Hi, author of BlastEm here. I can explain the glitch in the Road Rash bike menu at 31:39 as I fixed the exact same bug in BlastEm a few months ago. This is not caused by CRAM dots, but instead by an accidental mid-screen update of the name table (i.e. the table in VRAM that tells the VDP which tiles to draw for a background plane). VRAM is only byte-wide, but name table entries are 16-bits in size so only half of the nametable entry gets updated at time and these updates are somewhat spaced out during active display as VRAM is pretty busy with reads during that time. If you apply the high byte of the word first, you get the glitch seen in the video, but on hardware the low byte is written first and the mid-screen update is imperceptible unless you step through the individual frames.

"It was the first system to challenge Nintendo and it's not hard to see why" *camera pans over Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude!* I see John is a man of taste

Well... it took 30 years but we've finally developed the technology to create a Sega Genesis

Fantastic review! You covered so much in-depth details.

Yeah! Maybe John wasn't the first reviewing the SG, but he made the best one. I only missed a latency/lag test.

The amount of detail in these videos always blows my mind. Amazing work John!

The best Mega SG review on KZfaq, bar none.

Blast Processing also referred to Sonic 2's scrolling-speed, in which the developers sped up the scrolling-speed by suspending the animations of enemy-sprites.

John, you are nothing short of a beast! A video over 40 minutes long? Well done for all of your effort!

These DF retro videos have such great production quality.

Another fascinating and remarkably thorough DF Retro episode. Thanks John! These videos really are a treat.

Excellent video, I love when John does these RetroDF videos, his passion and painstaking attention to detail shines through.

Thanks so much for the detailed audio comparisons! The ladder effect bit in particular, other Mega Sg videos just kinda glossed over it and I had no idea what it was

I'm new to DF you guys are my favorite for all the questions I would have to ask plus your production values are great! Thank you all

Incredible vid John, thanks so much for putting this together!

Great video! Concerning Maui Mallard: if you enter Game Genie code EAAT-BL1T (which you can do with the Mega Sg) you can bypass the region lock and start up the game in 60 Hz. It works perfectly that way and plays beautifully.

Not sure if you guys read the comments but I wanted to let you know that these DF retros are the highlight of my Sunday after my 10 hour shift. Takes the edge off reaaaalll nice. Thanks guys!

I was waiting for this review for the most in depth view of this console and DF didn't disappoint

Gawd the Thunder Force III soundtrack is amazing

What a fantastic review of an incredible system. I received mine a few days ago, and while obviously I haven’t tested it as thoroughly as you or MLiG, I’ve been fully enjoying the system. Thanks for this in-depth review.

Nice review; this console looks very impressive! It's always nice to see another in-depth DF Retro episode :3

Just watched this and the Super NT one, it's good to see a problem teardown of exactly why these matter and you're showing everything we need to know.

Thank you so much for including a music selection! So many godlike tunes in this ep~

That intro! Got me so hyped! Good work John!

Finally.....what I have been waiting for after Game Sack and My Life in Gaming dropped their video.

Magnifique!!! I have been waiting for this review and I have not been disappointed. Thanks!!

Nice and in depth, just the way I like it. Good stuff John! sounds like there's only a handful of quirks left to work out and this thing will basically be perfect. I've already ordered one myself :D

Really great video. I've been waiting for this one :D

Superb video as always! Will be using your settings recommendations! 👍

Best review I've seen of the Mega SG. Great video John!

The sound section is so in-depth I wouldn't be surprised if future firmware takes these settings into account.

Great video, John! I expect meticulous work from DF Retro and this video does not disappoint. I give you guys a quick shout out in my own review :)

Thanks for an epic review! Ordered one yesterday!! 🤘🏼

Phenomenal review and explanation, John! ❤

This will definitely be my first console from them. Thanks for the video.

An astonishing job as usual, thanks Jhon!

you are such a legend, thanks for all your hard work John!

Did you intentionally wear a shirt that features dithering? :P

Thanks John. When I get one I will use your settings to more closely mimic the original soundcard.

Great work as always, John! Shame about 36 Great Holes starring Fred Couples though..

Oh wow, that demo is honestly insane. I’m amazed anyone even went and coded that, that’s mental.

Thanks for mentioning the MiSter project. I believe it is a real alternative to MegaSG for those wanting the "accuracy" of fpga, but don't have/want to use cartridges.

Amazing review, so much fun to watch !!

Thanks for another entertaining and informative video, John. It breaks my heart that I sold my Genesis/32X/SegaCD and all of my games at a garage sale in the late 90's.

The demos really set this review apart, great work

Im sorry your going through some things John but you do excellent work 👍. Keep your head up and don't burn yourself out.

Excellent review. Just what I was looking for.

As an avid MD/Genesis fan, I knew every game except for one that you displayed, Battle Mania 2, Thunder Force 3&4, Musha, Alien Soldier, Pulseman, Dynamite Headdy, Ranger X etc all system greats but for those who don't know and/or want to learn maybe you can put the titles in a corner or display page like how you do with the music? Thank you for the coverage Jon, you give the system its proper justice that it deserves without needless bias unlike many others. This is an easy buy for me.

Incredible coincidence with the Genesis/Mega Drive Mini announcement, or DF is incredibly quick to produce content, or John is a psychic? All 3?

I love this series. Keep up the good work!

Great review! Enjoyed the video so much! Thank you!

Stirling work once again, John!

Noooo! Can't play Fred Couples 36 holes?! My heart is broken... Another amazing vid John, a great companion to the Super Nt, love the infomation here, totally worth the wait for your look at the Sg and can't wait until I can pick one up for myself to sit next to my Nt, thank you!!

john you are my favorite df'er...these vids are always awesome

2:09 I love how Greendog is becoming sort of a meme.

A great overview of this system, thanks! I think you just made me buy this system :)

You and your videos are amazing as always John.

Comprehensive, as always. Love this channel.

Damn you nailed it with that intro. Keep the good job.

Love the dutch camera angles John :)

For videos like this one I feel a simple like is woefully inadequate... Keep up the awesome work! :)

68000 views and counting!... I was waiting for the DF review for the Mega SG! Spectacular work. Definitively worth the 190 bucks charged for it. The only machines par to it in terms of image and sound, as I understood, are Genesis "HD Graphics" models.

By the way Jon, if you are running a game made for 50Hz PAL systems, like Maui Mallard, it won’t be running slow, it will be designed around that speed. That’ll be why certain effects break, because it was intended to run at 50Hz. It’s like running Titan Overdrive without cycle accuracy, the speed isn’t right, so the per-scanline effects glitch.

Had my Mega Sg since it was first released and I still love it to bits.

Thanks John. Another outstanding video ( as usual )

One of my favourite things about the Mega Drive is that I'm constantly reminded that I only ever played a relatively small sample of its library during the 1st half of the 90s. Videos like this show me the gems that I completely missed, that Sega are useless at highlighting. They just re-release Altered Beast and Sonic over and over. I have a fully loaded Ever Drive, and I'm definitely going to load up Batman & Robin to check that out. Come to think of it, I also need to play the Mega CD version of that game as well. Can't wait. I'm really looking forward to getting one of these, and pairing it with the 8bitdo controller that I've already bought, and with my EverDrive. Nice. Perfect for HDMI displays.

An incredibly detailed review, best I've seen so far and I've looked at bunch of them. Thanks DF! The system itself is so great that after buying it and two M30 controllers (BT and 2.4GHz) my Mega Drive/Genesis -collecting has risen to new levels and my wallet is crying mercy is I've bought many great games I've not previously found. Luckily the Mega Drive -games are generally cheaper than for example SNES-games.

Fantastic video by the way! Probably the best video yet as far as showing off just how accurate the system is. I have noticed a few graphical and audio bugs here and there. The biggest graphical glitch I have found is when playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2. There is a small row of glitched graphics along the bottom of the screen that spans the entire bottom and this is not present on original hardware. Also, FM sound seems to sound "off" compared to an original Master System with Tim's FM mod. Perhaps these things can be fixed with a future firmware update.

Fantastic! Thanks a lot for the video

Thank you very much for the review !!! Now i know i can easily buy this model

Great video and a cool piece of kit. Will be interesting to see how the genesis/md mini fares when it's released in september.

What a great episode that really explains in depth why certain emulators and clones just don't cut it for playing Genesis classics accurately and fairly, it's been frustrating reading/watching/explaining the subject to retro gamers who don't care about quality. I'll pick up the Mega SG for sure. It'll be interesting to see how Sega's in-house Genesis clone stacks up, even with M2 doing the emulation. And nice oldies playlist btw.

Amazing work, John.

UAU! Show! Excellent analysis! Congratulations!!!

Best run down I've seen about the Mega SG.

Fantastic review John.

glad i get to see some lovely john in this episode.

I still have about 12 cartridges of my Mega System, can't wait to try it out.

Love your retro stuff, John

I’ve always wanted to go back and play Aladdin because I never knew how to beat Jafar at the end. I also want to play Lotus Turbo Racing, Outrun 2019, X-Men 2 Clone Wars, Batman and Robin, Tiny Toons, etc

Great video, as usual! Was hoping for a comparison with the Sega AGES version of Sonic or Thunder Force IV. Perhaps you get around to it with SEGA's new mini console then?

A bit late to the party but as usual you have bought the best wine with you...great video

You know the machine is gonna be good if the manufacturer has the confidence to send it to DF for testing purposes.

Great review, John.

Another excellent video!

I always forget just how good the soundtrack on Gunstar Heroes is. Played the game an absolute tonne as a child and it always hits me right in the nostalgia.

Which reminds me, Gunstar Hero’s was and still is a masterpiece. That music aged so well for 16 bit.

24:00 Screen Space Reflections way back in 90's. God damn amazing.

Amazing video. Thank you

I actually quite like dithering. It’s nostalgic to me as I grew up (in the 2000’s) spending a lot of time drawing picture in MS Paint on a crappy Windows 2000 laptop, which was running 98 for whatever reason, I got it from my Nan who had kinda buggered it and after a few days my dad and both my uncles were able to fix it for me. It was only capable of about 256 colours, and it lacked a lot of ones I wanted like brown, orange, and purple. So the program automatically dithered the colours to make these, and I’d do my own dithering to create more shades. I found it fun, and I remember being kind of disappointed when my dad updated it to a more modern version of Windows, I think it was XP, but it still looked like my copy of 98 since dad set it up using the basic UI and I didn’t know how to change it, because I no longer had to dither and could use more colours. I also just quite like the way it looks, so I like dither effects in Mega Drive games. Of course, there’s a limit to this, in some games it goes too far, but stuff like pseudo-transparent effects and extra shading sometimes look really cool to me. Mega CD video is far, far too dithered though Jesus Christ.

I had an idea about dither blending, perhaps the Mega SG could be modified to detect when dither patterns are drawn by a game, memorise which pixels are dithered, and blend them all, avoiding the weird edge artefacts. Rather than just scanning for patterns it thinks are dithered.

Great video John.

Like retro and old horror movies. John Linneman voice is perfect for videos like this.

Excellent review!

What an amazing piece of hardware this is. It's incredible that we have such a useful device in our midst that can basically fit any Mega Drive based application we could want from it. I would appreciate a harder look at the Master System functions, though. The Master System has a GIGANTIC library of games that were never released in the US, and a lot of those are PAL 50hz exclusive. If this system could be the magic bullet that I hope it is for Master System titles, that would be incredible. Also, something I've been wondering about: how do systems like this respond to variable refresh rate monitors? It may seem silly, but I'm genuinely curious about it's benefits when running games at non-integer refresh rates. I greatly appreciate the depth you people go to explaining this stuff, by the way. So many people just gloss over extremely important facts that you always, ALWAYS go into.

Honestly i saw this pop up and i thought "not another one.." but this one may be the best and was entertaining and informative throughout!

These are great videos.

I've been waiting for this!!!

That AtGames console stacked up against the Mega Sg sounds like an absolute trainwreck.

As someone who had a Model 2 as a kid I'm not nearly as attached to absolutely perfect sound emulation as some of the Mega Drive community seems to be, especially since there is no one-size-fits-all solution. But I appreciate the options and actually think there's something to the "cleaner" low pass filter disabled sound. Also, holy heck, does Maui Mallard feautre a lot of dithering. Sure didn't look like that on my blurry 15" CRT.