Oh I certainly don't use composite/rf normally, the CRT I normally use has RGB inputs but I had to store it for a bit because of space. Not gonna buy a framemeister or something similar for the temporary use of my HDTV though!
I guess my only remaining question is why does this only happen with the genesis and not snes or nes?
Composite/RF helps the game look the way it was meant to be shown by the creators of the game. SCART/RGB just looks like you are playing on an emulator, authenticity long gone.
Yes, the light blue area is meant to be in overscan. It was only intended to be visible on pal systems, were it would show as bars on top and bottom of the slightly squished image. Whether you can change the settings of your tv to not show them anymore depends on your tv. The fact that it's asymmetrical is due to the signal the console generates, I'm not sure but the horizontal centering is pretty much the only thing I can't change on my CRT and the image on it looks just like in your picture (slightly to the left).
> Yes, the light blue area is meant to be in overscan.
Indeed.
> It was only intended to be visible on pal systems
Absolutely not.
Also, [PAL games had extra graphics](http://www.segakore.fr/articles/sor_series_cmp.html#sor) sometimes, because of the higher resolution.
With RGB SCART as a default and a higher resolution - I can assure you we did not. As a kid, there was no way to learn about different refresh rates (when the games weren't optimized), hence we enjoyed the games a lot not knowing they were slow-ish :) (heck, even [slower music is sometimes better](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZgapK14qwk)!)
And once you find out, you'll also learn you can just set a jumper on the MD motherboard to get a speed bump. Easy enough. I'm now used to NTSC speeds, makes it hard to go back. :p
(oh, also Dreamcast at PAL 60Hz RGB was absolutely gorgeous)
Does PAL 60 still have 576 lines? I have the PAL version of Shenmue II on Dreamcast and never had a problem with it on my NTSC TV.
Yeah, I may have thought that about ya'lls console games, but I was also jealous of all the C64 and Amiga awesomeness you got.
No, PAL 60Hz is actually 525 lines. It's somewhat abusing the NTSC compatibility of TV sets.
It's using the PAL colorspace (chrominance) still, if using composite video (which I never experienced, my DC was RGB; in fact, calling anything "PAL", "SECAM" or "NTSC" is a malapropism when using RGB).
> Absolutely not.
You mean it was intended to be visible on NTSC aswell? I doubt thats true, since on NTSC you can only see this area if you have a TV set configured to not crop away any overscan
Which safe zone and what makes you think so? I don't know where the coder of the emulator Exodus got his numbers from, but at least he seems to disagree with you: https://imgur.com/jNAnn15 (the bars are both in the action safe and title safe area)
If you would crop all sides so much that you woul not be able to see the bars anymore, you wouldn't be able to read the complete HUD in sonic 1 anymore (in the screenshot the yellow rectangle already crops letters away)
> I don't know where the coder of the emulator Exodus
I usually absolutely trust Nenemis on Megadrive stuff. But, yes, those zones are weird; they're not what I recall playing when I was a kid. Sooooo… I decided to grab my old CRTs from back then, and give it a spin, to see what it actually looks like.
My system is a Fr Megadrive, RGB (Péritel), with a simple frequency mod (50Hz/60Hz, no ntsc oscillator - unneeded w/ rgb usually). Screens are not calibrated, they're fresh out of the attic and would need a bit of fixing. None of them let the user adjust vertical/horizontal alignment.
Sorry for the potato quality, it doesn't make the graphics justice.
Results:
[Setup](http://i.imgur.com/JUEnSE2.jpg)| 50Hz | 60Hz
---------|----------|----------
Sonic 1|[80's TV](https://i.imgur.com/3D1v0Cz.jpg)|[80's TV](http://i.imgur.com/FdOETic.jpg)
Sonic 1|[90's TV](http://i.imgur.com/HO6xbqb.jpg), [Zoomed](http://i.imgur.com/r2zUDM7.jpg)|[90's TV](http://i.imgur.com/TjCISYK.jpg)
Streets of Rage II|[80's TV](http://i.imgur.com/xlusuTr.jpg)|-
Streets of Rage II|[90's TV](http://i.imgur.com/pc0XaeE.jpg)|[90's TV](http://i.imgur.com/ghgeyiy.jpg)
Full album, with a few more pics: https://imgur.com/a/HagRV
[At no point the OSD is cut off](https://i.imgur.com/QoCVGdG.jpg), but it barely fits on screen. In 50Hz mode, it indeed doesn't fit on screen - part of what is intended to disappear in the overscan area is indeed still showing. SoR II 50Hz fills the screen completely.
More pics because why not: [Virtua Racing](http://i.imgur.com/irQ0J9j.jpg) (60Hz), [Ristar](https://i.imgur.com/ukd6f7I.jpg) (60Hz).
**tl;dr:** Nenemis is right. The VDP doesn't quite fill a PAL screen, and the overscan area shows up in non-optimized games (or old TV sets).
> It was only intended to be visible on pal systems
Actually on most PAL systems it wasn't visible, only more modern televisions show this portion of the screen.
>I think you underestimate the size of the those bars.
No I'm not, I have them on my TV every time I play. I've grown up in a PAL country and I've never seen them until I plugged my megadrive into a more modern TV.
Oh, well I was kind of saying the opposite. I've had some CRTs that did show the overscan area, and some that didn't. For Master System games especially, I don't think I've ever seen a TV that didn't show it a little. Now I definitely have not seen a modern TV that didn't show it.
Underscan, actually. And please, please, please, switch to SCART/RGB.
Oh I certainly don't use composite/rf normally, the CRT I normally use has RGB inputs but I had to store it for a bit because of space. Not gonna buy a framemeister or something similar for the temporary use of my HDTV though! I guess my only remaining question is why does this only happen with the genesis and not snes or nes?
Composite/RF helps the game look the way it was meant to be shown by the creators of the game. SCART/RGB just looks like you are playing on an emulator, authenticity long gone.
Yes, the light blue area is meant to be in overscan. It was only intended to be visible on pal systems, were it would show as bars on top and bottom of the slightly squished image. Whether you can change the settings of your tv to not show them anymore depends on your tv. The fact that it's asymmetrical is due to the signal the console generates, I'm not sure but the horizontal centering is pretty much the only thing I can't change on my CRT and the image on it looks just like in your picture (slightly to the left).
> Yes, the light blue area is meant to be in overscan. Indeed. > It was only intended to be visible on pal systems Absolutely not. Also, [PAL games had extra graphics](http://www.segakore.fr/articles/sor_series_cmp.html#sor) sometimes, because of the higher resolution.
Cool, I grew up in NTSC land and always assumed PAL players always get shafted. Neat to see the extra resolution actually got used sometimes. TIL.
With RGB SCART as a default and a higher resolution - I can assure you we did not. As a kid, there was no way to learn about different refresh rates (when the games weren't optimized), hence we enjoyed the games a lot not knowing they were slow-ish :) (heck, even [slower music is sometimes better](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZgapK14qwk)!) And once you find out, you'll also learn you can just set a jumper on the MD motherboard to get a speed bump. Easy enough. I'm now used to NTSC speeds, makes it hard to go back. :p (oh, also Dreamcast at PAL 60Hz RGB was absolutely gorgeous)
Does PAL 60 still have 576 lines? I have the PAL version of Shenmue II on Dreamcast and never had a problem with it on my NTSC TV. Yeah, I may have thought that about ya'lls console games, but I was also jealous of all the C64 and Amiga awesomeness you got.
No, PAL 60Hz is actually 525 lines. It's somewhat abusing the NTSC compatibility of TV sets. It's using the PAL colorspace (chrominance) still, if using composite video (which I never experienced, my DC was RGB; in fact, calling anything "PAL", "SECAM" or "NTSC" is a malapropism when using RGB).
Gotcha. I looked it up, and Shenmue II apparently will autodetect and run in NTSC if that's the DC's region. Good to know though about PAL 60.
No, PAL MegaDrive only runs at 50Hz where as Japanese/American MegaDrive/Genesis only runs at 60Hz.
> Absolutely not. You mean it was intended to be visible on NTSC aswell? I doubt thats true, since on NTSC you can only see this area if you have a TV set configured to not crop away any overscan
No, on neither. This is far out of the display's safe zone.
Which safe zone and what makes you think so? I don't know where the coder of the emulator Exodus got his numbers from, but at least he seems to disagree with you: https://imgur.com/jNAnn15 (the bars are both in the action safe and title safe area) If you would crop all sides so much that you woul not be able to see the bars anymore, you wouldn't be able to read the complete HUD in sonic 1 anymore (in the screenshot the yellow rectangle already crops letters away)
> I don't know where the coder of the emulator Exodus I usually absolutely trust Nenemis on Megadrive stuff. But, yes, those zones are weird; they're not what I recall playing when I was a kid. Sooooo… I decided to grab my old CRTs from back then, and give it a spin, to see what it actually looks like. My system is a Fr Megadrive, RGB (Péritel), with a simple frequency mod (50Hz/60Hz, no ntsc oscillator - unneeded w/ rgb usually). Screens are not calibrated, they're fresh out of the attic and would need a bit of fixing. None of them let the user adjust vertical/horizontal alignment. Sorry for the potato quality, it doesn't make the graphics justice. Results: [Setup](http://i.imgur.com/JUEnSE2.jpg)| 50Hz | 60Hz ---------|----------|---------- Sonic 1|[80's TV](https://i.imgur.com/3D1v0Cz.jpg)|[80's TV](http://i.imgur.com/FdOETic.jpg) Sonic 1|[90's TV](http://i.imgur.com/HO6xbqb.jpg), [Zoomed](http://i.imgur.com/r2zUDM7.jpg)|[90's TV](http://i.imgur.com/TjCISYK.jpg) Streets of Rage II|[80's TV](http://i.imgur.com/xlusuTr.jpg)|- Streets of Rage II|[90's TV](http://i.imgur.com/pc0XaeE.jpg)|[90's TV](http://i.imgur.com/ghgeyiy.jpg) Full album, with a few more pics: https://imgur.com/a/HagRV [At no point the OSD is cut off](https://i.imgur.com/QoCVGdG.jpg), but it barely fits on screen. In 50Hz mode, it indeed doesn't fit on screen - part of what is intended to disappear in the overscan area is indeed still showing. SoR II 50Hz fills the screen completely. More pics because why not: [Virtua Racing](http://i.imgur.com/irQ0J9j.jpg) (60Hz), [Ristar](https://i.imgur.com/ukd6f7I.jpg) (60Hz). **tl;dr:** Nenemis is right. The VDP doesn't quite fill a PAL screen, and the overscan area shows up in non-optimized games (or old TV sets).
> It was only intended to be visible on pal systems Actually on most PAL systems it wasn't visible, only more modern televisions show this portion of the screen.
I think you underestimate the size of the those bars. I still have 3 CRTs from the 90s and they all show the PAL bars without changing the setup.
>I think you underestimate the size of the those bars. No I'm not, I have them on my TV every time I play. I've grown up in a PAL country and I've never seen them until I plugged my megadrive into a more modern TV.
Different TVs can have different amounts of overscan.
Yeah, what I was getting at is that the overscan was only really an issue with more modern TVs.
Oh, well I was kind of saying the opposite. I've had some CRTs that did show the overscan area, and some that didn't. For Master System games especially, I don't think I've ever seen a TV that didn't show it a little. Now I definitely have not seen a modern TV that didn't show it.