Ristar in EuroScartHDSuper Resolution

[JDB]

The European version of Ristar is one of the few Mega Drive games to take advantage of the larger resolution used by PAL systems.

Does anyone know of any other games that benefit from uber-high PAL resolutions?

[Zebbe]

Ecco: The Tides of Time - IIRC.
Knuckles' Chaotix.

[Devil N]

Speaking of which, what resolution does Ristar actually run at in PAL? I noticed some games use a higher display resolution (most notably Streets of Rage 2), but that could just be the 240-line mode vs. the more common 224-line mode, so the NTSC version might have that too. Does Ristar PAL outdo those games with an even higher uber-resolution or what?

[Zebbe]

NTSC games never have 240 pixels vertically.

[tomaitheous]

Speaking of which, what resolution does Ristar actually run at in PAL? I noticed some games use a higher display resolution (most notably Streets of Rage 2), but that could just be the 240-line mode vs. the more common 224-line mode, so the NTSC version might have that too. Does Ristar PAL outdo those games with an even higher uber-resolution or what?

No Genesis NTSC games have greater than 224 vertical resolution. Though the 240 line mod of the PAL output doesn't actually increase the resolution as it does to increase the amount of shown scanlines, on the 16bit Sega.

[Devil N]

Yup, I just did a little testing and you're both right. I don't have a copy of Ristar at home (yet), so I could not tell if there was any difference between its 'high resolution' mode and the one of SoR2, when running on a real Mega Drive. They're both just using the 240-line mode, displaying a bit more graphics on the top and/or bottom. I noticed you can actually see it pretty clearly in Kega Fusion; a game running in 224-line mode will have small borders at the top and bottom, whereas a 240-line mode game does not.

Strangely enough though, when I ran a (W) rom of Streets of Rage 1 with USA region settings, it actually displayed 240 lines, just like it does in EU mode. What do you think, a rare example of a Genesis game doing 240 lines in NTSC or just a mislabeled rom?

[TmEE]

On real HW, having 240 line setting in 60Hz will cause the image to roll vertically and you'll get 30FPS.

Ristar, SoR1, Chaotix, Story of Thor, Ecco2, Super Skidmarks are coming to mind that use 240 lines in 50Hz.
Pulseman does too, but it shows nothing interesting there, other than garbage, so its just setting the mode, but not making use of the extra...

[Chilly Willy]

On real HW, having 240 line setting in 60Hz will cause the image to roll vertically and you'll get 30FPS.

Ristar, SoR1, Chaotix, Story of Thor, Ecco2, Super Skidmarks are coming to mind that use 240 lines in 50Hz.
Pulseman does too, but it shows nothing interesting there, other than garbage, so its just setting the mode, but not making use of the extra...

Setting 240 lines on NTSC caused old CRTs to roll... I wonder what happens on new LCD TVs. :confused:

Also, remember that the 32X only has memory for 204 lines, so if you wish to do larger displays, some of the lines need to either be blank or repeats of another line. So even on PAL 32Xs, you can't display unique video on all 240 lines.

[TmEE]

LCD will just say "unsupported mode, please use blablabla resolution" or blank screen. 32X is another story... its image gets nicely centered in the MD image. There is also no blanking period in the "30Hz mode"

And you can see lot of fun when you adjust 32X 50/60 setting when a game runs :P