The History of Sega Genesis Emulators - Part 6

Genital (2000)

Genital

Genital was developed by Bart Trzynadlowski in late January 2000 and released in April 2000 for MS-DOS. The emulator had no front-end, and was run via the command line. Despite this, it had several functions, all of which were accessed via keyboard shortcuts on the game screen. The first version only emulated the 68k central processor and ran games in .BIN and .SMD formats, as well as supporting game region changes, reset, VSync and frameskip. The second version, also in April, added Neill Corlett's 68k emulator and Richard Mitton's Z80, but without sound support, as well as sprite changes and Genecyst save state loading. The port for Windows appeared in the same month, on top of the second version, under the name Genital32, by Atani Software, the same company that made the Windows version of the Generator emulator for the Mega Drive. In the third version, in May 2000, it adds two screen resolutions, activation of Z80 emulation and access to the debugger. In the fourth version, in December 2000, Genital begins to provide preliminary support for the Sega CD and 32X, in addition to support for .GEN extension ROMs, black-and-white image function and save state in the GNS (Genital Save States) format, exclusive to the emulator.

Genital (Sonic The Hedgehog 2)

From this version onwards, Bart's 68k emulator, called Genital68k, also began to be used, and its name was changed in June 2001 to Turbo68k. The fifth version, in February 2001, added windowed mode. Several people helped with technical information on the project, such as Dave from DGen, Charles MacDonald from SMS Plus for Master System, Steve Snake from KGen, Joe Groff from DGen/SDL, Atani from Atani Software, who was responsible for the port to Windows, Nyef from Darcnes and Delta from Pretendo, both for NES, and Christian Schiller from the website Eidolon's Inn. The emulator performs best on Pentium 1 computers with 180Mhz speed and 8mb of RAM. Despite all the good performance of the emulator, it never had support for sound, being one of the few Mega emulators with this deficit. Its last version is dated April 2001, with a total of six versions released. In 2011, Bart became known for the Supermodel emulator of the Sega Model 3 arcade game.

Genesis Plus (2002)

Genesis Plus (MS-DOS)

Genesis Plus was a project that Charles MacDonald started around 1999/2000. In 2002, he already had the emulator ready, but the person who ended up releasing it first was Richard Bannister for the MacOS system in October 2002. Something quite unexpected to happen. The official release of the emulator was in May 2003 for MS-DOS and Windows/SDL, that is, this last version was already open for ports to other systems. The project had only two versions released, ending in June 2003. The Mac version was updated until 2008, returning in 2018 and having its last update in November 2022. Genesis Plus basically emulates all sound channels, and supports .BIN and .SMD game extensions, including compressed ones. It also supports VSync, frameskip, reset, joypad, screen resolution, video and sound driver specification, color depth, scanlines, sound rate up to 44,100hz, among others. Despite all these functions and the emulator being 'sold' as highly accurate with games and performance very similar to the console's original hardware, there are several problems in its execution.

Genesis Plus (MS-DOS) (Alien 3)

Starting with the Windows version, which has no sound or joypad, and runs basically on Windows XP and Vista, and cannot be loaded on other systems. The DOS version is easily executable, has good gameplay, color, no image bugs and runs joypad and sound (if you run it through DOS-BOX you will not be able to access its sound), but it has a certain acceleration (probably to run better on less powerful computers), does not run NTSC games, only runs games released in Europe, Australia and part of Asia, known as Pal/Secam format games, and has bugs that change the directional pad of the control. All these flaws must have remained in some way because the emulator had a short development. Regarding the support of influencers in the scene, the project was very optimistic and was supported by Omar Cornut from the Master System Message project, Christian Schiller, owner of the website Eidolon's Inn, considered at the time the best website about Sega and Chris MacDonald, Charles' brother, and creator of FAQs known in gamer circles (Chris passed away in 2014).

Genesis Plus (Windows)

Richard Bannister, creator of the Mac port, also helped with code corrections and suggestions for the project, as well as Bart Trzynadlowski from Genital, Steve Snake from Fusion, James Ponder from Generator, Sardu from Genecyst, among others. The MAME emulator team was also important in the project. They are responsible for the Z80 and 68K emulators used in the Genesis Plus, as well as the emulation code for the PSG and YM2612 sound chips of the Mega Drive. And finally the segadev team. The emulator also gained other ports. The first for the Sega Dreamcast in 2003 by BlackAura called Genesis Plus DC, which has emulation almost at full speed of the console, surpassing even the original Sega emulator for the Mega Drive released for the Dreamcast, the Sega Smash Pack Vol. 1 in 2001. To this day, no other SMD emulator has surpassed Genesis Plus DC on the Dreamcast. In December 2003, Genesis Plus received a port/modification for the GP32 handheld called fGen32, by rlyeh and Robster. In 2004, it received another port for the Dreamcast, Genesis Plus SDL for the SDL system, by Ian Micheal, who used parts of the BlackAura emulator. In the same year, it received a version for the GameCube, called GCN GenesisPlus!

Genesis Plus GX (NGC/Wii)

In 2005, the most important port of the emulator appeared, Genesis Plus GX created by eke-eke for Nintendo GameCube. Although it was born from Genesis Plus, it also emulates Master System, Game Gear, SG-1000, Sega CD and Sega Pico.

Genesis Plus GX (SMD/Sega CD/SMS/GG)

Genesis Plus GX was also ported to Windows in 2007 and Nintendo Wii in 2008 by eke-eke, in 2010 to PS3 by Mr. Anonymous and in 2016 by Reesy for PS Vita. Genesis Plus GX also ran on the multi-emulators OpenEmu in 2009, RetroArch in 2013 and Bizhawk in 2015. The third and final port of Charles' Genesis Plus was for Pocket PC in 2006 by n0p.

 

Come and learn the story of Genital and Genesis Plus in a video on our YouTube channel.