with the AMERICAN v1.10 bios! (Japanese not tested)
• ONLY works if your Mega-CD is AMERICAN, or you convert all your Mega-CDs to American!
• Be PATIENT - it takes a while when loading levels, it often looks like it's crashed!

All in all then a promising start although there's obviously a long way to go.

Red5

21^st September 2001

Stef has just updated Gens to version 1.10, the big update this time is preliminary MEGA-CD support! I haven't had chance to play with this yet but rest assured I'll be putting it through it's paces over the coming week.

I tidied up the N-R's and added the .Pat files which you can download as usual.

Added missing reviews for: NFL Quarterback Club '96, PGA Tour Golf 2, Powerball.

(Note: the Powerball review replaces the Wrestleball review)

Added missing Game Genie codes for: NFL Sports Talk Football Starring Joe Montana, NFL Quarterback Club '96, PGA Tour Golf 2, Powerball.

Added two more manual scans, this time for Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic 2 taken from the Sonic Jam CD for Sega Saturn.

The Sonic 2 manual is a little special. Sonic Jam has copies of both the American and Japanese manuals, the American manual is in Black & White whilst the Japanese one is in full color so I did a little cut 'n' pasting and used Gens to replace as many of the screenshots as possible to bring you a colour American manual.

Red5

14^th September 2001

We would like to offer our deepest sympathy to all our American visitors, and in particular anyone whose friends or relatives are dead or still missing after this weeks terrible terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. You are never far from our thoughts, Red5 & DezE.

I tidied up the M's and added the .Pat files which you can download as usual.

Added 4 missing reviews for: John Madden Football ('91), John Madden Football 93, Madden NFL '96, Mike Ditka Power Football.

Added 7 missing Game Genie codes for: John Madden Football ('91), John Madden Football 93, Madden NFL '95, Madden NFL '96, Mazin Saga, Mike Ditka Power Football, Mutant League Hockey.

Updated a few compatibility notes: Castlevania Bloodlines, Head-on Soccer/Fever Pitch, Madden NFL '95, Madden NFL '96, Madden NFL '97, Madden NFL '98, The Magic School Bus, Marsupilami.

Added another manual scan for Junction. Well I say 'scan', it's one that Mohammed Rahim sent me quite a while ago unfortunately the text is very grey and try as he might Mohammed just wasn't able to get a legible set of scans. The pages have now been completely redone in Paint Shop Pro, keeping things as close to the originals as possible, I hope you like them.

Red5

7^th September 2001

I tidied up the L's and added some extra Game Genie codes (Codes 19-28) for Lethal Enforcers, the .Pat files are now ready for you to download as usual.

Checked the L's with Gens and rechecked them in KGen and Genecyst:

Updated compatibility notes: LaRussa Baseball '95, Lakers Vs Celtics & the NBA Playoffs, The Last Action Hero, The Lawnmower Man, Lemmings, Lemmings 2 - The Tribes, Light Crusader, The Lion King, Lord Monarch, The Lost Vikings, Lotus Turbo Challenge, Lotus 2.

Updated compatibility notes for Arch Rivals (broken in Gens 0.99+), thanks to Siguy for the bug report and Stef for the solution.

Updated compatibility notes for Desert Strike (Gens, KGen & Genecyst), thanks to Boris for the bug report.

Added a new manual scan for Gunstar Heroes, thanks to Iron Man for the scans.

 Generator v0.33 (Dos and Linux versions) were released earlier this week with PSG sound emulation, joystick support (linux only?) and several other enhancements.

On a final note, we should hopefully reach the 100,000 hits landmark sometime this weekend, a figure we weren't expecting to reach until well into next year. DezE and myself would like to thank all our visitors and contributors for their continued support.

Red5

For old news click HERE.