Sega Mega Drive Gopher Released - With an SD Slot for expansion

[wraggster]

You really have to admire the likes of Blaze, they have released many great accessories over the years and tonight over at their Hong Kong Store Superufo.com they have released an excellent Megadrive Handheld with 20 Builtin games, but unlike all the handhelds so far this one has the ability to play any Megadrive game via the SD Card Slot, meaning you have access to hundreds of games making this a pretty awesome way of reliving the great Megadrive days.

Heres the full details from Superufo.com (http://www.superufo.com/product_html/Cool_Stuff_Sega_Mega_Drive_Gopher.html?aff_id=24)

http://www.superufo.com/item_photo/item/MISC-0187-X-400.jpg

Although the latest consoles bring the gaming experience to the next level, it is always nice to play the classic games that are used to be popular in the past. This Sega Mega Drive can surely bring back a lot of good memory to the generations growing up in the 1980s and 1990s. Coming with AV and USB outputs, this Mega Drive not only brings back the classic games to the users, but also offers the never-before-experienced technological advancements. For the "used-to-be" young people, this Mega Drive is surely a perfect choice!

Product Features:

20 built-in classic games
Players can also download hundreds more games with SD game card
Feature USB and AV outputs
USB charging and AV cable are included
Revival of your best memory

Price of the handheld is a rather decent USD 34.13 around 20 Pounds, god i hope they release a Snes, Nes and even a N64 Handheld :)

[Eviltaco64]

It's only downfall is the awkward button layout. :/

[ojdon]

Hmm it's very interesting now it has an SD Card slot, I think I'll still stick with picodrive on the PSP though, it's probably more accurate emulation too.

[TaN00Ki]

Those games might not be popular anymore, but they are still much loved.


For those who grew up as the same way the NES and Game Boy did, this is pretty cool.
Dingo doesn't offer perfect Mega Drive emulation yet.

[darkriku2000]

Neat, can this play homebrew too, or just roms

And which one was the mega drive, it was the 16-bit sega right (the genesis?)

[tanukikun]

I'm a bit curious about this one too. Is the SD slot for proprietary cards or just plain cards with .BIN images on it?

Another question will be the screen quality, and lastly battery life.

Could be really nice. I might just drop a few $ on one just to check it out. I really don't like carrying my Nomad out any more.

[Graxer0419]

Neat, can this play homebrew too, or just roms

And which one was the mega drive, it was the 16-bit sega right (the genesis?)

Yes, it was the Genesis. It's called the Mega Drive here in the UK.

This looks good, but it confuses me. Is it for roms, or do you buy the classic games from Blaze? I cant see Blaze supporting roms for some reason.

[nocultureicons]

Aww I bought the previous model with three buttons and no SD card expansion. Ah well, the DS does a reasonable job... good enough for me anyway!

[Nocuddle]

TV out too! YAY!

no thanks, ill stick with picodrive.

[Bleepbloop]

Can someone (whos owned it) please clarify whether it accepts normal SD cards or a proprietary format?
I live in brazil, and TecToy (Segas representative in brazil) has launched this over here, and also they are selling preloaded game cards called MD cards. Problem is, it costs 140 R$ to buy the console, and 25+ R$ for the MD cards. not to mention the games on the cards arent even mega drive games. they look pretty bad actually. So, can someone tell me, please?
Its too late really, since i already bought one (from superufo, not Tectoy) but i would like to know what im getting. :)

[Bleepbloop]

Oh hey! i just remembered, a while ago Dealextreme launched a controller that hooked up to the TV that accepted normal SD cards for ROMs! the roms had to be loaded on to the built-in 64? megabytes but it emulated them fine. This could just be one of those with a screen and a rechargeable battery! I hope so. BTW: The thing was called the E-Time.

[indaman]

Oh hey! i just remembered, a while ago Dealextreme launched a controller that hooked up to the TV that accepted normal SD cards for ROMs! the roms had to be loaded on to the built-in 64? megabytes but it emulated them fine. This could just be one of those with a screen and a rechargeable battery! I hope so. BTW: The thing was called the E-Time.

I received my Gopher today...

First I loaded a .bin game on my freshly formatted SD...

"Failed to load game..." :mad:

But then I placed again my SD on my PC, and I discovered a "GAME" folder...

Placed again my .bin games...

IT WORKED! :thumbup:

So I can confirm you, this thing (I bought mine from play-asia), play regular .bin megadrive games!

So far I tried MJ's Moonwalker and "Sonic crackers".

Both works fine, but the sound is strange, not bad... but just different.

Anyway, this thing is a real bargain, and I actually don't know at all how atgames could leave such an amazing functionality on an official licenced sega handheld (A global license???).
Fell free to ask others question (if you want me to try a game...).

[wraggster]

i havent had any spare cash for a while (just been on holiday) but i do intend to get one of these babies before they get pulled.

for the price its an amazing bargain :)

[Bleepbloop]

Some brazilians figured out how to run roms, just get a low memory SD card, (500~ mb) put a folder on it called GAME, put roms in, put SD in, and play!!
:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[wraggster]

awesome, any links to where this has been posted ?

[indaman]

For now, from my testings...

I'll say: 95% rom compatibility.

Panorama cotton for example is completely glitched...

Also some rom hack freeze or hang (I tried sonic 2 delta, some levels works, others not).

But 95% compatibility is already awesome for a device supposed to only have 20 games at start.

[Bleepbloop]

Is there any limit to how many games you can put on the SD card? I mean, does the menu on it expand according to how many games are on it? Just a thought, mind you.

[indaman]

I only tried placing a few games...

But so far, game menu expanded itself up to 4 pages.

[Bleepbloop]

Yay! Also, how's the resolution? On the older version (no SD slot), people complained that the screen was dark and had a poor resolution.

[AW72]

I received my Gopher today...

But then I placed again my SD on my PC, and I discovered a "GAME" folder...

Placed again my .bin games...

IT WORKED! :thumbup:

So I can confirm you, this thing (I bought mine from play-asia), play regular .bin megadrive games!

Fell free to ask others question (if you want me to try a game...).

hy INDAMAN, i ordered 3 mdgopher and get them last friday. i did exactly what you said, made a folder GAME, put .bin files inside, but it dont worked. :(
then i tried it with other games, but also dont work. where is the mistake????? :confused:
so please, how exactly you formatted your sd-card and what sd-card you use.

[indaman]

hy INDAMAN, i ordered 3 mdgopher and get them last friday. i did exactly what you said, made a folder GAME, put .bin files inside, but it dont worked. :(
then i tried it with other games, but also dont work. where is the mistake????? :confused:
so please, how exactly you formatted your sd-card and what sd-card you use.

What is the size of your SD Card?

By the way Don't make a GAME Folder...

Just format your SD card (2GB Max) (FAT16), I suggest you using Panasonic SD Formater.

Then put your SD card in, and go to the SD card mode, there will be an error, it's normal.

Then go back on your pc and put your games (megadrive .bin games) on the automatically created GAME Folder.
EDIT: one pictures of the content of my card:
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/7751/51885739.jpg

The game folder and the temp file are automatically created..


Little bonus for people who asked: an actual picture of the screen (running sonic3, a non-included game):
http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/5017/pict0162.jpg
Taken with my camera at night, picture quality is actually much better (less yellow).

[AW72]

INDAMAN it works now!!!!!!!! cool, with the sd-formatter now it runs. thanks !!!
i wonder, but now it takes the cards with no problem.

[Bleepbloop]

I wonder if this thing can run master system games, seeing how the genesis was backwards compatible with the master system.

[AW72]

unbelievable this handheld is really GREAT !!!:rofl:
master-system games seems not to run, i tried sms-files and renamed them to bin but this dont work. the real mega-drive can also only play master-system games with a special hardware-adapter. but we should not expect to much from the mega-drive gopher, because that would be unfair. for such a price, i can only say, that this handheld is really SUPERB. until now i found just about 10 roms which makes some problems and i had hundreds now on my card. my sd-card-menu now goes from side 1 to 24 :D and i put more on it. i want to see how much it takes, maybe until the end of my sd-card? game-compatibility really is very high, also different rom-versions works without a problem, the gopher plays - usa (ntsc), jap (ntsc/pal) and eu(pal). selfmade roms like "sonic - aluminium edition" also runs!!!
very good would have been, when it would be possible to stick 2 gophers together and play against each other - but this dont work.
but this is just a little mistake, the advantages are much more.
BLEEBLOOP, i also have the former version of this handheld here, in germany it was sold last year under the name of millennium. it looked similar, had also 20 games on it, but has only 3 buttons, batteries and no sd-card-slot. the whole console and especially the screen is smaller and screen-resolution is not as good as from the gopher. nevertheless also the millennium is a good handheld, but the gopher now can much more with the cardslot!!!
this handheld is really a very good choice to buy, maybe they later also brings a handheld for super-nes, pc-engine, c-64 and amiga games, that would be cool :p

[AW72]

i made some pictures that people can see the differences between the "mega drive gopher" and the "mega drive millennium".
on the other pic runs "castlevania" on my gopher.

[Bleepbloop]

Thats great news. I can see from the photos that the screen on this is slightly bigger than the previous version. Its too bad that i live in brasil, shipping takes 2+ months That aside it looks great
:thumbup:

[Bleepbloop]

http://www.zophar.net/utilities/segautil/gg2md.html

Its a Gamegear to Genesis ROM converter.

Maybe it will work! Nah, probably not, but its worth a try. :rolleyes:

[indaman]

http://www.zophar.net/utilities/segautil/gg2md.html

Its a Gamegear to Genesis ROM converter.

Maybe it will work! Nah, probably not, but its worth a try. :rolleyes:

Unfortunately it does not work as far as I tried...

Even emulators refuse the files created with this convertor (it actually only add a header to tell very old megadrive flashcards to switch into sms mode).

On the gopher like on emulator, I only get a black screen...

[AW72]

BLEEPBLOOP, i dont think shipping to brazil will need so long, because iam in germany and delivery-time from hongkong to me was 8 days.
i dont tried this converter until now, but i will. on the other hand, game-gear games (.gg files) are similar to the mega-drive versions but most times mega-drive versions are better. a converter for master-system games would be better.
last days i tried many many games until now on my gopher and would say compatibility is about 90 %. that means 90% games runs perfect, from the other 10% the most recognized mistake i found is, that game runs normal but keys dont work (like for example in "fifa soccer 98 and 99"). some games had grafik-errors and "zool" freezes in game. games that dont start at all i had not once until now.
the steering-pad is not the best, its difficult in fighting-games like "streetfighter 2" to make special-moves. but this problem has not only the gopher. i will try to solve this by twisting a selfmade little joystick on the d-pad. or has anybody an idea where to get a pad-joystick that could be sticked over the pad?
all in all - iam very happy with this handheld.

[Bleepbloop]

BLEEPBLOOP, i dont think shipping to brazil will need so long, because iam in germany and delivery-time from hongkong to me was 8 days.
i dont tried this converter until now, but i will. on the other hand, game-gear games (.gg files) are similar to the mega-drive versions but most times mega-drive versions are better. a converter for master-system games would be better.
last days i tried many many games until now on my gopher and would say compatibility is about 90 %. that means 90% games runs perfect, from the other 10% the most recognized mistake i found is, that game runs normal but keys dont work (like for example in "fifa soccer 98 and 99"). some games had grafik-errors and "zool" freezes in game. games that dont start at all i had not once until now.
the steering-pad is not the best, its difficult in fighting-games like "streetfighter 2" to make special-moves. but this problem has not only the gopher. i will try to solve this by twisting a selfmade little joystick on the d-pad. or has anybody an idea where to get a pad-joystick that could be sticked over the pad?
all in all - iam very happy with this handheld.

It not so much shipping, rather customs hold on to it for +30 days before liberating it.
Even when sent by air mail, it goes +40 days to arrive.

[Bleepbloop]

Also, will it accept a 4gb SD card? its the only size i have lying aroung.

Good thing i found out about all of this, i was about to buy the older version, or the coleco sonic playapl.

[AW72]

i dont try 4GB cards, so i can not say.
i have a gopher-modding in my mind, like some people did it with the c64dtv, that i can connect an extern joystick. i will ask some people who know about the dtv, if that could work. than i order one gopher more and use the normal as a handheld and the modded one as a station with extern joystick on my tv. that would be cool, if it works :rofl:
bleepbloop, custom hold it so long in brasil? thats strange. it seems to be a licenced product, so where is the problem? in western-europe this works without a problem.

[Bleepbloop]

i dont try 4GB cards, so i can not say.
i have a gopher-modding in my mind, like some people did it with the c64dtv, that i can connect an extern joystick. i will ask some people who know about the dtv, if that could work. than i order one gopher more and use the normal as a handheld and the modded one as a station with extern joystick on my tv. that would be cool, if it works :rofl:
bleepbloop, custom hold it so long in brasil? thats strange. it seems to be a licenced product, so where is the problem? in western-europe this works without a problem.

It doesnt really matter if its licensed or not, they still hold on to it. Also, it would be cool if you could mod it into a genesis-thing console.

[AW72]

the more days i have this handhelds the more better it gets !!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)
the pictures says all :thumbup:

[Bleepbloop]

Nooooo! i must have it right now!!!
Thanks for the pics, i cant wait till mine comes,
(shipping from hong kong to brasil takes 10~ hours, but customs holds onto it)

I hope its insured, else they take it, Last time, i bought a neo geo pocket color, and they stole it
yay for gunstar heroes!

also, how does it look on a tv? any pixelation? colors weird?

Did yours come in a box or the plastic blister packaging?

[AW72]

the picture on the tv is good, its like, when you plug a real mega-drive with the antenna-cable to the tv. not completely as good as pluggin a mega-drive with the video-cable but not big difference. but of course, the mega-drive-games looks best with the GENS-PLUS or the KEGA-FUSION emulators using graphic-filters. but they still looks good enough with a gopher plugged to a tv. and german tv`s are pal, the gopher is ntsc, but my tv takes it without a problem. maybe older pal-tv`s dont work, but for newer its no problem. you in brasil have ntsc, or bleepbloop?
and when i compare the screen from the two consoles, gopher and millennium, i must say that the gopher screen is not only bigger, its also much sharper. but this could not be seen on the pictures, because this is difficult to photograph with digital-kameras.
i know exactly what you mean with lost packages, because my former wife came from the ukraine and sometimes she send packages to her parents and sometimes they send packages to us. you can not believe what was lost or stolen on the postal-way in the ukraine :mad: or maybe in some cases also from german post :confused:

[Bleepbloop]

Sounds very nice, i love how you can hook it up to a TV,
Mine still has 14~ days shipping time, But it looks great, from the picturs youv got like 500+ games on the SD card
Also, is there any noticeable slow-down in games? Virtua racing? Im gonna hook a TV up when it gets here to try i out. :thumbup:

[AW72]

slowdown in games i could not find, but like i said, some games (about 10%) makes problems and sadly i must tell you that VIRTUA RACING dont work at all :( i thought all the time this was just a 32x- game and didnt know that there was also a normal mega-drive version. now i tried 3 different mega-drive-rom-versions from this game but it dont work on the gopher. also in the GENS PLUS emulator only the 32x-version work, only KEGA FUSION could run both versions.
maybe someday firmware-updates of the gopher comes out and all games work :rolleyes:

[Rapenzie]

this is really good, but i'm thinking about "saves"... can you save the games?

[dropsofjoy]

Just for fun, here's a size comparative (in real sizes) with the nomad (caps from the Gopher/millenium, thanks to AW72):

http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/8665/comparatif.png

[Bleepbloop]

Wow. The nomad looks huge in comparison. really shows how far we have come in the few years since it was released.
Also, nobody has found a way to save, yet.
Also, do they come in blister pack or a cardboard box?
(not the shipping envelope, or package)
Theres a video on youtube showing this, just look up mdplay tectoy and it shows it. Mine still has not come, but im sure it will be here soon.

[Rapenzie]

I'm from Brasil too, and I saw this video on youtube a few days and I like it! The Gopher Mega Drive is sale only in this shape: http://www.superufo.com/item_photo/item/MISC-0187-X-400.jpg

But the MD Play from TecToy some pleope can't find on the stores! If someone finds a way to save, i buy this game :P

[AW72]

BLEEPBLOOP: my gopher (i ordered 3, for some friends also) was packaged very well - nothing could happen to them. first they was in this transparent box (you see on superufo.com) and then in a stable package.
yesterday i searched for a case for my gopher and bought a PSP-case for 6,99 EURO. it has nearly same sizes and looks good.
hmm, save-games (intern saving from the mega-drive modules - as .srm-filetype) seems not to work :( until now i mostly played games with passwords, so i just recognized this today. but maybe it works when the correct folder is made on the sd-card (like it was with the "game" folder for the games).
i will go on testing this, maybe there is a way that this works. would be very good for SONIC and some other games.
iam really surprised how smooth the mega-drive games runs on the gopher, there really seems to be NO frameskipping at all. all "Sonic"-games for example runs as smooth as on my real mega-drive or on GENS PLUS with frameskipping off. thats a really good mega-drive-emulator they put on this little handheld :) not completely so compatible as GENS or KEGA but almost close.

[Bleepbloop]

Kega fusion is arguably the best genesis/mega drive emulator, if it is as good as you say, its good enough for me. Also, what are some games with passwords? :thumbup: see if you can figure out how to save, im sure you can somehow. if its an emulator, then it can have savestates.

[Rapenzie]

Good luck AW72! :)

[AW72]

i like GENS PLUS the most, its as compatible as KEGA FUSION but much faster on my 1 GHz-PC. the only compatibility-differences i found are, that "chaos engine" and "virtua racing (mega drive version)" only runs 100 % in KEGA and in all other emu`s not. but both emulators are really fantastic :thumbup:

"games with passwords" i mean games where you can start in a higher level by writing down a level-password (for example PRINCE OF PERSIA and some other). so, in such kind of games SAVING is not so important, but for SONIC for example it is.

but today i dont get it to work. on my sd-card i could not found any .srm save-file and when you finished some levels in SONIC, turn gopher off and start SONIC again, you need to start from the beginning again. also creating folders like "save-states" or "states" dont help :(

maybe i write an email to AT-GAMES (the producers from the gopher) and ask them, if intern mega-drive-modul saving is possible. but they dont seem to answer mails. i also dont get an answer from them, when i ask them in the beginning, how games from sd-card works (before i knew, that a game-folder must be created on the card by the gopher itself). but i will write a mail to them :cool:

[Rapenzie]

The producers don't like roms. hehehe In here have a lot of people who try to save but nothing yet :(
TecToy MD Play have MD Cards with other games (really bad games), and I thought about see inside of them. But I don't have the console yet! I showed this idea in a Brazilian forum... let's see if someone can!

[Bleepbloop]

you could try, they figured out how to get roms running in a day, so we will see. Also, AW72: I was asking if you knew any good games that used passwords instead of saves, thanks.
Mine has still not showed up, so im waiting paciently.
Also: I was wondering if you could get it to run game-gear games, not because of their better or anything, its cause usually those games were designed to fit on a tiny screen, for example texts, dialogue, and such.

[Rapenzie]

the sound is not good, i know! with the headphones is better?

[Bleepbloop]

the sound is not good, i know! with the headphones is better? I heard that it outputs stereo while using headphones, but sincee i do not have one to test, i cannot confirm this.

[Bleepbloop]

Also, how is the screen size in comparison to the Sega Game Gear?

[DropsofDespair]

It's for you, bleepbloop...
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/2079/comparatif.jpg

[nevarna]

A suggestion on how to get games to save (i would try myself but waiting for my console to come) Create directories on the sd card with names like save saves gamesaves game saves savefile etc also try creating a dummy file with word like phantasy star.srm naming it the samething as the rom adding a srm on the end of it and put it on the memory stick in different dir's. .srm is used quite alot especially on gba roms. its worth a shot.

Just a suggestion

[Rapenzie]

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3963625/948_Sega_Genesis_Roms

(Sorry if I can't send links)

That torrent have a lots of .bin games!

[Rapenzie]

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3963...a_Genesis_Roms

(Sorry if I can't send links)

That torrent have a lots of .bin games!

I don't download the torrent yet! Maybe tomorrow I'll download.

[Bleepbloop]

Thanks for the image, Drops of Despair, The screens on the nomad and the game gear look almost the same size as this, and since the nomad was used genesis games.....i think text will be just fine to read.

[nevarna]

i ve tried creating folders with the names saves save savefile game save save game save-games etc ive also tried saming a game in gens and put the save on the sd stick still i cant get save games to work on this ? any ideas anyone ?

i hope someone works it out
it would be nice to play shining force phantasy star sword of vermillion and be able to save the game.

[Bleepbloop]

Without save-states, rpgs would nigh impossible to save. Also, maybe in the next model of this they coudl include 2 wireless game-pads, seeing as they have em on the firecore genesis system.
It would be nice being able to play with 2 people.

[nevarna]

there must be a way to save in games that have a save feature already included. Probably need a certain folder on the sd card to do so ive contacted atgames twice still nothing. Has anyone else been trying to create save game folders ? If i ever work it out ill pass on how to do it.

[Rapenzie]

i can't try cause i don't have one. but i will buy! (i don't know when) anyone know about the headphones?

[nevarna]

I can confirm with headphones you get stereo sound from what i can hear.

If anyone is looking to buy one id suggest ebay they go for about $35 to $50 with postage included
just type in "Sega Mega Drive Gopher Handheld Video Game Player" Ebay is where i got mine from i've had no problems.

Also for the person that was interested there is a gopher that has Infra Red (wireless) support with Firecore genesis Infra Red controllers which arent released yet. The unit is easily noticed with orange rubber around the back of the unit for extra grip http://www.goldenshop.com.hk/AI-trad/collect/md_gopher.htm

Also if you notice picture 2 at the bottom of the handhelds screen it says press C for "IR".

[Bleepbloop]

Whoa, iv been to that website before, but i never noticed THAT, thanks for the tip! thats strange, where would i get some IR controllers?

[nevarna]

I'm pretty sure they arent released yet according to this link.http://knuckleslee.blogspot.com/2009/09/firecore-portable-player.html use google translator or yahoo and it says they havent been released as such. I have an old IR genesis controller at home i'll try to see if its compatible i dont like my chances im quite sure the regular version gopher i bought dont have IR support.

Also tectoy have a version of this console called "MD PLAY" i think its a brazilian company they have released two md game cards, basically sd cards with a few games on them not sega originals.

[AW72]

hm the thing with the wireless controllers could be interesting, but not when you cange the gopher-pad against another pad :rofl: its just interesting changing the gopher-pad against a good joystick. would be superb for fighing-games and such kind of stuff. but i will do it in another way, i ordered some gophers more for some friends now and i will take a second one for me. then i send this to a friend to modd it with a super-nintendo joystick-socket (because on super-nes i have the best sticks and it had also 8 buttons like the mega-drive). he made this with some c64dtv`s before and i think there is a good chance that this will also work with a gopher. then i take this gopher as a station and the other as handheld :)
and with the saving - until now - NOW ANSWER to any of my mails from AT@games (producers of the gopher) about save-states and some other of my questions. thats really bad behaviour from them :mad:
i tried many things by my own to get save-games work. make this folder, make that folder, take some srm files from emulators with same name that roms have on the card. but nothing worked.
so, thats the only real bad thing on the gopher.
but in all, this handheld is cool.

[Rapenzie]

Can someone explain to me about the "firecore gopher"? That blog is a little confused, because the translator can not translate to right portuguese! But it would be better if you could play with another gopher.

The MD Play is the same as the Gopher, and the MD Cards contain TecToy games (really bad games). People want better games and SEGA games in the MD Cards, but nothing yet.

[Rapenzie]

AW72

They may not give you the way to save games. Because it is not ethical to other producers. Pirated games are illegal. But if you find a way whitout their help, is not their fault.

[Bleepbloop]

Rapenzie: The firecore portable player is the same thing as the one sold here, at superufo, with the added funcionality of an IR (infrared) receiver, so you can use wireless mega drive controllers with it, and hooked up to the TV via A/V out. This way you can play with 2 players, instead of just 1. Besides IR and the orange grips on the back, i can see no difference between this and the Firecore portable. So if all you want is a portable mega drive, and already have a genesis or a firecore at home, then this is just fine.

[Rapenzie]

Thanks! The firecore is good if you want to play in TV. It's not my case. :)

(but if have a way to play with another portable is a good)

[AW72]

AW72

They may not give you the way to save games. Because it is not ethical to other producers. Pirated games are illegal. But if you find a way whitout their help, is not their fault.

but they write directly on the internet "DOWNLOAD HUNDREDS OTHER GAMES AND PLAY WITH THE SD-CARD". so i dont know, hoch much they take care about copyright. i think not much, the sd-card says all, and dont forget we talk about china :D

who plays TECTOY games, when you can play SONIC, COMIX-ZONE, GUNSTAR-HEROES, MEGA-TURRICAN and all that nice stuff ??? :p

[Bleepbloop]

but they write directly on the internet "DOWNLOAD HUNDREDS OTHER GAMES AND PLAY WITH THE SD-CARD". so i dont know, hoch much they take care about copyright. i think not much, the sd-card says all, and dont forget we talk about china :D

who plays TECTOY games, when you can play SONIC, COMIX-ZONE, GUNSTAR-HEROES, MEGA-TURRICAN and all that nice stuff ??? :p

Well, they are made in china, but are being licensed in other countries, for example brasil, and its illegal, so they just put up those tectoy games on the cards (they were originally made for the megadrive/genesis, which tectoy launched in brasil) to justify the SD cart slot, since they cant advertise "accepts roms!" on the packaging, they just left it the sneaky buyers to figure the true purpose out. Im pretty sure their gonna launch these in the states, or whatever, since the older version (no SD slot) was licensed by many companies, including AtGames, which is the licensee of this version aswell. (not really, its actually Blaze, but atgames is selling em too) Also, the built-in games are all licensed by Sega, so they must know something about this. Which is another reason why they cant directly tell you that it accepts Roms. Also, everyone else thought they were gonna let you download games from an online service, and onto the SD card. AND, they are making NEW 32-bit games for the AtGames FireCore game console, so they might make new games for this aswell. ;)

[nevarna]

I agree with everyone not being able to save is the worst thing about the console and the sound quality on some games is not the best. Atgames also don't answer their emails.

Has anyone tried playing phantasy star 3 on one of these ? the sound is really bad, which is a shame cause most games the sound itsnt exactly the same as the original but pretty close.

if you need to translate the tectoy site thats in brazilian to look up ther MD PLAY the brazilan version of the gopher copy and paste http://www.tectoy.com.br/ in to a yahoo or google search box then when the search comes up click trasnlate to open the site in english then you can see the MD PLAY game cards they have on there with new games.

[Rapenzie]

Once I saw a video at youtube.com about sega and "blaze" and the guy said
that sega is going to release some games to download, and then you could put in a SD card and play!

[Rapenzie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqCTyDhqf6Q
This is the video that i said. I made some mistakes because I forgot some things. But you can see and draw your own conclusions! It shows the old mega drive/genesis portable with 3 buttons!

[Bleepbloop]

There was another video from the makers of the the original and there they said the were gonna make 64-bit games for their new console, the firecore or whatever, they had a game console, same as firecore, that accepted SD-cards, same as this, and they would distribute the games via an online service? maybe. Anyway, lets see if we could get save-states working

Also: if you save in-game, can you load it? does it work at all? :thumbup:

[nevarna]

there is no save feature at all ingame or save states.

i've tried sonic 3 shining force 1 and 2 exile phantasy star 2, 3 and 4. when you start phantasy star the game says the save files arent working and in shining force when you go to start a game there is already 2 saves games on it neither work.

An ingame save feature would be great save states i can live without.

[Rapenzie]

I'll buy one for my girlfriend, 'cause she likes Alex Kidd and Sonic :)

[AW72]

i really think that there is a possibility to make ingame-save-states on the gopher, we just dont know how. because i can not imagine that at@games forgot such an important feature. but like it said, they dont answer mails about questions to the gopher :confused: maybe i must write "i have a firecore-game here on my sd-card, how can i save?" ***LOL***
i go on trying different things with an ingame-save-state from GENS PLUS emulator which i copied to the sd-card of the gopher. i think the secret has to do with the name of the game-saves folder in which the save-states must be in.

and one info more for all people here:
i bought me a dingoo a-320 last week which can also emulate the mega-drive and many other consoles and computers. its a very good handheld and can do much more than the gopher, which is normal, because its more expensive and made for more things.

but when you just compare the mega-drive emulation of the gopher and the dingoo i must say this: the dingoo-emulator is more compatible with games, which means it runs really almost every mega-drive-game BUT on the gopher the emulation runs more smooth. this could be good seen in SONIC. the gopher seems to have NO FRAMESKIP at all in the games that runs on it, which is very good. on the dingoo the games also runs good when you find a good configuration for the emulator, but not as good as on the gopher until now. but lets see, when new versions of the emulator on the dingoo (pico-drive) comes out, maybe than it runs also on the dingoo without any frameskip.
but the dingoo makes save-states and they work. i copied a dingoo savestate to the gopher *lol* but the gopher could not read it.

the dingoo until now can emulate: mega-drive (genesis), super-nes, atari-st, atari800xl, atari-vcs 2800 and 7800, pc-engine, nes, master-sytem, c-64 (very cool, its a port of the VICE emu and runs superb), many arcade-games, neo-geo, game boy advance, game boy color. so, many many things. but like i said, not all systems perfect until now, but you can update the emulators on it.

okay, back to the gopher now.

[Bleepbloop]

Well, my gopher was sent to the US instead of directly to brasil, (hong-kong to brasil only takes a month, and hong-kong to states to brasil takes 5 months or so), and in the states the package was stolen, so i wont be getting a new one for a year or so. :( This is the fourth game handheld that i have bought that has been stolen, along with some cellphones. Still see if you can get save-states to work.

[nevarna]

So far out of the 380 genesis games i have ive only had problems with lion king, virtua racing and all 32x games. Lion king crashes sometimes at the start screen and when it doesnt the picture in game is messed up. Virtua racing seems to not run at all and all 32x games say not compatible with console use a 32x.
So compatibility is pretty good on the gopher handheld.

I hope we can spread the word and get more people to buy these then we will have more people working on getting games to save and possibly other interesting things like getting sega master system games to work on this or even Game gear.

my previously comment on gopher having stereo sound with earphones, i have my doubts i think its dual mono sound not stereo.

[Rapenzie]

In Brazil a lot of people said isn't stereo! Maybe At@Games must find a way to hide the saves. They're never going to reply your e-mail with the way to save :) Where do I can buy one?

[nevarna]

Gopher/firecore handhels can be bought from the following places http://cgi.ebay.com/Sega-Mega-Drive-20-CLASSIC-Games-PORTABLE-PLAYER-NEW_W0QQitemZ280416531628QQcmdZViewItemQQptZVideo_ Games?hash=item414a20b4ac
http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-8y-49-en-70-3ijj.html

If you live brazil they are called Tectoy Md Play they have a website www.tectoy.com.br

[AW72]

RAPENZIE i also dont have the feeling that its stereo, like you said, it sound like dual mono. but the sound-quality is good enough for me.

BLEEPBLOOP i dont thought that its so bad with stolen packages in brazil, thats really shit. i am lucky that in western-europe all of this, is only a small problem. like i said, only when i sended things to eastern-europe sometimes things get lost.

NEVARNA, you forgot www.superufo.com . there i bought mine and 10 days later it was here.

the games i found out until now, which had problems on the gopher, are the following:

mega-turrican - (graphic problems with the sprite)
jim power - (graphic problems at all - unplayable)
virtua-racing - dont run at all
vectorman 2 - errors in game, at the beginning it works but then unplayable
the lost vikings - same problem as vectorman 2 - thats sad - i love this game :(
chaos engine (soldiers of fortune) - graphic error in scrolling (exactly the same problem that GENS PLUS also had with this game *LOL*, it runs perfect in KEGA FUSION)

and a strange thing, and i want some of you to test this please, because i cant understand.
the game ZOMBIES ATE MY NEIGHBOURS only runs until the menu-screen when playing with the gopher normally, BUT - when you plug the gopher to a tv (we have PAL in europe) then the game could be started normally. strange!!! :eek: i think, it has something to do with the pal mode of my tv - maybe gopher runs with 50 hz when plugged to my tv. in pal this game seems to run - on the gopher in NTSC (60 hz, normal gopher mode) not. and this problem strangly is with ALL versions of this game, no matter if you use a pal or ntsc-version of this game. even when i try to make a pal-rom from my ZOMBIES-version with some PC-ROM-HEADER-TOOLS, it dont run on the gopher without tv-plugging.

next strange thing: FIFA SOCCER 99 only runs until the menu and then you can steer but buttons dont work and you can not start it. is the gopher plugged to the tv you CAN start it.

can some of you please test this 2 things, if this is also on your machines? when my theorie is correct, then - for people who had ntsc-tv`s these 2 games will not run, people with pal-tv`s they should.
i am interested for the results.

[nevarna]

i can confirm zombies at my neighbours doesnt work unless its through the tv. also contra hardcorps doesnt work correctly

[nieekou]

and a strange thing, and i want some of you to test this please, because i cant understand.
the game ZOMBIES ATE MY NEIGHBOURS only runs until the menu-screen when playing with the gopher normally, BUT - when you plug the gopher to a tv (we have PAL in europe) then the game could be started normally. strange!!! :eek: i think, it has something to do with the pal mode of my tv - maybe gopher runs with 50 hz when plugged to my tv. in pal this game seems to run - on the gopher in NTSC (60 hz, normal gopher mode) not. and this problem strangly is with ALL versions of this game, no matter if you use a pal or ntsc-version of this game. even when i try to make a pal-rom from my ZOMBIES-version with some PC-ROM-HEADER-TOOLS, it dont run on the gopher without tv-plugging.

I'm having a similar problem with Sensible Soccer, the game plays on the gopher, but the screen keeps running vertically, like old tvs did. But when I use tv-out, the game plays fine, but a bit slower. I'm guessing it has something to do with the refresh rate the game plays in, on the gopher itself it seems to run on 60hz, while on tv on 50. Any suggestions?

All in all I like it, I like the screen and the dpad, but I hate that i can't support save games.

[AW72]

NIEEKOU you can do nothing against the little bit slower gameplay, because like you said, on a pal-tv the games run with 50 fps and on ntsc with 60 fps. but when you play on a real europe-mega-drive you have the same problem, games runs with 50 fps. on older c64-monitors with video-in maybe the games runs with 60 fps, when the monitor support it. but i dont test this until now.

now it would be interesting when people try ZOMBIES on a ntsc-tv. will it run or not? NIEEKOU has PAL, and you NEVARNA? can somebody test ZOMBIES ATE MY NEIGBOURS with a ntsc-tv.

i just wanted to know, if the PAL - NTSC therorie is correct or not.

[nieekou]

NIEEKOU you can do nothing against the little bit slower gameplay, because like you said, on a pal-tv the games run with 50 fps and on ntsc with 60 fps. but when you play on a real europe-mega-drive you have the same problem, games runs with 50 fps. on older c64-monitors with video-in maybe the games runs with 60 fps, when the monitor support it. but i dont test this until now.

now it would be interesting when people try ZOMBIES on a ntsc-tv. will it run or not? NIEEKOU has PAL, and you NEVARNA? can somebody test ZOMBIES ATE MY NEIGBOURS with a ntsc-tv.

i just wanted to know, if the PAL - NTSC therorie is correct or not.

The type of TV has nothing to do with anything, it's just what kind of signal the gopher sends to it. And it seems to mess up things... I'll look into it if I have any spare time

[nevarna]

I pretty sure gopher handheld only sends a 50hz pal signal via tv out. my tv supports pal pal60 ntsc, if i set it to the pal the picture is fine anything else and the screen jumps. ive noticed when ive played games through the tv they are slower mostly likely cause of 50hz pal instead of 60hz ntsc being send to the tv.

[AW72]

i think, it will send such a tv-out-signal which chinese-tv had. but i dont know if they have 50 or 60 hz.
it would be cool, when it would be possible on the gopher to change some settings on the emulator which runs on it. maybe its possible to enter the emulator-menue by any (probably difficult) key-combination.
but without any help of at@games this could be difficult.

[Bleepbloop]

it would be cool if it could play snes games aswell, but i guess that would raise the price, its already great if you ask me. (besides the save-state problem) Also, does homebrew work with it?

Edit: Also, is the screen covered by any form of protection?
i am usually very afraid of putting devices such as these in my pockets, for fear of getting them scratched or scuffed.
so is it like the PSP where the screen gets scratched instantly?

[nevarna]

genesis/megadrive homebrew games work for it, im not sure about anything else i played a few Pudblic domain games on it.

[AW72]

the screen is not protected good, so people should take care of it, otherwise scratches will be in it very soon. but i think you can buy transparent-protection-leaf and put it over the screen, but i dont did this. i bought me a good case and hope nothing will happen.

bleepbloop, because of snes emulation and other stuff, maybe the dingoo a-320 could be interesting for you.
here is a link: http://www.chinavasion.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=dingoo&Submit=GO

it can emulate many consoles and for all the things thats possible with it, its very cheap (58 euro or cheaper when you buy more of it)

[Bleepbloop]

i have read reviews of the dingoo, and its a nice little machine, and for a really good price, but, even with all of its features, its a bit expensive for me.

[Neoblast]

Well but can the gopher save games then?
Have you tried creating a .sav file with the same name? or place a save file with that name on the sd card?
Does it have any updateable firmware?
Maybe USB connection can see some files?

[AW72]

usb-connection shows nothing and if the firmware could be updatet i asked at@games about 5 times with email, but they dont answer at all - no response to any question about their console is really unbelievable :(

[Neoblast]

well , maybe they do answer phone calls...

[AW72]

you can try, NEOBLAST and then report what they said :) if somebody from at@games goes to the phone *lol*

i made me a little joystick, which can be screwed on a selfmade gamepad of my gopher to have better control in some games like "streetfighter" and so on.

therefore i made me a little plastic-joystick and gamepad with an alu-thread in the middle which i glue over the normal gamepad. (this pad dont have a steering-cross on it, because i had no pad left here and must tech me one. but this really isn`t a disadvantage, you can steer as good as before, maybe even a little bit better to the diagonals, because it comes higher out of the case. maybe later i put a gamepad with a steering cross on it, when i had one left in black color, i will see).

when you screw the little stick on it, special-moves in fighting-games are much easier to make than with the gamepad alone, especially when you hold the stick like it can be seen on one of the pics.

after i knew that this works good, i did the same to my dingoo, which also can be seen on the pics :thumbup: i put the dingoo-pics also on a german dingoo-forum, that people can see.

here are some pics for you.

[wraggster]

finally ordered one of these beauties myself, should arrive in the next week, hopefully ill be able to add extra roms without too much hassle.

[AW72]

its easy to use with roms WRAGGSTER. people explained here how it works. just read ;)

[wraggster]

i like the modded dingoo and gopher btw, great for beatem ups like streetfighter ?

[AW72]

yes, good for beat-em-ups or other games where you need diagonals much.
steering is not as good as with an arcade-digital-joystick, but much better than with the gamepad, for some kind of games.

[Bleepbloop]

Theres a brasilian website that is trying to figure out how to save games and also to put a screenshot to the left where its empty on roms loaded on the SD, just like the built-in games.

[AW72]

can you please give a link to this side BLEEPBLOOP. i dont speak portuguese but it`s interesting to look at it. i also asked myself, that it should work to make a screenshot about any game on the card, like it is for the 20 built-in-games.
in germany the gopher is sold now by "WWW.WELTBILD.de" and "WWW.KONSOLENKOST.DE". i asked both of them about save-states yesterday, but until now no answer. i hope they know it. i even mailed to SEGA-germany itself, because i thought, when its a licensed product they will know it, but they answered me, i must ask the producers, they dont know.
BLEEPBLOOP what about your gopher? do you have it now or you still waiting for it? or the brazilian custom play with it now :) or maybe its in quarantine at the moment ;)

[nevarna]

I emailed atgames the maker of the gopher sd about saving games and i got a response from them

My questions

"Hi,
i own a gopher portable video game player and was wondering is it possible to save on games i want to save highscores and my place on games when i get far.
do i have to create a save game folder on the sd card ?

also will any sd game cards be coming out soon."

Response from atgames

Hi Matt:

Currently Gopher do not support the saving state function. We might implement this from next generation in one year.

We have launched new SD products in Germany and Brazil, not any other countries. This can only be planned territory by territory.

Best regards,

Gopher Service team

[AW72]

cool, i wonder that they response now.

aaah :confused: bad to hear that save-states dont work. cant understand why they forget this.

they said "launched new SD products in Germany and Brazil, not any other countries???" YEEAAHH, hahahaha :D

by the way, i have here something interesting, maybe they mean this, when they talk about releases here in germany:
http://www.weltbild.de/3/15975575-1/tv-spielekonsole/super-arcade.html
this konsole is not interesting because of the sports-games which runs on it, because they dont seem to be very good in comparison to the WII, but its very interesting for emulating mega-drive-modules and the MOST interesting on it is THIS :thumbup:
http://www.weltbild.de/3/16047660-1/software-games/firecore-passport.html
because with this you can use SD-cards like on the gopher AND you have the possibility to connect real mega-drive-joysticks to this konsole. if this konsole can make save-states i also dont know, but i fear not.
very very very cool would be, when the FIRECORE PASSPORT would also work on a real mega-drive. games over sd-card on the real thing. i dont think, that this would work but its worth a try.

maybe i buy one, i will see. when i do, i write the result here.

then i found the wireless-controllers which work with the newer gophers here: http://www.weltbild.de/3/16047663-1/software-games/firecore-wireless-controller.html
they dont look bad and also works with the arcade-konsole, i mentioned above (and also real megadrive sticks), but really cool would be a wireless-joystick. maybe this comes one day.

[Highleveldemon]

Hi,

I got my gopher handheld today from play-asia, but I'm having the following weird issue: In Mortal Kombat 3 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 I'm unable to do any special moves :confused: This isn't related to the controller, but it rather seems like an emulation issue. Could anyone please confirm my findings?

It's quite disappointing really.. and from what I've read other handhelds like the Dingoo and PSP require frameskip on many games, so maybe the Pandora is the only handheld without cartridges right now to emulate genesis properly with full speed?

[AW72]

yes, the pc-mega-drive-emulator (kega-fusion or gens-plus) are better than the ones available for handhelds until now.
i haven`t tried "mortal kombat 3" until now on my gopher, but the most games i tried until now works perfect. i will have a look at mk3 in the next days.
i have also a dingoo. the pico-drive version which is available until now, is not bad, but needs improvement. some games have fullspeed when dingoo is overclocked, others not.

[Vibration]

I got one of these yesterday!

The first day it was very annoying with the buttons.
But today I think I've got a better handle on it.
Altered Beast is a bit tricky still thanks to the lay out.
I think I'm stuck using my old Mega Drive Plug N Play for that game now.

Anyway, has been wonderful to play Puyo Puyo, Sonic, and Street Fighter II again!

Tonight I've been playing Bezerk v1.0, really good!

And I just found Battle City!

Are there other MUST HAVE homebrews/games?

[Vibration]

OH! And one more thing.

I tried five or so different versions of the Ms PacMan bin.
However each one had a bug that made the game unplayable.

Ms PacMan always wants to run to the right.

In some of the bins I was able to eventually wrestle her away from the right most corner. In other versions it was like she was stuck on the far right corner of the maze. Trapped.

I couldn't find a playable version of the rom on the gopher.

These roms work fine on Fusion.

[Vibration]

Oh and one more question!
Does anyone know if it's possible to take Sega Master System Roms and then bundle them into a Genesis Rom?

So essentially you'd have a Genesis rom with a bunch of Master System games within the ROM.

[AW72]

yes, "ms pacman" always steers to the right direction by itself. all rom-versions i tried do the same on the gopher. sadly it seems this rom is not compatible with this handheld.

and to make master-systems roms playable to mega-drive is not possible i think. i tried a tool, which should do this, but it dont worked. also not on KEGA FUSION.

but all in all, the compatibility of the gopher is very high. sadly ingame-save-states dont work.

but for this money, its a superb handheld.
and the same factory also sell a console with sd-card-support and even the possibility to plug mega-drive-sticks to it. i mentioned this bevore here on this thread.

[lindquist]

I got one of the play-asia gophers a few days ago, since then I've been trying to find more information on the whole firecore thing... It has not been easy...

On the back of the manual, it says that firecore is a trademark of "Digital Media Cartridge Ltd", so I searched a bit and found this press release: http://www.ereleases.com/pr/20050513003.html

It sounds like this is what's inside the firecore units and I must admit it sounds kinda-sorta cool.

Has anyone here found out more about the gopher/firecore? any kind of information is very appreciated, of course, especially something leading to save-states ;)

Regards

[winslp]

Hi. I have just bought 1 unit in Argentina. This is a great console! I'm very happy with it.
I have noticed the following:

1) It will accept games in .BIN format. In order to have the game names displayed correctly in

the screen of the Gopher, I have converted them all to UPPERCASE. I have used the program

Rename v1.2.0.2 in order to achieve this. This handheld uses standard SD cards. Mine is 2Gb.


2) Outrunners: You can do the trick for the VirtuaFormula, you hear the noise when you press

the keys to get the car, but the car is not there. Maybe the Outrunners cartidge has a special

chip inside it to make the VirtuaFormula appears?. For example the Virtua Racing cartridge has

the Sega Virtual Processor chip (SVP) inside it.


3) Ms. PacMan: This is a known issue. The game always steers Ms. PacMan character always to

the left even playing it in the original Sega Nomad handheld. To fix that, that handheld has

the Mode button, when powering on the unit, if you hold down that button to deactivate the

3 extra buttons, so the game will function just fine. That is the function of the Mode button,

plus change the handheld between 50hz/60hz mode to make compatible with more cartridges. There

are other games that function incorrectly with a 6 button pad, and they need a 3 button pad in

order to function properly, that's why the Mode button do that. Since the Ghopher has no Mode

button, it is not possible to deactivate the extra buttons (X, Y, Z) so MS. PacMan will steer

to the left due to the incompatibility of the game to function with 6 button controllers.


4) It is not possible to save games and about the Screenshots I have not found any info on how

to make them work. I have copied some screenshots in several formats matching tha names of the

game files but they won't appear at all. Still need more testing. Atgames website sucks. Want

to visit an useless web site? Then visit atgames.net


5) Games that I can not make them to work, maybe due to the 6 button issue:

Aladdin II won't work (maybe because it is a game hack?).

Another World loads but it won't Start the game (maybe not managing the polygons properly?)

Bomberman

Clay Fighter gets to the menu, then, no action is possible to start playing

Frogger leads to a red screen

Galaga, alien spaceships movement is not so soft but acceptable, game lacks music as when

played in emulators

Lion King II (hack?)

Lion King III (hack?)

Super Bubble Bobble (hack?)

Still need to test many others. But until now more than 95% of the games works fine!


* UPDATE 05/30/2010: Centurion Defender of Rome won't load

[Shrygue]

Nice review but please don't link to commercial roms though.

[winslp]

Ok sorry. Thanks.

[Rapenzie]

Hi guys! I'm here! I didn't buy the Gopher yet and I'm not thinking about buy it anymore. (i broke whit my girlfriend hahaha) As a Nintendo fan, I'm interested in the DS (for a long time and for my colection) :P

@nevarna:
I know that the atgame answered you, but i don't think they said the truth. They can't tell everyone how their product works. You asked about saves and as they know that the people know how to put roms in, they'll try to hide how save the games.

I don't really know if the bilt-in games can save (if someone can say right...), but if they can, is clear tha have a way to save. I don't find yet someone that have bought a MD Card Game. If someone could see inside it, this could help.

Anyway, good luck guys, and if I find something interesting, i'll post here.

[AW72]

RAPENZIE, also the built-in games cant save.
this is the only real bad thing about this handheld - the missing ingame-saving-option.
when you a big nintendo-fan you really should have a look on the DINGOO-handheld, because there runs a snes9x-emulator which emulates the super-nes very good.

WINSLP - how you mean this: "That is the function of the Mode button, plus change the handheld between 50hz/60hz mode" ??? with the mode-button i can switch a sega-nomad from ntsc to pal, or what? but with a real megadrive this dont work, or?

an incompatibility to the 6button-stick could be the reason for games like MS PACMAN that they dont work correct. but for example, when i try this game with GENS-PLUS or KEGA-FUSION it also works normal with 6-button mode. but maybe it has different behaviour on real consoles.

[destinyking]

can i play nfs shift on it ?

[winslp]

WINSLP - how you mean this: "That is the function of the Mode button, plus change the handheld between 50hz/60hz mode" ??? with the mode-button i can switch a sega-nomad from ntsc to pal, or what? but with a real megadrive this dont work, or?

an incompatibility to the 6button-stick could be the reason for games like MS PACMAN that they dont work correct. but for example, when i try this game with GENS-PLUS or KEGA-FUSION it also works normal with 6-button mode. but maybe it has different behaviour on real consoles.

AW72: The Mode button in the Megadrive/Genesis joypads, is used to turn off the 3 extra buttons X,Y,Z but it won't change the Hz of the console. The behaviour of the emulators could be different.

[mrzilch]

i just bought one of these (the one with 6 buttons and an infra red thingie for second player) firecore gopher, in taiwan

pretty good stuff! The emulation is near-perfect, except for the sound

im still wondering if somehow the firmware is upgradeable? coz im really keen for a savegame or save-state fix

i hope more and more people buy this and start working on the savegame fix coz im pretty damn keen for it

anyone here a good programmer? hahaha

[juniorreid]

hey can an1 tell me whether i can put any region .bin files on the sd card to play on the gopher or is it region restricted

Thanks

[mrzilch]

hey can an1 tell me whether i can put any region .bin files on the sd card to play on the gopher or is it region restricted

Thanks

afaik you can play any region - so far all the roms i tested work 90% of the time , but i think the output on tv is only ntsc (if im not mistaken - never hooked up the thing to a tv so far)

[every1lafs]

First time here! I just bought the Gopher and so far am 50/50 on this thing. Probably a bit of inexperience on my part that's keeping me from getting all I can from it.

I've gone to Zophar's Domain and gotten three different programs to convert the ROMs I have to .bin files, and still am not having great results. A lot of them just don't wanna work, loading and leaving me with a black screen.

A couple games didn't run at first after converting from smd to bin file, BUT when I tried shortening their names and putting them in caps (just for the hell of it), they ran.

Any advice on getting these ROMs working? I'm only getting about 20% to work. Thanks!

[every1lafs]

Okay, doing much better now...

Found a torrent with a couple THOUSAND files, including multiple copies of many games. Instead of screwing around with converters, I've gotten MUCH better results using files that start out as .bin copies! :thumbup:

Still a few that I really would like to get running, but I'll play around with what I have for a while and check in again when I'm finally stumped.

One question that I do have, though... Anyone know how to organize, maybe alphabetize, the ROMs in the SD list? Seems that when I was working with just 10 or 20 files, they appeared in the order I added 'em to the card. But now that I have a couple hundred on there, the order is mostly alphabetized with about 25% random. Maybe I should copy the folder to my PC, wipe the card, and add the files again in order...? Just a thought...

Any good samaritans wanna give me a holler, know some useful info, my email is: [email protected]

Good Holidays, everyone!

[AW72]

for organizing the files alphabetically you can use a programm like this here:

http://www.dingoo-digital.com/downloads/applications/dingoo-file-organizing-tool

normally this is a PC-programm for organizing files on the DINGOO-handheld, but it works also for other machines.

[every1lafs]

Thanks AW72! That program works great! I'm up to 20 pages, almost 200 working ROMs, so it's nice to have 'em organized. Like somebody else posted, renaming them all caps and no symbols helps, too. Cuts down on wasted space on the filename.

Really bummed not to have Vectorman, Vectorman 2, and Lost Vikings running. And it'd be nice if Zombies Ate My Neighbors played on the road, not just wired to a TV. Tried starting it hooked to the TV and then unplugging the A/V cord, hoping that if I got past the title screen it might run... but no.

Anyone have favorites that they recommend? I had about 40 carts back in the day... Boogerman, Comix Zone, Crue Ball, Toy Story, and Vectorman (dammit) were all favorites of mine. Also, Dragon's Fury was a NICE pinball game that did use passwords! Its sequel, Dragon's Revenge, is just about as good.

BTW, the 1999 title Shui Hu Feng Yun Zhuan, never released outside China, runs very well! I think it compares favorably to any of the Golden Axe variety of games. Any other "unreleased" titles that are worth a look-see? :) Yang Warrior Family is supposed to be good also, but doesn't work on this machine...

If anyone wants to see the (rather anticlimactic) end of Dragon's Fury, here's a password that gets you almost to the last boss...

ukaofucp2h (gives you 999 milllion, 28 balls -- and you'll need a bunch for the final boss! LOL)

[w0lf13]

Mine is on the way! I saw a 6button gopher exactly the same but blue on a youtube video...is it a new version of it? :confused:

[EliteGamer44]

I got one of these recently, really impressive!
Sega Megadrive Ultimate hand held console (http://www.blazeeurope.com/sega/sega-ultimate/prod_133.html)

[ScreenGopher]

Theres a brasilian website that is trying to figure out how to save games and also to put a screenshot to the left where its empty on roms loaded on the SD, just like the built-in games.

There is a tool you can put your own images to your games from SD-card with. It is called ScreenGopher and can be found at h t t p : / / s c r e e n g o p h e r . f r e e h o s t i n g . c o m / e n g / i n d e x . h t m l

[Neoblast]

Hi, the russians made free versions of that program.
So you can add your own images to the sd card added games.
They made some programs and game fixes to work on this portable. the website is this one.

the program is MDBedit.

You have to add the mdb.dat to the root of the sd card in order for the gopher to read it.

http://elektropage.ru/publ/sega_suslik/

[Neoblast]

Hi, the russians made free versions of that program.
So you can add your own images to the sd card added games.
They made some programs and game fixes to work on this portable. the website is this one.

the program is MDBedit.

You have to add the mdb.dat to the root of the sd card in order for the gopher to read it.

http : / / elektropage.ru/publ/sega_suslik/

[cdoty]

The MDBedit utility is available from:
http://elektropage.ru/publ/sega_suslik/utilitki_dlja_gofera/mdb_edit_redaktor_skrinshotov_dlja_sega_gopher/23-1-0-80

I'm interested to see if this will work on the Sega Genesis Arcade Motion system.

[dm1983]

What is the size of your SD Card?By the way Don't make a GAME Folder...Just format your SD card (2GB Max) (FAT16), I suggest you using Panasonic SD Formater.Then put your SD card in, and go to the SD card mode, there will be an error, it's normal.Then go back on your pc and put your games (megadrive .bin games) on the automatically created GAME Folder.EDIT: one pictures of the content of my card:The game folder and the temp file are automatically created..Little bonus for people who asked: an actual picture of the screen (running sonic3, a non-included game):Taken with my camera at night, picture quality is actually much better (less yellow).I am trying to do this for the Sega Megadrive Arcade Joystick.However, I always get either an error or a blank menu screen.Can anyone help?